elbear

Hiring passionate people

I see often job ads asking that the candidate be very passionate about what they do, spend every waking moment doing it and even dreaming about it. I can understand why. This means that it's very likely that the person in question will be very good, because they spent a lot of time doing it and also experimented a lot which helped them learn tremendously.

However, what if that person is passionate, but also about other things? Are you still interested in hiring them? They don't spend every minute of free time programming, because they love juggling and they practice that a lot every day or they like to play the guitar and go on gigs frequently. They do love programming, but they also love doing other things with their time. Do you appreciate passion in itself, even though the object of their passion isn't strictly their profession?

I believe that someone who is interested in more things is a more rounded person, more open to experimenting, so they are more flexible, which is a good thing. Is this important for your business?