14th April 2010, 10:10 AM
trowelmonkey Wrote:I think inter-personal skills are part of the skill set, but all merits have to be weighed and balanced. Somebody who never gets the knack of seeing features, but is really, really, really nice or married to the director doesn't belong on site. Nor does the super excavator who pulls a knife on anyone who looks at them funny. But that wasn't really the point I was making in my usually badly spelled way.
If nobody knows why X and Y fell all those years ago, maybe it's better just to really read the cv, interview Y and if they don't sound like the demon spawn hire them. People change, too. There's no law that says you have to employ them perpetually if they turn out to be rubbish. For all we know X and Y might've fallen out over a girl in uni. Wouldn't that be a stupid thing to stymie a career for?
Completely agree trowelmonkey.
There is also the converse of this issue though. Checking the CV, skills set and experience is very important but it does get tiring seeing people who shouldn't be on an archaeology site continue to get work because no-one ever checks a reference! With that comes the proviso that people can bring their game up over time, and that a bad reference from one person doesn't tell the entire story, and should be checked against a phone interview.