I know loads of hairdressers that have a good attitude.

And? Hairdressers can't work at start-ups?

I get very tired of comments like this that imply that working at a start-up or software company is somehow "better" than working at other jobs, especially those that require a reasonable level of skill.

Please don't look down on people.

EDIT: Hmm, I suppose the point is that a hairdresser doesn't have the range of skills a start-up should be interested in. But still, it reads poorly.

I read it as "people in unrelated professions can have good attitudes too", i.e. "skill matters".

lol - just saw this

I think you're mis-reading the intent of my comment

Of course skills matter (I'm unlikely to hire a hair-dresser who has never done anything other than cut hair for a development role - but I have hired "career changers" like this for other roles - like support / sales).

HOWEVER if I'm judging two candidates with suitable (define as you will) skill sets then the one with the better attitude will always get the role

TBH this is even more important when it comes to internal promotions than for initial hiring (but now we're going slightly off topic)

Attitude criteria are often proxies for culture fitting; you are basically making a call on whether they are extroverted/emphatic or not, vs. checking skills or anything.

For internal promotions, it's called "being visible" and "managing up", where again, appearance is more important than capability.

Hey Tim,

I knew what you were trying to get at, but wanted to point out that the sentence that you initially wrote wasn't entirely accurate.

Of course I agree that attitude matters, but skills are certainly important, hence my comment.