On the TechVancouver stage ×1
First seen on the TechVancouver stage in 2017. Every talk is searchable — ask the archive about Manu ↗
In their words
I don't really believe in hiring on skills. We hire based on who you are, not the skills you bring to the table. I can't teach humility, I can't teach work ethic and I can't teach intelligence — but I can certainly teach you how to code in JavaScript.
The lesson learned from an HR perspective: don't do an interview alone. When I do top-performer conversations, always have somebody with you. And definitely when you're doing a termination, don't go it alone.
We have a two-word thing: work-life harmony. Each one of us has different strains in our lives at different points, so we look to each other to balance each other out.
Around the web ×1
Quick answers
Who is Manu Varma?
An HR leader with more than twenty years across high tech, utilities and finance who was vice-president of human resources at Traction on Demand, the Burnaby, BC Salesforce consultancy. HRD Canada profiled him in June 2017 under the title the company itself used for him: 'people person'.
What was his hiring rule?
Culture and character first. His argument on stage was that humility, work ethic and intelligence cannot be taught, and JavaScript can — so Traction hired on who someone is rather than the skills on their résumé. Its application form asked candidates what they loved doing in their free time and the funniest thing that had happened to them recently.
Why 'an HR unprofessional'?
The talk was two interviews that went wrong, told against himself: a candidate who produced a prop from her handbag mid-interview, and a candidate twenty minutes late who threatened him when asked about it. Both happened while he was interviewing solo to do more with less, and the second, he pointed out, was fifty years old — not the millennial of the stereotype.
What happened to Traction on Demand?
Salesforce acquired its consulting business in early 2022, when it had more than 1,200 staff. The software companies it had spun out, Traction Complete among them, were not part of the deal and continued separately.
Where is he now?
Not established from a dated public source. His LinkedIn headline describes a fractional people-and-operations practice, and scraped directory listings put him at several later companies, but none of that is sourceable to anything this directory would stand behind — so this page records the Traction on Demand role rather than a present-day title.