March 2, 2017 at 7:14 am
Sergiy - Thursday, March 2, 2017 7:05 AMCode Monkey, the SQL - Thursday, March 2, 2017 6:46 AMIn my case that particular error message ended up requiring a call to microsoft who at the 1st level of support was like 'you need to talk to your network admin' I was like 'yeah that's me, now what do we do? '. Lost 2 weeks of my life over someone's inability to properly trap an error and give a sensible error message. I'm all for reading error messages, but for gawd's sake developer people, make them sensible! Somehow tell me the component is spawning zombie threads that are eating up the available pool, but don't tell me to 'check my network documentation'.😀😀😀
In one ofbig projects I've been involved in the front-end developer did not have time to set up all the right error messages, so for 2+ years into Production we had a single error message thrown by all CATCH blocks anywhere in the system.
And guess what did that message say?
Yep. "Possible Network Error"
:hehe:
Everyone knows if its not the database, its the network. 😀
March 2, 2017 at 7:47 am
ThomasRushton - Thursday, March 2, 2017 2:04 AMLynn Pettis - Wednesday, March 1, 2017 12:43 PM< rant> Why can't people READ the error messages? They may be obscure at times but others actually tell you what the problem resides. </ rant>Error messages aren't always helpful.
I wish I'd captured the one from the old workflow & document management system I worked with many years ago. The error box was just:
Caption: Error
Message: Unknown Error
[OK]I knew what that meant, but only because I'd had to deal with it a few times before. Your average user, on the other hand...
That last part is a big problem... a lot of people that call themselves "DBA" or "Developer" are "average users", at least here in SE Michigan. :sick: Another example of this problem has been recurring for the last couple of months. We're trying to hire for a position that requires some good knowledge of T-SQL and some of the "internals" like what an index is, how they work, and how CIs and NCIs are different, etc, etc and they need to be able to communicate with customers during an "on boarding" process. All of the candidates, so far, (I think there have been 6 or so) have resumes that say they "walk on water" when it comes to SQL Server and T-SQL. Again, several of them failed the introductory "How do you get the current date and time in T-SQL" question and most had no clue about indexes, couldn't name more than 3 joins, couldn't do a joined update nor even a 3 table join, and never heard of things like CROSS APPLY or ROW_NUMBER() OVER. Ironically, the ones that knew the least rated themselves the highest when asked to rate themselves on a scale of 1 to 10 on the skills advertised for the job prior to the interview. I forget what that syndrome is called but it's a real aggravation and recruiters need to get a whole lot smarter about things. I have users smarter than the people we interviewed. I'm really having a hard time understanding why people don't take the time to train or improve themselves. How is it that these people ever survived in their previous jobs will always be a mystery to me.
We had one hopeful that would have been a good add programming-wise but his English was so poor that there was no way he could fit the "good communication" aspect required by this serious customer facing job.
Heh... I'm beginning to relate resumes with non-descript error messages. 😉
--Jeff Moden
Change is inevitable... Change for the better is not.
March 2, 2017 at 8:05 am
Jeff Moden - Thursday, March 2, 2017 7:47 AMThat last part is a big problem... a lot of people that call themselves "DBA" or "Developer" are "average users", at least here in SE Michigan. :sick: Another example of this problem has been recurring for the last couple of months. We're trying to hire for a position that requires some good knowledge of T-SQL and some of the "internals" like what an index is, how they work, and how CIs and NCIs are different, etc, etc and they need to be able to communicate with customers during an "on boarding" process. All of the candidates, so far, (I think there have been 6 or so) have resumes that say they "walk on water" when it comes to SQL Server and T-SQL. Again, several of them failed the introductory "How do you get the current date and time in T-SQL" question and most had no clue about indexes, couldn't name more than 3 joins, couldn't do a joined update nor even a 3 table join, and never heard of things like CROSS APPLY or ROW_NUMBER() OVER. Ironically, the ones that knew the least rated themselves the highest when asked to rate themselves on a scale of 1 to 10 on the skills advertised for the job prior to the interview. I forget what that syndrome is called but it's a real aggravation and recruiters need to get a whole lot smarter about things. I have users smarter than the people we interviewed. I'm really having a hard time understanding why people don't take the time to train or improve themselves. How is it that these people ever survived in their previous jobs will always be a mystery to me.
We had one hopeful that would have been a good add programming-wise but his English was so poor that there was no way he could fit the "good communication" aspect required by this serious customer facing job.
Heh... I'm beginning to relate resumes with non-descript error messages. 😉
They clearly didn't survive at their last job...if they had they wouldn't be looking for a new one. 😉 Having done a recent round of interview myself I know what you mean.
The thing I noticed the most about resumes this time around is that writing them is a lost art. I can't tell you how many people turned in a 7-10 page resume with about 5-7 years of experience. I am not kidding. Often times the page and a half job description was copied and pasted for each position. Even worse is that people seem to have forgotten to spell check and read for grammar.
I feel bad that my resume has stretched onto a third page but I guess I do have nearly 20 years experience at this point. I also include information about myself outside of work. Things like volunteer work and coaching soccer. None of the resumes I saw recently had any of this kind of thing. They were just a robotic listing of the work tasks and provided no insight to the humanistic side of the applicant.
_______________________________________________________________
Need help? Help us help you.
Read the article at http://www.sqlservercentral.com/articles/Best+Practices/61537/ for best practices on asking questions.
Need to split a string? Try Jeff Modens splitter http://www.sqlservercentral.com/articles/Tally+Table/72993/.
Cross Tabs and Pivots, Part 1 – Converting Rows to Columns - http://www.sqlservercentral.com/articles/T-SQL/63681/
Cross Tabs and Pivots, Part 2 - Dynamic Cross Tabs - http://www.sqlservercentral.com/articles/Crosstab/65048/
Understanding and Using APPLY (Part 1) - http://www.sqlservercentral.com/articles/APPLY/69953/
Understanding and Using APPLY (Part 2) - http://www.sqlservercentral.com/articles/APPLY/69954/
March 2, 2017 at 8:14 am
Sean Lange - Thursday, March 2, 2017 8:05 AMJeff Moden - Thursday, March 2, 2017 7:47 AMThat last part is a big problem... a lot of people that call themselves "DBA" or "Developer" are "average users", at least here in SE Michigan. :sick: Another example of this problem has been recurring for the last couple of months. We're trying to hire for a position that requires some good knowledge of T-SQL and some of the "internals" like what an index is, how they work, and how CIs and NCIs are different, etc, etc and they need to be able to communicate with customers during an "on boarding" process. All of the candidates, so far, (I think there have been 6 or so) have resumes that say they "walk on water" when it comes to SQL Server and T-SQL. Again, several of them failed the introductory "How do you get the current date and time in T-SQL" question and most had no clue about indexes, couldn't name more than 3 joins, couldn't do a joined update nor even a 3 table join, and never heard of things like CROSS APPLY or ROW_NUMBER() OVER. Ironically, the ones that knew the least rated themselves the highest when asked to rate themselves on a scale of 1 to 10 on the skills advertised for the job prior to the interview. I forget what that syndrome is called but it's a real aggravation and recruiters need to get a whole lot smarter about things. I have users smarter than the people we interviewed. I'm really having a hard time understanding why people don't take the time to train or improve themselves. How is it that these people ever survived in their previous jobs will always be a mystery to me.
We had one hopeful that would have been a good add programming-wise but his English was so poor that there was no way he could fit the "good communication" aspect required by this serious customer facing job.
Heh... I'm beginning to relate resumes with non-descript error messages. 😉
They clearly didn't survive at their last job...if they had they wouldn't be looking for a new one. 😉 Having done a recent round of interview myself I know what you mean.
The thing I noticed the most about resumes this time around is that writing them is a lost art. I can't tell you how many people turned in a 7-10 page resume with about 5-7 years of experience. I am not kidding. Often times the page and a half job description was copied and pasted for each position. Even worse is that people seem to have forgotten to spell check and read for grammar.
I feel bad that my resume has stretched onto a third page but I guess I do have nearly 20 years experience at this point. I also include information about myself outside of work. Things like volunteer work and coaching soccer. None of the resumes I saw recently had any of this kind of thing. They were just a robotic listing of the work tasks and provided no insight to the humanistic side of the applicant.
I have no idea how long mine would be if I tried to include everything going back to my 4 years in the Air Force. My resume goes back 23 years and is 2 pages long. I think it is pretty good, it has gotten me interviews in the past few years.
Jeff, if you ever need some remote, evening based assistance on non critical path tasks hit me up. I just need VPN connectivity.
March 2, 2017 at 8:17 am
ThomasRushton - Thursday, March 2, 2017 2:04 AMLynn Pettis - Wednesday, March 1, 2017 12:43 PM< rant> Why can't people READ the error messages? They may be obscure at times but others actually tell you what the problem resides. </ rant>Error messages aren't always helpful.
"String or binary data will be truncated"
"Floating point exception"
Gail Shaw
Microsoft Certified Master: SQL Server, MVP, M.Sc (Comp Sci)
SQL In The Wild: Discussions on DB performance with occasional diversions into recoverability
March 2, 2017 at 8:20 am
Sean Lange - Thursday, March 2, 2017 8:05 AMJeff Moden - Thursday, March 2, 2017 7:47 AMThat last part is a big problem... a lot of people that call themselves "DBA" or "Developer" are "average users", at least here in SE Michigan. :sick: Another example of this problem has been recurring for the last couple of months. We're trying to hire for a position that requires some good knowledge of T-SQL and some of the "internals" like what an index is, how they work, and how CIs and NCIs are different, etc, etc and they need to be able to communicate with customers during an "on boarding" process. All of the candidates, so far, (I think there have been 6 or so) have resumes that say they "walk on water" when it comes to SQL Server and T-SQL. Again, several of them failed the introductory "How do you get the current date and time in T-SQL" question and most had no clue about indexes, couldn't name more than 3 joins, couldn't do a joined update nor even a 3 table join, and never heard of things like CROSS APPLY or ROW_NUMBER() OVER. Ironically, the ones that knew the least rated themselves the highest when asked to rate themselves on a scale of 1 to 10 on the skills advertised for the job prior to the interview. I forget what that syndrome is called but it's a real aggravation and recruiters need to get a whole lot smarter about things. I have users smarter than the people we interviewed. I'm really having a hard time understanding why people don't take the time to train or improve themselves. How is it that these people ever survived in their previous jobs will always be a mystery to me.
We had one hopeful that would have been a good add programming-wise but his English was so poor that there was no way he could fit the "good communication" aspect required by this serious customer facing job.
Heh... I'm beginning to relate resumes with non-descript error messages. 😉
They clearly didn't survive at their last job...if they had they wouldn't be looking for a new one. 😉 Having done a recent round of interview myself I know what you mean.
The thing I noticed the most about resumes this time around is that writing them is a lost art. I can't tell you how many people turned in a 7-10 page resume with about 5-7 years of experience. I am not kidding. Often times the page and a half job description was copied and pasted for each position. Even worse is that people seem to have forgotten to spell check and read for grammar.
I feel bad that my resume has stretched onto a third page but I guess I do have nearly 20 years experience at this point. I also include information about myself outside of work. Things like volunteer work and coaching soccer. None of the resumes I saw recently had any of this kind of thing. They were just a robotic listing of the work tasks and provided no insight to the humanistic side of the applicant.
I blame some recruiters and contracting companies for this. When I started looking for projects with my current employer, they asked me to change my resume and make it the way you just described. I prefer my 2 page resume that includes additional information and a nice format, but they wanted a plain list of things that would adequate to the requirements and were repeated every single time to "prove experience".
March 2, 2017 at 8:23 am
Lynn Pettis - Thursday, March 2, 2017 8:14 AMSean Lange - Thursday, March 2, 2017 8:05 AMJeff Moden - Thursday, March 2, 2017 7:47 AMThat last part is a big problem... a lot of people that call themselves "DBA" or "Developer" are "average users", at least here in SE Michigan. :sick: Another example of this problem has been recurring for the last couple of months. We're trying to hire for a position that requires some good knowledge of T-SQL and some of the "internals" like what an index is, how they work, and how CIs and NCIs are different, etc, etc and they need to be able to communicate with customers during an "on boarding" process. All of the candidates, so far, (I think there have been 6 or so) have resumes that say they "walk on water" when it comes to SQL Server and T-SQL. Again, several of them failed the introductory "How do you get the current date and time in T-SQL" question and most had no clue about indexes, couldn't name more than 3 joins, couldn't do a joined update nor even a 3 table join, and never heard of things like CROSS APPLY or ROW_NUMBER() OVER. Ironically, the ones that knew the least rated themselves the highest when asked to rate themselves on a scale of 1 to 10 on the skills advertised for the job prior to the interview. I forget what that syndrome is called but it's a real aggravation and recruiters need to get a whole lot smarter about things. I have users smarter than the people we interviewed. I'm really having a hard time understanding why people don't take the time to train or improve themselves. How is it that these people ever survived in their previous jobs will always be a mystery to me.
We had one hopeful that would have been a good add programming-wise but his English was so poor that there was no way he could fit the "good communication" aspect required by this serious customer facing job.
Heh... I'm beginning to relate resumes with non-descript error messages. 😉
They clearly didn't survive at their last job...if they had they wouldn't be looking for a new one. 😉 Having done a recent round of interview myself I know what you mean.
The thing I noticed the most about resumes this time around is that writing them is a lost art. I can't tell you how many people turned in a 7-10 page resume with about 5-7 years of experience. I am not kidding. Often times the page and a half job description was copied and pasted for each position. Even worse is that people seem to have forgotten to spell check and read for grammar.
I feel bad that my resume has stretched onto a third page but I guess I do have nearly 20 years experience at this point. I also include information about myself outside of work. Things like volunteer work and coaching soccer. None of the resumes I saw recently had any of this kind of thing. They were just a robotic listing of the work tasks and provided no insight to the humanistic side of the applicant.
I have no idea how long mine would be if I tried to include everything going back to my 4 years in the Air Force. My resume goes back 23 years and is 2 pages long. I think it is pretty good, it has gotten me interviews in the past few years.
Jeff, if you ever need some remote, evening based assistance on non critical path tasks hit me up. I just need VPN connectivity.
Good grief, if I included my entire work history I would need to bring a wagon. I worked as a chef for a little over a decade and that field is like professional athletes. You change jobs sometimes multiple times within the same year, then you stay somewhere for a couple years and start moving around again. In a decade in the field I worked in three states and probably at least 20 different restaurants.
Your two page resume sounds like a good length to me. 2-3 pages is totally reasonable for somebody with your experience. But a 7-10 page resume for somebody who graduated college in 2009/2010 is absurd. And those aren't because they have listed 40 contract positions, they are just too verbose.
_______________________________________________________________
Need help? Help us help you.
Read the article at http://www.sqlservercentral.com/articles/Best+Practices/61537/ for best practices on asking questions.
Need to split a string? Try Jeff Modens splitter http://www.sqlservercentral.com/articles/Tally+Table/72993/.
Cross Tabs and Pivots, Part 1 – Converting Rows to Columns - http://www.sqlservercentral.com/articles/T-SQL/63681/
Cross Tabs and Pivots, Part 2 - Dynamic Cross Tabs - http://www.sqlservercentral.com/articles/Crosstab/65048/
Understanding and Using APPLY (Part 1) - http://www.sqlservercentral.com/articles/APPLY/69953/
Understanding and Using APPLY (Part 2) - http://www.sqlservercentral.com/articles/APPLY/69954/
March 2, 2017 at 8:24 am
Jeff Moden - Thursday, March 2, 2017 7:47 AMIronically, the ones that knew the least rated themselves the highest when asked to rate themselves on a scale of 1 to 10 on the skills advertised for the job prior to the interview.
Gail Shaw
Microsoft Certified Master: SQL Server, MVP, M.Sc (Comp Sci)
SQL In The Wild: Discussions on DB performance with occasional diversions into recoverability
March 2, 2017 at 8:27 am
GilaMonster - Thursday, March 2, 2017 8:17 AMThomasRushton - Thursday, March 2, 2017 2:04 AMLynn Pettis - Wednesday, March 1, 2017 12:43 PM< rant> Why can't people READ the error messages? They may be obscure at times but others actually tell you what the problem resides. </ rant>Error messages aren't always helpful.
"String or binary data will be truncated"
"Floating point exception"
"Divide by Zero Error"
I love it when people tell me they don't know what the issue is on that one.
March 2, 2017 at 8:28 am
Luis Cazares - Thursday, March 2, 2017 8:20 AMI blame some recruiters and contracting companies for this. When I started looking for projects with my current employer, they asked me to change my resume and make it the way you just described. I prefer my 2 page resume that includes additional information and a nice format, but they wanted a plain list of things that would adequate to the requirements and were repeated every single time to "prove experience".
Gosh now I feel kind of bad. I suggested to some of the applicants that they should tone down their resume and they don't need to repeat every single detail of every position. That is what the interview is for. I told them that when we post jobs we get inundated with resumes and when I decide we are going to interview 10 people and I have 150 resumes to look through that I am not going to read a chapter or two from a book for each person. I skim them and may spend 20-30 seconds tops to decide if I want to talk with them further. Once I have those people isolated I go over them in detail prior to the interview. On the really long ones I almost always find inconsistencies. As the saying goes "it is far better to remain silent and look like a fool instead of opening your mouth and removing all doubt". 😀
_______________________________________________________________
Need help? Help us help you.
Read the article at http://www.sqlservercentral.com/articles/Best+Practices/61537/ for best practices on asking questions.
Need to split a string? Try Jeff Modens splitter http://www.sqlservercentral.com/articles/Tally+Table/72993/.
Cross Tabs and Pivots, Part 1 – Converting Rows to Columns - http://www.sqlservercentral.com/articles/T-SQL/63681/
Cross Tabs and Pivots, Part 2 - Dynamic Cross Tabs - http://www.sqlservercentral.com/articles/Crosstab/65048/
Understanding and Using APPLY (Part 1) - http://www.sqlservercentral.com/articles/APPLY/69953/
Understanding and Using APPLY (Part 2) - http://www.sqlservercentral.com/articles/APPLY/69954/
March 2, 2017 at 8:29 am
GilaMonster - Thursday, March 2, 2017 8:17 AMThomasRushton - Thursday, March 2, 2017 2:04 AMLynn Pettis - Wednesday, March 1, 2017 12:43 PM< rant> Why can't people READ the error messages? They may be obscure at times but others actually tell you what the problem resides. </ rant>Error messages aren't always helpful.
"String or binary data will be truncated"
"Floating point exception"
Vague, yes, but I know where to start looking if I get those error messages. Aw, yes, experience plays a role there.
March 2, 2017 at 8:30 am
On the resume thing, I try only to include jobs relevant to what I'm applying for, so that means my resume wouldn't be a novel.
But when I applied for my MBA, the college wanted a resume with everything. So I gave them everything. Apparently the admissions office nearly had a collective coronary because I over-interpreted the word "everything." They were flabbergasted that I had so many different things on it.
Now if you'll excuse me, I have to return to post-month-end cleanup and figuring out why my database mirrors won't establish.
March 2, 2017 at 8:45 am
GilaMonster - Thursday, March 2, 2017 8:17 AMThomasRushton - Thursday, March 2, 2017 2:04 AMLynn Pettis - Wednesday, March 1, 2017 12:43 PM< rant> Why can't people READ the error messages? They may be obscure at times but others actually tell you what the problem resides. </ rant>Error messages aren't always helpful.
"String or binary data will be truncated"
"Floating point exception"
Who is General Failure, and why is he reading my hard disk?
March 2, 2017 at 9:12 am
Hugo Kornelis - Thursday, March 2, 2017 8:45 AMWho is General Failure, and why is he reading my hard disk?
This reminded me of a frequent request our network guys get: "Can you move my Hard Drive please?". This is "code" for "I need to move my PC, Monitor, Desk, drawers, and any other peripherals I have."
One of the guys got fed up last week, after one person asked for the 3rd time that week if someone could "move their Hard Drive" (they had been moved both other times). So they nicely asked the employee to shut down their PC when they went for lunch and to call him. Then, after he got the call, he went over to the office, opened the PC up, removed the HDD, placed it where they asked it to be put and closed the tower back up.
Unsurprisingly, when the employee returned from lunch they had no idea why their PC wouldn't boot, or why it hadn't been moved. They had, however, got what they'd asked for. 😎
Thom~
Excuse my typos and sometimes awful grammar. My fingers work faster than my brain does.
Larnu.uk
March 2, 2017 at 9:25 am
GilaMonster - Thursday, March 2, 2017 8:24 AMJeff Moden - Thursday, March 2, 2017 7:47 AMIronically, the ones that knew the least rated themselves the highest when asked to rate themselves on a scale of 1 to 10 on the skills advertised for the job prior to the interview.
At my previous employer, for legal purposes we were required to a) ask every single person the same set of questions on an initial interview and b) keep notes. I had notes on over 150 people failing to answer 10, stupid simple questions, about SQL Server. The vast majority of those people had, at least on paper, 5-10 years of experience as a DBA. If within 5 years, you can't tell me the difference between a CI & NCI or two of three standard recovery models(and I would have gleefully accepted non-standard models) or even, my favorite failing question, "So, SQL Server X was just released, can you tell me anything about it at all?" Huge, huge, huge swaths of people don't even bother reading "What's new" to see what's coming out in vNext.
Trying to hire a competent data pro is a flipping nightmare. No wonder everyone wants to eliminate the position.
"The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood"
- Theodore Roosevelt
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