March 21, 2016 at 3:18 am
pietlinden (3/20/2016)
Jeff,Just wondering what you would say to an applicant that admitted up front that he may be underqualified, but asked you to help him figure out what he needed to learn first and how to go about it.
thanks,
Pieter
I got my current position by doing just this in my application process, and being a bit pushy. (Although rather than 'help me figure it out', promised I would practice the new tools/techniques in my own time and take a lower salary than advertised..)
There are employers who will take the gamble if you can demonstrate your willingness and dedication.
March 21, 2016 at 3:33 am
fpmorrison (3/19/2016)
CV is not a common business term. I have NEVER been asked for a "CV" in the past 40 years, but I have been asked for a "resume" dozens of times.
CV isn't a common business term in the US, it's a very common business term to the wider community outside the US.
March 21, 2016 at 4:04 am
I once interviewed a candidate that was very obviously a different person to the one I did a preliminary telephone interview with. I politely terminated the interview when it became obvious. I phoned the agency to complain. The recruitment agent tried to shrug it off as being none of his business. I protested "I had a different candidate to the one was phoning."
"This is something you'll have to take up with the candidate" he said smoothly.
"That's fine. I'm now retaining a different recruitment agency to the one I'm phoning. Bye!"
If a candidate lies, uses deceit, or has a false CV/resume/whatever-you-call-it, then it is the responsibility of the agency. The best agencies run checks and screenings. Use 'em!
Best wishes,
Phil Factor
March 21, 2016 at 6:23 am
Phil Factor (3/21/2016)
I once interviewed a candidate that was very obviously a different person to the one I did a preliminary telephone interview with. I politely terminated the interview when it became obvious. I phoned the agency to complain. The recruitment agent tried to shrug it off as being none of his business. I protested "I had a different candidate to the one was phoning.""This is something you'll have to take up with the candidate" he said smoothly.
"That's fine. I'm now retaining a different recruitment agency to the one I'm phoning. Bye!"
If a candidate lies, uses deceit, or has a false CV/resume/whatever-you-call-it, then it is the responsibility of the agency. The best agencies run checks and screenings. Use 'em!
The times I've run into "stunt doubles", the recruiters have been very responsive. It's only happened a few times, but they've universally terminated relations with that candidate as soon as it came up.
- Gus "GSquared", RSVP, OODA, MAP, NMVP, FAQ, SAT, SQL, DNA, RNA, UOI, IOU, AM, PM, AD, BC, BCE, USA, UN, CF, ROFL, LOL, ETC
Property of The Thread
"Nobody knows the age of the human race, but everyone agrees it's old enough to know better." - Anon
March 21, 2016 at 6:50 am
I'm no manager but I had to screen some DBAs from time to time.
To my eyes, an easy technical question, which if I recall correctly was from Grant Fritchey, was as simple as asking, "A dev comes with a performance issue, what will you do to help him get it fixed" and I validate the applicant way to get there. You will hit / validate quite a few interesting SQL topics that the applicant must be aware of to get there.
My main goal is to find out if someone's has enough overall knowledge to get the job done and if that person can think outside the box.
I don't care about syntax or things like that, a quick google search will find it for you, but getting the logic right for the scenario requirements (or real life experience, on the job) is not something google will find out for you. It must come from solid experience and / or studies and understanding.
Finally, I like speaking with the person of it's past experiences and projects, getting to know her/him better help understanding how their lives aspects might help or not for the job. (a resourceful person?, pragmatic, academic style?)
Degree comes into play, but it's not everything as well as experience is not everything also.
Expertise and experience are far from begin equal. You can do something 200 times very fast (experience) but the wrong way which will end up costing more to fix than doing it only a few times a bit slower but getting it right at the start and in the long run saving more time / money.
I'm pretty sure it's hard for manager to screen applicant technically, personally and from a business orientation, 3 sides which all have their proper questions and logics as well as filtering out liars. My experience (I do not have recruitment expertise) comes from the technical part of an interview only.
my 2 cents
March 21, 2016 at 7:28 am
I suspect the need for screening in part comes down to the fact that not everybody is cut out to work in IT. If your logic and problem solving skills aren't good, you're not going to make it in this industry no matter what you can memorize and regurgitate on a test. I'm sure there are industries where one can "fake it until you make it" but that's a lot tougher, if it's possible, in IT.
March 21, 2016 at 7:40 am
You would have thought that all those sites that give the answers to all the common questions would make life more difficult for us as interviewers. I always ask the same basic questions such as 'what difference does it make to make an index a clustered index'. However much a candidate learns the basic answer, the pretenders always come unstuck on the supplementary questions. I think that it pays to turn a technical interview into a technical conversation.
Best wishes,
Phil Factor
March 21, 2016 at 7:55 am
I believe there is an important role for "New Men" in IT, so long as you're referring to the smart and adaptable type who graduated from university with an MBA, are expert listeners, C-level communicators, and can pick up on abstract concepts quickly. There is room for (1) in every IT department having more than a dozen members.
As for the claim by some that the IT industry completely reinvents itself every 3 years, I agree with Phil that is simply not true. In fact, I believe the pace of corporate IT innovation is slowing. For example, nothing too radical has happened over the past 10 years that would render someone irrelevent. The most game changing technology to become mainstream in that time frame has been infrastructure stuff like virtualization and cloud computing. However, the tools and programming techniques are mostly the same with a few extensions to concepts and techniques to leverage the formerly mentioned.
"Do not seek to follow in the footsteps of the wise. Instead, seek what they sought." - Matsuo Basho
March 21, 2016 at 8:39 am
I've always been truthful and tend to be modest during interviews. I have often wondered if I have lost some opportunities to the liars/exaggerators because the interviewer had never asked technical questions or wasn't very experienced (hey it happens).
I myself am an accidental DBA. One of my previous employers had no DB skills in house. My manager knew from experience that I picked up things quickly and asked me to do some SQL work. Mostly reports and basic ETL at first. The more I worked with SQL the more I loved it and knew this is what I'd rather do in IT.
Eventually I applied to a different company as a junior DBA, which I did get. That hiring manager knew I had a passion for SQL even though I needed work. What's interesting though is over the next couple of years I was doing most of the work for the Senior DBA. I'm not kidding when I tell you that this person didn't know T-SQL beyond a simple select statement. This person left for a 'better' job and I was offered the vacant DBA position. I couldn't be happier. The truth is I'm still learning something new everyday but at least I know I love this stuff and I'm always looking to improve myself. Looking back now I realize what a difference between me right now and me 3 years ago. Hopefully, (if) the next time I have an interview I'll be a little more confidant in my skills but I'm still not going to lie. Just don't have it in me.
March 21, 2016 at 8:48 am
Everyone in IT has skills that they learned on the job, which is a great way to learn, but you end up with holes in your knowledge. When interviewing, be careful not to screen these people out.
March 21, 2016 at 9:01 am
Hmm.... with the way technology is moving and I find this true in general not just IT the ability to acquire knowledge is far more valuable than the ability to retain knowledge.
March 21, 2016 at 9:28 am
What happens when these people actually get the job? Is it not horrendously embarrassing for everyone involved when they turn up and can't perform simple tasks? Are they not concerned about making it through the probation period? I can't understand the point in lying to land a job where you do need to perform, recipe for disaster.
March 21, 2016 at 9:52 am
GeorgeCopeland (3/21/2016)
Everyone in IT has skills that they learned on the job, which is a great way to learn, but you end up with holes in your knowledge. When interviewing, be careful not to screen these people out.
Interviewing is important for more than just a measure of knowledge. It's also a measure for attitude and integrity. I flat out won't hire someone that has obviously lied on their resume. I can't afford to have liars on the team.
--Jeff Moden
Change is inevitable... Change for the better is not.
March 21, 2016 at 9:57 am
Could not agree more. I am much more interested in how you think and how you work than whether you know all of the parms on a raiserror statement.
March 21, 2016 at 10:01 am
ZZartin (3/21/2016)
Hmm.... with the way technology is moving and I find this true in general not just IT the ability to acquire knowledge is far more valuable than the ability to retain knowledge.
I do agree that the ability to acquire knowledge is important but there's no way that it's more important than having a DBA or Developer that knows their job, can demonstrate that they've done it in the past, and isn't going to have to spend six months to a year trying to acquire basic knowledge for a Senior position with Senior pay and Senior expectations.
I also won't hire a liar. If someone says on their Resume/CV that they're "highly experienced" in a given area, then I damned well expect that they can prove it during an interview and that is going to require knowledge of what they claim. If they can't, then they're a liar (especially when they fail the simple stuff like during the last 10 years of interviews) and I don't need deceit on my teams. Some will say "Well, they just don't know what they don't know" and to that, I say "bullshit" because it's their bloody job to know. 😉
--Jeff Moden
Change is inevitable... Change for the better is not.
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