October 31, 2002 at 11:51 am
I also have to comment on this statement by Henmi:
quote:
Also remember taht average people just use 3% of their brain capacity whilst people like Einstein use 14% (and perhaps 99% for Guru?)
Have you ever heard about a trauma victim being lucky because the brain damage he suffered was in the 90% of his brain he's not using?
November 1, 2002 at 9:21 am
I like what I've heard so far.
A former boss gave me a good Human Resources point of view on this subject. We needed to add to our team, but we did not want to promote from within. None of them were a good fit or willing to apply themselves sufficiently in our experience with them.
The boss explained that to avoid morale issues the want ads had to require more skills than our current team had. That way, no one could complain that we had the skills inhouse already. As outside people were interviewed, no one had all the skills listed and we picked the best available person from outside.
The whole thing was a Human Resources trick. So now you all know better. When you see a listing for ridiculous qualifications, don't worry that you cannot qualify for the job. Chances are very high that nobody else will and some trick is being played.
Another method is to require all skills to limit interviews to the most qualified candidates. This latter method must backfire, since some of the "required" skills usually are unpopular with the job force or unimportant to the job.
For example:
Want a DBA - Oracle, .Net, MS SQL, FoxPro, Clipper, Novell CNE, Cisco Certification, VSAM, VAX, HP Unix 10 required
No one in their right mind will study Clipper in college today. Many people know it since they've around long enough to know Clipper. Clipper probably is not that important to the job. If extracts are taken from Clipper, the firm really needs to upgrade to more modern systems! But I see weird ads like this very often.
Also, is a Novell CNE really that relevant to a DBA? It helps, but should not be "required". Same thing with Cisco.
Another sidewinder comes from HP Unix version 10. If you know Oracle DBA skills on one Unix flavor, switching to other Unix is not a big deal. But I've heard interviewers and candidates alike say the match was not made in heaven because the candidate was the wrong version of HP Unix or only knew Solaris!
VSAM and VAX are more funny stories. We're interviewing for a DBA who knows Oracle and MS SQL. Even if all the extracts come from VSAM and VAX, the learning curve for a DBA to get to the files is just not high enough to turn them away.
"Why not focus on the skills?", you might ask. Maybe with the market downturn I can hire the right set of skills. Maybe so, but there's fewer people to pick and the remaining candidates might not have the people skills, project management skills or architecture skills you need.
November 1, 2002 at 1:14 pm
I have to comment on the statement by pdeprado where he says ....
A former boss gave me a good Human Resources point of view on this subject. We needed to add to our team, but we did not want to promote from within. None of them were a good fit or willing to apply themselves sufficiently in our experience with them.
The boss explained that to avoid morale issues the want ads had to require more skills than our current team had. That way, no one could complain that we had the skills inhouse already. As outside people were interviewed, no one had all the skills listed and we picked the best available person from outside.
The whole thing was a Human Resources trick. So now you all know better. When you see a listing for ridiculous qualifications, don't worry that you cannot qualify for the job. Chances are very high that nobody else will and some trick is being played.
My comment is this:
When I go to an interview, the interview is for the company as much as it is for me. I evaluate the person doing the interview for technical ability to get an idea of where the company is in the evolutionary chart. Put quite simply, I do not wish to work for a manager who doesn't know enough to be able to make good decisions about the technologies involved. Now, I am not saying he should be able to sit in my chair, just that he should be able to sit behind me and have a good idea about what I am doing. The person or persons doing an interview should be someone capable of evaluating my knowledge, and should be able to discuss any related topics that come up. Also, I ask a lot of questions about the companies enviroment, structure, and practices. Looking at it from this point of view, I would never interview the companies like the one spoken of by pdeprado. I would read the job specs, make some comment about how the company doesn't even know how long the technology they work with has been out, and mentally decide they were not advanced enough for me to work for them. Next ad. I don't have the patience or the inclination to babysit a manager, and if I have to spend more time explaining why I am doing what I am doing than it actually takes to accomplish the objective, they just need someone else. Hey, I know, lets get that HR guy to do it.......LMAO
I have spent the last 16 years learning what I know in order to be able to do what I do. A manager can take a day to study a couple of documents to familiarize himself with the technology his business is based on, or just take my word on it. I actually had a manager ask me one time, to write a document for him that explained in a single page, how to tune the SQL servers for performance and what the pros and cons were for what I described in the paper. I looked at him like he was insane (to this day I believe he was), and told him I might be able to do it in a hundred pages because that for him to be able to do it, he would need to understand WHAT he was doing. Its not like a checklist you go down doing step 1, step 2, etc... He did not understand that at all. He replied that if I was any good, I would be able to do it. I left him with the statement, "Spend the next year studying Sql Server and the SQL language, and we will at least have a basis for a good start and can speak the same language." The thing is, if your boss doesn't have one of two things, your in trouble. Those two things are:
1. Good understanding of your job.
2. Total trust in your ability and knowledge.
Either one will work, and of course, I prefer the first as its difficult bouncing ideas off of someone who looks at you like you came from mars when you start speaking.
Enough said. Those HR tricks loose good technical people in my opinion.
November 1, 2002 at 1:41 pm
After years in the technical trade, you either have the desire (no, fever) to explore all of the areas mentioned, or live in a confined little world of little experience and drive. Given time, how can you not end up knowing these things?
Woah! I'm not chastizing anyone here. All I'm saying is that if you love this computer job thingy, and after 15 years of 'doin' it', wouldn't you have gather all of this moss anyway? And the people/interaction thing is only a natural extension of yourself anyway. All they want is a human being who can think for themselves and relate issues to co-workers, and management when they pop-up...
CaperSailor
Outside of a dog, a book is a man's best friend. Inside of a dog, it's too dark to read." Groucho Marx, 1890-1977
CaperSailor
Outside of a dog, a book is a man's best friend. Inside of a dog, it's too dark to read." Groucho Marx, 1890-1977
November 4, 2002 at 6:39 am
Excellent reading, by all. One important note, here we are thinking logically about how these job descriptions are being created. I had the opportunity to see first hand, as I worked as a consultant, that many of these job descriptions are created by: secretaries, high level ( non-techies ), and even lightly polled from surrounding office folk. So the latest compu rag that is sitting on a endtable, will give them their splash words that they think they want. Unfortunately, I have seen too much of the compu-rag projects where someone high up states, "We need to get with this .NET stuff" or "Why aren't we using EJBs" and no one knows the answer so new projects startup, doomed to failure and frantic project leads start throwing out job opportunites to fill these technology gaps... My god, I am amazed that no one understands the 'site plan' concept and "centralization of skills" and "business / technology alignment"...whew, the money we throw around could be much better invested. ( Note: The above mentioned technologies are not listed in a negative fashion, they are simply extreme technologies that ONLY advanced teams can properly manage with sufficient education, given they are necessary to solve the business needs of today and tomorrow. )
Good luck!
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