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RE: Seek Data Warehouse Design skill

From: <Stephen.Lee_at_DTAG.Com>
Date: Fri, 20 Aug 2004 12:19:22 -0500
Message-ID: <F5340B0E4DA1B64E906D328077060B21822837@dtagpo2.dtg.local>

>-----Original Message-----
>Completely agree. That's why every question I ask
>leads to a discussion with the candidate.
 

This is sort of something of a touchy nerve with me since I see it so much (and have worked a bunch of extra hours as a result of it). I.T. has grown to include so many things that when one eliminates candidates on restrictive requirements for experience, one eliminates a big chunk of smart people. So many managers seem to get their position on the basis of how "managerial" they can behave that one sees emphasis on questions on the specific area of interest rather than seeing if somebody has sufficient experience in SOME relevant area of I.T. that permits one to make a reasonable determination of the person's ability and work style. A person might have little or no experience in language X, but enough experience in language Y that we can get some idea about that person's general talents.

A virtuoso clarinet player can probably, given a little time, be a virtuoso saxophone player. A run-of-the-mill, experienced saxophone player will never be anything but a run-of-the-mill saxophone player. An outstanding college football player can probably be an outstanding Dallas Cowboys football player even though he has never played pro football and has never played with the Dallas Cowboys.

That doesn't mean one should not try to make some objective verification of the experience somebody claims to have. But, given the size of I.T. and the fact that people do successfully move from one area to the another, one should not place a lot of emphasis on experience in a particular area. I've never written a line of Java code. But I've written enough C code, done enough shell scripting, and seen enough code from other people to know that, within a short amount of time, I could be a pretty good, significantly above average but not genius, Java coder if I had to. Based on that, I think it is a mistake to look for PL/SQL programmers based on how many questions they can answer about PL/SQL.

>-----Original Message-----
>When we evaluate somebody's intelligence
>without scientific method (and psychology is not quite an exact science,
>except when one is being judged by a jury of his peers) we're actually
>estimating somebody's similarity to ourselves, nothing more.

Speak for yourself. I know this is not true for me because (as people around here will confirm) there is nobody like me. This is what separates good management from mediocre (or worse) management. Speaking of Psychology, you would be surprised at what a good, perceptive psychologist can determine about you. I used to know one in particular whose accuracy was downright scary. It might be a prejudice of mine, but I'm pretty sure that after some time with a person, I have a good idea of that person's abilities if it's in an area in which I am qualified enough to make a determination. (I doubt I can tell you diddly about an applicant for a marketing job.) True, there might be an occasional oddball that one can't read, but that's the exception. I don't see any way other than first person observation to determine if, in addition to determining level of talent, the person's basic nature to do things right (which a test will probably not tell you). A perceptive interviewer can make a fairly accurate determination. This is why some software companies kick butt in the marketplace and some fail.

I recall a candidate for sys admin who, after the interview lunch, threw the wrapper for his after-lunch mint on the ground as we were walking back to the car. I admit this is an extreme, easy to see example, but people do things that give you an idea of what they can and will do.



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Received on Fri Aug 20 2004 - 12:15:53 CDT

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