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Home -> Community -> Mailing Lists -> Oracle-L -> RE: When one can call oneself expert
Very good point.
The best Java programmer I know from AZ once sent me his resume to review because he liked the flashy "buy me, now, save 50% on first three visits to office" version of mine (I actually go to great lengths to hit concrete, technical, plausible, and verifiable career accomplishments and have code, documentation...more importantly, I can pass the phone screen).
This man is a very strong Java programmer (dare I say the strongest expert in J2EE I have known) and someone I have tried my best to recruit on more than several occasions to various firms where I was contracting but his resume would put a fan/collector of Life Insurance contracts and avid readers of the Encyclopedia Britannica to sleep. Further, his public speaking skills are...well, I would rather spend 12 hours in a hot room wearing a Tuxedo participating in the next Turing Test for machine intelligence than listen to him give a 10 minute presentation.
I started off with a BS in Finance & Accounting so I have a leg-up in the BS department. Why, not because I like it but because OVER AND OVER AND OVER one is taught in business school (this is not necessarily a good thing at all and could help explain Enron) to self-market and self-promote. Someday, perhaps, this truly will go away and I for one will be happy to put away the visual aids and ban PowerPoint from my home.
Until then sell yourselves to the CORE BUSINESS, explain to them how the Total Cost of Ownership of Linux MAKES THEM MONEY over Windows or even Solaris, perhaps, not how Windows XP has 40 million lines of code with an estimated 600,000 bugs...they don't care and, believe it or not, have no idea what this means. They do pay close attention to $'s and understand things like PHP is FREE and will run on all of the desktops and servers but .NET costs xyz and only runs on Windows (not taking a side just giving an example) so we can keep all the same hardware, boss, and we already have several PHP programmers in-house but no .NET "experts" so we don't have to hire anyone or increase head count (they love that kind of stuff).
Think of that business person, CEO, or VP as the next super model (male or female...I am not judging) you have to take to dinner, buy drinks, and only later after you have had your first five children will he/she fully appreciate and love you for your technical expertise.
An excerpt from Bill Hicks one of my favorite dead comedians:
"By the way if anyone here is in advertising or marketing... kill you. No, no, no it's just a little thought. I'm just trying to plant seeds. Maybe one day, they'll take root - I don't know. You try, you do what you can. Kill yourself. Seriously though, if you are, do. Aaah, no really, there's no rationalization for what you do and you are Satan's little helpers, Okay - kill yourself - seriously. You are the ruiner of all things good, seriously. No this is not a joke, you're going, "there's going to be a joke coming," there's no f******g joke coming. You are Satan's spawn filling the world with bile and garbage. You are f*****d and you are f******g us. Kill yourself. It's the only way to save your f******g soul, kill yourself. Planting seeds. I know all the marketing people are going, "he's doing a joke... there's no joke here whatsoever. Suck a tail-pipe, f*****g hang yourself, borrow a gun from a Yank friend - I don't care how you do it. Rid the world of your evil f******g machinations. I know what all the marketing people are thinking right now too, "Oh, you know what Bill's doing, he's going for that anti-marketing dollar. That's a good market, he's very smart." Oh man, I am not doing that. You f******g evil scumbags! "Ooh, you know what Bill's doing now, he's going for the righteous indignation dollar. That's a big dollar. A lot of people are feeling that indignation. We've done research - huge market. He's doing a good thing." G******t, I'm not doing that, you scum-bags!
Please sell yourselves within reason and with just the necessary flash based on what you understand to be your TRUE EXPERTISE, nail the phone screen, and embrace those corporate suits...VPs, CEOs, and CFOs, alike, as they are coming to take over an IT department near you and from what my senior
executive friends still express they HATE US, still, for the .com era, don't trust ANY OF US (NOT JUST THE FLASHY, IDIOTIC ONES), and they don't know who most of the real experts are...you wonderful, crazy, whacky, legitimate,dare I say, experts...but they do know the former juggler and just simply love golfing with him and, believe it or not, that sob is the Project Manager who majored in PR and Home Economics and also, oddly enough, the one who determines who stays or goes on the project and he wants to hire five more of his close friends from his fraternity and his cousin who was just released from prison for check fraud to be your personal overlord. (I could give some real-life examples, by the way, but I don't want to get banned, again).
After all, would you have bought that last Oracle book or SUV if the advertisement said it was "pretty darn good" or "not too bad"...and the test drive will prove whether it is the best SUV God ever blessed with holy water.
So I can have the distinct pleasure of working with some of you, the posers are eradicated and forced out, and that next IT project doesn't involve subsidizing the khaki budget of that one guy in IT who is "so nice" because he doesn't ever argue with anyone's technical assessment and, of course, will write a check for any software package pushed across his desk with a smile in exchange for a vendor outing and reassure Management that next IT deadline absolutely will be met this time...I have my top people on it (translation, the two guys/girls on the team of 30 who actually can type and are experts in using a mouse).
In closing, even GOOD IT recruiters, who I genuinely appreciate, at least the quality ones, don't know jack about IT (on average and these are still the best ones I know). Yet, the good ones keep tabs on the profiles of those who do yet THEY STILL NEED YOU TO HELP THEM MARKET YOU...with honesty, integrity, and real accomplishments/skills but still a little flash. Do it for me, do it for IT, and do it so you will someday be in charge of the core business...IT is fast becoming an integral, inseparable part of the core business across many industries and either you or the guy with the brightly colored suit and great anecdotes from his former career as a comedian will be in charge. If he's in charge you can walk on Oracle water and truly support/rescue the core business from that next IT failure or suicidal project some term a "death march" and he will thank you and so will his cousin from Joliette prison when they can justify hiring another dozen ex-cons and "Star Search" rejects.
Ellis
PS A very good VP named Scott K. from a major airline used to say it this way: "Great, Ellis, I understand Oracle star schemas, now, but please tell me how this is going to make our department money...I think what you are saying is the reports will run faster and use those "materialized views" you referred to...is that it, Ellis, my Pricing analysts can have the results returned in seconds as opposed to waiting hours..." Take over the core business and market yourself to the hilt because the posers and self-promoting morons are fleecing American IT, still, and deceiving the core business worse than the UAW did GM...I can attest to this because my entire family on my Mothers side worked for General Motors in OH. By the way, virtually all of the GM plants in Dayton, OH are closed and, trust me, I worked there, they gave them more than a decade to be spun off as Delphi's and become profitable...they didn't, they are in Mexico, and that one guy that cranked out 35 compressors to be more productive over and above the required 25 got his car keyed then later annihilated with baseball bats. Now my cousin who was sure he was going to work at GM for $20/hr sells lottery tickets at a carryout in Moraine...and there is an entire generation of them doing the same and running crack houses back in OH.
-----Original Message-----
From: oracle-l-bounce_at_freelists.org [mailto:oracle-l-bounce_at_freelists.org]
On Behalf Of ryan_gaffuri_at_comcast.net
Sent: Wednesday, December 22, 2004 5:13 PM
To: kduret_at_starkinvestments.com; 'stephenbooth.uk_at_gmail.com'
Cc: Duret, Kathy; oracle-l_at_freelists.org
Subject: RE: When one can call oneself expert
most resumes look pretty much the same. Everyone knows everything. That is
what the 25 minute technical phone screen is for... they turn into 5 minute
ones when every answer is 'I dont know'. We have a 95% rejection rate on
phone screens here.
Putting expert on your resume is for marketing purposes and gets people
passed HR. I don't weed anyone out because of it and I do not put them to
the top either.
Nothing wrong with people marketing themselves. It's pretty easy to find out
if its true.
its just a resume... and people need jobs.
> Been there.... I insist the recruiter can't send out my resume without me
> looking at their revision FIRST!
>
> I had one add alot of skills I didn't have and I was very embarrased.
> Thankfully, I had my original resume with me and showed it to them. Fired
> the recruiter after that.
>
> Kathy
-- http://www.freelists.org/webpage/oracle-l -----Original Message----- From: oracle-l-bounce_at_freelists.org [mailto:oracle-l-bounce_at_freelists.org] On Behalf Of ryan_gaffuri_at_comcast.net Sent: Wednesday, December 22, 2004 5:13 PM To: kduret_at_starkinvestments.com; 'stephenbooth.uk_at_gmail.com' Cc: Duret, Kathy; oracle-l_at_freelists.org Subject: RE: When one can call oneself expert most resumes look pretty much the same. Everyone knows everything. That is what the 25 minute technical phone screen is for... they turn into 5 minute ones when every answer is 'I dont know'. We have a 95% rejection rate on phone screens here. putting expert on your resume is for marketing purposes and gets people passed HR. I don't weed anyone out because of it and I do not put them to the top either. Nothing wrong with people marketing themselves. It's pretty easy to find out if its true. its just a resume... and people need jobs. -------------- Original message --------------Received on Wed Dec 22 2004 - 19:00:23 CST
> Been there.... I insist the recruiter can't send out my resume without me
> looking at their revision FIRST!
>
> I had one add alot of skills I didn't have and I was very embarrased.
> Thankfully, I had my original resume with me and showed it to them. Fired
> the recruiter after that.
>
> Kathy
-- http://www.freelists.org/webpage/oracle-l -- http://www.freelists.org/webpage/oracle-l
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