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On 25/08/2012 10:25 AM, Stephen wrote:
> When I was working at Motorola my boss told me that he wasn't going to
> hire someone because he had a copy of the daily mail in his pocket. Work
> that one out. o_O
Personally, the story I like is this one:
The hiring manager goes over to the pile of CVs, grabs half of it,
and chucks it in the bin. "Well, the LAST thing this company needs is
unlucky people!"
Debate among yourselves which half was the "lucky" half. :-P
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Le 2012-08-25 04:35, Orchid Win7 v1 a écrit :
>
> Likewise, when an IT manager wants to hire a C# programmer, the first
> thing they do is throw away all the CVs that don't say C# on them
> somewhere.
>
No. Having had to do some serious recruiting before, I can tell you
that this is not the case. The IT manager will know that someone who
has a lot of C, C++ or Java experience will be able to pick up on C#
rather quickly. The HR person who receives all the CVs and doesn't know
the difference between C#, CICS/IMS, and TCP/IP apart from the fact that
"they're both buzzwords the IT folks use" is the one who will only send
the ones that have "C#" in them to the IT manager.
My girlfriend in the late 90s was that HR person. She had to review
hundreds of CVs every week for the various Y2K projects her employer was
driving, and she would come home at night with dozens CVs that she would
put in different piles after going through them for 3-4 seconds each.
"Blah blah blah DB/2 blah blah Oracle ... ok this one goes in the DBA
pile", "Blah blah pc support blah blah linux blah blah Solaris blah ...
This one's for the Unix pile", etc...
I once joked to her that I would pirnt my CV under an assumed named and
would love to see in which pile i ended up.
--
/*Francois Labreque*/#local a=x+y;#local b=x+a;#local c=a+b;#macro P(F//
/* flabreque */L)polygon{5,F,F+z,L+z,L,F pigment{rgb 9}}#end union
/* @ */{P(0,a)P(a,b)P(b,c)P(2*a,2*b)P(2*b,b+c)P(b+c,<2,3>)
/* gmail.com */}camera{orthographic location<6,1.25,-6>look_at a }
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On Sat, 25 Aug 2012 09:35:00 +0100, Orchid Win7 v1 wrote:
> Obviously, I would hire the first guy, because he has the skills that
> matter. But the IT manager? He's a ****ing moron, so he would hire the
> second guy. Just because the second guy has some superficial attribute
> which is nearly completely unimportant.
It's not really unimportant when hiring for a programming position,
though - if there's existing code that needs to be maintained, you would
want someone who knows the language it was written in.
Jim
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To continue the story a bit, even the "Thanks, but no thanks" -letter
isn't always the end of the story.
I received such letter ~10 years ago myself. Couple of weeks after that
I received a phone call - a lady called me asking me "Even though we
already sent you this letter, would you still be intrested to come to
interview?". That lady appeared to be my future boss, since that
interview got me the job as IT-assistant, starting 16.10.2002. ~3 years
after that my title was changed to IT-specialist and at 2007 I got
asked, if I'd like a transfer to the headquarters of the firm.
In october we'll have a party, since then I've worked 10 years for the firm.
Don't count on it, but stay aware that anything can happen. Be
open-minded for the situations that come up, it helps a lot.
-Aero
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>> Obviously, I would hire the first guy, because he has the skills that
>> matter. But the IT manager? He's a ****ing moron, so he would hire the
>> second guy. Just because the second guy has some superficial attribute
>> which is nearly completely unimportant.
>
> It's not really unimportant when hiring for a programming position,
> though - if there's existing code that needs to be maintained, you would
> want someone who knows the language it was written in.
If you need something done in a real hurry, then having somebody who can
hit the ground running can be very important. But most of the time, what
you want is somebody who can be trained to do a job well. An aptitude
for learning and a willingness to do so ought to be a higher priority
than merely having some of the relevant knowledge already.
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On 8/24/2012 9:29, Orchid Win7 v1 wrote:
> At this point, I'm stunned. I seriously can't imagine what more I could have
> done...
Remember, it's entirely possible *their* situation changed. They might not
need your skills or have the money at this point.
--
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
"Oh no! We're out of code juice!"
"Don't panic. There's beans and filters
in the cabinet."
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On 8/24/2012 14:41, Jim Henderson wrote:
> So in my case (and as yours) - it's their loss.
An astute observation.
Or maybe the boss' nephew just lost his job and asked to cut to the front of
the line.
--
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
"Oh no! We're out of code juice!"
"Don't panic. There's beans and filters
in the cabinet."
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On Sat, 25 Aug 2012 20:11:17 -0700, Darren New wrote:
> On 8/24/2012 14:41, Jim Henderson wrote:
>> So in my case (and as yours) - it's their loss.
>
> An astute observation.
>
> Or maybe the boss' nephew just lost his job and asked to cut to the
> front of the line.
I know that didn't happen in my case - they called a former coworker
(who'd already been eliminated in an earlier round), talked to him for an
extra 30 minutes, told him again that he was not up for consideration,
and then closed the position without filling it.
But that certainly could be the case in Andy's situation.
Jim
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On Sat, 25 Aug 2012 20:09:55 -0700, Darren New wrote:
> On 8/24/2012 9:29, Orchid Win7 v1 wrote:
>> At this point, I'm stunned. I seriously can't imagine what more I could
>> have done...
>
> Remember, it's entirely possible *their* situation changed. They might
> not need your skills or have the money at this point.
That's also certainly true.
For that matter, that *could* well have been the case for me.
Jim
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On Sat, 25 Aug 2012 22:35:31 +0100, Orchid Win7 v1 wrote:
>>> Obviously, I would hire the first guy, because he has the skills that
>>> matter. But the IT manager? He's a ****ing moron, so he would hire the
>>> second guy. Just because the second guy has some superficial attribute
>>> which is nearly completely unimportant.
>>
>> It's not really unimportant when hiring for a programming position,
>> though - if there's existing code that needs to be maintained, you
>> would want someone who knows the language it was written in.
>
> If you need something done in a real hurry, then having somebody who can
> hit the ground running can be very important.
That's actually the case not just when you need something done in a real
hurry.
Training employees is expensive. If you hire someone who has exactly
what you're looking for, it saves you money.
That's one of the things about my current contract that's useful - the
engineering manager knows I'm good with the products, and he wanted to
get me on board a month after my first contract with them (this is my
second with the same team). He sees the value in hiring someone who
knows the software and can ramp up quickly (I know this because he
specifically told me this).
Now I'm working with two products (and actually two different engineering
teams), but one of the products is used in the testing environment for
the other, and I'm having to learn both of them in a fair amount of depth.
They lost a number of their testing team for one of the products, so I'm
guessing that they want me to learn the product they use in their test
lab so I can work with the remaining testing team. I know they want to
bring me in full-time, and that helps for when they finally do get a
position opened (right now, the company is only hiring new people if the
CEO approves it, and they're being VERY tight on engineering jobs and
ramping up sales instead).
> But most of the time, what
> you want is somebody who can be trained to do a job well. An aptitude
> for learning and a willingness to do so ought to be a higher priority
> than merely having some of the relevant knowledge already.
Sometimes, but not as often as it might seem.
Jim
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On 26/08/2012 04:11 AM, Darren New wrote:
> Or maybe the boss' nephew just lost his job and asked to cut to the
> front of the line.
In which case... lucky escape. :-P
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Am 25.08.2012 12:47, schrieb Orchid Win7 v1:
> The hiring manager goes over to the pile of CVs, grabs half of it,
> and chucks it in the bin. "Well, the LAST thing this company needs is
> unlucky people!"
Now THAT is some smart reasoning :-P
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On 25-8-2012 11:25, Stephen wrote:
> On 24/08/2012 5:29 PM, Orchid Win7 v1 wrote:
> When I was working at Motorola my boss told me that he wasn't going to
> hire someone because he had a copy of the daily mail in his pocket. Work
> that one out. o_O
His horoscope?
--
Women are the canaries of science. When they are underrepresented
it is a strong indication that non-scientific factors play a role
and the concentration of incorruptible scientists is also too low
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>> If you need something done in a real hurry, then having somebody who can
>> hit the ground running can be very important.
>
> That's actually the case not just when you need something done in a real
> hurry.
>
> Training employees is expensive. If you hire someone who has exactly
> what you're looking for, it saves you money.
Well, sure.
But remember, we're not talking about training somebody to be an expert
carpenter when they've never sawn a block of wood in their life. We're
talking about taking somebody who's an expert programmer and giving them
two to three weeks to learn a new programming language. If you're going
to employ somebody for 5+ years, then giving them a week or two to learn
a necessary skill is peanuts.
I guess part of it is that the majority of applications apparently lie
to a quite shocking degree. (Exhibit A: Fizz Buzz exists.) Hiring
somebody who can *prove* that they already wrote something in C# (or
whatever) is the safest way to get rid of the utter time wasters. But it
seems a pity to also get rid of some really great people...
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On Tue, 28 Aug 2012 08:43:45 +0100, Invisible wrote:
>>> If you need something done in a real hurry, then having somebody who
>>> can hit the ground running can be very important.
>>
>> That's actually the case not just when you need something done in a
>> real hurry.
>>
>> Training employees is expensive. If you hire someone who has exactly
>> what you're looking for, it saves you money.
>
> Well, sure.
>
> But remember, we're not talking about training somebody to be an expert
> carpenter when they've never sawn a block of wood in their life. We're
> talking about taking somebody who's an expert programmer and giving them
> two to three weeks to learn a new programming language. If you're going
> to employ somebody for 5+ years, then giving them a week or two to learn
> a necessary skill is peanuts.
It depends on the programmer. I've worked with programmers who studied
syntax of the language they're most familiar with (C, for example), who
would be completely lost in C++ because they didn't learn OOP.
Some programmers only learn syntax - and in their language they do pretty
well, but learning a new one is more difficult for them.
Don't make the assumption that because you pick up languages easily that
everyone does.
> I guess part of it is that the majority of applications apparently lie
> to a quite shocking degree. (Exhibit A: Fizz Buzz exists.) Hiring
> somebody who can *prove* that they already wrote something in C# (or
> whatever) is the safest way to get rid of the utter time wasters. But it
> seems a pity to also get rid of some really great people...
That's the nature of hiring - sometimes you miss the right person because
you fail to ask the right questions or they fail to provide answers that
accurately communicate their skills.
Jim
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>>> Training employees is expensive. If you hire someone who has exactly
>>> what you're looking for, it saves you money.
>>
>> Well, sure.
>>
>> But remember, we're not talking about training somebody to be an expert
>> carpenter when they've never sawn a block of wood in their life. We're
>> talking about taking somebody who's an expert programmer and giving them
>> two to three weeks to learn a new programming language. If you're going
>> to employ somebody for 5+ years, then giving them a week or two to learn
>> a necessary skill is peanuts.
>
> It depends on the programmer.
>
> Some programmers only learn syntax - and in their language they do pretty
> well, but learning a new one is more difficult for them.
Well, sure. I've certainly met people who can throw together crappy Java
code, but would be /totally lost/ if they had to actually *learn* a new
programming language. Like, it would take months if not years of
training for them to do that.
And then there are other programmers who already know a dozen languages
and can easily learn a bit of new syntax for another one.
In summary, there are flexible programmers and inflexible ones. I would
argue that the flexible ones are the "good" ones - the ones that will
still be useful to you in the future if you decide to move your codebase
to some other platform. But hey, it's your enterprise; you decide. :-P
(At least, that /would/ be my attitude if it weren't that *every*
enterprise sees only the value of whether you can write the type of code
they want /today/...)
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On Tue, 28 Aug 2012 16:57:11 +0100, Orchid Win7 v1 wrote:
> Well, sure. I've certainly met people who can throw together crappy Java
> code, but would be /totally lost/ if they had to actually *learn* a new
> programming language. Like, it would take months if not years of
> training for them to do that.
Yep.
> And then there are other programmers who already know a dozen languages
> and can easily learn a bit of new syntax for another one.
>
> In summary, there are flexible programmers and inflexible ones. I would
> argue that the flexible ones are the "good" ones - the ones that will
> still be useful to you in the future if you decide to move your codebase
> to some other platform. But hey, it's your enterprise; you decide. :-P
Yes, it comes down to what the /need/ is and how well the candidate meets
the need.
> (At least, that /would/ be my attitude if it weren't that *every*
> enterprise sees only the value of whether you can write the type of code
> they want /today/...)
Well, no, that's not actually the case. It may be what you've seen, but
again, you're giving in to hyperbole and assuming that because you've
talked to a small sample of companies who are looking for 'x' that that
means that that's all anyone is looking for.
Jim
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>> In summary, there are flexible programmers and inflexible ones. I would
>> argue that the flexible ones are the "good" ones - the ones that will
>> still be useful to you in the future if you decide to move your codebase
>> to some other platform. But hey, it's your enterprise; you decide. :-P
>
> Yes, it comes down to what the /need/ is and how well the candidate meets
> the need.
Well, yes, it does depend on what you need. And that no doubt depends
fairly specifically on your individual enterprise.
But what I'm really talking about here is the companies (i.e., almost
all of them) who screen out *all* applicants who do not have skill X
today, without even *speaking* to them to find out what other important
qualities they may or may not have.
This seems an extremely short-sighted approach to hiring.
>> (At least, that /would/ be my attitude if it weren't that *every*
>> enterprise sees only the value of whether you can write the type of code
>> they want /today/...)
>
> Well, no, that's not actually the case. It may be what you've seen, but
> again, you're giving in to hyperbole and assuming that because you've
> talked to a small sample of companies who are looking for 'x' that that
> means that that's all anyone is looking for.
I've applied to several hundred jobs and looked at job descriptions for
several thousand jobs. That seems like a reasonable sample size to me...
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On Tue, 28 Aug 2012 17:06:34 +0100, Orchid Win7 v1 wrote:
>>> In summary, there are flexible programmers and inflexible ones. I
>>> would argue that the flexible ones are the "good" ones - the ones that
>>> will still be useful to you in the future if you decide to move your
>>> codebase to some other platform. But hey, it's your enterprise; you
>>> decide. :-P
>>
>> Yes, it comes down to what the /need/ is and how well the candidate
>> meets the need.
>
> Well, yes, it does depend on what you need. And that no doubt depends
> fairly specifically on your individual enterprise.
>
> But what I'm really talking about here is the companies (i.e., almost
> all of them) who screen out *all* applicants who do not have skill X
> today, without even *speaking* to them to find out what other important
> qualities they may or may not have.
Again, you're making an assumption based on limited experience.
> This seems an extremely short-sighted approach to hiring.
If it were the case that most companies did that, it would be.
>>> (At least, that /would/ be my attitude if it weren't that *every*
>>> enterprise sees only the value of whether you can write the type of
>>> code they want /today/...)
>>
>> Well, no, that's not actually the case. It may be what you've seen,
>> but again, you're giving in to hyperbole and assuming that because
>> you've talked to a small sample of companies who are looking for 'x'
>> that that means that that's all anyone is looking for.
>
> I've applied to several hundred jobs and looked at job descriptions for
> several thousand jobs. That seems like a reasonable sample size to me...
Weren't you the one who was saying something about there being billions
and billions of jobs in the world? What percentage of 'billions and
billions' is 'a few hundred'?
And looking at job descriptions doesn't tell you how the hiring company
is going to respond to an applicant who is missing a few of the
'required' (which is often 'desired' and not a hard requirement) skills
or attributes.
Jim
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On 28/08/2012 06:59 PM, Jim Henderson wrote:
> Again, you're making an assumption based on limited experience.
Well, here's the thing: It is not possible to experience everything that
exists in the entire world. Hence, /everybody/ has to make
generalisations based on the limited data available to them. Following
your chain of logic, you're basically saying that nobody can ever know
anything about anything. :-P
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Am 29.08.2012 09:56, schrieb Invisible:
> On 28/08/2012 06:59 PM, Jim Henderson wrote:
>> Again, you're making an assumption based on limited experience.
>
> Well, here's the thing: It is not possible to experience everything that
> exists in the entire world. Hence, /everybody/ has to make
> generalisations based on the limited data available to them. Following
> your chain of logic, you're basically saying that nobody can ever know
> anything about anything. :-P
And he'd be right with that statement :-P (Well, maybe except such
basics as "I think, therefore I am")
The difference is whether someone expresses their assumptions as
irrefutable facts or as personal assumptions, and whether they take into
account other people's experience in those assumptions.
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On Wed, 29 Aug 2012 08:56:02 +0100, Invisible wrote:
> On 28/08/2012 06:59 PM, Jim Henderson wrote:
>> Again, you're making an assumption based on limited experience.
>
> Well, here's the thing: It is not possible to experience everything that
> exists in the entire world. Hence, /everybody/ has to make
> generalisations based on the limited data available to them. Following
> your chain of logic, you're basically saying that nobody can ever know
> anything about anything. :-P
And when additional information is provided, that additional information
should be incorporated into your thinking, rather than sticking your
fingers in your ears and screaming "lalalallalalalalalala I CAN'T HEAR
YOU!!!!"
;)
Jim
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On Wed, 29 Aug 2012 12:37:25 +0200, clipka wrote:
> Am 29.08.2012 09:56, schrieb Invisible:
>> On 28/08/2012 06:59 PM, Jim Henderson wrote:
>>> Again, you're making an assumption based on limited experience.
>>
>> Well, here's the thing: It is not possible to experience everything
>> that exists in the entire world. Hence, /everybody/ has to make
>> generalisations based on the limited data available to them. Following
>> your chain of logic, you're basically saying that nobody can ever know
>> anything about anything. :-P
>
> And he'd be right with that statement :-P (Well, maybe except such
> basics as "I think, therefore I am")
>
> The difference is whether someone expresses their assumptions as
> irrefutable facts or as personal assumptions, and whether they take into
> account other people's experience in those assumptions.
Well said. :)
Jim
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On 27/08/2012 9:46 PM, andrel wrote:
> On 25-8-2012 11:25, Stephen wrote:
>> On 24/08/2012 5:29 PM, Orchid Win7 v1 wrote:
>
>> When I was working at Motorola my boss told me that he wasn't going to
>> hire someone because he had a copy of the daily mail in his pocket. Work
>> that one out. o_O
>
> His horoscope?
>
Maybe but I find that reading their bumps is more accurate. :-)
(BTW Daily mail -> lower class person.)
--
Regards
Stephen
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On 29-8-2012 22:35, Stephen wrote:
> On 27/08/2012 9:46 PM, andrel wrote:
>> On 25-8-2012 11:25, Stephen wrote:
>>> On 24/08/2012 5:29 PM, Orchid Win7 v1 wrote:
>>
>>> When I was working at Motorola my boss told me that he wasn't going to
>>> hire someone because he had a copy of the daily mail in his pocket. Work
>>> that one out. o_O
>>
>> His horoscope?
>>
>
> Maybe but I find that reading their bumps is more accurate. :-)
>
> (BTW Daily mail -> lower class person.)
Your comment was ambiguous and my answer is for the one you probably did
not intend.
--
Women are the canaries of science. When they are underrepresented
it is a strong indication that non-scientific factors play a role
and the concentration of incorruptible scientists is also too low
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Le 2012-08-28 12:06, Orchid Win7 v1 a écrit :
> I've applied to several hundred jobs and looked at job descriptions for
> several thousand jobs. That seems like a reasonable sample size to me...
With a personalized presentation letter every time? Holy crap!
--
/*Francois Labreque*/#local a=x+y;#local b=x+a;#local c=a+b;#macro P(F//
/* flabreque */L)polygon{5,F,F+z,L+z,L,F pigment{rgb 9}}#end union
/* @ */{P(0,a)P(a,b)P(b,c)P(2*a,2*b)P(2*b,b+c)P(b+c,<2,3>)
/* gmail.com */}camera{orthographic location<6,1.25,-6>look_at a }
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On 24/08/2012 05:29 PM, Orchid Win7 v1 wrote:
>>> /Clearly/ I don't stand a snowball's chance in hell of
>>> getting this job.
>>
>> Holy hell... I think they might actually hire me! o_O
>
> I just got a letter today.
>
> Apparently I am not good enough. (!)
>
> At this point, I'm stunned. I seriously can't imagine what more I could
> have done...
>
> Oh well, I guess I'm back to being bereft of hope.
Dear Andrew,
I write further to your telephone conversation with me and wanted to
provide you with the feedback you requested.
Firstly, I should mention that there has been a vast response to our
advert and a high calibre of candidates.
Following our first round of interviews, it was our intention to create
a shortlist of candidates to progress to second. Unfortunately on this
occasion we made the decision not to progress your application further.
The reasons for this are in relation to your skills set, whilst you
demonstrate some good skills we felt that this was more toward technical
development rather than web based business development.
Thank you for contacting us and I wish you well in your future search
for employment.
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> Dear Andrew,
>
> I write further to your telephone conversation with me and wanted to
> provide you with the feedback you requested.
>
> Firstly, I should mention that there has been a vast response to our
> advert and a high calibre of candidates.
>
> Following our first round of interviews, it was our intention to create
> a shortlist of candidates to progress to second. Unfortunately on this
> occasion we made the decision not to progress your application further.
> The reasons for this are in relation to your skills set, whilst you
> demonstrate some good skills we felt that this was more toward technical
> development rather than web based business development.
>
> Thank you for contacting us and I wish you well in your future search
> for employment.
OK, so it's worse than I thought. It appears that not only did I not get
the job, I didn't even make it to the second round of interviews.
I'm also a little bit concerned about this throw-away sentence about me
having skills for "technical development" rather than "web-based
business development". It's not the first time I've heard such things,
either. The previous interview, the interviewer suggested that I would
be more suited to academia then commercial software development.
Perhaps it's because my CV says Pascal, Eiffel, Haskell, Lisp and
Prolog, rather than saying C, C++, Java, VB and Perl. Perhaps it's
because I build fractal generators and encryption software rather than
content management systems or mobile apps. But for whatever reason, it
seems companies don't see me as being "real world" enough...
Looks like I might just be doomed to unemployment forever. :-(
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>> Following our first round of interviews, it was our intention to create
>> a shortlist of candidates to progress to second. Unfortunately on this
>> occasion we made the decision not to progress your application further.
>> The reasons for this are in relation to your skills set, whilst you
>> demonstrate some good skills we felt that this was more toward technical
>> development rather than web based business development.
>>
>> Thank you for contacting us and I wish you well in your future search
>> for employment.
>
> OK, so it's worse than I thought. It appears that not only did I not get
> the job, I didn't even make it to the second round of interviews.
>
> I'm also a little bit concerned about this throw-away sentence about me
> having skills for "technical development" rather than "web-based
> business development". It's not the first time I've heard such things,
> either. The previous interview, the interviewer suggested that I would
> be more suited to academia then commercial software development.
>
> Perhaps it's because my CV says Pascal, Eiffel, Haskell, Lisp and
> Prolog, rather than saying C, C++, Java, VB and Perl. Perhaps it's
> because I build fractal generators and encryption software rather than
> content management systems or mobile apps. But for whatever reason, it
> seems companies don't see me as being "real world" enough...
>
> Looks like I might just be doomed to unemployment forever. :-(
Or you just applied to the wrong place (not that you can know that
before interviews, or sometimes not even until after you have started).
I got a similar rejection saying I didn't have enough commercial
experience. There are other companies and other jobs out there with
different requirements.
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On Thu, 06 Sep 2012 10:34:14 +0100, Orchid Win7 v1 wrote:
> OK, so it's worse than I thought. It appears that not only did I not get
> the job, I didn't even make it to the second round of interviews.
That happens a lot. And there will be times where you might get to a
second and even a third interview and still not get the job.
That's how this works.
> Looks like I might just be doomed to unemployment forever. :-(
Oh, FFS, Andrew - I've not had full-time permanent work for 16 months.
You've been officially unemployed for what, a week?
It takes more than a handful of interviews sometimes to find a job. You
describe yourself as "old" (hint, you're not), but you act like a
teenager who needs instant gratification on absolutely everything!
Now, don't despair, just move on to the next interview - and the next,
and the next, until you find the right job.
Jim
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Orchid Win7 v1 <voi### [at] dev null> wrote:
> The reasons for this are in relation to your skills set, whilst you
> demonstrate some good skills we felt that this was more toward technical
> development rather than web based business development.
see? You should forget about algorithms with funky russian names and focus more
on customizing PHP CMS toolkits and CSS layouts. Let the PHP technician wizards
do the compsci magic behind it all.
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On 06/09/2012 04:58 PM, nemesis wrote:
> Orchid Win7 v1<voi### [at] devnull> wrote:
>> The reasons for this are in relation to your skills set, whilst you
>> demonstrate some good skills we felt that this was more toward technical
>> development rather than web based business development.
>
> see? You should forget about algorithms with funky russian names and focus more
> on customizing PHP CMS toolkits and CSS layouts. Let the PHP technician wizards
> do the compsci magic behind it all.
Or perhaps look at another career - one that actually makes use of my
skills.
The thing is, I can't think of any career that makes use of an ability
to memorise and apply pointless algorithms...
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On 06/09/2012 04:55 PM, Jim Henderson wrote:
> On Thu, 06 Sep 2012 10:34:14 +0100, Orchid Win7 v1 wrote:
>
>> OK, so it's worse than I thought. It appears that not only did I not get
>> the job, I didn't even make it to the second round of interviews.
>
> That happens a lot. And there will be times where you might get to a
> second and even a third interview and still not get the job.
>
> That's how this works.
If I'd got through multiple rounds of assessment and not got the job, I
could content myself that maybe I was only just beaten by this one other
guy who had something slightly better.
On the other hand, what /actually/ happened is that I failed at the very
first step. So apparently there were a shedload of people far better
than me to choose from.
>> Looks like I might just be doomed to unemployment forever. :-(
>
> Oh, FFS, Andrew - I've not had full-time permanent work for 16 months.
> You've been officially unemployed for what, a week?
You demonstrably have skills that employers want. I don't. And that's
what worries me. Nobody has ever employed me for real money before. I'm
rather concerned that maybe nobody ever will.
> Now, don't despair, just move on to the next interview - and the next,
> and the next, until you find the right job.
You're assuming that there will /be/ a next interview. IME, this is by
no means certain.
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Orchid Win7 v1 wrote:
>
> The thing is, I can't think of any career that makes use of an ability
> to memorise and apply pointless algorithms...
Off the top of my head: research, finance, crypto/security, logistics, data
mining, robotics, communications, marketing, disaster response, management
consulting (resource allocation), econonomics (micro and macro), political
consulting,...
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On Thu, 06 Sep 2012 17:52:48 +0100, Orchid Win7 v1 wrote:
> On 06/09/2012 04:55 PM, Jim Henderson wrote:
>> On Thu, 06 Sep 2012 10:34:14 +0100, Orchid Win7 v1 wrote:
>>
>>> OK, so it's worse than I thought. It appears that not only did I not
>>> get the job, I didn't even make it to the second round of interviews.
>>
>> That happens a lot. And there will be times where you might get to a
>> second and even a third interview and still not get the job.
>>
>> That's how this works.
>
> If I'd got through multiple rounds of assessment and not got the job, I
> could content myself that maybe I was only just beaten by this one other
> guy who had something slightly better.
I've gone through rounds where I was eliminated from consideration at the
first round as well. It's not unusual.
You seem to think that this is unusual. It isn't - this is how job
hunting works.
> On the other hand, what /actually/ happened is that I failed at the very
> first step. So apparently there were a shedload of people far better
> than me to choose from.
Yeah, and I've failed at the very first step as well several times in the
last 16 months. It's how this works. Your situation is not unique - far
from it, it's about as common a situation as people see.
>>> Looks like I might just be doomed to unemployment forever. :-(
>>
>> Oh, FFS, Andrew - I've not had full-time permanent work for 16 months.
>> You've been officially unemployed for what, a week?
>
> You demonstrably have skills that employers want. I don't. And that's
> what worries me. Nobody has ever employed me for real money before. I'm
> rather concerned that maybe nobody ever will.
You have skills - you aren't as good at presenting them largely because
you don't acknowledge your skills. You look at what you can do and don't
think it's special because it's easy for you.
News flash: Things that are easy for you aren't easy for other people.
>> Now, don't despair, just move on to the next interview - and the next,
>> and the next, until you find the right job.
>
> You're assuming that there will /be/ a next interview. IME, this is by
> no means certain.
Your experience is very limited. There will be future interviews, and
you will find something - unless you just give up and declare it
impossible. DON'T DO THAT.
Jim
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>> The thing is, I can't think of any career that makes use of an ability
>> to memorise and apply pointless algorithms...
>
> Off the top of my head:
> research
Seriously? That's a career? Talk about "vague"...
> finance
Wouldn't I need extensive finance qualifications to do that?
> crypto/security
Seriously, almost *nobody* actually does that.
> logistics
Really? I'm sure it's difficult keeping track of stuff, but I don't see
much technical detail involved. It's just about keeping track of a lot
of stuff all at once. It's hard, but it isn't very technical.
> data mining
Does anybody actually do that? I thought it was just a fashionable
middle management buzzword.
> robotics
Is there any commercial application for that?
> communications
From what I've seen, installing comms equipment doesn't require a great
deal of technical skill - you just need to be good at carrying stuff
around and running cables.
> marketing
There's technical expertise in that?
> disaster response
What kind of disaster response requires technical skill?
> management consulting (resource allocation), econonomics (micro and macro),
political
> consulting,...
I'm not even going to pretend to understand what any of those are.
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On Thu, 06 Sep 2012 20:05:24 +0100, Orchid Win7 v1 wrote:
>> research
>
> Seriously? That's a career? Talk about "vague"...
<sigh>
>> finance
>
> Wouldn't I need extensive finance qualifications to do that?
Being good with numbers is a qualification for being able to do finance,
and you're demonstrably good with numbers.
>> crypto/security
>
> Seriously, almost *nobody* actually does that.
Bullshit. I'm presently working with two teams that are knee-deep in
crypto and security work. Identity management, authentication, etc - all
use that extensively.
>> data mining
>
> Does anybody actually do that? I thought it was just a fashionable
> middle management buzzword.
Yes. See "Business Intelligence". Data-driven decision making is
something that a lot of businesses do, and they tend to be successful.
>> robotics
>
> Is there any commercial application for that?
Manufacturing uses robotics in a huge way.
>> communications
>
> From what I've seen, installing comms equipment doesn't require a great
> deal of technical skill - you just need to be good at carrying stuff
> around and running cables.
I'll be sure to tell the highly-paid network engineers I've worked with
that you said that. ;)
>> marketing
>
> There's technical expertise in that?
Yes. Writing marketing copy that actually convinces technical people
requires technical expertise.
>> disaster response
>
> What kind of disaster response requires technical skill?
Your data center has burned to the ground. Recover it.
Yeah, that takes a lot of technical skill - and ability to use those
skills quickly to get the services running as soon as possible.
Jim
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Le 2012-09-06 15:05, Orchid Win7 v1 a écrit :
>>> The thing is, I can't think of any career that makes use of an ability
>>> to memorise and apply pointless algorithms...
>>
>> Off the top of my head:
>
>> research
>
> Seriously? That's a career? Talk about "vague"...
>
Every company that manufactures stuff has a R&D dept. Every university
has professors doing a lot of R and a little D to pay for more R.
Nowadays, most of these people will need computer simulation programs,
statistical data analysis, etc...
You already have some chemical knowledge acquired by osmosis, why not
try to focus on bio-tech or pharmaceutical companies?
>> finance
>
> Wouldn't I need extensive finance qualifications to do that?
>
To become a floor trader at the stock exchange, sure. But to crunch the
mountains of numbers that the financial industry needs to crunch, no.
There would be other people with the financial knowledge who would tell
you which pile of numbers needs to be regression-tested against what
other pile of numbers and please apply So-And-So's (here,s the article
that talks about it) formula to determine if it's a good investment or not.
>> crypto/security
>
> Seriously, almost *nobody* actually does that.
>
Right. And encryption/decryption algoritms sprout from trees?
>> logistics
>
> Really? I'm sure it's difficult keeping track of stuff, but I don't see
> much technical detail involved. It's just about keeping track of a lot
> of stuff all at once. It's hard, but it isn't very technical.
>
Planning bus routes, garbabe disposal truck routes, snow removal routes,
etc... are not exactly trivial. Making sure there's actually a plane,
preferably in working order, at gate 23B for the 6 o'clock flight, and a
flight crew and a cabin crew, and a ground crew to take care of the
loading/deloading, can be quite a task. Operational reasearch is a
field of mathematics that is quite active, and those mathematicians need
programmers who also can understand them. You'd fit nicely.
>> data mining
>
> Does anybody actually do that? I thought it was just a fashionable
> middle management buzzword.
>
See airline example above. They don't decide to put an Airbus 319 or
388 on each flight just for the fun of it. There's very extensive data
analysis that goes in to determine the best aircraft size for a
particular flight, and that analysis comes from crunching as much of
the previous passenger stats they can. Most industries also do so at
all levels to see how many widgets to pre-order to keep the aseembly
line running, without having to pay for a larger than necessary
warehouse. When to time your yearly discounts, how to target your
advertizing campaigns. Etc...
>> robotics
>
> Is there any commercial application for that?
>
Apart from all the manufacturing that's done by automation, even today's
dishwashers have programmable controllers that can sense the dirtiness
of the dishes and adjust the cycles accordingly. If I was named Sarah
Connor, I'd be worried at the moment.
>> communications
>
> From what I've seen, installing comms equipment doesn't require a great
> deal of technical skill - you just need to be good at carrying stuff
> around and running cables.
>
Right. That's because the shmuck who has to go onsite to run the cables
isn't the one who has to keep them running. It's like if you'd said
"mechanical engineering doesn't look that hard... I mean the guy at the
gas station barely does anything".
>> disaster response
>
> What kind of disaster response requires technical skill?
>
Planning to avoid them, and planning to deal with them when they can't
be avoided. And dealing with them once you're knee deep in the water
and the roof has flown 5 miles away. all of these steps require as
much, if not more, technical-know how than heavy lifting.
--
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/* flabreque */L)polygon{5,F,F+z,L+z,L,F pigment{rgb 9}}#end union
/* @ */{P(0,a)P(a,b)P(b,c)P(2*a,2*b)P(2*b,b+c)P(b+c,<2,3>)
/* gmail.com */}camera{orthographic location<6,1.25,-6>look_at a }
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> I've gone through rounds where I was eliminated from consideration at the
> first round as well. It's not unusual.
+1 from me. I applied to numerous jobs where I heard *nothing* back,
then the ones that replied and said no straight away, then the ones who
gave me a telephone interview and said no afterwards, then the one that
said that they weren't sure about me, but would interview me if I paid
my own travel (it was in a different country). Then the ones where you
actually get to have a real interview and it seems to have gone well but
they still say no. It's completely normal, what is not normal is to
apply for one or two jobs and then get one of them straight away.
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>>> finance
>>
>> Wouldn't I need extensive finance qualifications to do that?
>
> Being good with numbers is a qualification for being able to do finance,
> and you're demonstrably good with numbers.
Ironically, I'm really quite bad with numbers. I'm good with /equations/...
>>> crypto/security
>>
>> Seriously, almost *nobody* actually does that.
>
> Bullshit. I'm presently working with two teams that are knee-deep in
> crypto and security work. Identity management, authentication, etc - all
> use that extensively.
You're telling me there are more than three people on Earth who actually
design ciphers?
>>> data mining
>>
>> Does anybody actually do that? I thought it was just a fashionable
>> middle management buzzword.
>
> Yes. See "Business Intelligence". Data-driven decision making is
> something that a lot of businesses do, and they tend to be successful.
I would have thought that querying the data to get the numbers you want
is the /easy/ part. The hard part, surely, is figuring out what
questions to ask in the first place. And that is out of my league.
>>> robotics
>>
>> Is there any commercial application for that?
>
> Manufacturing uses robotics in a huge way.
OK. But those robots already exist. Why would you ever need to design more?
>>> communications
>>
>> From what I've seen, installing comms equipment doesn't require a great
>> deal of technical skill - you just need to be good at carrying stuff
>> around and running cables.
>
> I'll be sure to tell the highly-paid network engineers I've worked with
> that you said that. ;)
OK.
>>> marketing
>>
>> There's technical expertise in that?
>
> Yes. Writing marketing copy that actually convinces technical people
> requires technical expertise.
You must be looking at very different "marketing copy" than the stuff
I've seen.
Typically you get a picture of something expensive - a server, a disk
enclosure, whatever - and a paragraph of fancy middle management
power-word bullocks about how the company offer you "synergistic
solutions" to "streamline" your operations and "leverage" legacy assets
with their "revolutionary innovations" - hell no, I can't even type this
stuff! >_<
In particular, such material is utterly devoid of even the slightest
hint of technical detail. Lots of hand-waving about "total cost of
ownership" and "return on investment" and so forth, but no technical
specifications, and no prices.
>>> disaster response
>>
>> What kind of disaster response requires technical skill?
>
> Your data center has burned to the ground. Recover it.
>
> Yeah, that takes a lot of technical skill - and ability to use those
> skills quickly to get the services running as soon as possible.
Or rather, it requires technical skill to design the data center
correctly in the first place. By the time a disaster actually occurs, it
should be easy enough that a trained monkey could do the actual recovery
part...
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On 06/09/2012 10:56 PM, Francois Labreque wrote:
> Le 2012-09-06 15:05, Orchid Win7 v1 a écrit :
>>>> The thing is, I can't think of any career that makes use of an ability
>>>> to memorise and apply pointless algorithms...
>>>
>>> Off the top of my head:
>>
>>> research
>>
>> Seriously? That's a career? Talk about "vague"...
>>
>
> Every company that manufactures stuff has a R&D dept. Every university
> has professors doing a lot of R and a little D to pay for more R.
OK, well "research" is rather vague. It could mean almost /anything/.
"Motor design research" sounds like something that could be an actual
career.
> You already have some chemical knowledge acquired by osmosis, why not
> try to focus on bio-tech or pharmaceutical companies?
Because the bio-tech industry is going south in a big way currently.
(Actually, this arguably applies to /every/ industry right now...)
>>> finance
>>
>> Wouldn't I need extensive finance qualifications to do that?
>
> To become a floor trader at the stock exchange, sure. But to crunch the
> mountains of numbers that the financial industry needs to crunch, no.
It's interesting; one of the careers advisors I went to see advised me
to go into financial modelling. Trouble is, when I looked into it,
nobody is the slightest bit interested unless you have a PhD.
Also, the financial industry is kind of ground-zero of the current
global recession...
>>> crypto/security
>>
>> Seriously, almost *nobody* actually does that.
>>
>
> Right. And encryption/decryption algoritms sprout from trees?
From what I've seen, there are, like, three academics globally who
write the vast majority of this stuff. And there are already /way/ more
ciphers in existence than anybody actually wants or needs.
>>> logistics
>>
>> Really? I'm sure it's difficult keeping track of stuff, but I don't see
>> much technical detail involved. It's just about keeping track of a lot
>> of stuff all at once. It's hard, but it isn't very technical.
>
> Planning bus routes, garbabe disposal truck routes, snow removal routes,
> etc... are not exactly trivial.
I didn't say it's /easy/, I said it isn't very /technical/. It's
difficult for mundane, real-world reasons, not because the maths is hard.
> Operational reasearch is a field
> of mathematics that is quite active, and those mathematicians need
> programmers who also can understand them. You'd fit nicely.
Really? There's actually mathematics involved in remembering to do stuff?
>>> data mining
>>
>> Does anybody actually do that? I thought it was just a fashionable
>> middle management buzzword.
>
> See airline example above. They don't decide to put an Airbus 319 or 388
> on each flight just for the fun of it. There's very extensive data
> analysis that goes in to determine the best aircraft size for a
> particular flight, and that analysis comes from crunching as much of the
> previous passenger stats they can. Most industries also do so at all
> levels to see how many widgets to pre-order to keep the aseembly line
> running, without having to pay for a larger than necessary warehouse.
> When to time your yearly discounts, how to target your advertizing
> campaigns. Etc...
All of that sounds to me like an extremely specialised, extremely small
niche role that would be almost impossible to get hired for.
>>> robotics
>>
>> Is there any commercial application for that?
>>
>
> Apart from all the manufacturing that's done by automation, even today's
> dishwashers have programmable controllers that can sense the dirtiness
> of the dishes and adjust the cycles accordingly. If I was named Sarah
> Connor, I'd be worried at the moment.
Sure, there are autonomous machines all around us. I don't think that
designing or programming them requires a vast amount of technical
knowledge - just extensive testing and experimentation.
>>> communications
>>
>> From what I've seen, installing comms equipment doesn't require a great
>> deal of technical skill - you just need to be good at carrying stuff
>> around and running cables.
>
> Right. That's because the shmuck who has to go onsite to run the cables
> isn't the one who has to keep them running. It's like if you'd said
> "mechanical engineering doesn't look that hard... I mean the guy at the
> gas station barely does anything".
Again, "communications" could mean just about anything.
If you mean the 3 people on Earth who design the protocol stacks...
well, those have already been designed. And we already have the 3 people
who design them.
If you mean the people who design switches and routers and so forth...
then there's maybe, what, 6 companies globally who make the hardware for
that. And it's already been designed. And they already have the 20 or so
employees each who do that work, so they aren't hiring. And besides, I'm
no electrical engineer.
If you mean something else...
>>> disaster response
>>
>> What kind of disaster response requires technical skill?
>
> Planning to avoid them, and planning to deal with them when they can't
> be avoided. And dealing with them once you're knee deep in the water and
> the roof has flown 5 miles away. all of these steps require as much, if
> not more, technical-know how than heavy lifting.
When I wrote our disaster recovery plan, it was /way/ easier than a
trivial programming exercise.
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>> Manufacturing uses robotics in a huge way.
>
> OK. But those robots already exist. Why would you ever need to design more?
Competition. If you don't design new robots that are faster, more
accurate, more versatile and cheaper than your previous generation, your
customers will buy their robots from someone who has designed new ones.
It's the same for pretty much every product.
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>> Planning bus routes, garbabe disposal truck routes, snow removal routes,
>> etc... are not exactly trivial.
>
> I didn't say it's /easy/, I said it isn't very /technical/. It's
> difficult for mundane, real-world reasons, not because the maths is hard.
The skills needed are how to translate the real world situation to a
mathematical model, and then knowing which tools to use to
optimise/solve it. Most of the time that is not trivial from a
mathematical point of view.
A very simple example is staff rotas, you have a certain number of staff
that all have contracted hours, you have a requirement for a certain
number of staff each hour each day, how to minimise overtime costs and
maintain enough cover? It's not the sort of thing you can solve in 5
minutes on Excel, or even write a trivial brute force search for (unless
you have a supercomputer). If you are able to save a few % of overtime
pay for a large company that equals lots of $$$.
Another example is which products to make on a production line. You know
the order numbers, the stock levels, how long it takes to change over
each cell/machine etc, what is the optimum pattern of production to
maximise profit?
Those seem to me like the sort of things you would be good at and enjoy.
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> The skills needed are how to translate the real world situation to a
> mathematical model, and then knowing which tools to use to
> optimise/solve it. Most of the time that is not trivial from a
> mathematical point of view.
>
> A very simple example is staff rotas, you have a certain number of staff
> that all have contracted hours, you have a requirement for a certain
> number of staff each hour each day, how to minimise overtime costs and
> maintain enough cover? It's not the sort of thing you can solve in 5
> minutes on Excel, or even write a trivial brute force search for (unless
> you have a supercomputer). If you are able to save a few % of overtime
> pay for a large company that equals lots of $$$.
>
> Another example is which products to make on a production line. You know
> the order numbers, the stock levels, how long it takes to change over
> each cell/machine etc, what is the optimum pattern of production to
> maximise profit?
>
> Those seem to me like the sort of things you would be good at and enjoy.
Those seem to me like the sort of things that get worked out, once and
for all, and then maybe changed perhaps twice per decade. Not the sort
of thing you hire a full time employee for.
And for that matter, if I can't get employment as a computer programmer
- something which is in great demand and which I am provably good at -
what are the chances of me getting hired for an obscure job that almost
nobody needs which I'm probably not even very good at?
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> Those seem to me like the sort of things that get worked out, once and
> for all, and then maybe changed perhaps twice per decade. Not the sort
> of thing you hire a full time employee for.
From my experience those sorts of things are always under continuous
development. Like there will be a list of additions and changes that is
never ending (because items are added faster than the people can
implement them). Again, part of the skill is trying to predict how
general to make the optimisation, as often the management won't be much
help (they'll come back and demand you implement some feature they
plainly said they would never ever want 3 months earlier).
> And for that matter, if I can't get employment as a computer programmer
> - something which is in great demand and which I am provably good at -
I think there's a difference between coding what someone else tells you
to, and coming up with the ideas yourself. I would have you'd be much
better (and find more enjoyable) the latter.
> what are the chances of me getting hired for an obscure job that almost
> nobody needs which I'm probably not even very good at?
You're probably better off trying to get in to a large company as
something vaguely IT related and then finding ways to show off your
skills. That's often how it works.
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>> what are the chances of me getting hired for an obscure job that almost
>> nobody needs which I'm probably not even very good at?
>
> You're probably better off trying to get in to a large company as
> something vaguely IT related and then finding ways to show off your
> skills. That's often how it works.
Interestingly, the last two interviews I've been to have both been
companies that said "We're quite small, but we're growing. We think we
need more people, but we haven't really decided exactly what we want
yet." It /looks/ as if those are the sorts of places where you might be
able to dictate your own terms.
On the other hand, most small companies probably don't know who is or
isn't a rare find quite so well as a big company. And small companies
have no need to optimise tiny details of their operations; a small
improvement multiplied by a small number is a small profit. A small
improvement multiplied by a frickin' HUGE number represents a
substantial profit...
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> Interestingly, the last two interviews I've been to have both been
> companies that said "We're quite small, but we're growing. We think we
> need more people, but we haven't really decided exactly what we want
> yet." It /looks/ as if those are the sorts of places where you might be
> able to dictate your own terms.
True, the other way to look at it is that in large companies there is
more scope to move about and work on different (=more interesting) things.
> On the other hand, most small companies probably don't know who is or
> isn't a rare find quite so well as a big company. And small companies
> have no need to optimise tiny details of their operations; a small
> improvement multiplied by a small number is a small profit. A small
> improvement multiplied by a frickin' HUGE number represents a
> substantial profit...
And don't forget in the end the company interviewing you is looking at
you as an investment. Will you make more money for the company than the
amount they have to pay you.
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Le 2012-09-07 06:36, Orchid Win7 v1 a écrit :
> On 06/09/2012 10:56 PM, Francois Labreque wrote:
>> You already have some chemical knowledge acquired by osmosis, why not
>> try to focus on bio-tech or pharmaceutical companies?
>
> Because the bio-tech industry is going south in a big way currently.
> (Actually, this arguably applies to /every/ industry right now...)
>
They still have job openings. Are you looking to put food on your table
next week, of for a career that will last until you retire?
>> Right. And encryption/decryption algoritms sprout from trees?
>
> From what I've seen, there are, like, three academics globally who
> write the vast majority of this stuff. And there are already /way/ more
> ciphers in existence than anybody actually wants or needs.
>
Ok. And no one ever needs to implement those algorithms?
>>>> logistics
>>>
>>> Really? I'm sure it's difficult keeping track of stuff, but I don't see
>>> much technical detail involved. It's just about keeping track of a lot
>>> of stuff all at once. It's hard, but it isn't very technical.
>>
>> Planning bus routes, garbabe disposal truck routes, snow removal routes,
>> etc... are not exactly trivial.
>
> I didn't say it's /easy/, I said it isn't very /technical/. It's
> difficult for mundane, real-world reasons, not because the maths is hard.
>
>> Operational reasearch is a field
>> of mathematics that is quite active, and those mathematicians need
>> programmers who also can understand them. You'd fit nicely.
>
> Really? There's actually mathematics involved in remembering to do stuff?
>
http://lmgtfy.com/?q=operational+research
Remembering to do stuff is only part of it. Doing all of the stuff
efficiently is a lot harder. You have to optimize the routes so that
each truck picks as much garbage as possible without having to reuse the
same street (to save fuel, and because old ladies complain about the
racket), to minimize the number of trucks used (to save moeny on
maintenance and crew salaries) and to minimize the time it takes to the
job (again old ladies complaining about trash bins on the sidewalks).
>>>> data mining
>>>
>>> Does anybody actually do that? I thought it was just a fashionable
>>> middle management buzzword.
>>
>> See airline example above. They don't decide to put an Airbus 319 or 388
>> on each flight just for the fun of it. There's very extensive data
>> analysis that goes in to determine the best aircraft size for a
>> particular flight, and that analysis comes from crunching as much of the
>> previous passenger stats they can. Most industries also do so at all
>> levels to see how many widgets to pre-order to keep the aseembly line
>> running, without having to pay for a larger than necessary warehouse.
>> When to time your yearly discounts, how to target your advertizing
>> campaigns. Etc...
>
> All of that sounds to me like an extremely specialised, extremely small
> niche role that would be almost impossible to get hired for.
>
Who cares if it's almost impossible to get hired? You can still try.
The worst that can come out of it is that you get told "no".
I used one example. There are many more. You said in another reply
that you thought the biggest problem was asking the right question.
It's more than that. It's asking the right question in the right order.
'SELECT name, phonenumber, sex, age, status FROM TABLE
MiltonKeynesResidents WHERE sex = "f" AND (age > 18 AND age < 29) AND
status = "single"' will return results a lot faster if you first get
only the 18-29 age bracket, because it then makes a smaller subset of
the population for which to check their status or sex. Moreover, if you
add other criteria such as 'WHERE father.sport <> "karate"' optimizing
the queries properly can give you much faster results (Apologies if the
SQL is nessed up).
You did say you had Oracle experience. Even if you don't have a lot of
experience with it, you could look for DBA jobs, or even jobs where
they're looking for Crystal Reports knowledge. This means they want
someone to produce nice-looking reports from a DB backend. you could
use this as to get your foot in the door, and then move up from there.
>>>> robotics
>>>
>>> Is there any commercial application for that?
>>>
>>
>> Apart from all the manufacturing that's done by automation, even today's
>> dishwashers have programmable controllers that can sense the dirtiness
>> of the dishes and adjust the cycles accordingly. If I was named Sarah
>> Connor, I'd be worried at the moment.
>
> Sure, there are autonomous machines all around us. I don't think that
> designing or programming them requires a vast amount of technical
> knowledge - just extensive testing and experimentation.
>
Nope, no technical knowledge at all. Just farting around with legos.
http://s1.lemde.fr/image/2012/08/02/540x0/1741894_5_d417_le-nouveau-rover-martien-de-la-nasa-curiosity_9df653ffb46806f83c2f7d6e1516a8d1.jpg
Seriously. STOP WITH THE PRECONCIEVED NOTIONS. Unlearn everything, you
must.
>>>> communications
>>>
>>> From what I've seen, installing comms equipment doesn't require a great
>>> deal of technical skill - you just need to be good at carrying stuff
>>> around and running cables.
>>
>> Right. That's because the shmuck who has to go onsite to run the cables
>> isn't the one who has to keep them running. It's like if you'd said
>> "mechanical engineering doesn't look that hard... I mean the guy at the
>> gas station barely does anything".
>
> Again, "communications" could mean just about anything.
>
> If you mean the 3 people on Earth who design the protocol stacks...
> well, those have already been designed. And we already have the 3 people
> who design them.
>
> If you mean the people who design switches and routers and so forth...
> then there's maybe, what, 6 companies globally who make the hardware for
> that. And it's already been designed. And they already have the 20 or so
> employees each who do that work, so they aren't hiring. And besides, I'm
> no electrical engineer.
>
What about the millions of companies that USE those equipment? You've
already said in this forum that it was impossibly complicated to program
a Cisco switch, yet here you are saying the exact opposite! I get that
it may not be your favorite field of work, nor your best field of
expertise, but at least be constistent in your dismissal of it!
> If you mean something else...
>
>>>> disaster response
>>>
>>> What kind of disaster response requires technical skill?
>>
>> Planning to avoid them, and planning to deal with them when they can't
>> be avoided. And dealing with them once you're knee deep in the water and
>> the roof has flown 5 miles away. all of these steps require as much, if
>> not more, technical-know how than heavy lifting.
>
> When I wrote our disaster recovery plan, it was /way/ easier than a
> trivial programming exercise.
How many 9s of uptime did your company require? "we can live with being
offline for a few days" is not the same thing as "99.999% uptime or we
will be Fukushima'ed".
All kidding aside, as I've said in earlier replies, I've had to do lots
of hiring in the past - and dated a HR rep for a few years - so send me
your C.V. and a typical presentation letter, I'll see if there's
something you could easily improve with them.
--
/*Francois Labreque*/#local a=x+y;#local b=x+a;#local c=a+b;#macro P(F//
/* flabreque */L)polygon{5,F,F+z,L+z,L,F pigment{rgb 9}}#end union
/* @ */{P(0,a)P(a,b)P(b,c)P(2*a,2*b)P(2*b,b+c)P(b+c,<2,3>)
/* gmail.com */}camera{orthographic location<6,1.25,-6>look_at a }
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> Sure, there are autonomous machines all around us. I don't think that
> designing or programming them requires a vast amount of technical
> knowledge - just extensive testing and experimentation.
That's a very bad way to design products, it's expensive and time
consuming, and liable to create a product with lots of bugs you don't
find until they're out in the field. Far better to get people with vast
technical knowledge to properly design the product in the first place,
the actual product testing should just be a formality, not a tool to
find the best design.
But don't worry, you're not alone in underestimating the amount of
design work that goes into everyday products. Once you've been to a few
conferences on design and simulation software you realise that nothing
is just designed by trial and error. For example even the part of your
dishwasher that contains the salt to soften the water has been carefully
studied, designed and simulated to minimise salt use, pressure drop and
material costs. Certainly some person didn't just draw it out and say
"that'll work, let's test it" and then maybe make a couple of tweaks.
You wouldn't survive 5 minutes if your company worked like that.
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On Fri, 07 Sep 2012 11:24:02 +0100, Orchid Win7 v1 wrote:
>>>> crypto/security
>>>
>>> Seriously, almost *nobody* actually does that.
>>
>> Bullshit. I'm presently working with two teams that are knee-deep in
>> crypto and security work. Identity management, authentication, etc -
>> all use that extensively.
>
> You're telling me there are more than three people on Earth who actually
> design ciphers?
crypto/security isn't just about designing ciphers.
And I'm telling you that there are more than 3 people who work with crypto
and security.
>> Yes. See "Business Intelligence". Data-driven decision making is
>> something that a lot of businesses do, and they tend to be successful.
>
> I would have thought that querying the data to get the numbers you want
> is the /easy/ part. The hard part, surely, is figuring out what
> questions to ask in the first place. And that is out of my league.
Sometimes querying the data or figuring out what data you need is
actually fairly tricky, as is using the data that's available to try to
answer questions that are better answered with data that you don't have
and can't get.
>>>> robotics
>>>
>>> Is there any commercial application for that?
>>
>> Manufacturing uses robotics in a huge way.
>
> OK. But those robots already exist. Why would you ever need to design
> more?
Because not all the robots that are in use are optimum for the jobs they
do, additional manufacturing that currently is manual labour can be
automated - there are lots of applications still being developed.
Not all the robots that could ever be developed or could be useful have
been made yet. You /do/ realise this, don't you?
>>>> marketing
>>>
>>> There's technical expertise in that?
>>
>> Yes. Writing marketing copy that actually convinces technical people
>> requires technical expertise.
>
> You must be looking at very different "marketing copy" than the stuff
> I've seen.
Quite possibly. I've also been involved in creating some.
> Typically you get a picture of something expensive - a server, a disk
> enclosure, whatever - and a paragraph of fancy middle management
> power-word bullocks about how the company offer you "synergistic
> solutions" to "streamline" your operations and "leverage" legacy assets
> with their "revolutionary innovations" - hell no, I can't even type this
> stuff! >_<
That's "non-technical" marketing, designed to convince management types,
not marketing designed to convince technical types.
> In particular, such material is utterly devoid of even the slightest
> hint of technical detail. Lots of hand-waving about "total cost of
> ownership" and "return on investment" and so forth, but no technical
> specifications, and no prices.
You've never seen a technical specifications sheet - ever?
>>>> disaster response
>>>
>>> What kind of disaster response requires technical skill?
>>
>> Your data center has burned to the ground. Recover it.
>>
>> Yeah, that takes a lot of technical skill - and ability to use those
>> skills quickly to get the services running as soon as possible.
>
> Or rather, it requires technical skill to design the data center
> correctly in the first place. By the time a disaster actually occurs, it
> should be easy enough that a trained monkey could do the actual recovery
> part...
That's not actually how it works. I know from having worked on DR plans
for large and small companies.
Jim
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