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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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