Has anyone else noticed... (Lack of skills) 6

[Albion]

Has anyone else noticed that the IT field is getting filled up with people who haven't a clue about computers? I have a friend who was a proxy administrator a year or so back. He'd always complain about how all the help desk issues would get dumped on him because no one in help desk had a clue about the problems at hand. It got to the point where he couldn't do his own job because he was doing the jobs of helpdesk all the time. No wonder he quit after 6 months. I had to deal with an "MCSE" who once came to me and asked what an "Insert CD" message was. What is going through the heads of these HR people? Do they see a few certs on a resume and hire these people to fill some quota? Really, no wonder so many good IT people are out of work, they're giving all the jobs to idiots who'll work for minimum wage.

Has anyone else noticed this trend in the It industry?

-al

 

[ghijkl]

SemperFiDownUnda says -
"When I was in a perminate role we had the HR manager there for 1 reason....she was a psychologist and handled the people skills portion of the interview. Just like I wouldn't want her to do the technical portion of the interview I wouldn't want most propelor heads doing the people skills portion"
This sounds like the eighties view of IT. The "propeller heads" were the IT practitioners of the time. The people who called them that were the managers of the time. The situation was the same as it is now - at some level in the organization, practical knowledge of IT became thin on the ground.
Now by undermining those who have an understanding of the problem, they can be removed from the decision making cycle. This allows managers to make comfortable decisions, not necessarily connected with reality, but because the problem is endemic, rarely is a manager fired for the (always) excessive costs and project overruns and project cutbacks.
And of course those same incompetent managers have no hope of picking a good IT practitioner, so they contract the hiring out to HR, or in Australia to a recruitment agency. And of course they accept one of the people from the agency. (Of course the agency staff know less about IT than even the managers.)
And so it goes on.
One observation - the new person from the agency is usually assessed fairly accurately by the "propeller heads" on the first day.
Who should be interviewing?

 

[svanels]

Yeah if the IT manager is the brother of the president of PeeWee's football team, and the HR manager is the sister in law, you will have these situations. Reminds me of the dot.com explosion

Steven van Els
SAvanEls@cq-link.sr

 

[SemperFiDownUnda]

ghijkl - I'm not sure if you took offence but you have to admit the types of people that are best technically often don't have a strong background in psychoanalyzing an applicant objectively. Its not our jobs as technical people. Like I say the best interview involve 3 people. 1 manager type, 1 tech type, one psychology type. Now most companies might not have a qualified person for the 3rd roll. So you can drop back to just the 2.

I'm in Australia too. I go through agencies for work but they are just a first pass. Most contracts I go for I have to sit an actual interview with normally 2 or more people. Atleast 1 manager and 1 technical. In fact I went for a hour and a half interview last night with that situation. This is after a 45 minute interview with the agency. If I get short listed I still have 1 more interview to go through at the company.

Computer type people might like to believe that they are highly socialable people with great inter personal skills. But look around. You might not be one of them but a large majority of computer savvy people I wouldn't want infront of a customer alone. Its a fact of life. Most professions attrack a certian type of person. Its like accountants tend to be highly organised and not very spontanious. I was a Marine for 6 years. There is certian type of person that is drawn to the military in general. I'm not say everyone in a profession is the same. I'm saying many professions have a high ratio of a given type of person depending on what that profession is. You don't see many people becoming doctors that don't like the sight of blood.

 

[svanels]

Maybe computer minded people have better understanding of the "technical problems" but in a lot of cases they have more problems communicating or explaining to other mere mortals in plain english (or whatever) who don't think in Gb, MHz or tcp/ip

But that is not restricted to IT people only, ever tried an intelligent conversation with a heavy equipment field mechanic?



Steven van Els
SAvanEls@cq-link.sr

 

[skiflyer]

semper

I don't see any need to go as far as you're saying. I don't think it matters whether a large chunk of computer professionals have no ability or tons of ability to interview on this and that levels. The point to me is that (in general) computer people are X. We have been paid for and trained for X. Are responsbilities are X. Hence, that is the only thing to be assumed about us. We may also excel in Y and Z, but when speaking generally about the profession this doesn't really matter. We're here because of X, not Y and Z. If the company is capable hire someone who is trained for Y and Z. If the company is capable than realize my potential in Y and Z, and consider me someone who is trained in three specialities, treat my responsibilities as such.

Basically I'm saying there's no need to generalize what we're good and not good at... it's sufficient to me to say, I'm here to code, not interview. I have no special skills in doing a simple interview, but if you have a cnadidate who has passed one, I'll gladly do your technical interview.

I hope I made sense, it's a simple topic to me, but sometimes those are the hardest to explain.

-Rob

 

[SemperFiDownUnda]

skiflyer - I understand you and agree.

Basically when you hire someone normally you are not only hiring them to do job x but also have to concider them in other aspects like how they will interact with others in the organisation and how they will personally fit in a position.

Back to the original discussion though. It is about someone being hired that couldn't do the job they where hired to do and then people pointing the fingers at others because this incompitent person was hired. It was being blamed on HR. What I'm saying is there is a shout of "It wasn't me that hire them it was them!". People need to take responsibility. If there is a problem with your companies hiring proceedures then get it fixed. This is especially true if it effects you. You'll find holes in hiring sure. But you can reduce those holes. If you just depend on a mgr's view of an applicant there is a chance that they can get snow balled if they aren't savvy enough technically (which incidently isn't their job). If you depend on HR the same thing happens. If you depend just on a tech guy then you also expose yourself to risk. For example my first interview (which I got the job) after leaving the Marine Corps I was interviewed by a panel of 12 developers and 2 managers. Now granted that is a huge expendature when you concider that is 14 man hours per interview. Overall it went well. We kept that practice up and it just became part of our job to interview applicants. We'd get to ask technical questions and generic questions to get a feel for the applicant. This went smooth for the first 5 panels I was on until the 6th interview. The difference this time was we had a programmer down from the Canadian office that joined in the interview. When he asked a question to the applicant all the the other developers just looked at him and I litterally said "WHAT?!". His question made no sense and looked as if it was more to try to make him look impressive in the eyes of the managers then to get info from the applicant. Now my point is that the more people that interview someone the better chance you'll get a good fit. Microsoft here do well over a dozen different interviews (per person) for a position.

Agian, if your company is hiring people not qualified then look at your company's proceedures and fix them. Don't just throw your hands up and point at someone and say its their fault. If your not part of the solution your part of the problem.

 

[Tarwn]

I wonder how long it will take until we wil have to hire a liason to go through the interview with the manager and then just do the technical interview ourselves.

Maybe we could just call them engineers in the Universal Society of Engineering Liasons Extending Software Solutions

-Tarwn

[sub]01010100 01101001 01100101 01110010 01101110 01101111 01101011 00101110 01100011 01101111 01101101 [/sub]
[sup]29 3K 10 3D 3L 3J 3K 10 32 35 10 3E 39 33 35 10 3K 3F 10 38 31 3M 35 10 36 3I 35 35 10 3K 39 3D 35 10 1Q 19[/sup]
Do you know how hot your computer is running at home? I do

http://www.tiernok.com/hscripts/systemp.asp

 

[onpnt]

Universal Society of Engineering Liasons Extending Software Solutions

Great!!!! Another title for someone to make them sound important. Don't forget the VP in front of it.


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[BJCooperIT]

Personally, I would not want to have my signature be:

BJCooperIT
USELESS


[sup]Beware of false knowledge; it is more dangerous than ignorance.[/sup][sup] ~George Bernard Shaw[/sup]
Consultant/Custom Forms & PL/SQL - Oracle 8.1.7 - Windows 2000

 

[Onyxpurr]

Another idea would be to start incorporating testing again, this way you would not have to inlcude the technology person. Simply have IT build a simple technical test that would require any applicant to meet a certain percentage in order to go forward with the interviewing.

I.E. Joe Schmoe would have to acheive an 80% or better on the test to continue interviewing w/ HR.

This way you would also be able to weed out the BS'ers. (not referring to degrees <grin>)

 

[dogbert2]

I agree with this approach, the ones who pass the exam at whatever the cutoff level is get the interview, the ones who don't, need to study harder. If all goes well, you can whittle 100 applications down to about 20-25 (or less, depending on the subject matter being tested).

 

[guestgulkan]

Here is a question for you all?

How many of you actually took a practical test as part of your interview (whether knocking up a small program or connecting a couple of PC's together)??

 

[BJCooperIT]

Once I had to write a report in RPG for an interview. Thought it was a slick way the prospective employer could get a program written for free.

[sup]Beware of false knowledge; it is more dangerous than ignorance.[/sup][sup] ~George Bernard Shaw[/sup]
Consultant/Custom Forms & PL/SQL - Oracle 8.1.7 - Windows 2000

 

[dogbert2]

I took one years ago for a local I.T. position with a governmental agency here in town. Out of 200 people tested, only 10 of us got interviews (I walked out of the interview when it became painfully aware that the people conducting the interview knew less than I did about the subject matter in question) (happens folks).

 

[Tarwn]

dogbert2: I think I read about that in one of your other posts, remember it still

Concerning Testing: I test badly. I might not remember the book definitions of certain functions, or be able to outline the x most important fnctions of a language. Does this mean I don't know what I'm doing? or does this mean I no longer try to explain everything a function does in one line or less? And then you get the stupid questions that I can't help but be sarcastic about. I used to make up new acronyms on tests just for hech of it:
Networking:
PGP - Possibly Going Postal
W3C - We See (you)
ASP - Anything Sloppy Passes
Sliding Windows - Not as widely in use around here due to the large number of hurricanes, but usually used in more moderate climes to allow fresh air in



-Tarwn

[sub]01010100 01101001 01100101 01110010 01101110 01101111 01101011 00101110 01100011 01101111 01101101 [/sub]
[sup]29 3K 10 3D 3L 3J 3K 10 32 35 10 3E 39 33 35 10 3K 3F 10 38 31 3M 35 10 36 3I 35 35 10 3K 39 3D 35 10 1Q 19[/sup]
Do you know how hot your computer is running at home? I do

http://www.tiernok.com/hscripts/systemp.asp

 

[onpnt]

ASP - Anything Sloppy Passes


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[sub]The most important part of your thread is the subject line.
Make it clear and about the topic so we can find it later for reference. Please!! faq333-2924[/sub]

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[edemiere]

Like the guy that sits behind me doing end-user support that asks the most inane questions about PC's, hardware, networking etc.

I have no idea who hired him in that job, but I have forgotten more than he's ever known. I just have to sit here and shake my head when I listen to the stupidest questions ever asked...

Sad state of affairs...

Cheers!

 

[flapeyre]

PCMCIA=People Can't Memorize Computer Industry Acronymns.


&quot;When once you have tasted flight, you will forever walk the Earth with your eyes turned skyward, for here you have been, and there you will always long to return.&quot;

--Leonardo da Vinci

 

[SemperFiDownUnda]

Tarwn good point. I would rather have someone that knows how to research a problem and work something out then someone that has memorised some functions. I concider myself a good programmer not because of memorising syntax but understanding how to break a problem down and a overview of the capabilities of the tools (languages) I'm using. I think use reference material to tune things. Tests are an alternative to having a techy type there but have a few draw backs. I've gone on a few interviews where I knew others that went for the position to. Its easy to find out what is on that test. Like the professor that uses the same test every year. Also you have to make sure you have a well written balanced test. I still like having a techy there that can adapt to the individual. During the interview they can thing and alter their questions to try to drill into areas that they think are important but the applicant may not be strong enough in.

 

[edfair]

I've set up some tests for end of training proof of understanding for techs. The whining wore my ears out. Unfortunately they were already hired and supposedly trained.

Ed Fair
Any advice I give is my best judgement based on my interpretation of the facts you supply. Help increase my knowledge by providing some feedback, good or bad, on any advice I have given.