How do you measure your skills? 1

[powahusr]

How do you measure your skill level or get a baseline in a giving field whether it is Client/Server Programmer, Systems/Network Administrator, or a Software Quality Assurance Engineer?

Are their industry standards, maybe a web site you can go to and compare your skill set against predetermined criteria so you can get an idea of where you stand? I know certifications are a testament, however they do not always reflect real world experience. So much more is to be learned after a certificate is earned.

I only want to know, because when I am asked what my skill level is with a particular technology, I would like to be able to give an accurate answer.

Thanks in advance.

 

[SemperFiDownUnda]

edfair - I don't know when you where in. I was active from 88-94. I do realise that I had it a bit unique in working with JCS and FMFPAC for most of my six years in. Some of the schools I went to where better at teaching how to break out of paradigms. Some area like combat training was pretty straight forward. But the still MOUT and CQB training was very strong on teachign combat leadership. We trained even E3s and below in being able to make autonomous decisions if they are seperated. Military Operations in Civil distrubances had a strong emphasis in lawful orders and when you have the right and obligation to refuse orders.

I really like the saying "We've been doing so much for so long with so little that we can now do absolutely everything with nothing"

I'm sorry if you've been in a number of units with what I call "Bad chain of command" where those above you did not cultivate your leadership training.

But I degress. Even in situations where teaching is strict you can do more to unharness yourself and break out of the mold. I work with a brilant Sgt. He could get jobs done but he was very narrow minded in that everyone had to do it exactly his way or he concidered it wrong. I saw that learnt what I could from him and even with what I concidered bad I made a resolution that I would always strive to use the unique abilities of my resources to their fullist even if their methods may not be what I expect.

Funny enough this applies to computers the same as it does to combat. I just treat things like black boxes. Given that the box does what it is told to do within given parameters I'm not concerned as much at how it does it.

As I look back I admit that much of what I am now is from knowledged gained from first hand experience but I have learnt a lot from books and manuals.

Do agree with solidifying book knowledge with real work examples. Ie if you learn how to configure a network from a book go and actually do it with a few machine. When you don't have the machines available to you....think through it in your mind. Its been shown that thinking about a situations can make you better at that situation. High diving is one area that this been shown very successful.

By all means think outside the square but never be afraid to learn what is being taught. Use it to build on or use it to throw you in a radical new direction.

Hope I've been helpful,
Wayne Francis

If you want to get the best response to a question, please check out FAQ222-2244 first

 

[edfair]

Longer ago than that, SemperFi. 25 years earlier.
I've found over the years that I've been more successful at learning by intentionally breaking things. Somebody tells me that I can't do something I try to do it. Within reason, of course and only on those things that I've thought through. And when it doesn't work I trace the steps back to the beginning to see why they don't work. Whether it was flawed thinking on my part, or ignorance of something.
In either case it is an increase of knowledge.
I use the manuals. They weren't printed to justify cutting down trees. But there are manufacturers that don't tell the full story about repairs to their equipment. And those I detest.
The teaching I've done has been medium on theory, short on demonstation, and long on hands on practice. Including breaking things for my students so they get a feel for the real world. They didn't get certs, but they have had the best I could give to educate them. Every wierd problem I've run across and fixed has ended up in a training course or passed on some other way. Including some here on TT.

Ed Fair
Give the wrong symptoms, get the wrong solutions.

 

[TheRambler]

Sorry I didn't reply sooner, I had some work to do.
Yes SemperFi, you are right, I can't say that.
Mainly because what I know I have learned from others, as I learn from you and other people here.
I was saying that it wouldn't had been a good idea to measure Harrison's skill by his book knowledge, because what he knew was not written yet. Academia of his time couldn't solve the problem he did.

Yes MakeItSo, "...after 14 years of failures". But isn't genius "1 percent inspiration and 99 percent perspiration"? It would have been great for Edison to read in a book: "use a carbon filament" or better yet "use a tungsten filament", but no, such book didn't exist.

And about Claudius Ptolemy, Almagest was the accepted book knowledge for more than a thousand years, but then somebody had to think different to move away from it.

So I am also saying that book knowledge can be wrong. Therefore I wouldn't use it to measure somebody's skill.
The measure of skill is relative.

 

[powahusr]

Wow, nice to see Marine’s engaging in deep abstract talk, so much for the Stereotype that Marines are dumb.

Dimandja - I completely agree. We must learn to think outside the square. Believe it or not I learnt this skill while in the USMC. People often think Marines are mindless drones obeying orders but we are taught to make command decisions when need and we are taught to try to get a bigger picture before making those decisions.

From one Marine to another (SemperFiDownUnda, powahusr), I could not agree with you more. The general impression is that Marines are mindless grunts. Though there is a chain of command and we must follow our superior’s orders, we still have a multitude of decisions that we must make within those orders, on our own. The same can be said while working at any company, your manager follows their manager’s orders, and you follow your manager’s orders but in the civilian world, they are in the form of "Requests, Deliverables, and Deadlines". Ultimately, you do your work (apply your knowledge) and you get the job done.

Anyway, Marines are born and bread to "Problem Solve". Before the fashion statement, "Think outside the box" surfaced; to Marines it is otherwise known as "Improvising". If you are a Marine, you intimately know and understand what the term "Improvising" means. In training, there were some things that really did not make any sense as to the point of doing it, like having all the contents of one's foot locker dumped all over the deck because your foot locker wasn't secured, but little did you know that the groundwork was being laid to prepare us to tackle something greater down the road. It taught us to pay more attention to the little things, which ultimately could lead to a larger problem down the road. I know it is a crude example, but there were many clever, provident techniques too. It was like piece-by-piece; we were being built to tackle any problem that came our way.

Then there were the Patrol Orders, the epitome of Planning and execution of a plan. The high standards needed to be maintained throughout a Marine’s career. For anyone to say a Marine is a dummy and could not possibly handle a "white-collar" job would be naïve. College cannot possibly teach someone the personal skills you acquire while in the Marines, like Problem Solving, Thinking on your feet, Making Command Decisions, Team work, etc, etc. Upon completion of one’s enlistment, the Marine should be awarded a degree for all that one learned and experienced. Cumulatively speaking, any Computer Program/Class that I have been through felt less than the challenge of what I experienced throughout my military career.

Ok, back too the topic, or what has evolved from it...
I believe balanced learning is key to ones success. Being Book Smart or Hands on Smart are not the only paths to succeeding at something.

For all other points, I agree that you have to open a book to learn at some point in time, if you leave everything to hands on experience, there will be so many holes in your knowledge, often referred to as "Swiss Cheese" knowledge. I must also not rely solely on books, manuals, and other literal items to learn, though I might be able to clearly explain something, I may have a hard time actually applying what I have read. I think Bulletin Boards such as "Tek-Tips" can accelerate your learning by eliminating the fluff of a manual and applying what someone has told me to do based off their experience. It is a quick and dirty, yet effective way of learning a technique you would of never found in a book, or you may have thought to try.

I think after you have read all the books, got some experience under your belt, I have to say, there is no better way of growing, than learning from other people in your field. I am never too proud to ask a question.

 

[SGTRawlins]

Maybe we should look at the bigger picture, maybe an indeviduals personal knowledge is not that important however the contribution they can bring to a team is the key,

As discussed above most people have what is commonly know as "swiss cheese" knowledge, why not find someone else to fill those holes!

When recruiting I know most empolyers dont look soley at your qulifications and experience but judge you on charecter, personality and your ability to work alongside those already employed by the businees.

 

[lionelhill]

using manuals
=============
Absolutely! Particularly with Intel and microsoft, as well as knowing what works, you need to know what the manufacturer says works, because it's only this latter that's likely to carry on working in the next version. Don't be tempted! Remember the 286 loadall instruction and its compatibility with 386... And how many of us have had to buy new software when we upgraded our operating system, because someone thought it was clever to use an undocumented call in the old software...

black boxes
===========
agree, you can get too tied up in what goes on inside a function. But it is important to know roughly what you're asking the machine to do. If you call a black box that has to use an N^3 process, don't expect it to scale well to big applications.

 

[powahusr]

As discussed above most people have what is commonly know as "swiss cheese" knowledge, why not find someone else to fill those holes!

SGTRawlins, I know what your saying, but in today's IT/S Job Market and trimmed down IT/S staffs, if a company has one slot or "Req" open for that position, the company will be counting how many buzz and keywords are on each candidates resume (That is if our discussion is still within the context of my original Post "Assessing Skills"), with little emphasis being placed on the individual's personal qualities. You see how things work today, read any article on resume/ cover letter tips. Your resume is basically being scanned for keywords and buzz words first, if so many words match then that's when a pair of human eyes will first be set on your resume.

If your an honest person like me who lists what they now and not what they don't, yet you know your qualified and can handle the job, but someone else has slightly more knowledge or experience with something... (For Example) If you were the candidate who had better individual skills like "character, personality and your ability to work alongside people, etc", the person with more keywords and buzz-words would likely win out because your resume had the fewer buzz-words, keywords. Sad to say, but that's how it looks like it's being done today.

I think individual skills like "character, personality and your ability to work alongside people, etc" are only taking into consideration from personal vouches by your job references, or by just working with the individual.

Also, on a few occasions when I had mentioned that I was in the military for 4-years and had an Honorable discharge, my impression from the individuals (Not All, some actually admired it) who interviewed me was like a "could care less" or "indifferent" kind of attitude. Not that I expected to be hired solely on that, but I thought it showed something about ones character. I actually feel reluctant even mentioning it anymore.

 

[SemperFiDownUnda]

TheRambler - "Yes SemperFi, you are right, I can't say that." Sorry rereading my post after you responded makes me think I could have put it in a better way. You can always say what you think, not saying this is what you meant just in general. After all I'm a strong believer in opinions and how I put it made your opinion sound outright wrong instead of just stating my opinion. Once agian sorry.

powahusr - I agree with you in part. Your CV/Resume will get you past the first gate. Dress it up as much as you can without lieing. Last thing you want is to get caught out on the interview in a lie in your CV. From what I've found is that once you are in the actual person to person interview process "character and personality" have the greatest impact on you getting or loosing the job. That is as long as you really have done what is in your CV. This current contract I have I believe I got on those 2 traits.

My CV got me into the agency. My personal interview with the agency landed me one of the 3 CV's they put forward to the organisation. Agian my CV + the recomendation from the agency got me the main interview. The main interview was a panel of 5 managers including one manager from a totally seperate part of the organisation to provide unbias advice. I walked in and was sweat was just pooring off my head because it was about 37 degrees out (about 98.6 fahrenheit) because even after being here for 8 years I'm not used to the heat. One lady asked if I was ok and I was glad because I didn't want them to think I was nervious. I told them I'll never get used to the heat here. She put on the AC and the interview started. I cooled down and we talked at a high level about things I've done in the past and how I would handle different situations. Towards the end of the interview one of the panel said "You seem to be very strong with the human relation side of the position what are your technical skills like" I litterally let out a little laugh and said "I'm still a geek, I'm certified in x,y,z. I'm naturally a very social person and I use my programming time for the quiet time".

Most of my interviews have gone that way in that I get asked very little about my technical skills and they often end up as the best jobs.

Being in the military can be a tricky situation. Some people don't care or appriciate what we do. Personally I wouldn't want a position where my employers where like that.

If given the opertunity to answer a question like "How would you handle this situation..." or something like that work in a good example of stuff you did in the military. Expand on leadership and teambuilding exercises you did in the military that are unlikely to be matched by your civilian counter parts.

If they still show negativity towards it and you really are proud of serving then I'd probably guess that you would be very unhappy if you did work there.

In IT I would strongly suggest contacting some employement agencies that specialise in IT. They generally bring everyone in for a meet and great and can help you with your CV and interview skills. It is in their interest to get you a job as most are paid a % of your salary so if you don't get a job they aren't making money off you.



Hope I've been helpful,
Wayne Francis

If you want to get the best response to a question, please check out FAQ222-2244 first

 

[SGTRawlins]

powahusr & SemperFiDownUnda - You guys seem to be thinking along similar lines to myself, Creating a Cv is very similar to creating a sales or marketing strategy, sell your self like product!

I am not particularly "certfied" with qualifications, this makes creating a "buzzy" CV some-what challenging, however i have a strong belief that once the first interview is one then personality and charecter take center stage.

My next question is; how "creative" can you be with the wording of your CV! i was having a discussion with a guy that introduced himself as a 'vision technician', turns out he was a window cleaner!

There are also legal limits to how you describe your capabilities. I was reading and article the other day that discussed people advertising themselves as 'system architects'.

These, in most cases were just system designers trying to make themselves more important. An Acrchitect must be certified an architect, those who are not qualified and yet advertise themselves as such are in breach of the trades act or somehting like that!

 

[MakeItSo]

I would strongly recommend not trying to create new titles for the jobs you've been doing before - HR usually know good enough which tasks go with which job. If they read such a "creative" cv, it might not do you any good at all...

BTW: a good letter of reference from your former employer tops any "creative" description of your job anyway.

Most of my interviews have gone that way in that I get asked very little about my technical skills and they often end up as the best jobs

That's what it boils down to. You don't need a 20 page cv listing all of your tasks and responsibilities. What you need is a complete but short and to-the-point overview of what you've done before, resulting in making you interesting for the new job you're applying for.

The rest follows in the interview.

The interview for the job I'm (successfully) in for almost 4 years now gave a result like:
"I don't know about 90% of the tools & applications you are using, but they seem similar to this and that application, which I've used before. I dare learning whatever is needed..."

I'd say, it's not that important what you can do, more what you dare trying or learning.

 

[AnanthaP]

How do you measure your skills? By the results.

Techie - a better techie. Be a permanent invitee in all meetings.
Manager - manage.
Leader - lead.
Enterpreneur - form organisations.

Last month I attended a talk by the person who set up the company that owms the code to a free web server. He describes himself as a serial enterpreneur. set up ans sold many companies. So the measure of his skill is there for all to see.

End.