[Sussex] An odd question....

[Steve Dobson]

Nik/Geoff/Adam et al

On 06 January 2003 at 11:02 Geoff Teale wrote: 
> Nik wrote:
> ----------
> > > Show me a interviewer that is purely a IT techie???
> > /me sticks his hand up and says MOI!
> > 
> > Ive done lots of interviews and generlly picked people based on what
> > they did with their spare time and what they contributed tothe
> > community.
> 
> Firstly.  Nik, you are an exception in terms of you approach 
> to employment.
> Your attitude towards the community is very noble and is 
> certainly inkeeping
> with your approach to your business, but it is, as I say, 
> exceptional in the
> current business environment..
> 
> I have in my time been a purely techie interviewer as well 
> and I would say
> that a persons technical ability was always my highest concern, but
> ultimately it is very hard to judge a person by an interview. 
>  The majority
> of people I employed did not make what I considered to be a 
> "passing" grade
> in exam I set them, however, I was pressured by HR to "employ 
> somebody" and
> so I settled for the best that was available rather than the 
> right person
> for the job in most cases.  This is the result of employing from an
> overstretched pool of employees where most simply don't make 
> the grade but
> can still get work because there are so many positions available.
> Ultimately you try and pick the best of a bad bunch, some of 
> them turn out
> to be really good, skilled workers others turn out to be a 
> waste of space -
> no amount of qualifications or experience can tell you this 
> upfront, but
> they are all you have to go on and thus they are important in terms of
> getting a job.  
> 
> Now I'm not in a position to recruit, which means it's 
> nolonger my problem,
> which is nice... ;)

Like Geoff I've been a teckie interviewer, and when going thought
a pile of CVs I need to find a quick way of filtering out those
worth interviewing and those not.  I don't get the full list HR
have filtered it first.  If the manger has said "a degree is 
required" then I don't get to see the ones who haven't been to
Uni.  That is a fact of life.

Adam:  There has been a lot of stuff said (and I'm sure it hasn't
finished yet), but in my quick reading of the e-mails I haven't 
seen any one talking about the "real" reason you should go to 
uni:  for the good time.

I enjoyed myself, most who go to uni do (at least in my day).  I
wouldn't have missed it for the world.

It's your life.  You need to weigh up several factors:
  1). The education,
  2). The interaction with similar minded people,
  3). The fun (which should be explored to the full),
  4). The cost (not a factor in my day [I had a thing called a
      grant]), and
  5). The time taken to get it,

At the end of the day experience does account for more.  A degree
has a life after which it is just a tick in a box.  But it is
a tick that will last for the rest of your life.  You have many,
many options ahead of you.  Think about taking a gap year (I wish
I had).

If you want to work in IT, and most of the people have a degree
then you will find one more useful than not, just because everyone
else has one.

There is the OU, but how anyone does a full days work and study for
an OU degree is beyond me, and I think they miss out on the best
part of the uni life.

Well I see there are more e-mails in this thread to read.  And you've
had another 2p worth out of me.   Your bill is rising :-)

Steve