[Sussex] The need for benchmarks

[Steve Dobson]

Geoff

On 06 January 2003 at 14:10 Geoff Teale 
> All of this discussion about degree's versus experience today 
> has reminded me of a major problem in the industry.

Our industry has not got problems, only challenges - Damn I've been
speaking to my boss again and a bit of it's rubbed off.

> As an interviewer rather than a candidate it is very hard to tell the
> knowledgeable geeks from the cowboys.  Management types, HR departments
and
> recruitment consultants filter out a lot of staff before you get to them.
> In my experience you  can get excluded from a job interview for not having
> any experience, not having a degree and not having an MCSE.  So when you
do
> get people through they all look much the same.

I seem to remember that there have been studies run that show that the
interview process itself has no more chance of picking the right candidate
than random selection.  Some people are just good at interviews, some (me)
are not that good.

> We all know that the standard of MCSE's and MCSD's is so variable as to
make
> it useless as a baromieter of skill.  To some extent degrees are as bad,
> does a degree in Maths or Chemistrry mean you're a worse candidate than
> someone with a degree in IT ( I personally would opt for Computer Science
> over IT every time, but this depends on the Uni..).  What about experience
?
> Well, Jon mentioned that he worked with a graduate who was useless,
> nonetheless he is now an *experienced* graduate and thus is even more
> employable, but he may not be any more useful - if the problem is a matter
> of attitude or character he may never improve.

I think its the processes that's to blame.

> The problem here is we have no industry standard exam (one that is
> independant of a major vendor).  Accountants, Lawyers and Acturaries all
> have to make a certain grade in order to practice.  If programmers and
> network engineers had to do the same the world of IT might be a better
place
> (the salaries would be higher for a start ;)  ).

But there is no one body controlling all of computing, and could there ever
be?  Real-time skills are so very different to batch processing.  The M$ 
knowledge is all but useless on a Unix platform, and that's about the
closest
to the M$ platforms in the market place.  AS400 and mainframes are another
set of beasts all together.

If Accountants, Lawyers and Actuaries have standard tests its because they
have
been around for so long.  I'm not suggesting that now there isn't the
diversity
in their fields, but their intuitions started when there was little
diversity.
In today's IT sector, with things moving so fast, how are you going to get a

standard?  In the time taken to develop and approve the test the players
will
all be in the next ball-park!

The other problem of the BSC or IEEE (the two bodies I looked at joining)
was
the expense.  It costs a lot of money to join these organisations an get
certified, and I could not see that it was worth it.  A friend of mine is
getting
her qualifications as an accountant.  She has no choice.  Do you really want
that limitation, even lack of freedom, in our industry? 

I think that the current status quo is quite good.  For those that want it
there is the IEEE or BSC;  but they are not mandatory.  I don't want to
learn
how to interface with IIS to get CEng on my business card.  All I want is
to find a company that will let me put "Unix God^H^Heek" as my job title :-)

Steve

P.S.
Its good to be back in the offices.  I can find the odd moment to post to 
this list again.