[Sussex] An odd question....

[Neil Ford]

On 6/1/03 10:48 am, "Nik Butler" <nik at wired4life.org> wrote:

> On Mon, Jan 06, 2003 at 10:44:09AM -0000, Dominic Clay wrote:
>> 
>>> Show me an IT tech that's impressed by a degree ;)
>> 
>> 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.
> 
Nik

People like you and I are the exception, not the rule unfortunately.

Having been in the enviable/dubious* (* delete as appropriate :-) ) position
of having responsibility for hiring and firing, I have always looked at
someone's experience and assessed their personality above all else, but then
I've always been in the position of setting the rules (including on one
memorable occasion telling the FD "You either let me hire this person or you
can have my resignation").


In most corporate environments that isn't the case. The person doing the
interviewing is constrained by those above and HR and in quite a few cases
the final decision isn't made by the technical staff.

The IT job market right now sucks, no two ways about it. I know some very
talented people that have struggled to find work.

On the subject on work versus university, I'm probably the oxymoron. I'm
completely qualified by experience having left school half way through the
first year of my A-Levels and have been fortunate to find great jobs and
lucky that I can list people such as the BBC, Microsoft, General Electric,
h2g2.com and others on my bio for prospective new clients. I've also been IT
Manager for 4 different employers. Could I expect to do the same today
without a degree? I very much think not. There are jobs even today that I
wouldn't be considered for, even with nearly 20 years experience, simply
because I don't have a degree or an MBA. Thankfully I've chosen to go
freelance, so I don't lose any sleep over it.

So I chose work but would strongly suggest university.

Ramble over :-)

Neil.
-- 
Neil Ford
neil[at]smudgypixels[dot]net
http://www.smudgypixels.net/