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RE: The Danger of Hiring Stars

David Lu — Wed, 06 Oct 2004 17:51:00 GMT

Great article which vibrates my heart and push me to look back on all the jobs I have had in the I.T. field.

You provide a mirror for me and my family members, relatives and friends: it is not just for DBA, or I.T. guy, but for all job hunters. I have had most good moves for chasing career goals. I also had 2 bad moves due to crazy bosses and/or 12 hours working environment pressure. Along with the age increasing, so called 'maturity', I could have reduced the number of changing jobs about 50% today.

p.s. side question. I have been DBA, Database developer, .... but my faviourate thing is data modeling in design or re-design the company database. I still think the best job change was to get a chance to design 108 tables (an inventory control database) from scratch even with 120 miles daily traffic. This exposesd my potentiality and set up my future goal. But in reality, this kind chance probably is 1/1000 companies wants to do so. What is your advice?

thank you for your greate article to share with us.

David

RE: The Danger of Hiring Stars

Vic Kirkpatrick-173212 — Wed, 06 Oct 2004 07:27:00 GMT

Nice article for sure. It just makes plain sense to tackle these questions and get good advice from others before making a major decision to switch jobs. The reasons you may want to switch jobs might not stand up to these questions once you think about it. My family and I have always considered these questions before deciding to move on, and it has helped tremendously.

RE: The Danger of Hiring Stars

Jamie Mcculloch-157655 — Wed, 06 Oct 2004 02:25:00 GMT

The three axioms... Can you do the job, do you want to and will you fit in? This was very succinct and so true. The star does the first two hands down. What about the third criteria? How do the other staff members feel about being shown up? Does this make for good teams or does it cause in fighting and make the team implode? Is it a good idea hiring a star if this is true? How would a star hide his potential, in the interview, to rip to the team apart? Perhaps it has something to do with making everyone around you look good. How would you convince someone you were a team player when you wanted the glory for yourself? PS sorry about the bad spelling (no chance of showing anyone up here!)

RE: The Danger of Hiring Stars

David.Poole — Wed, 06 Oct 2004 01:39:00 GMT

In what way Jamie, what were you looking for?

RE: The Danger of Hiring Stars

Jamie Mcculloch-157655 — Wed, 06 Oct 2004 01:08:00 GMT

I thought this article would be about employing someone super bright from the title. While the content was interesting and revealing it seemed to skit the issue.

RE: The Danger of Hiring Stars

hfjordan — Tue, 05 Oct 2004 11:43:00 GMT

Personally, I like my 3 monitors. Gotta have Outlook on the small one.

RE: The Danger of Hiring Stars

No Longer Active — Tue, 05 Oct 2004 11:19:00 GMT

"In Britain this changed in the 1980's in the era of Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan."

Your slip is showing...

RE: The Danger of Hiring Stars

Mike Schmidt — Tue, 05 Oct 2004 10:34:00 GMT

Excellent perspective! Thank you.

RE: The Danger of Hiring Stars

Paul Williams — Tue, 05 Oct 2004 07:19:00 GMT

A very interesting and well put article.

Quite relevant to myself as I have just moved company having been at my previous one for 7 years. It was a big move to make and I would like to think that being in my late thirties I have had enough life experience to take a lot of the considerations in the article into account. I doubt whether I would have many years ago.

I spent over 9 months looking for the correct role, rather than just jump ship for the sake of it, taking into consideration travelling, company future, people, career directon etc. Too early to say yet, but so far it has been very worthwhile making the move.

So as David states, take all factors into consideration and best of luck if you do.

RE: The Danger of Hiring Stars

YSLGuru — Tue, 05 Oct 2004 07:01:00 GMT

David,

Your piece about the 3 types in an organization is some of the best stuff (for lack of a better word) that I have come across in a long time. I even passed it along to several of my co-workers as I find in our organization that we have many persons that easily fall into 1 of these types.

RE: The Danger of Hiring Stars

David.Poole — Tue, 05 Oct 2004 02:23:00 GMT

Been there, done that.

In any organisation, be it social, business or what ever there seems to be four types of people.

Inspirational and dynamic.
The willing workers.
People along for the ride.

An organisation gets founded by type(1) with the help of type (2). Type (1) keep new ideas coming.

Type(1) moves on and the organisation ticks along in the charge of type (2).

Eventually type(2) run out of steam and with no Type(1) to supply ideas the organisation begins to stagnate.

Type(2) moves on and the people in charge are now Type(3). Any type(1) coming into the organisation is seen as a threat and will be crushed and so the organisation slowly disintegrates.

Short of a fifth column insurgence of type(1) the organisation will eventually fail.

RE: The Danger of Hiring Stars

Anthony Butler — Tue, 05 Oct 2004 01:57:00 GMT

So many truths so eloquantly expressed.

One item missing is mention of the way that organisations can change too, often for the worse .

I work for a company that used to be a great place to work, I really loved working there. Now that the company is struggling to identify its marketplace correctly it has changed. Instead of being a friendly open, honest place it all rigid, hidebound, hierarchial and secretive. That this change has occured faster than the staff could change has created a situation where leaving is now the only option. The company now has no loyalty to its customer or to its staff let alone the idea of the staff having loyatly to the company.

Obviously I can't say who I currently work for, but I work in England for a big US company that recently abandoned its heritage marketplace after 130 years.

My CV is in the post, so keep and eye out for it huh?

RE: The Danger of Hiring Stars

dMacey — Mon, 04 Oct 2004 23:09:00 GMT

Good article

And dual monitors are great. I feel claustrophobic without them.

RE: The Danger of Hiring Stars

ckempste — Mon, 04 Oct 2004 22:31:00 GMT

Hi there

Great article and brings a lot of relevent questions into play.

Cheers

RE: The Danger of Hiring Stars

SAinCA — Fri, 03 Sep 2004 11:35:00 GMT

SO glad to see someone evaluate moving jobs in this way - it just makes a whole lot of sense. In over 30 years in IT I've moved for the right reasons and once for the wrong reason - BAD time had by my family as a result! It's likely been said by many before, but "I work to live, not live to work" and "there are few on their deathbed who wish they could have spent more time in the office!" - I'll be one who looks back and is glad that the answers to David's questions in my life meant much happiness, less stress, respect from many peers, sufficient income and lots of fun (even at work!).

Yes, take David's questions seriously and enjoy life AND work - the two aren't mutually exclusive.

The Danger of Hiring Stars

David.Poole — Thu, 02 Sep 2004 11:40:00 GMT

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