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The IT Employee Benchmark

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Steve Jones - SSC Editor

Posted Monday, July 21, 2008 2:52 PM

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Comments posted to this topic are about the item The IT Employee Benchmark

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Post #538003

Jeff Moden

Posted Monday, July 21, 2008 6:00 PM

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Wow! Someone finally wrote a national article on exactly how I feel about certifications, degrees, and "boomers". Great "catch of the day", Steve!

--Jeff Moden

"RBAR is pronounced "ree-bar" and is a "Modenism" for "Row-By-Agonizing-Row".

First step towards the paradigm shift of writing Set Based code:
Stop thinking about what you want to do to a row... think, instead, of what you want to do to a column."

For better, quicker answers on T-SQL questions, click on the following...
http://www.sqlservercentral.com/articles/Best+Practices/61537/

For better answers on performance questions, click on the following...
http://www.sqlservercentral.com/articles/SQLServerCentral/66909/

Post #538076

Steve Jones - SSC Editor

Posted Monday, July 21, 2008 6:03 PM

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Thanks! Glad you liked it, we'll see how everyone else feels in the am.

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Post #538078

tomski_boy

Posted Tuesday, July 22, 2008 2:26 AM

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Great find Steve,
After been a DBA for 10 years and 3 years as an IT Manage I can safely say that I have a personal dislike of certifications and am fairly neutral about degree (having one myself). All too many times have I recruited staff that held certifications such as MCSE, MCDBA etc etc and found that individuals who boast their credentials actually failed by a long shot during my grilling sessions.

People that I have hired and had the pleasure of working with had minimal academic or IT training yet were self confessed 'geeks' since they could talk. These individuals have the passion to play on a few spare Linux or NT boxes at home or who can reminisce about old versions of DOS and how, as a 10 year old fixed their aunties PC's back in the days.

That's the type of passion and love of IT I like to see in people I hire.

Cheers
Tom

Post #538239

pollockk

Posted Tuesday, July 22, 2008 2:33 AM

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In general, I agree, and certainly the attitude to certificates as described has been a widespread attitude anywhere I have ever worked over the last 15 years (UK).

There is distinct difference, I find, in people with and without a CS degree. It's a subtle thing, but it is in database design that I actually see it come out. People with the solid theory design less problematic databases and usually have a better feel for set-based operations.

In the non-database end of things, grads are more likely to have 'got' pointers.

But maybe its correlation not causality Smile

Passion? hmm, it's just a job after all, maybe that's expecting too much from most of us.

Post #538242

majorbloodnock

Posted Tuesday, July 22, 2008 3:30 AM

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This all links in, of course, with one of the previous editorials, where the ensuing discussion thread included a lot of "soft skills" in the list of "essential DBA skills". In that discussion, we did touch on the topic of what job requirements are advertised, and there certainly seems to be something of a dichotomy - advertise based on specific technical skills and HR cliches, but interview for attitude and recruit based on breadth of ability.

How to find someone with good instincts? If you can ever find the answer, you'll be able to write your own pay cheque, I'd expect.

Semper in excretia, sumus solum profundum variat

Post #538285

Damus

Posted Tuesday, July 22, 2008 5:53 AM

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A good programmer loves what he does. He does not do it for passion to the project or to the job or anything.

He just loves programming and the sense of achievement when a task is successfully completed, especially tasks requiring research and new discovery.

Certificates? well, a good programmer will never boast about his certificates "if they ever exist", you would not see papers on the wall with his name on it. It means little to nothing. All what he needs is the theoretical knowledge acquired in a BS.

Post #538363

scott.w.white

Posted Tuesday, July 22, 2008 6:31 AM

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Nice perspective, my point of view is similar. I think ultimately you have to have passion for technology, and unfortunately too many candidates with degrees are not passionate about technology. Some of the best I've worked with have been hobbiest programmer types that grew up with technology, some of which didn't care about school a whole lot.

To me this does not take away from their value as a potential resource.

Post #538407

James Stover

Posted Tuesday, July 22, 2008 6:43 AM

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Accounting says: IT = cost center.
Shareholder says: maximize profits.
CIO says: freezing wages; outsourcing 1/2 the team.

And I'm supposed to be enthusiastic about this?

James Stover, McDBA

Post #538414

Loner

Posted Tuesday, July 22, 2008 6:46 AM

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It is a good article but where do you find those people? Some of the quality that they are looking for has to do with the company. How do the company motivate their employees and provide growth opportunities for their employees? With the dot.com bust and company downsizing and outsourcing, who can go to work with enthusiasm, they go to work worrying about if they still have a job the next day. Also when the IT department has to cut budget, the first thing they cut is training budget. The minute the employees see the training budget is gone, they immediately see the job is a dead end job.
When the company hires people fresh out of college, they may be willing to learn but they are lack of business skills. Also there a high turnover rate of young people, they are the job hoppers.

Post #538417

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