Saturday, July 12, 2008
18:33 by FoxTwo You know the saying, "Power Corrupts, and Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely".
Interviewing people for a position is kinda like placing incredible amounts of power at your disposal. You alone decide whether he "lives" or "dies". Your decision alone dictates whether he's gone, or he can come back.
Also, normally I am not the one doing the interview. I generally shun meetings and interviews because simply, I just don't like them. Interviews and meetings are what bosses are for - they handle them :) Us grunts just do the work and be done for the day.
Anyway recently I was asked to interview some candidates for a position. Most of them are internal staff, and the interviews were quick and fast. However even among internal staff, it was quite surprising at some of the answers I get. Like I said before, these people know what they are doing - some of them knows more than I do even.
Yet, as I said, some answers I get are pretty interesting. A very good example is below:
Now that's a novel way to do it. No messing around with parallel runs, no confusing of users. Best of all, no mucking about with mail redirects and what-nots (which, by the way, is listed as the "correct answer" in official support documentation). Short, quick, and no weird helpdesk calls about "missing mail".
This method should work with ANY mail platform migrations too.
I'm actually kicking myself why I never thought of this when I was migrating my users from Exchange to Notes too. Darn it!
Unfortunately, the candidate that proposed this solution flunked on other questions, some of which were fundamentals (setting up domain controllers, configuring DCHP etc). Not that surprising since he's "live" on the job and his current job scope has him handling other stuff. It is however, a little surprising that he either forgot or doesn't know how to do those fundamental stuff, and those were actually the "predefined requirements" we need to have.
Inside me, I was actually rooting for this candidate to get the job though. However I had to be honest and rate him accordingly, and from the way it looks, it doesn't seem very likely he'll get the job. Sigh!
The good thing is, I'm not holding the "absolute power" to decide his fate. All I can do is give an assessment of his technical capabilities. My boss is the one deciding his fate, and he was right there in the interview too, but asking him other non-technical questions (soft skills). I can't give this candidate an assessment that is "too good" since my boss is also a techie guy, so he knows this candidate fumbled on the fundamentals.
Ah well, the good thing is, we probably have interviewed enough candidates and there should be no more left to interview (not by me at least). I really don't like having to interview people and giving them a grade.
ps - My current "official" designation is a Unix Admin. When it's "crunch time" I'll be deployed to handle the Unix servers. However I also know Wintel Admin. My boss was saying I'm a "steal" given what I know and can do (salary vs skills). I should have asked for $10K salary mannnn!!!! *kick self*
18:33 by FoxTwo You know the saying, "Power Corrupts, and Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely".
Interviewing people for a position is kinda like placing incredible amounts of power at your disposal. You alone decide whether he "lives" or "dies". Your decision alone dictates whether he's gone, or he can come back.
Also, normally I am not the one doing the interview. I generally shun meetings and interviews because simply, I just don't like them. Interviews and meetings are what bosses are for - they handle them :) Us grunts just do the work and be done for the day.
Anyway recently I was asked to interview some candidates for a position. Most of them are internal staff, and the interviews were quick and fast. However even among internal staff, it was quite surprising at some of the answers I get. Like I said before, these people know what they are doing - some of them knows more than I do even.
Yet, as I said, some answers I get are pretty interesting. A very good example is below:
Migrating from one mail platform to another
Set up new mail platform, copy all the user information over. At designated time, change DNS records to point to new server.Now that's a novel way to do it. No messing around with parallel runs, no confusing of users. Best of all, no mucking about with mail redirects and what-nots (which, by the way, is listed as the "correct answer" in official support documentation). Short, quick, and no weird helpdesk calls about "missing mail".
This method should work with ANY mail platform migrations too.
I'm actually kicking myself why I never thought of this when I was migrating my users from Exchange to Notes too. Darn it!
Unfortunately, the candidate that proposed this solution flunked on other questions, some of which were fundamentals (setting up domain controllers, configuring DCHP etc). Not that surprising since he's "live" on the job and his current job scope has him handling other stuff. It is however, a little surprising that he either forgot or doesn't know how to do those fundamental stuff, and those were actually the "predefined requirements" we need to have.
Inside me, I was actually rooting for this candidate to get the job though. However I had to be honest and rate him accordingly, and from the way it looks, it doesn't seem very likely he'll get the job. Sigh!
The good thing is, I'm not holding the "absolute power" to decide his fate. All I can do is give an assessment of his technical capabilities. My boss is the one deciding his fate, and he was right there in the interview too, but asking him other non-technical questions (soft skills). I can't give this candidate an assessment that is "too good" since my boss is also a techie guy, so he knows this candidate fumbled on the fundamentals.
Ah well, the good thing is, we probably have interviewed enough candidates and there should be no more left to interview (not by me at least). I really don't like having to interview people and giving them a grade.
ps - My current "official" designation is a Unix Admin. When it's "crunch time" I'll be deployed to handle the Unix servers. However I also know Wintel Admin. My boss was saying I'm a "steal" given what I know and can do (salary vs skills). I should have asked for $10K salary mannnn!!!! *kick self*
