Network Administrator I- Discussion
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@Dashrender said:
WOW.. how many reports do you consider is needed to be considered a director?
That's a hundred people "under" me, not one hundred directs. I consider a director should only have managers reporting to them, not normal staff (there are special circumstances that are separate, but more or less.) At a bank, it is common for a director to have nothing reporting to them except for Executive and Senior VPs, as an example. The only time someone as low as a VP would report to a Director is if they are a specific technical adviser that is needed for some reason.
That is extreme for an SMB, but an SMB should not use titles that they aren't big enough for either. SMBs can be big enough to have directors, of course, but many SMBs aren't that big. A director should really be a director. If you have only one IT person and they are desktop support, they should not be called a director or a manager - who are they directing or managing? A director should be the head of a department or higher. There is no hard and fast rule, but if you've ever seen a director in an enterprise, it's pretty easy to tell when the title will reflect poorly when used for something other than a very senior manager of managers.
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One hundred people in a director's own department is definitely enough to be a director. I was the senior director, so was over all other directors (indirect) and all their departments too. So I could hire and fire anywhere in the org short of the president and vice president.
But I was doing engineering work. My day was not totally managing people (manager) or managing managers (director) so either of those titles would have been misleading. I had a lot of authority but my actual job role was still engineer. It's a grey area as to engineer / manager title as I was doing both in a blended role, which is common in SMBs. So a manager title would have been okay or an engineering title. But I was doing way, way more engineering than managing. So it was pretty clear what my title really should be.
That internally I was listed as a Director was fine because it was important to have me over the Director of Operations and below the VP. So it was used as a designation of authority. But for my resume, it would not be appropriate to use it there.
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hmm... I've seen Director used in exactly the opposite way that you have.
West Corp, Fortune 1000, uses directors directly over managers. i.e. employee, manager, director, VP, EVP, CEO.
I've definitely read about directors being at different levels, but have no experience with that.
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@Dashrender said:
hmm... I've seen Director used in exactly the opposite way that you have.
West Corp, Fortune 1000, uses directors directly over managers. i.e. employee, manager, director, VP, EVP, CEO.
I've definitely read about directors being at different levels, but have no experience with that.
Ah, you mean the opposite of the bank. Yes, that's totally fine and common - director is sometimes over the VP line, sometimes under it. Goes both ways. Nothing wrong there. There is no "rule" or even common thing there. But you will notice that it is over manager, that's the important part. And notice that where I was a director (right or wrong) I was over the managers (yes there were managers under me, but not enough to warrant my title) and under the VP. In banking I seem to have seem the VPs under the Directors more commonly but I know bank to bank it varies.
It's never nothing strict. But that directors manager managers is the "universal" assumption of the title (anywhere that is not using the title in an inflated way) and that they are not direct technical contributors (not desktop techs doing some management on the side.)
Pretty universally, from what I have seen, Directors are the ones over departments. The question is whether VP, AVPs, SVP, EVPs are assigned to a department (under directors) or oversee many departments (over directors.)
Also, generally a managing director is the position over a director, if that layer exists. NTG only has one "directory" but the title is never used because it would be silly. But there is someone with that "authority" level and Danielle is the MD (managing director) which is sometimes used in businesses of any size as an equivalent to president / CEO. Especially in smaller companies where a title like CEO seems silly, but isn't technically wrong. Having an MD at the top makes it seem more natural not to have a layer of VPs and Directors running around everywhere
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I am going to delete this post in a few hours. It got way off topic and has de-valued the original post.
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@IRJ said:
I am going to delete this post in a few hours. It got way off topic and has de-valued the original post.
But it is full of valuable discussion. Why is being "off topic" a bad thing? And it really isn't off topic, it's a natural progression of discussion. I don't see how it is off topic nor bad.
And really, any job posting should expect a bit of discussion. In sites like Monster or Newspaper ads only avoid discussion by not allowing it. But these are the thoughts that people have around postings. This should be super valuable feedback to HR and the managers who wrote this up so that they can understand what their descriptions, titles, decisions, etc. mean to the people that they want to hire and how their job listings represent them to the outside world.
In fact, I'd argue that aside from finding employees, this is the best value and completely on topic. This is needed education and insight for the people who write job descriptions.
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Maybe it as increased the value of the original post. Tons of thought has gone into feedback. Did as much thought go into the writing of the job description? One hopes that companies take the acquisition of their staff to be a very important function. At least one being hired by those companies.
I can't imagine what kind of posting would be better or more on topic, really.
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As much as I often don't see eye-to-eye with Scott on many issues (but certainly not all of the time!), I think this discussion was quite useful. It may not have been very flattering to the original post, but it did beg some questions to be asked. And I think the real issue is the lack of, well, honesty and consideration that goes into many job titles, when the actual job is described. Not a personal issue, but an industry-wide deficiency.
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I think, outside of the organic progression of discussions, the questions and concerns about the post were all things that HR and the IT Director should totally have intended as they seemed pretty apparent. Things like payscale, why does the title not reflect the skills listing, why is a college degree listed sort of like a requirement if it truly doesn't matter - what was intended by including it, what is the actual job role and more are things that any minimally qualified candidate should ask the instant that they see this job listing. Why did HR and the Director of IT not choose to answer these things? In a healthy company, one hopes that these questions being asked and discussed would result in valuable, useful feedback on how to rethink titles, job descriptions, job postings, etc. This is a major opportunity for process and departmental improvement. Hopefully it is taken in that light.
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I hope the post/thread stays put, but I respect @IRJ 's prerogative to pull it if he sees fit to do so. Even if everyone here seems to have pointed out its perceived weaknesses, I think the discussion is valid and constructive.
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NO, the post should very much get nuked by the OP as the entire thing is a waste of time for the topic.
@scottalanmiller has ranted on this subject more than one time, in more than one thread, on ML before. I do not see the reason it had to be done again.
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@JaredBusch said:
NO, the post should very much get nuked by the OP as the entire thing is a waste of time for the topic.
@scottalanmiller has ranted on this subject more than one time, in more than one thread, on ML before. I do not see the reason it had to be done again.
I'm not sure the intended take away from this opinion. That any thread that covers ground that has been covered before should not exist? Many threads ask questions or prompt discussions that have happened before or are similar to ones that have happened before. Do you feel that topics should not come up more than once or that once information exists elsewhere it should not be discussed again?
I feel that your dislike for this thread has nothing to do with the content but is purely personal.
Also, the thread is not in question, that remains. It's the OP that may or may not be kept based on @IRJ's decision.
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scott and dash, what are you guys shitting all over this thread?
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I think that this thread is actually incredibly valuable because it takes information that may or may not exist and may or may not have been seen in other places and instead of being talked about in a vacuum applies it to a specific job posting. Instead of having "searchable material" that the people involved unlikely would be able to find that would be covered in a "how to" style, this is direct feedback about a specific posting.
Even if there is material out there on good ways to do many things, people still need feedback on actual implementations. You can read tons of books about system design or how to hire. But reading that stuff is not the same as getting feedback on an actual system design or actual job posting or process or whatever.
This is a thread that @irj can actually take back to the appropriate people and say "here is the response that we got where people could provide feedback" rather than going back and either ignoring a potential mismatch in outcome to desired outcome or telling the people involved that they need to go search for educational material and study up before doing it again.
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you think that because you got your words out of your finger tips. someone was looking for something specific, and you made it your own, as you do far too often (in my selfish opinion) on this board. but whatever floats your island.
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@Hubtech said:
you think that because you got your words out of your finger tips. someone was looking for something specific, and you made it your own, as you do far too often (in my selfish opinion) on this board. but whatever floats your island.
So what do you propose? At least I was on topic and responding to the OP and discussions around the OP - and organic conversation growing from that. Are you saying that only people with opinions you want to hear should provide feedback? That there should not be open discussion on an open discussion forum?
What's the alternative that you suggest? Is it simply that my feedback is not appreciated? I get a very strong sense of that, repeatedly, but what I don't understand is what the expectation of an open discussion is when open discussion is so strongly not appreciated.
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If you feel that there is important alternative viewpoints, rather than belittling people for participating, why not provide those viewpoints. If you don't feel that there is a valuable alternative viewpoint, why do you feel that it is bad that the one that is provided is provided?
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@Guest said:
scott and dash, what are you guys shitting all over this thread?
This thread.. Or every thread? Anyway apparently Hubtech deleted his account and now it shows at Guest?
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@thecreativeone91 said:
@Guest said:
scott and dash, what are you guys shitting all over this thread?
This thread.. Or every thread? Anyway apparently Hubtech deleted his account and now it shows at Guest?
Yes, he apparently has left.
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Sorry if I end up with more questions each time there is a discussion and it pushes the topic away from the OP. But it's the reality of a discussion.
But perhaps the point of this post wasn't a discussion, but only wanting to post a job thread.
That said, Scott's right, HR could learn a lot from the feedback in the thread in regards to what kind of people read these postings on these types of boards and what they may or may not bother responding to.
