Would You Hire Someone in IT Who Does Not Have a Home Lab
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I'd definitely argue that watching someone play a game is way more "together" than watching television. Instead of my daughter and I each watching actors do something, I'm watching my daughter do something. I'm actively involved in what she is doing, even if only a little, rather than both of us just watching someone else tell us stories.
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@jimmy9008 said in Would You Hire Someone in IT Who Does Not Have a Home Lab:
@dashrender said in Would You Hire Someone in IT Who Does Not Have a Home Lab:
@jimmy9008 said in Would You Hire Someone in IT Who Does Not Have a Home Lab:
@scottalanmiller said in Would You Hire Someone in IT Who Does Not Have a Home Lab:
@jimmy9008 said in Would You Hire Someone in IT Who Does Not Have a Home Lab:
@scottalanmiller said in Would You Hire Someone in IT Who Does Not Have a Home Lab:
@jimmy9008 said in Would You Hire Someone in IT Who Does Not Have a Home Lab:
@dashrender said in Would You Hire Someone in IT Who Does Not Have a Home Lab:
@jimmy9008 said in Would You Hire Someone in IT Who Does Not Have a Home Lab:
Them having a home lab has no basis to prove they will be good or bad at any job.
Never said it did - but it shows interest and self motivation, which are critical things in IT.
The fact they are after the job in IT shows that they have interest and self motivation. Otherwise they would be looking for a job in healthcare, or sports or whatever else.
THis is incorrect. That's not how looking for jobs works.
No, of course. People only look for jobs they have no interest in right Scott...
That's not good logic. You made the obviously false assumption that all people only apply to jobs about which they are passionate. You then respond with the utterly illogical conclusion that if that is untrue that all people must do the opposite.
Not all water is clear, therefore all water is murky?
If you are not passionate then it will be clear within the probation and you will be gone. Its not a good position to be in to assume from the get go that only those with a lab are passionate. Its not good to assume those with a lab are more learned than those without who have actual real work experience. Its not good to assume the home lab gave good quality knowledge etc.
A home lab is not relevant.
Think about this - If you have a job where you have to support KVM, that only tells a person that because of your job, you know something about KVM. BUT, if you have a KVM setup at home, you KNOW this person cared enough to learn about KVM on their own, and that it's likely they have passion about it. You can't know about passion from a person who does a job for pay.
The fact that they have a job needing KVM and have not been fired, thereby showing they can gain knowledge and get the job done, shows what I need to know. Having a home lab doesnt show me anything.
This is simply not true either - many people have all sorts of requirements ( I just look at my own company) and see the number who can't do their actual job, yet are still employed. Plus, how would you as a hiring manager know that KVM was required at their last job? Is that something their old boss would tell you? You likely couldn't and wouldn't get that information from an ex-boss in the US.
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@dashrender said in Would You Hire Someone in IT Who Does Not Have a Home Lab:
@jimmy9008 said in Would You Hire Someone in IT Who Does Not Have a Home Lab:
@dashrender said in Would You Hire Someone in IT Who Does Not Have a Home Lab:
@jimmy9008 said in Would You Hire Someone in IT Who Does Not Have a Home Lab:
@scottalanmiller said in Would You Hire Someone in IT Who Does Not Have a Home Lab:
@jimmy9008 said in Would You Hire Someone in IT Who Does Not Have a Home Lab:
@scottalanmiller said in Would You Hire Someone in IT Who Does Not Have a Home Lab:
@jimmy9008 said in Would You Hire Someone in IT Who Does Not Have a Home Lab:
@dashrender said in Would You Hire Someone in IT Who Does Not Have a Home Lab:
@jimmy9008 said in Would You Hire Someone in IT Who Does Not Have a Home Lab:
Them having a home lab has no basis to prove they will be good or bad at any job.
Never said it did - but it shows interest and self motivation, which are critical things in IT.
The fact they are after the job in IT shows that they have interest and self motivation. Otherwise they would be looking for a job in healthcare, or sports or whatever else.
THis is incorrect. That's not how looking for jobs works.
No, of course. People only look for jobs they have no interest in right Scott...
That's not good logic. You made the obviously false assumption that all people only apply to jobs about which they are passionate. You then respond with the utterly illogical conclusion that if that is untrue that all people must do the opposite.
Not all water is clear, therefore all water is murky?
If you are not passionate then it will be clear within the probation and you will be gone. Its not a good position to be in to assume from the get go that only those with a lab are passionate. Its not good to assume those with a lab are more learned than those without who have actual real work experience. Its not good to assume the home lab gave good quality knowledge etc.
A home lab is not relevant.
Think about this - If you have a job where you have to support KVM, that only tells a person that because of your job, you know something about KVM. BUT, if you have a KVM setup at home, you KNOW this person cared enough to learn about KVM on their own, and that it's likely they have passion about it. You can't know about passion from a person who does a job for pay.
The fact that they have a job needing KVM and have not been fired, thereby showing they can gain knowledge and get the job done, shows what I need to know. Having a home lab doesnt show me anything.
This is simply not true either - many people have all sorts of requirements ( I just look at my own company) and see the number who can't do their actual job, yet are still employed. Plus, how would you as a hiring manager know that KVM was required at their last job? Is that something their old boss would tell you? You likely couldn't and wouldn't get that information from an ex-boss in the US.
In both cases, you hopefully can ask the candidate what they did, but you have to heavily rely on them being allowed to talk about it (a home lab advantage, you can say anything about what you did) and trust that they are honest, but of course at that point they might just make up anything.
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Of course, if you want to work for a place that puts no stock in home labs, but does put stock in "having been employed" just create an MSP, build the same home lab but call it part of the MSP, and voila, same lab, but now those shops that only look at employment will see it as work history and you can have "work experience" on anything that you like. Magic.
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What you learn or demonstrate from a work environment is also about what you had to learn or do. It tells me nothing about what you want to do. A home lab tells me what things you wanted to learn. Either because you love them or because you thought that they were interesting or you thought that that was a direction that you wanted to take your career. It tells me way more about your decisions and desires than anything you do at a job.
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@scottalanmiller said in Would You Hire Someone in IT Who Does Not Have a Home Lab:
@dashrender said in Would You Hire Someone in IT Who Does Not Have a Home Lab:
But you both at the kitchen table, you typing on ML, basically ignoring her - not in a mean way, but in the, I'm doing my own thing way, and her reading to herself or whatever... that's not family time, that's not hanging out.. at least not to me.
No more ignoring that if we were watching a show or eating food together. Same amount of interactivity.
Actually, we do more together this way. I watch HER play a game, not just watch the same thing that she is watching. And we discuss the game as she plays. We wouldn't do those things if eating or watching television.
So this is very much more interactive and more family time than the things most people consider family time.
you don't have family discussions while eating? you all just sit there in silence while eating? odd, at least to me.
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@scottalanmiller said in Would You Hire Someone in IT Who Does Not Have a Home Lab:
@dashrender said in Would You Hire Someone in IT Who Does Not Have a Home Lab:
@jimmy9008 said in Would You Hire Someone in IT Who Does Not Have a Home Lab:
@scottalanmiller said in Would You Hire Someone in IT Who Does Not Have a Home Lab:
@jimmy9008 said in Would You Hire Someone in IT Who Does Not Have a Home Lab:
@scottalanmiller said in Would You Hire Someone in IT Who Does Not Have a Home Lab:
@jimmy9008 said in Would You Hire Someone in IT Who Does Not Have a Home Lab:
If you are not passionate then it will be clear within the probation and you will be gone.
Obviously this isn't true. We know that most people in IT aren't passionate at all about it. And how would a normal company gauge passion in the probation period? That's not reasonable to assume is even remotely possible. In the US, in the SMB there is no understanding of IT or passion, in the enterprise you rarely even get system access during a probationary period, you just sit in a room waiting for access. Nothing to gauge.
Because either they have developed and can do the work, or they cant. Here a probation is 6 months. If you cant tell that somebody can do that in 6 months, the company is missing something important.
Sure, but companies that hire randomly and hope to determine on the job if someone is good and passionate would be exactly the kinds of companies that wouldn't have the ability to determine that in six months, or ever.
Why would you ever want to look for this after hiring rather than before? Hiring is expensive, don't do it badly on purpose.
Hiring somebody with 'x' years experience is not random at all. Deciding not to hire that person as they don't have a home lab is petty - that's what I'm saying here. Having the lab is no basis for me.
And that's not what he's saying at all.
What he is saying is.. if two people apply for the same job, and one has a home lab full of that same technology that the guy who has been working for x years in, the lab guy you KNOW has passion about that tech. So that gives the lab guy a leg up.
If they both have x years experience, and one has a home lab... he automatically wins bonus points because of the shown passion.
Exactly. And to do a home lab guarantees a certain about of soup to nuts experience. Having used something at the office doesn't even suggest that level of experience.
That's why the bank was excited about me. My home lab showed that I'd run servers from "ordering hardware" to "in production and maintained." Not one of their decades of experience six figure people on a team of eighty people had ever done that, not once, through all of their university education or work experience. And it was insanely noticeable immediately on the job. Both that my passion was way higher, and the scope of experience was way greater.
And that team still reads ML for knowledge on the stuff that they do there, BTW.
I'm assuming that's the group that didn't know what RSAT was.
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@scottalanmiller said in Would You Hire Someone in IT Who Does Not Have a Home Lab:
@dashrender said in Would You Hire Someone in IT Who Does Not Have a Home Lab:
Proximity alone does not make together time in my mind.
I'll agree if television and food are then not family time. If they are, then proximity alone certain is what makes it family time.
Can't be both, it has to be one or the other.
I guess you don't talk about the show directly following the show at all - so then many activities wouldn't be together time.
As for food - again, if there is no discussion, then I'll agree, it's not together time, but that seems to be an exception, not the rule in most cases.
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@dashrender said in Would You Hire Someone in IT Who Does Not Have a Home Lab:
@scottalanmiller said in Would You Hire Someone in IT Who Does Not Have a Home Lab:
@dashrender said in Would You Hire Someone in IT Who Does Not Have a Home Lab:
But you both at the kitchen table, you typing on ML, basically ignoring her - not in a mean way, but in the, I'm doing my own thing way, and her reading to herself or whatever... that's not family time, that's not hanging out.. at least not to me.
No more ignoring that if we were watching a show or eating food together. Same amount of interactivity.
Actually, we do more together this way. I watch HER play a game, not just watch the same thing that she is watching. And we discuss the game as she plays. We wouldn't do those things if eating or watching television.
So this is very much more interactive and more family time than the things most people consider family time.
you don't have family discussions while eating? you all just sit there in silence while eating? odd, at least to me.
Correct. Talking while eating at home really isn't a thing. I've never known anyone to do that like on television. It's weird. You are eating, not talking. Restaurants are different because most of the time is just sitting around waiting for food.
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@dashrender said in Would You Hire Someone in IT Who Does Not Have a Home Lab:
@scottalanmiller said in Would You Hire Someone in IT Who Does Not Have a Home Lab:
@dashrender said in Would You Hire Someone in IT Who Does Not Have a Home Lab:
@jimmy9008 said in Would You Hire Someone in IT Who Does Not Have a Home Lab:
@scottalanmiller said in Would You Hire Someone in IT Who Does Not Have a Home Lab:
@jimmy9008 said in Would You Hire Someone in IT Who Does Not Have a Home Lab:
@scottalanmiller said in Would You Hire Someone in IT Who Does Not Have a Home Lab:
@jimmy9008 said in Would You Hire Someone in IT Who Does Not Have a Home Lab:
If you are not passionate then it will be clear within the probation and you will be gone.
Obviously this isn't true. We know that most people in IT aren't passionate at all about it. And how would a normal company gauge passion in the probation period? That's not reasonable to assume is even remotely possible. In the US, in the SMB there is no understanding of IT or passion, in the enterprise you rarely even get system access during a probationary period, you just sit in a room waiting for access. Nothing to gauge.
Because either they have developed and can do the work, or they cant. Here a probation is 6 months. If you cant tell that somebody can do that in 6 months, the company is missing something important.
Sure, but companies that hire randomly and hope to determine on the job if someone is good and passionate would be exactly the kinds of companies that wouldn't have the ability to determine that in six months, or ever.
Why would you ever want to look for this after hiring rather than before? Hiring is expensive, don't do it badly on purpose.
Hiring somebody with 'x' years experience is not random at all. Deciding not to hire that person as they don't have a home lab is petty - that's what I'm saying here. Having the lab is no basis for me.
And that's not what he's saying at all.
What he is saying is.. if two people apply for the same job, and one has a home lab full of that same technology that the guy who has been working for x years in, the lab guy you KNOW has passion about that tech. So that gives the lab guy a leg up.
If they both have x years experience, and one has a home lab... he automatically wins bonus points because of the shown passion.
Exactly. And to do a home lab guarantees a certain about of soup to nuts experience. Having used something at the office doesn't even suggest that level of experience.
That's why the bank was excited about me. My home lab showed that I'd run servers from "ordering hardware" to "in production and maintained." Not one of their decades of experience six figure people on a team of eighty people had ever done that, not once, through all of their university education or work experience. And it was insanely noticeable immediately on the job. Both that my passion was way higher, and the scope of experience was way greater.
And that team still reads ML for knowledge on the stuff that they do there, BTW.
I'm assuming that's the group that didn't know what RSAT was.
That was not the bank. The was the hedge. The bank was insanely technical. Best I've ever seen.
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@dashrender said in Would You Hire Someone in IT Who Does Not Have a Home Lab:
I guess you don't talk about the show directly following the show at all - so then many activities wouldn't be together time.
Once in a while, but not often. It's passive entertainment, not that much to discuss.
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@scottalanmiller said in Would You Hire Someone in IT Who Does Not Have a Home Lab:
I'd definitely argue that watching someone play a game is way more "together" than watching television. Instead of my daughter and I each watching actors do something, I'm watching my daughter do something. I'm actively involved in what she is doing, even if only a little, rather than both of us just watching someone else tell us stories.
I'll give you that you watching her do something, even something like playing a game - and likely you aren't watching her directly much of the time, vs say, if she was playing soccer - where you would be watching her, is together time - but I think the discussion is paramount to calling it together time.
Watching them play soccer ultimately only counts if 1) they know they are being watched by you, and 2) you discuss it afterwards, even if only to say - great game or them's the breaks.
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@dashrender said in Would You Hire Someone in IT Who Does Not Have a Home Lab:
As for food - again, if there is no discussion, then I'll agree, it's not together time, but that seems to be an exception, not the rule in most cases.
I don't know anyone like that at home, never have. If its the rule the exception seems to happen nearly all of the time. People sya that they talk ,but observe them, and they don't.
My daughter and I actively talk right now, while she is gaming and I am writing. And what we are talking about isn't obligatory "do you like that food" or "was that a good show" but talking about the thing that she is doing, rather than talking about something we both passively consumed.
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@scottalanmiller said in Would You Hire Someone in IT Who Does Not Have a Home Lab:
@dashrender said in Would You Hire Someone in IT Who Does Not Have a Home Lab:
@scottalanmiller said in Would You Hire Someone in IT Who Does Not Have a Home Lab:
@dashrender said in Would You Hire Someone in IT Who Does Not Have a Home Lab:
But you both at the kitchen table, you typing on ML, basically ignoring her - not in a mean way, but in the, I'm doing my own thing way, and her reading to herself or whatever... that's not family time, that's not hanging out.. at least not to me.
No more ignoring that if we were watching a show or eating food together. Same amount of interactivity.
Actually, we do more together this way. I watch HER play a game, not just watch the same thing that she is watching. And we discuss the game as she plays. We wouldn't do those things if eating or watching television.
So this is very much more interactive and more family time than the things most people consider family time.
you don't have family discussions while eating? you all just sit there in silence while eating? odd, at least to me.
Correct. Talking while eating at home really isn't a thing. I've never known anyone to do that like on television. It's weird. You are eating, not talking. Restaurants are different because most of the time is just sitting around waiting for food.
We definitely did what you see on TV when I was a kid. As adults I don't, unless, as you said, we're in a restaurant.
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Back to "just because you are getting paid doesn't mean that you are getting experience".... right now dealing with a different community forum that is broken. The same people have been running the site for many years. The same "not learning from their mistakes" is happening. If you go by job experience, it looks like they have tons of experience. If you look at passion, they don't really have any. The experience being gained working in their production environment is worth, essentially, zero. Even casual home lab experience would be a better example of useful experience. Just because it is production doesn't mean it is any good.
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@scottalanmiller said in Would You Hire Someone in IT Who Does Not Have a Home Lab:
@dashrender said in Would You Hire Someone in IT Who Does Not Have a Home Lab:
I guess you don't talk about the show directly following the show at all - so then many activities wouldn't be together time.
Once in a while, but not often. It's passive entertainment, not that much to discuss.
So you're watching together only out of convenience, not out of a sense of spending time together.
I consider watching a show with my wife together time because we are discussing it while it's on or shortly after. But if she's watching some show I could care less about, she'd rather have me plopped down on the couch next to her playing on my laptop ignoring the TV than in the other room doing anything else. To her, the simply proximity is together time, drives me crazy.
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@dashrender said in Would You Hire Someone in IT Who Does Not Have a Home Lab:
@scottalanmiller said in Would You Hire Someone in IT Who Does Not Have a Home Lab:
@dashrender said in Would You Hire Someone in IT Who Does Not Have a Home Lab:
I guess you don't talk about the show directly following the show at all - so then many activities wouldn't be together time.
Once in a while, but not often. It's passive entertainment, not that much to discuss.
So you're watching together only out of convenience, not out of a sense of spending time together.
I consider watching a show with my wife together time because we are discussing it while it's on or shortly after. But if she's watching some show I could care less about, she'd rather have me plopped down on the couch next to her playing on my laptop ignoring the TV than in the other room doing anything else. To her, the simply proximity is together time, drives me crazy.
My wife is the same way.
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@scottalanmiller said in Would You Hire Someone in IT Who Does Not Have a Home Lab:
@dashrender said in Would You Hire Someone in IT Who Does Not Have a Home Lab:
As for food - again, if there is no discussion, then I'll agree, it's not together time, but that seems to be an exception, not the rule in most cases.
I don't know anyone like that at home, never have. If its the rule the exception seems to happen nearly all of the time. People sya that they talk ,but observe them, and they don't.
My daughter and I actively talk right now, while she is gaming and I am writing. And what we are talking about isn't obligatory "do you like that food" or "was that a good show" but talking about the thing that she is doing, rather than talking about something we both passively consumed.
Sure, those conversations are definitely much easier, there is something happening and likely you are offering her suggestions on how to be better, or just simple encouragement.
I don't have kids, so I don't know how normal family with kids life is anymore. Perhaps the food prep person drops the food on the table, everyone arrives, chows and vanishes.. 15 mins tops and it's done. Definitely different from when I was a kid. You're specific situation, and other homeschooling setups (so no, you're not a snowflake) where the parents are around the kids most if not the entire day, find less to hear about from their children during a meal, because they experienced it alongside their children all day, so there is no need for catching up.
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@dashrender said in Would You Hire Someone in IT Who Does Not Have a Home Lab:
@scottalanmiller said in Would You Hire Someone in IT Who Does Not Have a Home Lab:
@dashrender said in Would You Hire Someone in IT Who Does Not Have a Home Lab:
I guess you don't talk about the show directly following the show at all - so then many activities wouldn't be together time.
Once in a while, but not often. It's passive entertainment, not that much to discuss.
So you're watching together only out of convenience, not out of a sense of spending time together.
That's the nature of normal television, one of the reasons I don't like it.
There are exceptions, like Rick Steves shows, where we actively watch and discuss about places we want to go or whatever. Or home improvement shows and talk about houses, decorating, or whatever that we like. But most television, you just watch and its over, nothing to really discuss. Or the discussion is just.... empty.
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@dashrender said in Would You Hire Someone in IT Who Does Not Have a Home Lab:
@scottalanmiller said in Would You Hire Someone in IT Who Does Not Have a Home Lab:
@dashrender said in Would You Hire Someone in IT Who Does Not Have a Home Lab:
As for food - again, if there is no discussion, then I'll agree, it's not together time, but that seems to be an exception, not the rule in most cases.
I don't know anyone like that at home, never have. If its the rule the exception seems to happen nearly all of the time. People sya that they talk ,but observe them, and they don't.
My daughter and I actively talk right now, while she is gaming and I am writing. And what we are talking about isn't obligatory "do you like that food" or "was that a good show" but talking about the thing that she is doing, rather than talking about something we both passively consumed.
Sure, those conversations are definitely much easier, there is something happening and likely you are offering her suggestions on how to be better, or just simple encouragement.
I don't have kids, so I don't know how normal family with kids life is anymore. Perhaps the food prep person drops the food on the table, everyone arrives, chows and vanishes.. 15 mins tops and it's done. Definitely different from when I was a kid. You're specific situation, and other homeschooling setups (so no, you're not a snowflake) where the parents are around the kids most if not the entire day, find less to hear about from their children during a meal, because they experienced it alongside their children all day, so there is no need for catching up.
Even when I was a kid, we were always done eating before my mom even made it ot the table. Food prep always continued until the meal was already done.
