How Do You Evaluate IT Skills for Hiring
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The CIO role that I just turned down two weeks ago put specific skill requirements into their demands. I happen to have the exact skills, in spades (I wrote the certs for some of them) so that was no problem. But, I was also senior enough and privy enough to know instantly that none of those skills would be used because anyone even remotely qualified to be a manager there let alone the CIO would instantly have cancelled all of the projects using those skills and done something completely different. but they were so mired in thinking like juniors that they were trying to hire their head of department like he was going to be a tech following orders.
This was a major reason that I turned down the job - their CEO didn't have the chops to hire people in a management tier. He was used to hiring doctors which tend to be more like cogs, any legally certified doctor could have done the job to some degree. But IT isn't like that, IT is very opposite. IT is like business, you need people running it who get the big picture, don't just have "skills" and think broadly, just like you need for a CEO. Which is how I knew the CEO wasn't qualified to be a manager, let alone a CEO and turned them down. The CEO failed the interview.
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@Carnival-Boy said in How Do You Evaluate IT Skills for Hiring:
OK, so you're talking about employing someone, not a headhunter, to do the hiring. Someone who knows more about IT than the candidates. How do you employ that person? I could employ Jared. But how do I know if Jared is bluffing or is amazing? According to you I shouldn't be able to tell.
You can tell, because he's someone you can't hire. That's the handy part. People who are significantly beyond what you can place internally are normally pretty easy to pick out. Especially using experience, price, social media and so forth. I can't hire a great CEO but I can tell you some great CEOs that could help me find one. I can't afford or entice them to be my employees, but I might be able to get them to be my consultants.
But moreso, this is where you hire firms, not people. Firms make more sense in nearly all cases. And if your goal is to get a CIO, then that's where a top head hunting firm makes sense. A firm that has CIOs with proven track records.
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My 2 cents
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Having some expert extensively screen people is expensive and isnt all encompassing. You cant tell if someone is lazy or doesnt give a shit even if they are knowledgeable
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Most enterprise companies are requiring at least 90 days as a contractor with limited access to make sure you are who you say you are
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In my specific focus they are hiring pretty much based on DoD directive 8570. So certification based... Even nearly all private companies are following it. If you have experience companies are willing to pay your full salary and give you 6 months and the necessary tools to get the appropriate certs.
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@IRJ said in How Do You Evaluate IT Skills for Hiring:
- In my specific focus they are hiring pretty much based on DoD directive 8570. So certification based... Even nearly all private companies are following it. If you have experience companies are willing to pay your full salary and give you 6 months and the necessary tools to get the appropriate certs.
Yeah, but getting certs doesn't say anything about skill or experience or aptitude. Just shows you can take tests well. I'm an awesome test taker, I can often pass tests on things I know nothing about because I empathize well with the test writers and the style of questions. The DoD famously does a terrible job of hiring, so we should learn from them in a "what not to do" sort of way. They care about covering their butts politically, not about doing a great job.
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@IRJ said in How Do You Evaluate IT Skills for Hiring:
- Most enterprise companies are requiring at least 90 days as a contractor with limited access to make sure you are who you say you are
SMBs want to try to avoid this. It's very costly to have people sitting around idle for a long time, especially if they represent 50% of your IT workforce during that period, instead of .1% of it, and them having nothing to do but get paid to look for even better jobs.
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@IRJ said in How Do You Evaluate IT Skills for Hiring:
- Having some expert extensively screen people is expensive and isnt all encompassing. You cant tell if someone is lazy or doesnt give a shit even if they are knowledgeable
of course not, but you can never tell that. Although the conversation method gives you the best chance of screening for that. Passion is hard to hide or miss. Same with social media, hard to miss someone is passionate if there is years of demonstration that they are. That's why those things are so important. They tell you the parts that traditional interviews cannot.
There is always risk in hiring. It's about having a decent shot at having a good result. Traditional interviews both tend to filter out the best and filter in the middle and tend to make the best want to pass on by because the process isn't impressive. The best people look for good hiring processes because they want to work with other great people.
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@scottalanmiller said in How Do You Evaluate IT Skills for Hiring:
@Tim_G said in How Do You Evaluate IT Skills for Hiring:
The problem, is that if you are not skilled enough yourself, you won't know what to ask and look for. If you don't know about something, then how will you think to ask about it and properly evaluate someone's skill regarding it?
Example of this... I knew the most standard Solaris question in interviews at a place where I worked was "What are the four running processes of NFS?" They asked this in every single interview that I didn't run.
Problem was.. candidates often knew more than the interviewers so this question would confuse them because they had to assume that the interviewer knew the answer. But in reality, the interviewers had all memorized this and didn't actually know that they all had it wrong. And they had it REALLY wrong.
- NFS is not one thing and there were several different potentially correct answers.
- The list that they had wasn't QUITE accurate.
- NFS only requires two, but often uses four.
So they always evaluated people as positive when actually having gotten the answer wrong. And marking against the people who rightfully got confused. They made assumptions and thought that they were right, but actually didn't know enough about the topic to realize they were asking something that wasn't answerable without loads of false assumptions that they were not filling anyone in on.
Plus, what a horrible question anyway. Sounds like an A+ question. I'm so glad that type of thinking is dying off.
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@stacksofplates said in How Do You Evaluate IT Skills for Hiring:
@scottalanmiller said in How Do You Evaluate IT Skills for Hiring:
@Tim_G said in How Do You Evaluate IT Skills for Hiring:
The problem, is that if you are not skilled enough yourself, you won't know what to ask and look for. If you don't know about something, then how will you think to ask about it and properly evaluate someone's skill regarding it?
Example of this... I knew the most standard Solaris question in interviews at a place where I worked was "What are the four running processes of NFS?" They asked this in every single interview that I didn't run.
Problem was.. candidates often knew more than the interviewers so this question would confuse them because they had to assume that the interviewer knew the answer. But in reality, the interviewers had all memorized this and didn't actually know that they all had it wrong. And they had it REALLY wrong.
- NFS is not one thing and there were several different potentially correct answers.
- The list that they had wasn't QUITE accurate.
- NFS only requires two, but often uses four.
So they always evaluated people as positive when actually having gotten the answer wrong. And marking against the people who rightfully got confused. They made assumptions and thought that they were right, but actually didn't know enough about the topic to realize they were asking something that wasn't answerable without loads of false assumptions that they were not filling anyone in on.
Plus, what a horrible question anyway. Sounds like an A+ question. I'm so glad that type of thinking is dying off.
Too bad it is dying off so slowly. I've been campaigning against this for at least a decade if not more. These types of interviews are completely capricious.
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@stacksofplates said in How Do You Evaluate IT Skills for Hiring:
Plus, what a horrible question anyway. Sounds like an A+ question.
Yeah, not the kind of thing you'd ever need to know. And trivial to look up. And loads of really qualified people simply never work with NFS before that job. NFS is pretty standard, but still, lots had not (I was lucky, I had in the job just before so I breezed that question based on assumptions and luck) and those that haven't used it can learn it in, you know, ten minutes or so.
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@scottalanmiller said in How Do You Evaluate IT Skills for Hiring:
@stacksofplates said in How Do You Evaluate IT Skills for Hiring:
Plus, what a horrible question anyway. Sounds like an A+ question.
Yeah, not the kind of thing you'd ever need to know. And trivial to look up. And loads of really qualified people simply never work with NFS before that job. NFS is pretty standard, but still, lots had not (I was lucky, I had in the job just before so I breezed that question based on assumptions and luck) and those that haven't used it can learn it in, you know, ten minutes or so.
I don't know on UNIX but I only know of nfs, rpc-bind, and mountd on RHEL. Debian it's nfs-kernel-server or some crap like that. But knowing those don't help me do my job any better.
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@stacksofplates said in How Do You Evaluate IT Skills for Hiring:
@scottalanmiller said in How Do You Evaluate IT Skills for Hiring:
@stacksofplates said in How Do You Evaluate IT Skills for Hiring:
Plus, what a horrible question anyway. Sounds like an A+ question.
Yeah, not the kind of thing you'd ever need to know. And trivial to look up. And loads of really qualified people simply never work with NFS before that job. NFS is pretty standard, but still, lots had not (I was lucky, I had in the job just before so I breezed that question based on assumptions and luck) and those that haven't used it can learn it in, you know, ten minutes or so.
I don't know on UNIX but I only know of nfs, rpc-bind, and mountd on RHEL. Debian it's nfs-kernel-server or some crap like that. But knowing those don't help me do my job any better.
Even on RHEL the version matters. It will vary.
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@scottalanmiller said in How Do You Evaluate IT Skills for Hiring:
@stacksofplates said in How Do You Evaluate IT Skills for Hiring:
@scottalanmiller said in How Do You Evaluate IT Skills for Hiring:
@stacksofplates said in How Do You Evaluate IT Skills for Hiring:
Plus, what a horrible question anyway. Sounds like an A+ question.
Yeah, not the kind of thing you'd ever need to know. And trivial to look up. And loads of really qualified people simply never work with NFS before that job. NFS is pretty standard, but still, lots had not (I was lucky, I had in the job just before so I breezed that question based on assumptions and luck) and those that haven't used it can learn it in, you know, ten minutes or so.
I don't know on UNIX but I only know of nfs, rpc-bind, and mountd on RHEL. Debian it's nfs-kernel-server or some crap like that. But knowing those don't help me do my job any better.
Even on RHEL the version matters. It will vary.
Right. This is all 7. No idea what it was before 6.
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@stacksofplates said in How Do You Evaluate IT Skills for Hiring:
@scottalanmiller said in How Do You Evaluate IT Skills for Hiring:
@stacksofplates said in How Do You Evaluate IT Skills for Hiring:
@scottalanmiller said in How Do You Evaluate IT Skills for Hiring:
@stacksofplates said in How Do You Evaluate IT Skills for Hiring:
Plus, what a horrible question anyway. Sounds like an A+ question.
Yeah, not the kind of thing you'd ever need to know. And trivial to look up. And loads of really qualified people simply never work with NFS before that job. NFS is pretty standard, but still, lots had not (I was lucky, I had in the job just before so I breezed that question based on assumptions and luck) and those that haven't used it can learn it in, you know, ten minutes or so.
I don't know on UNIX but I only know of nfs, rpc-bind, and mountd on RHEL. Debian it's nfs-kernel-server or some crap like that. But knowing those don't help me do my job any better.
Even on RHEL the version matters. It will vary.
Right. This is all 7. No idea what it was before 6.
I mean the NFS versions. NFS 2, 3 and 4 have different processes.
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@scottalanmiller said in How Do You Evaluate IT Skills for Hiring:
@stacksofplates said in How Do You Evaluate IT Skills for Hiring:
@scottalanmiller said in How Do You Evaluate IT Skills for Hiring:
@stacksofplates said in How Do You Evaluate IT Skills for Hiring:
@scottalanmiller said in How Do You Evaluate IT Skills for Hiring:
@stacksofplates said in How Do You Evaluate IT Skills for Hiring:
Plus, what a horrible question anyway. Sounds like an A+ question.
Yeah, not the kind of thing you'd ever need to know. And trivial to look up. And loads of really qualified people simply never work with NFS before that job. NFS is pretty standard, but still, lots had not (I was lucky, I had in the job just before so I breezed that question based on assumptions and luck) and those that haven't used it can learn it in, you know, ten minutes or so.
I don't know on UNIX but I only know of nfs, rpc-bind, and mountd on RHEL. Debian it's nfs-kernel-server or some crap like that. But knowing those don't help me do my job any better.
Even on RHEL the version matters. It will vary.
Right. This is all 7. No idea what it was before 6.
I mean the NFS versions. NFS 2, 3 and 4 have different processes.
Ooooh ok. I got you.
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@stacksofplates said in How Do You Evaluate IT Skills for Hiring:
@scottalanmiller said in How Do You Evaluate IT Skills for Hiring:
@stacksofplates said in How Do You Evaluate IT Skills for Hiring:
@scottalanmiller said in How Do You Evaluate IT Skills for Hiring:
@stacksofplates said in How Do You Evaluate IT Skills for Hiring:
@scottalanmiller said in How Do You Evaluate IT Skills for Hiring:
@stacksofplates said in How Do You Evaluate IT Skills for Hiring:
Plus, what a horrible question anyway. Sounds like an A+ question.
Yeah, not the kind of thing you'd ever need to know. And trivial to look up. And loads of really qualified people simply never work with NFS before that job. NFS is pretty standard, but still, lots had not (I was lucky, I had in the job just before so I breezed that question based on assumptions and luck) and those that haven't used it can learn it in, you know, ten minutes or so.
I don't know on UNIX but I only know of nfs, rpc-bind, and mountd on RHEL. Debian it's nfs-kernel-server or some crap like that. But knowing those don't help me do my job any better.
Even on RHEL the version matters. It will vary.
Right. This is all 7. No idea what it was before 6.
I mean the NFS versions. NFS 2, 3 and 4 have different processes.
Ooooh ok. I got you.
Yeah, at some point they switched how the communications were handled. Can't remember the details but it was like from using RPC to something native and so it reduced the listening processes dramatically.
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And of course the implementation matters. There is NFS native, but also third party NFS and ZFS NFS all with different processes.
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Perhaps someone could write a guide on how to get your CV past the 23 year old HR major that cant do anything with technology except text and email? Just about every time I have ever had an interview ive been offered a job, but getting past the HR drone...
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@momurda said in How Do You Evaluate IT Skills for Hiring:
Perhaps someone could write a guide on how to get your CV past the 23 year old HR major that cant do anything with technology except text and email? Just about every time I have ever had an interview ive been offered a job, but getting past the HR drone...
Consider it a good thing, good companies don't have HR drones, ever. You actually want to be filtered out by those people to make your job of selecting a job easier. It's one of the reasons I take my education and certs off of my CV. I specifically want to be filtered out by bad companies (e.g. I want to filter them out before I waste time talking to them.)
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@Carnival-Boy said in How Do You Evaluate IT Skills for Hiring:
@scottalanmiller said in How Do You Evaluate IT Skills for Hiring:
- You must have someone doing the hiring that is dramatically more skills and experienced than the person you are hiring. This is the case for all jobs, not just IT. If the person interviewing is confused because the interviewee knows way more than them, they will just as likely think that the person is an idiot as a genius because they don't know enough to know if the person is right or wrong (seen this a lot.)
How? Are you suggesting firms should employ you to do the hiring or something? That's not normally practical.
Cost to hire a bozo and not fire him for 90 days.
Use cut rate recruiter who charges 10% = $8K
20K Salary.
7K Benefits.
40K to operations being impacted (outages, work not getting done).Cost to hire me to interview candidates and help you go thru resumes ($250HR, for 30 hours) ~$7500
One of these looks a HELL of a lot cheaper to me....
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@scottalanmiller said in How Do You Evaluate IT Skills for Hiring:
@momurda said in How Do You Evaluate IT Skills for Hiring:
Perhaps someone could write a guide on how to get your CV past the 23 year old HR major that cant do anything with technology except text and email? Just about every time I have ever had an interview ive been offered a job, but getting past the HR drone...
Consider it a good thing, good companies don't have HR drones, ever. You actually want to be filtered out by those people to make your job of selecting a job easier. It's one of the reasons I take my education and certs off of my CV. I specifically want to be filtered out by bad companies (e.g. I want to filter them out before I waste time talking to them.)
My last 3 times getting hired...
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Recruiter sets me up with a meeting with the CEO and IT Director. Talk to IT director for an hour, get an offer. No HR involvement.
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Former Vendor who remembered having a good talk with me about VOIP and storage calls and asks me to go to coffee. Go to coffee with VP of company.
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Chief Technologist for BU messages me on Twitter asking if I'd be interested in a roll. Makes sure I get an interview with Hiring manager. Recruiter involved, but more to see if I was interested and work out logistics for my flights.
None of these companies had HR that filtered IT hires. Particularly past the first job my skill level was above that. If your more than 2-3 years in this industry and have that as a problem the guide isn't on how to bypass them but how to Network (I go to a lot of conferences and maximize my time meeting people), get involved in influencer programs (I'm in vExpert and Veeam Vanguard) write good technical blogs (done a few of these), get on podcasts (done a LOT of these), and connect with other experts (I spend a lot of time on private slack channels).
Previous interviews I've done....
- VP of company messages me on linked in asking if I can meet him for lunch. Remembers me from a meeting, where I impressed his head of ops.
I've hired ~8 people over the years and NEVER was HR involved in "filtering" beyond an after the fact doing criminal background checks and telling me if someone tripped a flag.
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