Why do those with integrity fail in interviewing...

On several occasions, people have pinged me soliciting advice for an interview with "fill in the blank" consulting firm and have gotten overconfident in thinking that actual knowledge/experience/skills is what makes them perfect for the role. In order to emphasis the challenges faced by good people, I have written a skit...



Anyway, IT people are very specialized--it's hard to do another job, especially when you're a geek - so we're a temp work force: millionaires if you have lived between 1996 and 2008, unemployed afterwards! What about having a world strike and stopping all the systems to show who is the master of the world?! [It's a joke!!]

In Connecticut, if you want to find a job, you probably need to deal with recruitment agencies. The cliche about people who work in an agency is that they don't know anything about technology - they just think they do!

Here is an example of communication failure:

* Recruiter: You're not suitable for that role because you don't know X, Y, Z (Database X, Software Y, etc ...)

* Candidate: I have 12 years of exp with IT: 7 years of professional experience and 5 years in University. I have learned many tools in my career and it should not be a problem. I have a strong potential and I am a high motivated individual. I am a quick learner and you think too much short term, give me an interview and your client will judge.

* Recruiter: You are not suitable because you don't know X, Y, Z

* Candidate: I have 5 years with databases, including 6 months with B; I have also used B for 1 year at university. I am a quick learner. I know very well database theory (SQL, stored procedures, all the acronyms the recruiter don't understand). Ask me any technical question instead of telling me I don't know!

* Recruiter: You are not suitable because you don't know X, Y, Z

* Candidate: I have used 5 years with OS Z at university, therefore I should be able to use it. Skills on a CV are not the only things about a person. Two people with the same profile may be very different. Why don't you ask about my personality and my objectives ?

* Recruiter: Ah ah ah ah (laughter). You are not suitable because you don't know X, Y, Z. YOU ARE NOT SUITABLE (with a very nice voice which means : you're a piece of shit)

* Candidate: Screw you!

Many candidates believe that recruiters should focus on your potential and what you can do, not what you don't know! They don't care finding you a job and they don't care finding the best person for clients since even the client themselves may not know exactly what they need. The challenge for candidates is to simply be pleasant.

Sadly, the world of IT causes people who know their shit to act like they know their shit. Recruiters are looking forward to meeting a quota and tend to focus more on the human aspects of technology than anything related to competency. We all know that companies once they make a commitment tend to have a difficult time correcting mistakes they made and will simply stick with it. We also know that even when you make it past the recruiter, other interviewees are probably squeezed for time and have more interesting things to do than to figure out if you are competent or not.

Let's face it, when the status quo is that IT can't align with the business, the vast majority of projects are either over budget and/or late, this proves that competencies aren't that important in the grand scheme of things.

In terms of the skit above, the candidate made the fatal mistake of only focusing on skills and didn't think to mention process. After all, look at how methodologies are sold. Haven't you yet figured out that the vast majority of people still think that process can be a substitute for competence...

Connecticut Voters Guide 2010

In the Manchester Court House, inscribed in marble as you enter is the phrase: Laws are made for men of ordinary understanding. The funny thing is that the court is filled with lots of ordinary people who don't understand and are being rapedassisted by lawyers guiding them through the process...



The democrats made history this year with the passage of healthcare reform. Some believe that they ignored the values of the constitution, while others believe they did it to provide aid to those who otherwise couldn't afford decent healthcare. Regardless of where you stand on this issue, we can all acknowledge the simple fact that the bill contained thousands of pages in which no currently elected senator or congressman actually read in its entirety nor fully understood.

It is one thing for us ordinary citizens to not understand laws, but it is another for those who make the laws to not understand the laws. While intent of the law may be noble, it is really responsible to have so many laws on the books that no one understands?



With this thought in mind, I am encouraging the residents of Connecticut to consider the following when casting their vote:

• Do not vote for anyone who is a lawyer. Candidates with business backgrounds are less likely to wrecklessly execute in this manner. Business people are more inclined to keep things simple.
  
• Do not vote for anyone who is a career politician. In order to grow the economy, we need fresh ideas and new thinking. Doing more of the same, won't result in a different outcome.
• Don't vote along party lines. Being a democrat doesn't automatically make you a liberal. Being a Republican doesn't automatically make you a conservative. Vote for people who share your values.
• If you are Black, don't vote for a candidate solely because they are Black. The same goes for other ethnic groups. Politicians don't really take specific actions targeted at ethnic groups for their benefit as they are there to serve all people.
• We need candidates that are pro-American. Anyone know of friends, family and coworkers where their jobs were outsourced to another country? Ask which candidate will remedy the world trade imbalance which starts with local policy.
  
• Don't vote for candidates that have never had to make payroll. The subject of job creation shouldn't feel academic or conceptual. We need candidates who have real-world experience creating a payroll. We don't need candidates that wouldn't even be successful running a Hot-Dog stand.
  
• Vote for candidates who have demonstrated they will uphold constitutional rights. Regardless of whether you are pro-gun rights or anti-gun rights, it is vital that the candidate support the rights as outlined in the constitution, for without it, we will be a nation of lost people with no framework to guide us forward.

Exercise your right to vote and remember to wear your WWE shirt to the polls regardless of what our Secretary of State thinks about it. Malcolm X in his famous speech described the choices that people make: The Ballot or the Bullet. As a member of the NRA, I believe the latter is important, but the former is more important. Today, is the day where we get to vote for an Agile government...

Parable Of The Idiot Flowers

You need not try so hard. If you trust the inner self, then you grow as a flower grows. The flower grows correctly, and it does not say to itself, "I must grow two inches, so help me, by tomorrow night at twilight!" A flower is, and it allows itself to grow, and it is sure of its Is-ness and of the spirit of All-That-Is within it.

Now, goodness is as natural as a flower that grows. If a flower stopped when the sun was shining down upon it, however, and if it began to consider and said - "Wait! Should I grow to the left, or should I grow to the right? Is it good that the sun shines down on me, or is it too easy for me to grow in the light of the sun, and therefore should I attempt to grow instead in the darkness? Should I grow two inches to the right, or two inches to the left? I must strive to grow! I must develop an ego and an intellect, and I must try to reach that sun that is God and I must work hard to because if I do not strive, I shall not achieve - and I must achieve!"

But, beside our intellectual, conscientious flower is an idiot of a flower! And the idiot of a flower stands and feels the sun upon its face and opens up its leaves and says, "This is the sun, and it is good within me; it is the spirit of growth, and I'll follow it and give it freedom; and I care not whether I grow to the right or to the left, for in perfect trust with the spirit within me, I know I shall grow correctly."

And so it grows, our idiot flower, and it grows from within. And it is perfect and it is straight, but beside it is our intellectual and spiritual flower. And this flower says, "Again! Three o'clock in the afternoon, the shadows are coming and the shadows ore evil, and this sun is fading, and the night is coming, and the night is evil; and I must consider how best I can confound these adversaries ... and it is easy to fail and not use my abilities and not to grow!"

And lo and behold, in the morning the sun rises, and what do we find? Our idiot flower in full bloom in the morning sun and our other flower with one leaf drooped down like this, and one leaf curled up like this, and head down, still considering the nature of good and evil and not trusting the spirit of vitality which is within it; and therefore, not listening to the inner voice ... but questioning at every point and at every hour; "In which way shall I go? Shall I accept the sunlight or the rain? Or are these evil forces?" And telling itself over and over again that to grow is difficult and to die is easy. Telling itself over and over and over - in metaphysical terms - that to be good is difficult and to be evil is easy.