Category: Editorial

Why is a manhole cover round? How many cows are in Canada? How would you cure world hunger?

There’s no shortage of strange interview questions you might be asked in the tech world. If you like these questions, and want to interview, or be interviewed in this way, grab a copy of How Would You Move Mount Fuji and start studying. These are the types of questions that Microsoft, Google, Amazon, and many other tech companies have been asking candidates for years. Since so many technology people read about the practices from these companies, I wouldn’t be surprised if many of you had been asked these types of questions in other interviews.

Personally I’ve never been asked any of these strange questions, and am not sure how I’d respond. My interviews have often been very technical, but have included a number of “how would you..” or “tell me about a time when..” questions. However ultimately I’d like to think that my soft skills, and my social skills came through positively and that was the reason I often received job offers.

Many IT managers are starting to feel that these types of questions, and even highly technical questions, aren’t the best way to evaluate a candidate. Hiring costs are up, both in direct costs spent on finding people and the indirect costs of the lost work from current employees interviewing people. There is pressure to hire well, and find people that can be productive. It seems that many managers are starting to look to evaluate candidates in other ways beyond the technical skills. Those skills are important, but not necessarily more important than soft skills.

That’s been the way I’ve looked at hiring for years. I can often teach someone technical skills, but I can’t teach them to fit in with a group, or be a team player, or even just be someone that won’t annoy the rest of the team. Those social fits are very important if you want your team to function well together, providing support, help, and inspiration to each other.

Building culture is hard, and while technical skills are important, employees that bond together help push each other to do better work for the team. Employees that dislike each other can bring down overall quality and coordination very quickly. The sooner managers learn that, and learn to respect employees while challenging them, the sooner their departments will start to shine.

Steve Jones

Video and Audio versions Today’s podcast features music by Everyday Jones. No relation, but I stumbled on to them and really like the music. Support this great duo at www.everydayjones.com. Follow Steve Jones on Twitter to find links and database related items and announcements. Windows Media Video ( 19.6MB)  MP4 iPod Video ( 23.3MB)  MP3 Audio ( 4.6MB)  Feeds are available at iTunes and Mevio To submit an article, rant or editorial, log in to the Contribution Center

This was originally published on Jan 11, 2009.

How many of you think you work for a great company? Hands down. Now how many of you think you have a great IT department? Would you recommend it to a friend?

That’s a great test for me if you work for a great company, if you’d recommend your company to a friend as a place to work. If not, then why not? Recently I found this article on the 10 signs of a great IT shop, and it got me thinking about some of my past employers. I think I’ve been fortunate to work for one great IT department in my career and a few more that were not so hot.

I’ll note that people always ask me what it’s like to work for Red Gate Software, my current employers and do I like them. I do, but I’m like 5,000 miles away so I don’t get to experience much of the company. So I can’t really judge them as an IT shop to work for, especially since I’m not in IT anymore!

There was one company I worked for that was amazing, and it was the largest IT department that I was a part of. Almost everyone liked the company, liked their jobs, and really worked together well. At times it felt a little surreal to me that this large group of people, literally hundreds in IT, were working together. Sure there was bickering and people that didn’t get along, but they were the exception, not the rule.

This is opposed to a few other places I’ve worked where bickering and infighting were the rule. Or a few jobs I’ve had where IT wasn’t really recognized as an extremely valuable part of the company, despite the fact that it was in a few cases. I think that is not as common these days as we incorporate more and more technology into businesses, but 10 or 20 years ago IT was not seen as valuable, though it might have been important.

I don’t necessarily agree with all the signs listed in the article, but I do think that there are few things you need to do to build an IT group that people want to work for, that they’ll go above and beyond for, and that they’ll stick with you over time. A career path is the first thing and it is important, as is the ability to keep people moving on those paths. That might include training, self study, etc, but you have to show a commitment to your people. I’d also say that the company should take advantage of IT as a strategic part of the business and use to gain competitive advantages. And recognize IT when it does so.

So do you work in a great IT shop?

Steve Jones

The Voice of the DBA Podcasts

The podcast feeds are now available atsqlservercentral.mevio.comto get better bandwidth and maybe a little more exposure :). Comments are definitely appreciated and wanted, and you can get feeds from there.

Overall RSS Feed:  or now on iTunes! 

• Windows Media Podcast – 31.9MB WMV 
• iPod Video Podcast – 26.1MB MP4 
• MP3 Audio Podcast – 5.3MB 

Today’s podcast features music by Everyday Jones. No relation, but I stumbled on to them and really like the music. Support this great duo at www.everydayjones.com.