Voice of the DBA

Tag: career

  • A Little Interviewing Advice

    Make your next interview a two way interview.

    I know there was a great uproar over the interview piece at the beginning of this week and I received lots of opinions on various parts of the article, good and bad to go over. But one comment came yesterday that was very interesting to me. Paraphrasing because I cannot seem to find the email in the deluge that is my desktop, it was questions the line “And you want them to think you’re one of them”

    I read that a few times before I received the comment, not thinking much of it. After all, when you are interviewing, you want to get along with people and have them like you and hopefully hire you. When I got this comment, however, it struck me what the advice was and what I read were two different things.

    You see I think teamwork is very important, much more important than the technical skills. Not that skills aren’t important, they’re just behind you fitting into a team environment. So where’s the problem with that line? You see it?

    “think”

    When I interview you, or when I interview a company, I am searching and trying to find out if I AM one of them. I want to fit in, but it has to be something that happens naturally. I try to present an honest face and I try to relax candidates to get an honest sense of how they really are. I want to know if they really fit in, or if I do. Not if I can act the part and fool someone into thinking that I’m some other candidate.

    I know it’s hard. You apply for a job, maybe need one, and you want desperately to get hired. And you want to make the impression needed to get hired. And if you are really desperate, then perhaps there’s some justification. But most of the time that’s not the case. I see many DBAs and developers wanting a new job, more money, etc. and they are interviewing while they already have a job somewhere else. There’s nothing wrong with that, but if you are looking to move, do it the right way.

    Be honest and give an honest impression of yourself. And at the same time interview the company and try to ensure they are giving you an honest impression of what it will be like working there.

    After all, companies lie in interviews almost as much as candidates.

  • Why I’m raising my son to be a nerd

    A good read, from ESPN and CNN columnist, LZ Granderson: Why I’m raising my son to be a nerd.

    We need more STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) education in this country, and probably in all countries.

  • Etiquette

    There is no book for modern etiquette

    The world has changed a lot in my lifetime in the way we communicate with others. I am sure that when the telephone was first invented, or live news broadcasts were available, people felt a similar shift, but the way that technology has allowed us to keep in touch with each other, instantaneously, almost anywhere on the globe, is amazing. I grew up with one phone in the house, with an extra long cord, and now have a Smartphone that gives me not only voice communication, but incredible amounts of data on a regular basis. I find myself communicating with text (Twitter), voice (phone), and even with myself (Evernote) almost every day.

    The shifts have also occurred very rapidly, which has brought with it challenges, and occasionally problems. This Intel survey highlights a few issues, and this PSA shows one that many of us are probably affected by at different times.

    In technology we have to deal with interruptions, and sometimes urgent situations that require immediate attention. We have to respond like a doctor on call for emergency room situations, but the reality is that most of our “alerts” aren’t that critical and no one, or no business, will die if we are a few minutes late. There are exceptions but for in most cases these events aren’t extremely time sensitive.

    As you build monitoring and alerting systems, include a little etiquette . Don’t unnecessarily page people, or alert them for situations that don’t need immediate attention. Bring visibility to problems, but don’t overwhelm someone with a large amount of data, and please, don’t alert people that things are working correctly. At this point in computing, automated systems ought to triage out most of the minor issues without involving humans.

    Our world has changed rapidly, with the speed and accessibility of communications growing quicker than our ability to deal with it. In some sense, I think that the deluge of data that we now have will bring new problems to our world, especially as more and more businesses look to analyze data in real time. We will face challenges that would have seemed like science fiction a decade ago.

    Steve Jones

    The Voice of the DBA Podcasts

  • Why Can’t We Code?

    Maybe we need a new test for developers?

    I think that most of the developers or data professionals out there have been through a variety of types of interviews in their careers. You might have had technical interviews that asked you to write code, or maybe you’ve been quizzed on SQL Server trivia or asked to explain methods and properties. Maybe you’ve had interviews with managers that had you define a few database terms. Perhaps you’ve just had someone ask you the ten co

    mmon interview questions without requiring you to demonstrate any technical knowledge.

    No matter what you’ve experienced, I think that many people would agree that the hiring process needs work. It does a poor job of actually pre

    dicting if the new employee can produce quality code or manage servers. Why is that?

    Many companies have really tried to solve this. From the famous “How would you move Mt. Fuji?” questions at Microsoft to the common CS type questions at Google. Joel Spolsky has his own guerilla guide, which I assume has worked well for him, though on a much smaller scale. I think, however, that for the most part no one has come up with a good way to solve this issue.

    A friend sent me this piece recently: Why the New Guy Can’t Code. It’s a little heavy handed, but there was one quote in there that I thought made sense: “don’t interview anyone who hasn’t accomplished anything. Ever.” It’s so easy to set up your own website, design a database on your personal machine, even put an app out for sale, that there’s no excuse not to make some effort to accomplish something. Craig Farrall

    talked about building something in Looking for Work in SQL Server, as did Brandie Tarvin in Changing Career Gears. It’s also one of the things I talk about at the Modern Resume: show people what you’ve done.

    I don’t know that we’ll ever find a fool proof way to hire great employees, but hiring people that have proven themselves in the past, and can point to something they’ve done, is good start.

    Steve Jones

    The Voice of the DBA Podcasts