Laugh OTD

[figmo]

This morning a recruiter called to ask me if I was available for a contract. I of course said "yes."

"Do you have Oracle database experience?"

"I think so." (I worked at Oracle for three years.)

"Do you know what 'SQL' [pronounced "see-quel") is?"

"Of course! Structured Query Language."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes."

"I ask because we sent two candidates to the client, and neither of them knew what it was. When the interviewer asked what 'SQL' stands for, the candidate asked, 'Can you spell that?'"

Comments

[kevin-standlee.livejournal.com]

I used to do technical screening interviews with people looking to do the same job as I do. We had one who claimed to have extensive Microsoft Access experience. I do have such experience, going clear back to the original program. (I actually stumbled onto the version 1.0 installation disks a few weeks ago in my storage locker.) I sat him down at a pretty plain-vanilla Windows PC, with a desktop icon for Microsoft Access as well as the program being on the Start menu. I asked him to start Access and we could go through a few things.

He didn't know how to start the program. Well, I figured it was at least conceivable that he had his own personal machine configured oddly and didn't understand that the Access icon on the desktop, the Start menu, or any of the other ways would get him started. I started it for him and asked him some basic questions about Access.

He hadn't a clue. His whole resume on this area was a bluff. He similarly didn't know much about Excel or any other Office application. I was polite to him and then went to my boss and said, "No. You don't want this person. We'd have to spend a long time training him on rudimentary stuff that he should already know." We did not proceed with that candidate.

[keristor.livejournal.com]

I've run across contractors (freelance programmers) who had the attitude that they would just read the introduction to (for instance) Java For Dummies and then put it on their CV/resume as "experienced with Java". I promptly resolved to blacklist them if they ever applied for a job where I was working.

I tend to do the opposite, I state that I don't know much about the subject (if I don't) and then in the interview find that I know more than the interviewer and get the job. (There are some subjects on which I can reasonably claim to be expert, and do, but in many more areas I'm more aware of my lack of knowledge than of any ability.)

[figmo.livejournal.com]

I do the same thing. IMHO it's better to understate your abilities than to overstate them.

except

[capplor.livejournal.com]

that when a woman plays dumb, she's likely to be believed. I try to be accurate. --R

[dd-b.livejournal.com]

While in some cases I'll claim to be able to learn a new language in a few days -- I certainly don't claim experience on my resume if that's all I've done! (The language is usually fairly simple, and the environment and support code and modules / libraries around it are much more complicated, and an important factor in becoming productive, too.)

In Kevin's initial example, I would have told my boss "we don't want to hire somebody with lies on their resume".

[howeird]

Reminds me of an interview where I asked the candidate what his favorite programming language was. He said "Probably Java, because I just bought Java For Dummies". We didn't hire him.

[hitchhiker.livejournal.com]

when it comes to languages and toolkits, i explicitly divide them into "expert", "experienced" and "have used"

[ravan.livejournal.com]

That's like me having to teach and reteach finance executives how to do basic stuff in Excel. It's the major software tool of their main field, and yet I know how to use it more thoroughly than they do. The people I was retraining on a monthly basis made at least twice what I did.

I taught myself how to use Excel and Word, BTW, and used them extensively in my prior career doing data analysis and reporting on environmental test data.