29 Jun
2000
29 Jun
'00
8:36 p.m.
From what I get from various colleagues, there are
plenty of applications to
process every week for these not-too-clever personnel
types to process. Any
way they can cut their workload, from, say 250 resumes per week to 25 will
work just fine. One way is to toss the ones that have something that jumps
out at you, like gaps in employment ("well, gee, I won the lottery and took
a long trip . . .") unconventional timing in things like when you went to
school, lots of changes in school, major, employment, location, etc, all get
the paperwork out of the pile. They claim they can't get qualified people .
. .
What's really going on is that they can't get qualified people to work for
peanuts.
They look at a resume that's out of the ordinary in some non-desirable way,
they become afraid to take a risk. You may be really good, but they're
afraid to go out on a limb. It's easier to hire some fellow from Bangladesh
who'll live in a 1 BR apartment with 5 others and write 1000 lines of
bug-free C++ a week for $35K per year.
Nope . . . better to make the ol' resume' look like it's right down the
middle. If you do go into the Peace Corps, you'd best leave that off the
resume', else the personnel guy will be too intimidated to confront you
about salary, etc.
Dick
----- Original Message -----
From: Dwight Elvey <elvey(a)hal.com>
To: <classiccmp(a)classiccmp.org>
Sent: Thursday, June 29, 2000 10:45 PM
Subject: OT: College
Sellam Ismail <foo(a)siconic.com> wrote:
> On Thu, 29 Jun 2000, Stan Sieler wrote:
>
> > Re:
> > > While I work as a non-degreed engineer, without personal
> > ...
> > > Find a way to stay in school.
> >
> > Agreed. While I'd hire Dwight in an instant (if we were hiring),
> > and while we have at least 2/5 of our programmers who don't have
> > college degrees, I'd say: get that degree!
>
> Aw, this is all hooey. If you do go to college, study cool stuff like
> philosophy, literature, the physical sciences, psychology, math... And
of
course party a
lot and chase after your prefered sex.
Hi
I guess I'd have to put more emphasis of taking courses that
you thought mattered over getting the degree. I don't know if
I'd choose the same things that Sellam would choose but then
he isn't me and I'm not him. I think he would still choose the
right things because he felt they were right and not because some
idiot consoler thought they were right.
I should have noted that although I take extension courses, I
don't take them for credit. I'm not there for a A or a C. I'm
there for the understanding that I feel will make me better able
to deal with the things I come across. I know when I am making
progress or not, the grade doesn't. That is why it is important
to realize that the things that are right for Sellam may not
be right for me. I wouldn't tell him what was right for him
but I might show him the path that I found.
The point is, don't stay in college for the degree. It does
have some value but if that is the only reason you are staying
there, it isn't a good enough reason. It may get you a job,
that you may not have even been interviewed for otherwise but you are
not likely to stay at that job for long. One of two things will happen.
You will either realize that isn't what you wanted or your employer
will realize that you were not what they wanted.
Don't stay in college because I told you so. I just think that
you are missing the real reason for being there. I just suggest
that you look for that reason before you make other judgments.
If you treat college like a chance to look into those thing that
you feel will expand yourself, you can't loose. The rewords
of learning go way beyond monetary gains.
Find what knowledge you are looking for in college and take course
towards that goal. If you happen to get a degree along the way,
OK fine. If not, you still have the knowledge.
Just an opinion and most have one.
Dwight