Re: a question regarding resumes

[Mark Verber <verber@parc.xerox.com>]

On Thu, 24 Jul 1997, Steven Jenkins wrote:

My experience is that 2-3 years (if the person is bright and willing to
work) is plenty of time to learn and make a significant contribution to
a site.  As to keeping people longer than three years, that is largly
a management issue.  My site has a mixed record, we have a fair number
of people who have been here 5+ years, but also have see a fair amount
of turnover in some of our positions.

I would agree that in the case of a computer illiterate company where
there is a sole SA, that you need someone who has significant domain
knowledge and experience.  My response was really more about interviewing
in general than what a computer illiterate company should do.  For the
completely illiterate company I would agree with the suggestions of
hiring a firm with a good reputation to do your staffing, or find a
consultant who can help you assess your canidates.

--mark

> Specific Technical Knowledge
> >Quite frankly, this is the least important area of interviewing for me.
> >I a person has good problem solving skills and can learn quickly, they
> >can pick up wherever specific knowledge they need from books, man
> >pages, the web, classes, and conferences.
> 
> That is a fairly enlightened perspective, but it's been my experience
> (albeit limited) that most SAs don't really stick around long enough
> to learn anything useful.  Or once they have really learned something,
> they leave.  If the average time on a job is on the order of 2-3 years,
> then most places really need their SAs to already have knowledge
> (obviously there are exceptions, but it's clearly unreasonable for
> a computer illiterate company to hire someone who does not have
> specific knowledge).