RE: When one can call oneself expert
- From: "Ellis R. Miller" <sartre1@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <ryan_gaffuri@xxxxxxxxxxx>, <kduret@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>, <stephenbooth.uk@xxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Wed, 22 Dec 2004 19:00:22 -0600
Very good point.
The best Java programmer I know from AZ once sent me his resume to review
because he liked the flashy "buy me, now, save 50% on first three visits to
office" version of mine (I actually go to great lengths to hit concrete,
technical, plausible, and verifiable career accomplishments and have code,
documentation...more importantly, I can pass the phone screen).
This man is a very strong Java programmer (dare I say the strongest expert
in J2EE I have known) and someone I have tried my best to recruit on more
than several occasions to various firms where I was contracting but his
resume would put a fan/collector of Life Insurance contracts and avid
readers of the Encyclopedia Britannica to sleep. Further, his public
speaking skills are...well, I would rather spend 12 hours in a hot room
wearing a Tuxedo participating in the next Turing Test for machine
intelligence than listen to him give a 10 minute presentation.
I started off with a BS in Finance & Accounting so I have a leg-up in the BS
department. Why, not because I like it but because OVER AND OVER AND OVER
one is taught in business school (this is not necessarily a good thing at
all and could help explain Enron) to self-market and self-promote. Someday,
perhaps, this truly will go away and I for one will be happy to put away the
visual aids and ban PowerPoint from my home.
Until then sell yourselves to the CORE BUSINESS, explain to them how the
Total Cost of Ownership of Linux MAKES THEM MONEY over Windows or even
Solaris, perhaps, not how Windows XP has 40 million lines of code with an
estimated 600,000 bugs...they don't care and, believe it or not, have no
idea what this means. They do pay close attention to $'s and understand
things like PHP is FREE and will run on all of the desktops and servers but
.NET costs xyz and only runs on Windows (not taking a side just giving an
example) so we can keep all the same hardware, boss, and we already have
several PHP programmers in-house but no .NET "experts" so we don't have to
hire anyone or increase head count (they love that kind of stuff).
Think of that business person, CEO, or VP as the next super model (male or
female...I am not judging) you have to take to dinner, buy drinks, and only
later after you have had your first five children will he/she fully
appreciate and love you for your technical expertise.
An excerpt from Bill Hicks one of my favorite dead comedians:
"By the way if anyone here is in advertising or marketing... kill you. No,
no, no it's just a little thought. I'm just trying to plant seeds. Maybe one
day, they'll take root - I don't know. You try, you do what you can. Kill
yourself. Seriously though, if you are, do. Aaah, no really, there's no
rationalization for what you do and you are Satan's little helpers, Okay -
kill yourself - seriously. You are the ruiner of all things good, seriously.
No this is not a joke, you're going, "there's going to be a joke coming,"
there's no f******g joke coming. You are Satan's spawn filling the world
with bile and garbage. You are f*****d and you are f******g us. Kill
yourself. It's the only way to save your f******g soul, kill yourself.
Planting seeds. I know all the marketing people are going, "he's doing a
joke... there's no joke here whatsoever. Suck a tail-pipe, f*****g hang
yourself, borrow a gun from a Yank friend - I don't care how you do it. Rid
the world of your evil f******g machinations. I know what all the marketing
people are thinking right now too, "Oh, you know what Bill's doing, he's
going for that anti-marketing dollar. That's a good market, he's very
smart." Oh man, I am not doing that. You f******g evil scumbags! "Ooh, you
know what Bill's doing now, he's going for the righteous indignation dollar.
That's a big dollar. A lot of people are feeling that indignation. We've
done research - huge market. He's doing a good thing." G******t, I'm not
doing that, you scum-bags!
Please sell yourselves within reason and with just the necessary flash based
on what you understand to be your TRUE EXPERTISE, nail the phone screen, and
embrace those corporate suits...VPs, CEOs, and CFOs, alike, as they are
coming to take over an IT department near you and from what my senior
executive friends still express they HATE US, still, for the .com era, don't
trust ANY OF US (NOT JUST THE FLASHY, IDIOTIC ONES), and they don't know who
most of the real experts are...you wonderful, crazy, whacky, legitimate,
dare I say, experts...but they do know the former juggler and just simply
love golfing with him and, believe it or not, that sob is the Project
Manager who majored in PR and Home Economics and also, oddly enough, the one
who determines who stays or goes on the project and he wants to hire five
more of his close friends from his fraternity and his cousin who was just
released from prison for check fraud to be your personal overlord. (I could
give some real-life examples, by the way, but I don't want to get banned,
again).
After all, would you have bought that last Oracle book or SUV if the
advertisement said it was "pretty darn good" or "not too bad"...and the test
drive will prove whether it is the best SUV God ever blessed with holy
water.
So I can have the distinct pleasure of working with some of you, the posers
are eradicated and forced out, and that next IT project doesn't involve
subsidizing the khaki budget of that one guy in IT who is "so nice" because
he doesn't ever argue with anyone's technical assessment and, of course,
will write a check for any software package pushed across his desk with a
smile in exchange for a vendor outing and reassure Management that next IT
deadline absolutely will be met this time...I have my top people on it
(translation, the two guys/girls on the team of 30 who actually can type and
are experts in using a mouse).
In closing, even GOOD IT recruiters, who I genuinely appreciate, at least
the quality ones, don't know jack about IT (on average and these are still
the best ones I know). Yet, the good ones keep tabs on the profiles of those
who do yet THEY STILL NEED YOU TO HELP THEM MARKET YOU...with honesty,
integrity, and real accomplishments/skills but still a little flash. Do it
for me, do it for IT, and do it so you will someday be in charge of the core
business...IT is fast becoming an integral, inseparable part of the core
business across many industries and either you or the guy with the brightly
colored suit and great anecdotes from his former career as a comedian will
be in charge. If he's in charge you can walk on Oracle water and truly
support/rescue the core business from that next IT failure or suicidal
project some term a "death march" and he will thank you and so will his
cousin from Joliette prison when they can justify hiring another dozen
ex-cons and "Star Search" rejects.
Ellis
PS A very good VP named Scott K. from a major airline used to say it this
way: "Great, Ellis, I understand Oracle star schemas, now, but please tell
me how this is going to make our department money...I think what you are
saying is the reports will run faster and use those "materialized views" you
referred to...is that it, Ellis, my Pricing analysts can have the results
returned in seconds as opposed to waiting hours..." Take over the core
business and market yourself to the hilt because the posers and
self-promoting morons are fleecing American IT, still, and deceiving the
core business worse than the UAW did GM...I can attest to this because my
entire family on my Mothers side worked for General Motors in OH. By the
way, virtually all of the GM plants in Dayton, OH are closed and, trust me,
I worked there, they gave them more than a decade to be spun off as Delphi's
and become profitable...they didn't, they are in Mexico, and that one guy
that cranked out 35 compressors to be more productive over and above the
required 25 got his car keyed then later annihilated with baseball bats. Now
my cousin who was sure he was going to work at GM for $20/hr sells lottery
tickets at a carryout in Moraine...and there is an entire generation of them
doing the same and running crack houses back in OH.
-----Original Message-----
From: oracle-l-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:oracle-l-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx]
On Behalf Of ryan_gaffuri@xxxxxxxxxxx
Sent: Wednesday, December 22, 2004 5:13 PM
To: kduret@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx; 'stephenbooth.uk@xxxxxxxxx'
Cc: Duret, Kathy; oracle-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: RE: When one can call oneself expert
most resumes look pretty much the same. Everyone knows everything. That is
what the 25 minute technical phone screen is for... they turn into 5 minute
ones when every answer is 'I dont know'. We have a 95% rejection rate on
phone screens here.
Putting expert on your resume is for marketing purposes and gets people
passed HR. I don't weed anyone out because of it and I do not put them to
the top either.
Nothing wrong with people marketing themselves. It's pretty easy to find out
if its true.
its just a resume... and people need jobs.
-------------- Original message --------------
> Been there.... I insist the recruiter can't send out my resume without me
> looking at their revision FIRST!
>
> I had one add alot of skills I didn't have and I was very embarrased.
> Thankfully, I had my original resume with me and showed it to them. Fired
> the recruiter after that.
>
> Kathy
--
//www.freelists.org/webpage/oracle-l
-----Original Message-----
From: oracle-l-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:oracle-l-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx]
On Behalf Of ryan_gaffuri@xxxxxxxxxxx
Sent: Wednesday, December 22, 2004 5:13 PM
To: kduret@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx; 'stephenbooth.uk@xxxxxxxxx'
Cc: Duret, Kathy; oracle-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: RE: When one can call oneself expert
most resumes look pretty much the same. Everyone knows everything. That is
what the 25 minute technical phone screen is for... they turn into 5 minute
ones when every answer is 'I dont know'. We have a 95% rejection rate on
phone screens here.
putting expert on your resume is for marketing purposes and gets people
passed HR. I don't weed anyone out because of it and I do not put them to
the top either.
Nothing wrong with people marketing themselves. It's pretty easy to find out
if its true.
its just a resume... and people need jobs.
-------------- Original message --------------
> Been there.... I insist the recruiter can't send out my resume without me
> looking at their revision FIRST!
>
> I had one add alot of skills I didn't have and I was very embarrased.
> Thankfully, I had my original resume with me and showed it to them. Fired
> the recruiter after that.
>
> Kathy
--
//www.freelists.org/webpage/oracle-l
--
//www.freelists.org/webpage/oracle-l
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