Adam Bower wrote:
On Mon, Oct 31, 2005 at 01:01:21AM +0000, David Simon Cooper wrote:
To me it sounds a bit stupid saying "MCSE need not apply" given that I know a few technical people who are some of the best I've ever met who also had MCSEs, especially given that some of these people had to get the MCSE as part of their jobs "spec" when working as contractors (and I must say I'd probably be mercenary and get an MCSE if I was offered ~100k a year).
If you wanted to apply for the job in question and you was an excellent technical person then you would supply urls and sample code and keep the MCSE "Under the hood" until a later date. I think the advert is more saying that just an MCSE is no good but relevent experience is also required. I too would get an MCSE if the job required it and they paid, I would not shout about it though.
I worked in the commercial IT industry in London for six years for five different firms netting over £100k in the period, these included an NHS organisation, a restaurant company and three law firms. I knew what I was doing most of the time but did not understand the fundamentals of the work I was doing, which is why I went to Uni. I needed some structured teaching which covered core computing funadmentals.
To play devils advocate a bit, some of the biggest idiots I have had the mis-fortune to work with have had degrees (many of them in computer science) who have been more of a liability than anything else,
A degree is not the golden ticket to a great job and many students that think that won't get very far. A degree has helped me because I already had experience before I went to uni so I used the teaching to fill in all the gaps (including TCPIP, although Linux taught me that). Some things you learn at uni could take months to learn in a commercial job and vice versa.
I have never worked with anyone who had a computing related degree, which is why I valued a degree so highly as the people I worked with were never any good, although some of these had MCSE and CNE. The most critical area which requires graduates in my experience is IT management. Every single IT manager I worked for was an absolute idiot. I can safely say that if I ever run my own business I will not employ a single manager that does not have a related degree, a degree is vital at management level.
so would it be sensible for me to put on any job adverts i was to write "Applicants with degrees need not apply"?
Probably not. A degree demonstrates a level of commitment, teamwork, research ability, technical writing, technical proficiency, planning and overall willingness to learn. Anyone can do a degree, you don't need to be special, you just need to have the commitment, that is the biggest quality it demonstrates rather than technical knowledge.
The common misconception is that a degree grade shows how good a person is technically, not so. The grade should be used as a starting point, technical tests and other "mining" techniques should then be used to work out if the person is blagging the interview or not.
I know awesome 20yr old students hitting a 1st grade and even more awesome students hitting a 2:1. I even know a student who is hitting a 1st who cannot program at all, I am not joking, some students spend years 1 and 2 plagirising(?) work and it does pay off as these students do not get caught, but they will get caught in a technical test for a job when somebody asks them to write a piece if code and they can't.
I am interested to see how the commercial IT industry has changed when I finish uni. Hopefully for the better. Although I won't be working for law firms again!.