[geeks] New Tech Schools: Digital Harbor in Baltimore

[Charles Shannon Hendrix]

On Thu, 12 Apr 2007 11:39:14 +0300
"Geoffrey S. Mendelson" <gsm at mendelson.com> wrote:

> On Thu, Apr 12, 2007 at 04:09:00AM -0400, der Mouse wrote:
> > Teaching OpenOffice instead of teaching Excel and Word makes almsot no
> > difference to me; I still believe they should be teaching word
> > processing and spreadsheets rather than any particular instance of
> > either.
> 
> Image this at an interview:
> 
> 	Interviewer:	"Did you learn how to use Word in your class"?
> 
> 	Candidate:	 "No, we used Open Office".
> 
> 	Interviewer:	"Sorry, we want someone who knows Word".
> 
> 
> When you start a company and hire people you can hire people for what
> concepts they know, instead of what programs they've used. But most
> of the world thinks the other way. :-(
> 
> It was rare in computers thirty years ago to hire people for specific
> knowledge, now it is the norm.  

It's worse than that.  An interview I had last year for a great job, but a
horrible HR department:

	Int:	"We need someone with Solaris skills."
	Me:	"I run several Solaris 2.6 boxes right now, and... " (I
                explained my current projects and skills).
	Int:	"Oh, that's much too old.  We are already using version 7
                now."

No amount of talking could get through their brick heads that the version
numbers were meaningless.

It's bad enough to not be able to demonstrate that you have the capacity to
learn.


-- 
shannon                      | governorrhea: 
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