[rescue] Do you remember when? Security software.....

[Andrew Weiss]

On Tuesday, August 12, 2003, at 11:30  PM, Charles Shannon Hendrix 
wrote:
> Several people came in wearing suits with certs worn like badges of
> honor.  I told two of them one day, "Come with me."  They followed me
> like little sheep as I led them back to the front door of our office 
> and
> said goodbye.  I played innocent like I thought I was supposed to.
>
> It felt... so evil... so good...
>

You really have to be careful with that too... I think somewhere on 
some interviews I've done things like that.  I always wear a suit to an 
interview... well not really a suit but nice pants a tie and black 
shoes... and yes I've worn my MS cert pin (to jobs that want MS certs), 
and removed the Linux penguin occasionally (when I thought it'd scare 
the MS people... yes I was planning to diabolically disassemble the MS 
infrastructure once I had the job ;-) muahahaha).  It's all about 
buttering up the HR people and such to get past them... we've tried 
many things.  I've probably been shown the door for no good reason many 
times.... trying either the above or the diametric opposite...

I have never been to an interview poorly dressed, but I have done silly 
things like bring pictures of my datacenter stuff... I start with the 
usual suit+pins or what have you for the HR person... when I move on to 
the technical person I usually relax... shoot the breeze ... talk about 
my data center, etc... sometimes with very good results... the only 
thing that can make this lousy is if a business guy also has to talk to 
me... especially an off-putting creepy ROI suit.  Sometimes I lose it 
internally when this happens.

> But damnnation, my boss ran out and got them.  You just can't save some
> people from themselves.
>
They could have been good but young... you never know if they just 
don't know what is or isn't respected in the field... we all learn 
these things over time.

> After *he* kicked them out the door, he came to me and said, "How did
> you know?"
>
I would look more for a balance of reasonable skills on the resume 
(that don't look like lying... )... nicely dressed (serious about the 
job... you can break the dress code to them later...i.e. we dress 
casually around here... and of course I tend to ask the interviewer 
ahead of time to better prepare for what I should be wearing), not a 
show off... but eager to share knowledge, and able to answer questions 
about what is on their resume beyond what they have written and in a 
non-canned way.

Andrew