Yet another Joel Spolsky guide to hiring - The Guerrilla Guide to Interviewing v3.

Amusing quote regarding a programmers ability to properly handle recursion & pointers:

I want my ER doctor to understand anatomy, even if all she has to do is put the computerized defibrillator nodes on my chest and push the big red button, and I want programmers to know programming down to the CPU level, even if Ruby on Rails does read your mind and build a complete Web 2.0 social collaborative networking site for you with three clicks of the mouse.

I think I fall into the unhireable quiche eater category when it comes to programming. I can barely get by in Pascal and I can tweak other peoples code but pointers and recursion are things that drove me nuts.

Joel writes some of the funniest articles on developers & development I've ever read.

Joel Spolsky is always an entertaining read - he's started a series on How to find Great Developers:

"The corollary of that rule—the rule that the great people are never on the market—is that the bad people—the seriously unqualified—are on the market quite a lot. They get fired all the time, because they can’t do their job. Their companies fail—sometimes because any company that would hire them would probably also hire a lot of unqualified programmers, so it all adds up to failure—but sometimes because they actually are so unqualified that they ruined the company. Yep, it happens."

Genius.

Joel doesn't take into account the fact that people can get a little bored with what they do and decide to move on - then again if they were truly passionate about what they did in the first place they'd stick around.

First day of the new job tomorrow. Just like the first day at a new school :-)

Five days until I start the new job. Lots to do around the house. Lots of Solaris to learn :-)

Made a concerted effort in the last couple of weeks to complete an online Fundamentals of ITIL course. You really cannot under-estimate how big ITIL is in NZ (and the UK I guess). Personally it seems similar to the TQM/Kaizen/ISO900x fad of the late 80's/90's but with a more practical IT focus. We'll see how long it lasts - I think most mature IT organisations already have aspects of ITIL in practise already but for a newbie working in the field the theory behind ITIL will get you up to speed and propel you beyond the mere Joy of Tech usually associated with people in this profession.

Well today I hand in my four weeks notice - time to move on.

My new role is working within a small government agencies IT Team as a Linux/Solaris admin - should be a lot more interesting than what I do now.

I've decided working on the front-line as an outsourced service provider is just not for me. As the customer facing component of an engagement it means you have to have your 'game face' on all the time and act as the key focal-point for both the client and service provider. Luckily the people on both sides were brilliant and totally professional (which is what you need otherwise you end up with a very 'us and them' relationship) so its certainly not a personality conflict or problem that led me to move on.

I was keen to go back to working back in internal IT and hopefully bring some commercial/private enterprise experience to the agency. Should be interesting.

So - four weeks to go . . .

Two great web-logs by Microsoft HR staff providing an interesting insight into interview techniques and what it takes to work for the Seattle Behemoth (no not Boeing). JobsBlog and Heather Leighs Marketing Blog.