I agree with much of what you said, I just thought I'd comment on this part because it's an interesting discussion, I think.
Adam Moskowitz <[email protected]> writes: > "Tinkerer Check: What is Your Home Network Like?" Despite later saying > claiming to not discount candidates who aren't netadmins in their own > homes, this question clearly does exactly that. There are plenty of good > candidates out there who leave their job at the office, run the most > simple and basic network at home, and who put their "enthusiasm and > curiosity" into non-technical things outside of work. yes, but if I hire a guy who thinks about these problems on his own time, and I feed him (or her) problems that are more interesting that what they have at home, I get the benifit of his 'time in the shower' I mean, the 'top idea in your head'[1] is generally thought to be something that you think about in the background. something you come up with solutions for in the shower. I'm not saying I'd never hire someone who leaves it at the office... but certainly if I have a choice between someone who goes home at 6 and doesn't think about it anymore, and someone who thinks about this sort of thing all the time, all other things being equal, I'm going to choose the second guy. Now, I'm not advocating forcing people to put in unpaid overtime. Legal problems aside, that means you won't be able to retain anyone past the point where they have other options. Really, all you can do is hire people who have in the past done things related to the job you want them doing... and is unpaid experience always better than paid experience? probably not. But I think there is some strong evidence that unpaid experience (and the interest that implies) is quite valuable. [1]http://www.paulgraham.com/top.html _______________________________________________ Discuss mailing list [email protected] http://lopsa.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/discuss This list provided by the League of Professional System Administrators http://lopsa.org/
