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September 28, 2006 | Comments: (0)

Are IT Recruiters Worthless (Part 2)

TAGS: General Database

A couple of you left comments after my last article on this topic, and you were just amazed that I would dare show up to an interview in sweats. You have to understand a couple things. First of all, we’re talking about an 8am meeting 40 miles away. She’s lucky I wasn’t in my bunny slippers. Second, that’s the favorite game of every recruiter on the planet. They live for making you drive all the way across town to meet you so that they can judge whether you’re worthy to send on an interview. This is another one of those things that makes looking for a job so incredibly unbearable. It’s pretty common knowledge that the only thing you’ll be doing for the first 2-3 weeks you’re looking for a job is running back and forth across town meeting with one recruiter after another. Sometimes they have an actual job for you and sometimes they don’t. And what’s really the point of the meeting anyway? Like recruiters have been given special powers that allow them to see what kind of person you really are for the 15mins you’re with them. It’s a pathetic exercise. I’ve turned down so many interviews because the recruiter insisted on me coming into his office just to inspect me beforehand. It’s like we’re children. Did you brush your teeth? Did you wash behind your ears? Did you bring your list of stupid questions to ask the hiring manager? Did you put on clean undies?
I’ve always wanted to show up at the recruiter’s office in a nice suit looking like a million bucks, and then change into cut-offs and fishnet stockings on the way to the interview. It would be nice to show them that their little 15min meeting didn’t tell them anything about me.
My point here is that recruiters have the job listings so they’ve pretty much got us by the shorthairs. They can demand that we jump through any little hoop they like and we have to do it because we need to get to that interview. I’ve actually had recruiters try to insist on driving me to the interview. I had a couple who insisted on me telling them what I was going to wear. They actually wanted it described in detail to make sure it met with their approval. To be fair though, they both worked for the same company. And I’ve had several who actually met me in the lobby of the company. This was presumably to make sure I was on time and wouldn’t wipe a booger on the hiring manager when I shook his hand.
It’s this level of babying from people who are often times quite a bit younger and less experienced than us that makes a lot of IT professionals resent recruiters.

By HR for HR
Now, I’ve given a lot of thought to the whole thank you note thing. Frankly, I just don’t get it. Maybe back in the 50s and 60s that was how things were done, but today, nobody really cares. I’m convinced that this practice was started by HR managers as some sort of touchy-feely ritual that’s meant to make you feel like you’re going the extra mile. In truth however, it simply doesn’t work in IT. It doesn’t make a difference. I can interview the dumbest DBAs out there, and they’re not going to get the job because they sent me a stupid note telling me how wonderful it was that I even considered them for the job. They can either do the job or they can’t, and nothing is going to change that. They either fit in with the team or they don’t, and nothing is going to change that either. I’ve hired plenty of people and none of them ever sent me a thank you card for the interview. So the same goes with highly qualified people. Man, that guy was qualified, and he sure would fit into the team… too bad I can’t hire him. If only he’d sent me a thank you card.
It just doesn’t make any difference. Now, I know what you’re thinking… it’s just a nice gesture, and it could make you stand out if it comes between you and another guy. Most IT people don’t have time to get a dozen of these things, much less take time to reflect on what a nice he was for sending it. Besides, there are more useful ways to narrow down a selection. Try something novel like looking at what you actually want him to do, and see which one of them meets your specific needs. They may both be excellent DBAs, but one of them is bound to be just a little better for what you need.

Ok, I just noticed this is getting long again, so I’m going to stop here and I’ll pick up again next time.

Posted by Sean McCown on September 28, 2006 06:45 PM

September 27, 2006 | Comments: (0)

Are IT Recruiters Worthless (Part 1)

TAGS: General Database

This is a very timely topic for me for a couple reasons. First, since I changed jobs this year, I dealt with recruiters a lot, and second, there was a comment posted today that responded to another comment where the guy said recruiters were worthless. In truth, they both have a point… HAH.

On one hand recruiters perform more or less a necessary function. I say more or less because you could really do without them quite easily, but they can make things easier under our current system. I’ve dealt with recruiters from both sides of the desk many many times, and I will admit that if you get a good one, they can take a lot of work off your hands. The problem is that the really good ones are about 1 out of every 500 or so. Most of them simply don’t have any IT background and they do nothing but get in the way. It’s not like there’s any kind of licensing procedure, or recruiting class they have to go through. Pretty much any Tom, Dick, or Moron can be a recruiter. So when you’ve got a good one, you’ll know it, and you can rely on them to really simplify your search.

Again though, the trouble is that most of them are pretty worthless. I’ve been in IT for over 10yrs, which means I’ve had several jobs throughout the years. That also means that I’ve interviewed more times than I can count… from both sides of the desk. And in my experiences, I’ve met 2 recruiters that I can think of who were worth their salt. So what does an excellent recruiter do? Well, there are really 2 main functions of a good recruiter.

The first is to really dig into the company’s needs and know enough about the topic to pull in the most qualified people. The perfect technical recruiter in my field would be an ex database professional who just decided to play for the other team… you know, someone who really knows DBs and can ferret out the good SQL guys from the bad ones.

The second, and this is probably more important the first… is to shut up and get out of the way when he knows absolutely nothing about IT or DBs. His job at this point is to be the keeper of the company’s phone number and pass it along to you and setup the interview… then get out of the way. Don’t try to pretend you know what you’re doing, and don’t try to teach me anything. So basically, know your limitations. If you know you don’t know anything about it, then just pass on the number and let the pros take this one.

I’ll tell ya though… now we’re getting into one of my big diatribes. Like I said above, I’ve been in this business for quite a while, and nothing gets me madder than having to deal with a recruiter who’s been at it for 3-6mos who all of a sudden knows everything about interviewing, and is going to force me to sit down and listen to his ‘pointers’. There’s a recruiter here in Dallas who goes above and beyond the call of annoying. He actually attaches 2 docs to his email when he confirms an interview. The first one is a list of really really stupid questions you should ask the interviewer. I’ll get back to those in a minute. The second one is a pre-configured thank you note template you are to send the interviewer when you get home. I don’t know if I even have the strength to talk about this one, but I’ll try to muster it in a minute.

OK, first, I just looked into my brain and started organizing these things, and I’m actually going to break this discussion up into a small series of posts because it’s just going to be too long for me to expect any of you to just sit down and listed to my entire rant… back to the post…

I had this girl earlier this year who really took herself seriously. First of all, when I went to her office for my meeting, she tried to chastise me for wearing sweats. Here’s basically how the conversation went.
“Are those sweats?”
“No, they’re a new form of loose-fitting business suit.”
“How can you wear sweats to an interview?”
“I was under the impression you were the recruiter, not the hiring manager.”
“I am, but you won’t get to the hiring manager if you don’t impress me first”
“You’re kidding me right? You really expect me to believe you’re going to give up a commission because you think I should dress up for you at 8am? You haven’t done this very long have you?”
“Well, the fact still remains that you have to get past me first.”
“OK, whatever. So you can either tell me about the position, or we can part ways now, but I’m not going to dress up for a recruiter.”

That’s basically how it went. She decided that she wanted to just forget it for now, but that I’d better be dressed more business-like for the interview. Ok, now I’m getting mad all over again. This girl was like in her early 20s, and I wasn’t even sure if she still lived with her parents or not. Not to mention, that’s just an insult. Because I don’t dress up for you, you assume I don’t know how to dress for an interview? Anyway…

So right before I went on the interview, she sent me an email and said to be sure to dress in a suit and tie because I represented her and she didn’t want to look bad. I immediately cancelled the interview. She called me right away and was just shocked. She couldn’t understand why I’d pass on such an excellent opportunity. I told her it was because I wasn’t going to have her baby me like I was in grade school. I can find a job pretty much anywhere around here and I certainly didn’t need hers. She said she was sorry, and I said I didn’t care. I wouldn’t work with her anymore. I had someone else at that company call me later that day and said he was my new recruiter and did I still want to go on that interview. I said, sure.

Now, I did get a chance to talk to the original girl a couple weeks later, and we had a nice long talk about our respective careers, and as it turns out, she was in clothing retail 3mos ago, and started doing this when she lost her last job. So, she’s been doing this for 3mos, and all of a sudden she knows more about IT interviewing and recruiting than I do. Most of us in IT have seen it 100 times. Those kids who come in as recruiters and start bossing us around like we’re children. All of a sudden, we’re stupid and they know everything about getting a job in IT.

That’s really what I want to say in this first part of the series. Recruiters just don’t realize that by the time you’ve been in the business as long as I have, we’ve seen recruiters come and go. And come and go. And come and go. Yet, even without all these brainiacs we still manage to get one job after another… go figure.
And for the record, that girl is no longer a recruiter. She moved out of state and went back into retail.

Posted by Sean McCown on September 27, 2006 03:00 PM

September 06, 2006 | Comments: (0)

SQL Server HA Book Coming Soon!!

TAGS: SQL Server

My good friend Allan Hirt has a new HA book coming out for SQL Server. He's been good enough to send me some advance chapters and I must say the detail he goes into on clustering along is staggering. I'm really impressed at the work he's put into it, and I've never seen a more complete book on the topic.

I really can't wait till it comes out. I'll keep you guys posted, but I wanted to give you a heads up because this is going to be a very important book for anyone supporting SQL Server both in and out of a cluster.

Read my book reviews at:
http://www.ITBookworm.com

Posted by Sean McCown on September 6, 2006 07:48 PM

September 05, 2006 | Comments: (0)

What's a Tiny Mistake?

TAGS: General Database

This is a topic I've been meaning to write on for a while now, and the extremely untimely death of Steve Irwin has put it back in the front of my mind.
I'd like to start though by saying what an incredible loss Steve's passing is. Steve Irwin was definitely one of the people we really needed kicking around on this planet. He was a devoted family man, and conservationist. We've been watching him for years and our entire family got to watch his kids as they grew, and through a lot of the personal episodes they did with him, we actually felt like we got to know him a bit as well. He and Terry clearly shared a love that most of us can only dream of, and you could tell how much she adored and admired him by the way she talked to him and about him. He did so much for animal conservation, and you can really tell what someone’s like when they're willing to throw themselves on top of an alligator or a cobra. And as long as I've been watching him, I've always said he's going to meet his fate at the hand of some animal he was annoying… one day he's just going to zig when he should've zagged, and whammo. Well, unfortunately that's not how it happened. Steve died in a manner that was equivalent to jumping over an active volcano on your dirt bike, and then dying of a bee sting on the way home. This is an extremely untimely death, and they never make any sense. My heart truly goes out to Terry and the rest of his family.

Now, about now, you're asking yourself what all of this has to do with databases. Well, it's actually a topic that's pretty relevant. The question at hand is what constitutes a big change to your database? See, we had an incident a short while back that illustrates this. There was a query that had been running fine. Well, fine for that query anyway, but it was returning in about 10mins. Then for some reason, the developer went and made a simple little change. He changed part of the query from 'or (col1 = 17)' to 'or col1 = 17'. That's a pretty small change. However, it took his query from 10mins to over 6hrs. We actually have no idea how long the query was because it was just killed after 6hrs.

The point is that you never know what tiny little change is going to do in your environment. What may seem small could be enormous. The size of the change isn't measured by the number of keystrokes it took to achieve. We've all played fast and loose in our databases. We've made very large changes that we either didn't test at all, or not very well, and pushed them right into production. Somehow we always come out of it ok. But you do one little thing that shouldn't make that big of a difference, and it kills your performance. Just like Steve did. I can't count the number of times I saw him annoy some poisonous animal for our amusement. He's lain down in a huge group of hungry kimodo dragons, been bitten by a croc, I think I even remember seeing him get pierced on the hand by a cobra. The list goes on and on. Yet, he goes swimming with some sting rays, and gets killed. One of the most docile fish in the ocean takes him out. All the things he's done, and he gets taken out by the equivalent of a clown fish. I've seen several places let kids walk around in huge pools with these things without even removing their stingers. They're just not vicious.

Anyway though, the more longer I stay in this field, the more afraid I am of those changes that are the easiest to make. Not only because they can have such hidden effects, but also because they're so tempting to push into production without thoroughly testing. So the next time you're making a tiny change that seems insignificant, just remember the disastrous effects it can have.
And Godspeed Steve-O, we love you.

Posted by Sean McCown on September 5, 2006 07:12 PM

September 04, 2006 | Comments: (0)

The Vista Upgrade Debacle

TAGS: Microsoft

I realize this is a DB blog, but some things effect us all. I just tried upgrading to Vista and it was a mess. I just bought a Toshiba Satellite and it’s supposed to be Vista-ready. I ran the upgrade option on the Vista install, and it went ok. The only thing that it said would need to be updated was my wireless card, so I thought I’d give it a shot and deal with that problem later.
The setup took quite a while, but most of it was unattended; I had to do very little. Then, it got to the final stage and rebooted. It got in this reboot loop where it wouldn’t do anything but try to reboot. After about the 3rd or 4th time I noticed that it was flashing a bluescreen for about a millisecond before it tried to reboot again. So I was stuck. I tried safe mode but that yielded the same results. So I entered setup and it has a repair section there where you can make a number of choices to diagnose the problem. I chose the section aptly named, diagnose and repair start up problems… or something similar to that. It sat there for quite a while diagnosing my box. I let it sit through 2 Law and Orders before I realized it probably wasn’t going to do anything. I then had to go and figured it wouldn’t hurt to let it run while I was gone, so I left for a couple more hours. When I returned, it was still churning and since there’s no progress bar I have no idea what it’s actually doing. I cancelled it and it came back and said that it didn’t find any problems. Ok, fine… now what… I tried the memory test and that came back ok. The only thing left to do was to rollback the installation to XP. I was surprised how quick it was and how good of a job it did. I think I’m noticing a couple small quirks now, but it’s hard to say what’s causing it, so I’m not going to blame it on the rollback.
So, the install rollback is cool, and worked very well for me, but the install of Vista itself was a wreck. Had it given me something I could troubleshoot then maybe I could have fixed the problem. As for now, I really hope they improve the process. Bluescreens are usually driver related, so you would think that safe mode would have done the trick, but no such luck.
Anyway, I enjoy going to the Vista site and looking at all the cool pics of the OS even if it’s beyond me right now. I’m not sure who to be more upset with right now though… MS or Toshiba.

Read my book reviews at:
http://www.ITBookworm.comhttp://www.ITBookworm.com

Posted by Sean McCown on September 4, 2006 06:15 PM