Re: Re: Bootstrapping Techies (or how to hire without technical knowledge)

[pjf]

While there are definitely some bad eggs out there, I believe that most of the "undesirables" are simply inexperienced, ignorant, or incompetant. They don't have any intention to swindle their employers, they just don't happen to be as good as others in the field who are paid similar salaries. Sometimes their faults are quite small, often they just don't ask for advice when they need it.

Most of the real swindlers I've seen have been in the packaged software market. Products which don't really meet the client's requirements, and simply aren't flexible enough to accomodate growth. Despite this, the product will still be pushed to inappropriate clients in order to make a sale.

As for masters degrees, having been in the academic system for only a mere five years, I would say that you'd have to be interested in the craft and not at all interested in the money to go down that route. In all the jobs I've seen, commercial experience and not academic qualifications are king.

Paul Fenwick
Perl Training Australia

[TexasTess]

I beg to differ on the Masters degree issue...I'd bet the farm that the majority of individuals currently enrolled in a Masters Program relating to Computer science or currently holding a masters in Computer science have bachelors in a soft science or an arts field.

<FLAME_RETARDANT>Folks need to stop H8N</FLAME_RETARDANT>



TexasTess
"Great Spirits Often Encounter Violent Opposition From Mediocre Minds" --Albert Einstein

[pjf]

It appears that the requirements for a Masters degree must vary between Universities. At the very fine University where I studied and worked for a number of years, having an honours degree in computer science was a must for anyone wishing to enter a masters degree in that field. If you didn't spend at least four hard years learning not only the practical but also the theoretical aspects of the field, as well as experience in writing a thesis and preferably other academic papers, then a masters degree was simply not for you.

Starting a masters degree was the first petrol station on the road to a life as an academic, and by that stage one had been repeatedly assured that such a life did not include a high income. As such, if you see someone with a masters degree from The University of Melbourne, then you could be quite assured that they were in it for love, and not for money. Those in it for the money left at the end of their bachelor degrees, or took the advice given in first-year and went into even more profitable careers such as bricklaying where there exists a greater skills shortage than IT.

Clearly the commercial value of a masters degree, and the willingness to accept applicants, must show some variation in the international markets. At least with my social circle of academics, studying for one's masters "for the money" would be considered quite a humourous remark with not a hint of seriousness at all.

All the best,

Paul Fenwick
Perl Training Australia