[Courses] Running A Business- Starting a Company

[L J Laubenheimer]

Conor Daly wrote:

> On Sat, Aug 31, 2002 at 06:55:56PM -0700 or so it is rumoured hereabouts, 
> L J Laubenheimer thought:
> 
>>Kai MacTane wrote:
>>
>>>After getting in a few people whose résumés looked good, but who seemed 
>>>in interviews to be hiding a basic lack of understanding of Unix, we 
>>>decided to come up with a set of questions to ask incoming interviewees. 
>>
>>I hate trivia tests... I can't keep certain detail stuff in my head.
>  
> But you'd be able to explain the concept instead wouldn't you?


Exactly.  I might forget the name of the command, but I could tell you how to 
find it, and what you need to know to use it.

>>>They started off pretty easy, things any Unix sysadmin should be able to 
>>>answer -- "What are the standard Unix runlevels, and what do they mean? 
>>>How do you change the default runlevel on a system?", or " -- 
>>
>>I would have blown your test at the first question, and I've worked with unix 
>>for 8 years, and done sysadmin for 2+.
>>
>>Why?  Several reasons: 1) different unix variants have slightly different run 
>>level numbering (I've been bitten by this). 2) I don't remember numbers - but 
>>what they do (and only those that are the most often used).  I would remember 
>>S, but not 0-5 (or 1-6).  Two, changing the runlevels on a system is also 
>>variant specific, and can be a pain in the butt if you are starting at the 
>>wrong level.  "man init" is where I'd start, to refresh my sucky memory (and 
>>BSD is different).
> 
> If _I_ had been asking the questions and you had answered the first with
> the paragraph above, I'd have been inclined to chuck the rest of the test,
> chat about systems and hire you on the basis of the rest of your post!  A
> good sysadmin should hedge such a question in any case.  Someone who says
> "3 = text only networked, 5 = XDM" has either learned it out of a book or
> is not very experienced yet and hasn't seen a debian system yet...


Exactly.  Or BSD.  When you've worked with many more than one flavor of unix, 
and one of them *isn't* system V based, you have to hedge!  Furthermore, some 
stuff is different between different version numbers of the same OS!!

But when they hand the questions to HR, anything but a specific textbook 
answer is tossed, and you are assumed to be a resume fluffer.


>>Asking a sysadmin to list all of the options for the tar command, or things 
>>like that, shuts out people who don't (or in my case can't) memorize trivia, 
>>some of whom are perfectly good sysadmins.
>  
> tar --help?


Man tar too.  I've also found variant based differences in tar options. 
Confused me for a while, but now, I just look it up, and note it down if I use 
it often (i.e.  tar -zcvf foo  or  tar -cvf - foo | gzip -c - )

>>Whenever someone asks me "what command do I type to do X", I will answer, but 
>>tell them to look up the specifics and usage
> 
> That looks like a perfect test score to me!  Anyone worth their salt will
> be quite happy to emphasise that (s)he would, nearly as a matter of
> course, need to look up the specifics of a command (or even which command)
> but would know _exactly_ where to look...


That's my opinion, but the trend these days is toward "objective" tests.  It's 
a definite part of why I'm still unemployed after 15 months.  I couldn't pass 
the trivia tests of the screeners for two jobs that I was otherwise qualified 
for.  8-(

					Linda
--
Linda J Laubenheimer - UNIX Geek, Sysadmin, Bibliophile and Iconoclast
http://www.modusvarious.com/ - consultants available
http://www.laubenheimer.net/ - personal demo site
http://www.geocities.com/laubenheimer/ - web design gaffes (I wouldn't
disgrace a real ISP with these) and rants about bad design.