<div dir="ltr"><long post, tl;dr "maybe the recruiting process is also in need of upskilling?"><div><br></div><div><br></div><div>Can I ask a question..<div><br></div><div>Given what Bevan and Simon have said about generalists... why it is that applicants to these sorts of roles who fail to get past the first interview because of not being able to answer on the spot some "specialist" thing, or even worse something even a specialist would need to refer to documentation on.. well why does that happen. I get that some of these companies like AWS Google and so on are after super talented people, but then that being the case if they are only paying eg 100k for a SRE/DevOps perhaps they shouldn't expect on the spot answers?</div><div><br></div><div>Putting it out there... maybe a lot of applicants/candidates are not good at the interviewing process, so it might not be a matter of OP Cameron not offering enough $ to attract applicants who are rightly skilled AND interview well, could it be the applicants simply appear to fail to meet the criteria to be able to fill the position?</div><div><br></div><div>Myself I had no trouble with Cameron's 27 questions (save the first, I gave myself 5 minutes to get through the list and I only recalled the command a few hours later), and in terms of a screening process for that sort of role those questions seem reasonable for someone working in an MSP role, but where is it all falling down?</div><div><br></div><div>As Mark says.. tell me what you can do.. well no one I know of is using a hiring process around that, they are mostly all still asking "what do you know.. NOW"!?</div><div><br></div><div>Frankly I think I should start a recruiter company, as having recently seen a cutting edge MSP company.. I know what is needed :/</div><div><br></div><div>Disclaimer: My own views, not that of my employer etc.</div></div></div><div class="gmail_extra"><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Fri, May 13, 2016 at 11:51 PM, Jason Mikronis <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:jason@ausbbs.com.au" target="_blank">jason@ausbbs.com.au</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
<div lang="EN-AU" link="blue" vlink="purple">
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif">Being a generalist means you simply read the documentation, and it makes sense!<br>
<br>
Even the specialists still refer to documentation as their features change every software update!<u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif"><u></u> <u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif">Jason<u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif"><u></u> <u></u></span></p>
<div>
<div style="border:none;border-top:solid #e1e1e1 1.0pt;padding:3.0pt 0cm 0cm 0cm">
<p class="MsoNormal"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif">From:</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif"> AusNOG [mailto:<a href="mailto:ausnog-bounces@lists.ausnog.net" target="_blank">ausnog-bounces@lists.ausnog.net</a>]
<b>On Behalf Of </b>Bevan Slattery<br>
<b>Sent:</b> Friday, 13 May 2016 8:33 PM<br>
<b>To:</b> Mark Newton <<a href="mailto:newton@atdot.dotat.org" target="_blank">newton@atdot.dotat.org</a>><br>
<b>Cc:</b> <a href="mailto:ausnog@lists.ausnog.net" target="_blank">ausnog@lists.ausnog.net</a>; <a href="mailto:chad@cpkws.com.au" target="_blank">chad@cpkws.com.au</a><span class=""><br>
<b>Subject:</b> Re: [AusNOG] Off Topic - Brisbane recruitment recommendations<u></u><u></u></span></span></p>
</div>
</div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><u></u> <u></u></p>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal">+2<u></u><u></u></p>
</div><div><div class="h5">
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><u></u> <u></u></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal">+1 for the statements supporting generalists over specialists and<u></u><u></u></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><u></u> <u></u></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal">+1 for "Cloudy Cloud McCloudington". #genius<u></u><u></u></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><br>
[b]<u></u><u></u></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:12.0pt"><br>
On 13 May 2016, at 10:13 PM, Mark Newton <<a href="mailto:newton@atdot.dotat.org" target="_blank">newton@atdot.dotat.org</a>> wrote:<u></u><u></u></p>
</div>
<blockquote style="margin-top:5.0pt;margin-bottom:5.0pt">
<div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal">On 13 May 2016, at 7:02 PM, Chad Kelly <<a href="mailto:chad@cpkws.com.au" target="_blank">chad@cpkws.com.au</a>> wrote:<u></u><u></u></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><u></u> <u></u></p>
</div>
<blockquote style="margin-top:5.0pt;margin-bottom:5.0pt">
<div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal">On 5/12/2016 10:07 AM, <a href="mailto:ausnog-request@lists.ausnog.net" target="_blank">
ausnog-request@lists.ausnog.net</a> wrote:<u></u><u></u></p>
</div>
<blockquote style="margin-top:5.0pt;margin-bottom:5.0pt">
<pre>Most people are having trouble at the moment.<u></u><u></u></pre>
<pre><u></u> <u></u></pre>
<pre>It is an interesting time that I've spoken about at Commsday events,<u></u><u></u></pre>
<pre>talking about the void of skills in certain areas:<u></u><u></u></pre>
<pre><u></u> <u></u></pre>
<pre>- Cloud specialisation and experience (AWS, Azure, Google Compute)<u></u><u></u></pre>
<pre>- DevOps skills - Ansible, Puppet, Chef - with deployment experience<u></u><u></u></pre>
<pre>- Network (Cisco/Juniper/etc) + Linux + NetDevOps experience<u></u><u></u></pre>
<pre>- Anyone with actual experience on SDN<u></u><u></u></pre>
<pre>- IoT infrastructure experience - even using the AWS/Azure tools<u></u><u></u></pre>
<pre>- Languages like Golang<u></u><u></u></pre>
</blockquote>
<p class="MsoNormal">But these are all different skills. <u></u><u></u></p>
</div>
</blockquote>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><u></u> <u></u></p>
</div>
<p class="MsoNormal">How many skills do you have? More than one?<u></u><u></u></p>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><br>
<br>
<u></u><u></u></p>
<blockquote style="margin-top:5.0pt;margin-bottom:5.0pt">
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal">Your not going to find an individual with skills in every single platform and every single operating system as they are all slightly different.
<u></u><u></u></p>
</div>
</blockquote>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><u></u> <u></u></p>
</div>
<p class="MsoNormal">This is a consequence of mismanagement in the IT industry. It's a growing problem.<u></u><u></u></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><u></u> <u></u></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal">It is my belief that quite a lot of the specialisation that exists now is a dead end. We actually need generalists in a Cloudy Cloud McCloudington world. People who understand concepts across a broad swathe of many IT disciplines, and how
they interrelate to each other; and with enough applied skill to attack any problem from that "first principles" understanding.<u></u><u></u></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><u></u> <u></u></p>
</div>
<div>
<blockquote style="margin-top:5.0pt;margin-bottom:5.0pt">
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal">Even the newer Cloud platforms such as AWS and Google Compute vary slightly with what they can do and how they opperate.
<u></u><u></u></p>
</div>
</blockquote>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><u></u> <u></u></p>
</div>
<p class="MsoNormal">They all use the same concepts. A generalist can write you an API server front-end which can drive the provisioning pipelines on both of them via the same client-facing API, and write monitoring plugins to import performance metrics from
both of them into the same Prometheus instance.<u></u><u></u></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><u></u> <u></u></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal">A specialist will say, "I'm really good at AWS," but doom you to maintaining two incompatible OAM systems if you ever decide to put some of your workloads in GCP.<u></u><u></u></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><br>
<br>
<u></u><u></u></p>
<blockquote style="margin-top:5.0pt;margin-bottom:5.0pt">
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal">You are better off building teams and having people with specific skill sets working on particular projects. <u></u><u></u></p>
</div>
</blockquote>
<p class="MsoNormal"><u></u> <u></u></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal">People who believed that statement in the 1990s spent tens of thousands of dollars on Novell or Windows for Workgroups vendor certifications, then went into full revolt when Windows NT came along and their "specific skill sets" we're suddenly
obsolete.<u></u><u></u></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><u></u> <u></u></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal">If you want to get ahead long-term in IT, be a generalist.<u></u><u></u></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><u></u> <u></u></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"> - mark<u></u><u></u></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><u></u> <u></u></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><u></u> <u></u></p>
</div>
</div>
</blockquote>
<blockquote style="margin-top:5.0pt;margin-bottom:5.0pt">
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal">_______________________________________________<br>
AusNOG mailing list<br>
<a href="mailto:AusNOG@lists.ausnog.net" target="_blank">AusNOG@lists.ausnog.net</a><br>
<a href="http://lists.ausnog.net/mailman/listinfo/ausnog" target="_blank">http://lists.ausnog.net/mailman/listinfo/ausnog</a><u></u><u></u></p>
</div>
</blockquote>
</div></div></div>
</div>
<br>_______________________________________________<br>
AusNOG mailing list<br>
<a href="mailto:AusNOG@lists.ausnog.net">AusNOG@lists.ausnog.net</a><br>
<a href="http://lists.ausnog.net/mailman/listinfo/ausnog" rel="noreferrer" target="_blank">http://lists.ausnog.net/mailman/listinfo/ausnog</a><br>
<br></blockquote></div><br></div>