On 2 Nov 2001, Paul Munro wrote:
The moral of the story is that the IT industry is a dynamic industry, and we all need lots of skills in many areas to even have the chance of being employable. If that means I have to take an MCSE though, I'd rather not!
Are there any really *rigorous* qualifications in existence that will demonstrate computer skills? I'm thinking of the following sort of tests: 1) You are faced with an operating system that you have never used before and given the admin password. The machine has an empty PCI socket. Install a network card and get the machine to the point of being able to browse the web. 2) An obscure command-line utility has only a brief README file explaining what it does, without documenting things like syntax or possible options. Figure out what all the options are and how to use them. Also find out which ones to avoid using. 3) You have the source code for what looks as though it could be an excellent application. The source builds, but then the application segfaults immediately on startup. The source code is documented in Swahili (replace with another language if you can actually read Swahili). Get it working. 4) As for (3), but with the program being written in a programming language that you have never come across before. These are all real problems that I have had to solve[1]. If I knew that someone applying for a job would also be able to solve them, it would mean a lot more than any CV blurb or 'toy' qualifications a la MCSE. *** PLEASE NOTE: We are NOT currently looking to take on any more *** *** people, even if they would be able to solve these problems. *** (I don't want to be deluged with CVs, sorry). Michael Brown Fen Systems Ltd. -- [1] OK, so it wasn't Swahili. It was German, but my German is pretty non-existent.