Path: csiph.com!usenet.pasdenom.info!news.albasani.net!.POSTED!not-for-mail From: Lew Newsgroups: comp.lang.java.programmer Subject: Re: Aspect questions? Date: Tue, 06 Mar 2012 21:23:57 -0800 Organization: albasani.net Lines: 44 Message-ID: References: <4f4a6b1d$0$290$14726298@news.sunsite.dk> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Trace: news.albasani.net 7F/eF2EryElYtiQCH7UMg2aID7537zSvDvXthMAcLvL64aaS1TWWSTtwwLgHQXvzA2K/ERDocLR8cswp3HZLq/7fJXDiyQBdLQzX6yl4+5ChMZ9uuY1rc83v8L0HqWby NNTP-Posting-Date: Wed, 7 Mar 2012 05:23:54 +0000 (UTC) Injection-Info: news.albasani.net; logging-data="E+S5wJ+Uk17niPlclfXmgQAfH344SICCq1BRWfGApg9fhpcwLMYJ8uy6OKF9kS/M6DUN0HAFHRvxAOonxks4+QzLmj3yV+zZC3ruTa+JVqlFL9IUdVX3ALD+W8RUlGS2"; mail-complaints-to="abuse@albasani.net" User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64; rv:10.0.2) Gecko/20120216 Thunderbird/10.0.2 In-Reply-To: Cancel-Lock: sha1:LG5HKB/9xAupb/duvvsbbUbZfuE= Xref: csiph.com comp.lang.java.programmer:12741 Patricia Shanahan wrote: > Lew wrote: >> Novice wrote: >>> The key thing is that you were already known by your colleagues and they >>> were confident that you would pick up the required skills in a timely >>> manner; you weren't an unknown outsider. >>> >>> That makes perfect sense. I thought you were saying that you had gotten >>> into a firm where no one knew you and had somehow persuaded them that you >>> could learn the shop language in no time flat. I was wondering how you'd >>> managed that ;-) >> >> >> I've done that. I'm doing that on my current job. > > I've been interested in how you do that. > > I got one job by responding to a newspaper ad without knowing anyone, as > a new mathematics graduate and trainee programmer in 1970. Through 2002, > when I left work to go back to college, all my subsequent jobs were with > people who already knew me, and knew I would quickly learn whatever I > needed to know, because they had seen me do it. > > Now my former bosses have retired or moved out of town, and I don't want > to move away from San Diego, so if I ever get bored with retirement, I > would have to get a job cold. I have a fairly impressive resume but much > of it is specialized skills like performance modeling of servers during > development. The things I have done do show that I'm able and willing to > learn, but probably not that I already have the specific skills for an > arbitrary job. In my current job as a software engineer in test, they were looking for skills in test automation in related areas. That I've not worked with Objective-C before, for example, was of no concern to them. Someone who knows C, C++, Java, Javascript and such isn't going to have a heart attack over Objective C, but it's harder to find someone who can design and implement an automated test suite. Skills do translate, and many employers know it. -- Lew Honi soit qui mal y pense. http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/cf/Friz.jpg