Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site peora.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!mhuxr!mhuxt!houxm!vax135!petsd!peora!jer From: jer@peora.UUCP (J. Eric Roskos) Newsgroups: net.singles,net.social Subject: Re: Salemanship Message-ID: <1047@peora.UUCP> Date: Mon, 10-Jun-85 09:26:29 EDT Article-I.D.: peora.1047 Posted: Mon Jun 10 09:26:29 1985 Date-Received: Tue, 11-Jun-85 04:46:25 EDT References: <968@peora.UUCP> <1424@mtx5b.UUCP> <344@unc.UUCP> <396@unc.UUCP> Organization: Perkin-Elmer SDC, Orlando, Fl. Lines: 51 Xref: watmath net.singles:7237 net.social:637 [The referenced article comments on my suggesting that people nowadays are too much salesmen.] Now, wait a minute! First of all, you should not attribute my incidental observation to the people I work for. My opinion of how interviewees present themselves has nothing to do with my technical evaluation of them. However, I have a good bit of experience in this area. Before I came here, I used to teach college students, where the same problem existed: people would not study adequately, then would make low grades and come to me afterwards to try to convince me they deserved a higher grade. (Some even had the audacity to say "I had a big fraternity party the day before the test.") If they would put half the effort into learning the material that they put into convincing me that it didn't matter that they didn't, they would have done better in the first place. If someone comes to me, filled with salesmanship, tells me he's a great person, has written compilers and designed an operating system and you name it, and then I ask him a simple technical question and he can't answer it (but he can make some really impressive explanations of why he can't!), what am I to think? One of the big problems is the people are always trying to find out what employers want. Well, employers want people who do a good job at their work. Now, looking at your list of complaints, actually I will agree with you about the importance of a liberal arts education (after all, I got my BS degree from Davidson College, which at the time taught only ONE CS-type course, before going to an engineering school for 5 years). It's just this "magic formula" approach to life that's the problem again. If you want to do well at something, well, then, you have to work at it; there is not a magic formula that will make it work for you. --------- MAJOR DISCLAIMER!: the above opinions, and the one Frank was commenting on originally, reflect my opinions only; they do not reflect those of Perkin- Elmer, nor do they necessarily reflect its personnel requirements. [I think Frank perhaps misinterpreted my phrase "personal attributes" to mean "personality", which I did not mean; I meant "properties of the person himself," i.e., technical competence, knowledge of his or her area of expertise, etc., as opposed to the ones he or she attempted to project through salesmanship.] (But, I imagine good salesmanship would be very desirable in the SALES dept., don't you?) -- Full-Name: J. Eric Roskos UUCP: ..!{decvax,ucbvax,ihnp4}!vax135!petsd!peora!jer US Mail: MS 795; Perkin-Elmer SDC; 2486 Sand Lake Road, Orlando, FL 32809-7642 "Erny vfgf qba'g hfr Xbqnpuebzr."