SharePoint Resources (SPR) ...
Management needs to KNOW SharePoint
A rant to a closed board
[This was taken from the web with permission of the author]
DON'T CALL! - a //rant//
Clients and recruiters looking for SharePoint resources invariably look for two job titles; administrator and developer. In their client's persona recruiters demand top-notch coding skills alongside advanced design/customization/deployment/project management knowledge, Optimally skills must be equally divided between these two job categories. The skills demanded are NOT aligned skills. When was the last time you saw a plumber laying brick, a glass blower forging a Samurai sword, a dental assistant doing a coronary by-pass?
What architect pours foundations and hangs drywall? These are all totally different crafts and any person who says they are expert at one is most likely inept at the other. Even if they "were" good at one, the last several years of concentrating on the other will take the edge off the previous one. Any skill not consistently used in the last 2 years has effectively been lost anyway. This atrophy is due to the rapid advance and gross changes in technical platforms.
SharePoint planners, architects and designers, likewise, have vastly differing skill sets from the .NET developers or the subject matter expert administrators. Undeniably there is some degree of skill overlap but to truly shine at one skill you must commit to it neglecting all others. This having been said, it can be argued that a background in one skill or in the vertical enterprise may make aligned skills easier to apply.
Although I have coded for over 40 years I no longer code, not because I can't but because there are gurus who love it, as I once did, and incidentally can code better than I. Ask one of these code-a-holics to interface with stakeholders, collect requirements from disparate departments and personalities, analyze the business intelligence (BI) factors, prescribe a course of action, and then manage end-to-end a project implementing a SharePoint portal solution. The phrase "like a deer in headlights" probably comes close to describing their response. Unless they are "on the street" they will tell you, "coders don't do that, architects do". They know the dichotomies; they know the skills needed; they know who did it last time; they know the perils of not doing it.
I have been contacted over 60 times in the last two weeks, by 8 recruiting companies, for the same 3 clients. They have two job titles a) administrator, and b) developer. The recruiter reads from a job description provided through the hiring manager and written by the interviewer. Invariably the interviewer has been to Learning Tree or is a Lynda.com client concerning SharePoint.
The interviewers, by the way, when asked the reason they got the job (I always ask this in my upward interview questions) almost exclusively gave one of the following reasons; 1. Their previous job was being abolished (they were legacy), 2. They had nothing else to do, or 3. No one wanted it and we have to have someone do it.
Now SharePoint has "arrived" everyone wants on the band wagon, but no one knows what THEY NEED, nay, no one knows WHAT IS NEEDED, and if they do that skill set is too rare in the market place - like diamonds or platypi.
I, for one, am tired of wasting my time with recruiters and interviewing with persons who MAY BE mental giants but have NO perspective or knowledge base in SharePoint.
It is about as effective as shaking hands with an empty glove!
[Editorial note: Do you want your prospective employees, consultants, or adjunct staff
members feeling this way about you? No? Then get educated!]
[