People persons

[Steve Furlong]

On Wednesday 21 May 2003 22:54, Tim May wrote:
...
> When I was interviewing college seniors and grad students for
> employment at Intel, a large fraction of the people gave as their
> goal "I want to work with people."
>
> Gaack!... If they were clueless, or
> bored, or nattered on about how much they wanted to "work with
> people!," I usually didn't recommend them.
>
> (I think some kids--and this was mostly in the years 1977-80--just
> had the idea that they were supposed to emphasize their "people
> skills" and to jabber about how much they liked the idea of being
> part of a team and all.

I think that's right. I finished high school just after that time block, 
and would have been interviewing for my first after-graduation job in 
'84 if I hadn't put on the green suit. The high school guidance 
counselor and the college job hunting assistant certainly emphasized 
people skills to us engineer types. "You may be the best engineer ever, 
but you have to impress the personnel department first. They like to 
deal with people, so make sure to speak their language." It didn't much 
affect me, but many of my friends weren't savvy enough to realize that 
career advice from a high school guidance counselor or a 23-year-old 
grad assistant who had yet to find work outside of acedemia was not 
worth much.

-- 
Steve Furlong    Computer Condottiere   Have GNU, Will Travel

If someone is going to use their weapons to protect their rights,
[it] makes me nervous that they have these weapons at all!"
   -- Rep. Henry Waxman