How a programmer reads your resume (comic)
hanovsolutions.com
hanovsolutions.com
http://tug.ctan.org/tex-archive/macros/latex/contrib/simplec...
In the last 20 years, I've had the chance to manage about a dozen PhDs in various disciplines.
The ones who were not in computer-related disciplines (but were coding/managing anyway) were uniformly very good. Not knock-your-socks-off-great, but very good.
The ones that were from computer-related disciplines were usually condescending, non-responsive, and difficult to get along with. It seems that they were missing important social and interpersonal skills and felt they knew everything they needed to know. In fact, you might say they felt that they were way above what they should be doing.
I found them useless.
A few stories does not a rule make, but at the same time, I can't help but notice others in our field have similar opinions -- so there is probably a pattern here.
Note that others did not find them useless. On several occasions I was told we had to keep them -- in order to make our bids look better to win government contracts.
Just to highlight the absurdity of your logic, I think it's fair to point out that based on the evidence provided, it's just as likely that you're the problem -- the only common factor in your anecdotes is you.
I can fully understand this. I have a PhD, but not in Comp Sci, so every little thing I learn in programming is a bright new challenge that I enjoy. For now. But I might grow quite bored and grumpy if I was doing menial physics.
We also have to consider the idea that in academia, business pursuits are considered (to some extent) "selling out." So if these comp sci PhDs are recently from academia, it's even more plausible to me that they may have a counter-productive attitude.
I would not judge people based solely on anything -- race, creed, education, whatever. I would consider hiring another PdD in a minute.
If you put a gun to my head and asked for some kind of sweeping generalization, it would be that people who are very good at spending multiple years diving deep in one technical area are probably also people who are not generalists. And modern software development requires a wide-ranging skillset: negotiation, conflict resolution, interviewing, marketing, man-machine interfaces, graphical development, sales, consensus-building, etc. Oddly enough, I would even venture that most skills required by an agile team are not actually technology-related.
In addition (continuing me to make a generalization) at some point some people feel like they are "done" -- that they have learned enough and can rest on their laurels. Scrappy uneducated people never get this way, nor do hungry entrepreneur-types. People from other fields also see everything as new and for the first time. The guys I worked with seemed to think that their PhD had some kind of street credibility. Maybe it does with some, but in the environments I've been in it's more like "what have you done lately and what can you do for me?" And both of those questions are business questions and not technology ones.
Code it. Show it. Then, with luck, you'll know what the problem really is. At least, that's been my experience (but I'm still relatively new to this game).
How do you figure? You said that you've worked with a handful of CS PhDs, and you found them useless. It's a pretty straightforward interpretation.
Nope.
Hence the "being misinterpreted" statement.
Seems like you want an argument. Go have it with somebody else.
You may not have meant to say what you said, but that doesn't mean that my summary was wrong.
If you ask me, PhD holders have demonstrated themselves far more capable of dealing with scut-work than your average human. Every PhD I know earned their degree only through years of drudgery and perseverance through vast stretches of boredom. They tend to laugh bitterly at those people who suggest that they're impractical dreamers, incapable of doing "real" work.
For my part, the only impractical dreaming I got done in graduate school were the bits where I imagined that I could make money with my skills when I graduated. :-P
Anyway, whatever you call it, you appear to not be one. You're managing them. If I worked for you I'd tell you straight off "don't call me code monkey." Oh wait, you wouldn't hire me. You think I'm useless.
IME, a PhD in the closest related subject to the job is a negative, but not a damning one. Some of these folks just seem to put their head down, ignore the things around them, and tend to take overly complex approaches to problems rather than tending to eliminating problems. I've guessed this comes from the mentality you have to be in to complete a PhD. That said.. I've known some pretty cool PhDs in the relevant subject too.
My favorite candidates are actually PhD /dropouts/. I've really enjoyed people who were smart enough to get a PhD, but found going into one deep topic for years in academia wasn't for them. Also, PhDs from a different area seem cool too. They're smart, and the mere fact they're applying to something outside of what they mastered proves they're not the sort I'm afraid of.
As one of 'em, I obviously agree, but what I found surprising is the number of 'normal' people who do too.
In academia, the very thought of leaving my PhD was unmentionable. I struggled for a long time coming to the final decision and was even referred to counselling to 'make sure' I was fully mentally stable (of course I wasn't! who is?).
Since leaving I've had nothing but thumbs-up from people about it, and that's been a real surprise. So +1 to dropping out!
...which is a true statement for all coders, not just those people with a PhD. In fact, I think you'd be hard-pressed to come up with a description that is more generally applicable to the autistic world of the software nerd.
You can candy-coat it any way you like, but what you're doing here is making a generalization about a group of people based on their choice to pursue an advanced degree.
which is then one step away from generalizing about people on other attributes, like race or sex.
When it becomes a bad thing is when we allow these mental shortcuts to take the place of sound reasoning, as in when we are looking at job applicants.
Never think that stereotyping or generalizing is bad -- it's the way your brain works, and for good reason.
If this was a response to "generalizing about people on other attributes, like race or sex.", I have to disagree with you, since the context of discussion here is about selecting someone for a job. I have yet to see a valid generalization about sex or race providing an indicator about programming ability.
"Never think that stereotyping or generalizing is bad -- it's the way your brain works,"
and unless overridden with logic, it is also the way prejudice (in this case racism and sexism ) operate.
Just so we don't go round and round, my opinion on generalization from examples: generalization is neither good nor bad by itself - it depends on the quality of the data and the inference mechanism - it could lead to good or bad depending on what it results in.
It is a facility of the brain certainly but being human means you are not blindly subject to your generalizations. All imho. Feel free to disgaree.
"which is then one step away from generalizing about people on other attributes, like race or sex."
That said.. why would someone even mention their degree if they weren't hoping the reader/listener would generalize about it?
Imagine if PhDs became the next protected class. That's at least an order of magnitude crazier than smoking being on most states' lists.
Oh, also, if you get tired of working @ Justin.TV... I could use a Computational Biology PhD :)
... especially if you're good with R.
Funny story -- my uncle has his PhD from one of the best conservatories in the US. After years of being a music professor and symphony librarian, he got tired of it and just wanted a non-brain-job working in a hardware store or the like. He couldn't get one until he removed all of his work experience for the last 20 years from his CV and just said that he'd worked odd jobs. Of course, once he did, he only lasted two weeks there because it was, in fact, boring him to tears. Seems the hiring wasn't so off after all.
That's an extreme example, but I think illustrates the phenomenon.
And the punchline's of course the tabs and spaces item.
Nothing is as bad as someone who decides he is going to use Latex for general documents - such as composing tests or any type of document.
Why when people use LaTex their brain automatically shuts down? In college there are people who give extra marks if a report is done in LaTex. I thought that if a report looks nice (no matter if you've done it in FrameMaker or Word/OpenOffice) it is all that matters.
LaTex is nice - but it is not the holy grail that everyone pretends it to be.