Rhymelark
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Yes?
Threadkiller Mk XIII
- Thread starter Jan
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Yes?
PsychoFish
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Yes...why?
blaaislaai
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Awesome, okay when im back tomorrow at work, im gonna make a thread, struggling with something at the moment.. possibly relating to a formula
PsychoFish
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I have a bee in my bonnet over "IT professionals", can someone please explain to me why you would go to a mechanic if your car dies or a doctor/surgeon if you have medical issues, but the moment you need to do your company's network, security and other IT needs you're willing to turn to anyone that will basically accept money to fiddle with computers?
B1nary
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Good point, well many people will take their car to the cheapest mechanic it depends on the car and affordability.
I think in many instances it's a matter of how the company views IT as well as their general understanding of it , the equipment they have and how detrimental it is to business.
Also Just my own experiences but someone can have the nicest collection of Certifications and still be completely useless.
I think in many instances it's a matter of how the company views IT as well as their general understanding of it , the equipment they have and how detrimental it is to business.
Also Just my own experiences but someone can have the nicest collection of Certifications and still be completely useless.
FarligOpptreden
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The same goes for software "engineering". Being confronted with low skilled competition forcing me to drive down my rates in order to win contracts is an exercise in frustration and, often, futility. I wish there was a governing body, like medical or law, that would weed out the chancers from those with actual skill who completed recognized qualifications to achieve some state of profesionalism.
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Having a governing body doesn't always help much. Of all of my classmates and colleagues since finishing, I know of exactly 2 mechanical engineers that have bothered to register with ECSA as professional engineers, and that is the only protected title. In other words, every nub with a lathe calls himself an engineer, and it dilutes the professional space.
But as to your problem: have you considered raising you prices for a handful of quotes, just to see what happens? Maybe asking a higher rate will attract a better quality of client? Or maybe I've been reading too much at /r/entrepeneur?
FarligOpptreden
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Having a governing body doesn't always help much. Of all of my classmates and colleagues since finishing, I know of exactly 2 mechanical engineers that have bothered to register with ECSA as professional engineers, and that is the only protected title. In other words, every nub with a lathe calls himself an engineer, and it dilutes the professional space.
But as to your problem: have you considered raising you prices for a handful of quotes, just to see what happens? Maybe asking a higher rate will attract a better quality of client? Or maybe I've been reading too much at /r/entrepeneur?
Sadly it doesn't work that way. We once lost out on a contract where we were R3000 more expensive than the competition. That was on a contract just under R400k. The client specifically said in the briefing they're going with the cheapest provider. We would've provided a much better service with an infinitely better quality product.
Regarding raising the rates, again it doesn't work that way. We've been forced to lower rates because clients and channel partners keep telling us our rates are higher than the other smaller dev shops. Sad thing is this is only in ZA. Our sole international client told us how cheap we are compared to European devs. I just wish we could attract more international attention...
On the up-side, a major ZA-founded tech company offered to buy us out. After I went for an "interview" for a project they called me back and requested a meeting with one of their head honchos. Out of the blue, they said we should consider selling to them as they need our skills to expand their offering. That was last week...
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Oh, that just grinds my gears. We had the same thing just now with a tech from a huuuuuge research and development institute, it's an R8 000 000 project, but he's arguing over the R3000 sensor versus the R1000 sensor, and our ~R5000 profit we put on all of the sensors..
I was actually mostly wondering about if that feedback loop is complete, glad to see that it is. At least now you know that you're in the right rate-space. Still, I would up the rate somewhat for an expendable quote or two once a year, just to see what sticks.
That is such a difficult thing to even process.. Going from being the boss to being an employee must be a major shift. And I'm sure the buy offer will require you specifically to stay on for a while. Are you leaning to one side or the other yet?
PsychoFish
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It really depends on the Certification though. For the most part your MCSE, MCSA and Cisco Certs (CCNA/CCNP) just mean that you can remember a bunch of answers. RHCSA and RHCSE Certification exams are practical exams and unless you actually know what you're doing you'll never pass. I wish MS and the lower level Cisco Certs start adopting practical exams as this will weed out the people than can pass a monkey puzzle exam in favor of someone that can actually configure, implement, deploy and troubleshoot.
I have been thinking about this now for a while, but I have no idea where to start. Something like the Institute Of IT Professionals South Africa (http://www.iitpsa.org.za/) but membership is not mandatory with IITPSA. Some companies don't even recognize IITPSA as a professional body. The only surefire way to weed out chancers I have found is to let them do a practical "test" of sorts.
With developers I love a FizzBuzz derivative question like :
Write a program that prints the numbers from 1 to 100. But for multiples of three print "Fizz" instead of the number and for the multiples of five print "Buzz". For numbers which are multiples of both three and five print "FizzBuzz".
Or just give them a piece of broken code and ask them to fix it.
I actually sat with a guy that was applying for a Storage Engineer role, and the question we asked was :
You have been tasked with providing two LUNs to a new server. The server is on your desk and has two QLogic Dual Port HBAs. The LUNs need to be 40GB and 1TB respectively and should be thin provisioned. The 40GB LUN will be the OS boot partition. Please take me through the steps you would take to plan, configure and install this server up to a point where the OS is bootable.
This question completely dumbfounded the person.
InSanity
Just wants the trophy
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Oh Good so it wasn't only me
I, for one, know exactly what to do. It's all about the LUNs. And the NUBs. And some QLogic. But I'll leave it as an exercise for the reader.
InSanity
Just wants the trophy
"whistling:
FarligOpptreden
New member
The idea is that we stay an independent subsidiary of the larger company. In essence they take over ownership of the company, but we gain the advantage of not having to prime ourselves in the market to get larger (and international) contracts. It's not all "maanskyn en rose" running a company and having to make sure you always have enough cash flowing in to cover salaries and other expenses. Your staff are your first priority and you work in the hope that "one day" you'll be able to give yourself a raise (never mind bonuses). I haven't had a raise in the last 3 years and I've never in my life experienced the mythical "bonus". So, in short, it is very tempting having a large player in the industry showing interest in us and I can then get back to focusing on what I'm really good at - building software, frameworks and tools for developers to do their jobs better.
Not knowing much of the infrastructure side of IT, that sounds fairly specific to your environment. I'm always quite wary of interviewing candidates solely on the tech and processes I use on a daily basis. I rather look at their ability to learn, their fit into the company culture and their dedication to helping the company grow as a whole. I guess being in a small startup (11 people) you can always get people up to speed on the tech you use and rather focus on someone you can invest time in. A high staff turnover is the death of any small company.
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