Re: Job Hunting

[Jim Grey <jwg -at- ACD4 -dot- ACD -dot- COM>]

Kelly Hoffman quoted me and Patti Waterbury about our companies' seeming
to favor internal hires, and commented:
>Perhaps I'm just dense today, but I guess I don't see the problem
>with this practice, at least in moderation.  Would you folks prefer
>the alternative, where no one internally is considered for a
>position, only outside applicants need apply?

>Or is it simply that your experience has been that internal
>candidates aren't as qualified as externals?  If so, it strikes
>me that this is a symptom of a *much* larger problem.

Some moves make sense.  Around here, experienced telephone support people
have become good test, implementaion, or application engineers.  Trainers
and application engineers have become successful project managers.  People
from many areas have made effective managers.  We even moved a secretary
into Technical Writing five years ago and she has turned into a solid
performer.  In these cases, the people seemed to demonstrate a *knack*
for the new, unfamiliar job.

Sometimes internal candidates *aren't* as qualified as externals.  When
this three-person writing team hired to replace a very experienced writer in
1992, we should have hired a very experienced writer.  We even found one we
wanted.  But the company leaned on us hard to hire internally anyway, and we
ended up with a woman who had never written a manual.  She did a decent job.
I liked working with her.  But it was the wrong time to hire her.  Our
effectiveness was reduced.

This is when I have a problem with it.

Peace,
jim grey
--
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