Re: Would you hire...

[Peter Brown <pbrown -at- MKS -dot- COM>]

Chris Hamilton <chamilton -at- gr -dot- com>wrote:

> Gentle colleagues--
>
> In a previous life, I was a COBOL programmer. I programmed COBOL for
> about three years before gratefully moving on. So, now its almost 2000
>
> and there are buttloads of money to be made by COBOL programmers. With
>
> one kid, another on the way, and a wife that stays home to be a mom,
> the
> money sure is intriguing me.
>
> My question is this: if a technical writer were to take a year or two
> and program in COBOL because the money is incredible, would it hurt
> that
> technical writer's credibility with you if you were a hiring manager?
> All other things being equal, would you eliminate someone from
> consideration for a job because of the one to two year sabbatical to
> make some money?
>
> I'm probably not going to do anything, but I'm only human and the
> money's rrrreeeeaaaallll good.
>
> Chris

I don't see what would cause a hiring manager to hold that against you.
The company that I now work for (I started about three months ago) may
be an extreme in the industry, but they LOVE their tech writers to have
a programming background. (That's what happens when your company makes
software for cross-platform development and all the coders are fluent in
UNIX, most would prefer it if Microsoft slid into the Pacific, and many
respond to a problem by saying "Oh, I can write a shell script to do
that.")

If you told our VP of R&D, "Oh, by the way, I took off two years to go
write COBOL code for cash," he would probably make an offer before the
echo of your voice dissipated.

I suppose it's possible that a hiring manager may think that you're
over-qualified and that you'll split for another, more lucrative
programming job in a few months, but that's the only objection I can
think of.
--
---------------------------------------------------------------
"Opinions? I've had a few. But then again, too few to mention."
Peter Brown, Technical Writer (pbrown -at- mks -dot- com)
Mortice Kern Systems Inc. (http://www.mks.com)

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