How to ask questions in job interview / How to get fired / Teaching systems…

Motto of the day: ""What matters most is how well you walk through the fire." Charles Bukowski .

How to ask questions in job interview

One would think, that asking questions and answering them (i.e. discussing) would be something we all can do. But no, it is not that simple. For example, there are strict rules on how to task questions during job interview. This sounds silly, of course, but it is not. We have to remember, that, according to many recruiting sites and Ehrenreich's book, the interviewers are not so much looking for the best possible employees. Rather they are looking for people whom they like. So, likeability is the key, and thus it is very important to ask right questions with right words. Well, this whole job search/interview/whatnot business is really getting out of hand here in USA.

How to get fired

Here is how to get fired, at least if one is an administrative assistant. I especially like this one:

Make Faces: Be conscious of your facial expressions; you may not realize how you can be saying one thing while your face could be saying something else. "I had a client who was given a bad review and was ultimately fired for rolling his eyes in staff meetings," Star says.

Also, this is interesting

"Spending much of your work time orchestrating your own personal business, rather than your boss's affairs, usually results in being given an opportunity to spend all of your time on the phone on personal business -- looking for a new job," Star warns.

especially considering the two meanings of the word "affairs". However, it is not good to get too much involved in "boss's affairs"

Become Romantically Involved with the Boss: While it may make for great water-cooler discussion, a boss/direct-report romance can easily end with someone out of a job. (Hint: It's usually not the boss.)

I have to say I definitely learn important things here in MIT every day.

Teaching systems architecture

I wrote this yesterday. I think it makes sense.

Knowing history and understanding previous systems is as important for systems architects as it is for civil architect. Since the profession of systems architecting is still very young, at least when compared to civil architecting, there is no established curriculum of history of systems architecting. There are some books and some articles, but there are no course on the history of systems architecting or systems architectures. Building such an curriculum is much harder in systems architecting than in civil architecting, because many systems are either secret (completely) or their architecture is secret. It is very hard, and in many cases impossible - especially with embedded systems -, to find out the systems architecture of a system just by looking at it. In civil architecture, looking at a building, or just set of pictures of it, is enough to give an understanding of the architecture.
In order to be able to educate better systems architects, and to really build up a profession, the systems architecting community should start project in documenting the history of systems architecting. In addition, the community should develop a series of case studies, in the way management community has been doing for a long time. Furthermore, the community should codify the best practices, and systems architecting methods in design tools and related conceptual frameworks.
In terms of MIT, this would mean increasing resources in researching and teaching systems architecting. Since all engineering departments build large systems, the systems architecting research center should have faculty and students from many, if not all, departments. Thus, it would fit quite well in ESD, but in order to research the history, STS should be strongly involved.

What do you think?

Nerdy life

It is now 2am. I am still in the Athena-cluster in the Student Center. It was rather quite at midnight, but after 1am more students came in. Now there is maybe 10 students here and one policeman. The police is leaving and so am I. I got quite far today. In addition to working on my thesis (60% of it is now ready in my head - I just have to let it come out and organize it in a coherent story, which is no big deal), I wrote a case summary of last Friday's SA-class. It was a good thing to do, I learned a lot and came to think about some things I had never really thought about. No waste of time was it.
Let's see whether staying up until 3am or 4am and then sleeping 7 hours is a good idea. I think it is, as long as I do not have anything to do in the morning.

Alun perin julkaistu kuukausikoosteessa "Blogs October 2005".