Job interview help! Good analog primer?

I would expect them to also know differential amplifier configurations and have a good grasp of various earthing topologies as well. This is in addition to the usual Health & Safety aspects of the job.

"Joe Legris" wrote

energetic.

advice

Who died and made you boss of the group? It could also be said that you could have shortened your posts by 100% and spared us all your mindless ramblings. Next time you get ready to accuse someone of something perhaps you should re-read the post before making unfounded and libelous accusations. Of course you could also troll somewhere else too.

Since you are such a proponent of competency and certification, can you list for us your certifications qualifying you to summarily pass judgment upon others?

Basically, any decent text on general electronics should get you going. Before I got my present job, I had two interviews coming up. One was with HP (now Agilent) on design of MW instrumentation. Studied for three days, going over all the basics such as opamps, transistor biasing, etc. During the interview (over the phone...) he gave me a lot of really tough questions, and I was in way, way, way over my head. Since I hadn't really done much analog design since getting my degree, I blew the interview.

A couple of days later, I interviewed at Microsim. In this case, the knowlege test was much more basic. 4 resistor transistor bias, basic opamp gain, truth table realization, a simple counter. Since I had studied for the much harder test, this one I aced. But to study, I just reviewed my old circuits 101 textbook. Win's Art of Electronics would be good, but overkill. The idea is to remember what you know, rather than try to actually learn anything new.

Pots and kettles spring to mind.

Tim

Nice way to side-step the point at issue, Legris. You jumped to a conclusion (that I'm misrepresenting myself in order to obtain something I'm not entitled to), and you were sadly wrong, so you proceed to another avenue of ad-hominem attack in lieu of assembling a factual argument. This is all standard, well-accepted Usenet practice, of course, I'm simply pointing it out for the benefit of future alien races that may read this NG.

I endeavor to be completely honest with everyone I deal with, including potential employers, simply because it is the only strategy that makes longterm sense. This method of doing business happens to be very important to me, and I resent it when people unwarrantably attack it.

You also appear to have a strong personal antipathy to me, and I'm darned if I can fully understand it. I do understand _part_ of it - you're of the school that resents the fact that I work in your industry without a formal qualification in the field. But that doesn't seem quite enough to justify such bitterness. Perhaps I can mollify you towards me by redirecting your anger towards others - there are numerous successful and exceedingly wealthy people (much more successful and wealthy than I) who have built their careers the same way I am. Feel free to vituperate them. At least allow me to eat my chitlins before I get back to picking cotton.

Oh well. As HAL said, "this conversation can serve no further useful purpose".

Just expressing my opinion, and for that I need no license. By the way, which of my statements are "unfounded and libelous accusations"? He admitted he is not formally qualified for he job.

Having interviewed a few job applicants, I know that certification saves the trouble of running a battery of tests covering elementary concepts, as we see happening here. You never know what a "project-driven" education may be lacking and certification provides some confidence that there are no gaping holes, which we see here too.

Finally, there is the issue of politics. Engineers and technicians spend a lot of time, effort and money developing their skills. It is insulting to presume that a few days of cramming is somehow equivalent.

-- Joe Legris

Personal antipathy? It is your obsession with yourself that offends me - the superfluous initials, the annoyingly verbose posts, the cloyingly personal anecdotes - they make my skin crawl. I think I deserve some credit for suffering in almost total silence these past few years. Please write another book - by all accounts the first one is technically very good (seriously) and I could use a break here. There you go, a free plug, now do you believe I don't hate you?

-- Joe Legris

you

mindless

libelous

you

way,

Opinions are fine as long as everyone understands that is all they are. I'm thinking that, "How about applying for a job for which you are actually qualified? If you cannot answer these questions without cramming even your digital "skills" are bogus" would probably qualify as unfounded and libelous. Since you apparently have no personal knowledge of his abilities, nor the specific requirements of the job, you most certainly seem to be in no position to assess his qualifications for it.

saves

concepts,

that

How do you certify someone as an "electrical engineer", or even as an "embedded engineer"? Those fields are so diverse that each individual job would likely require it's own specialized certification. I suppose that's what the interview process is all about. Would you expect a HV substation designer to be able to answer detailed questions about MMU operations? Should an FPGA designer also be an expert in lightning protection?

Having interviewed a "few" people myself, I have found that someone's professional education, job history, and certifications have little to do with their "real world" skills, adaptability and desire to learn. Some people are very good at school and taking tests, others are excellent at obtaining usable results even with no formal education.

spend

insulting

Irrelevant and quite typical of professional student and professor speak IME. When politics starts producing usable results, I will reconsider my opinion.

Your suggestion that a lack of analog skills implies a lack of digital skills is utterly illogical, so saying his digital skills are "bogus" is unfounded.

I have seen nobody in this thread make that presumption. You are presuming that the OP has made that presumption, despite him making it abundantly clear from the start that he has not.

Tim

That is pretty much exactly the limit of my analog knowledge. I know how to drive various sorts of loads, how to interface to various types of analog inputs, some theoretical info about PCB layouts, some background of EMI mitigation, etc.

BTW, I should point out that the employer in question has already set the tone of the experience by putting this in an examination context. (Those "analyze this unknown ckt" and "analyze this unknown firmware" approaches really threw me). Anyway, cramming would be appropriate. But it's not exactly what I have in mind.

"Anthony Fremont" schreef in bericht news:PhOoc.102272$ snipped-for-privacy@fe2.texas.rr.com...

I limit 92% of my posts by 100% - is that impressive or what ? ;-)

I try to follow the advice of Strunk & White (The Elements of Style, 3rd ed., p.23):

Omit needless words!

-- Joe Legris

You do know how to use a kill filter in Mozilla, don't you?

Very strange... Why would they want you to know RF? We try like heck to keep the firmware and digital guys as far away from RF as physically possible...

Remove "HeadFromButt", before replying by email.

you

mindless

Believe it or not, I do too. I have written many a rant only to delete them before sending. Perhaps I should try harder in the future.

Joe Legris wrote: [snip]

So why don't you just shut the f*ck up?

Tim

Ok, so someone's apparently having a worse time of it than I am.. :)

I was just told that my 20 years + would be acceptable if I had obtained a BS about 20 years ago.

Have you had a spin through Art of Electronics? If all you do is ping out all the "bad idea" circuits, you'll be ahead of the pack.

as

I've noticed a disturbing trend in "miracle" antennas lately that appears to be caused by firmware guys doing RF design. The idea that high return loss figures equate to "good antenna" seem to come from that quarter.