LABVIEW

I found "dry labbing" very useful in college chemistry. Did Labview build in the appropriate uncertainty factors in the "measurements"?

I don't think I was any more adept than the interviewer. Probably less so in areas I knew little about at the time, such as telco regulatory compliance. However, given the choice between me and someone with a bad case of conspicuous mediocrity, even I would be tempted to take the mediocre applicant. Working with me (at the time) was, ummm... challenging.

A good illustration is what happened when I hired a very qualified engineering technician. He was almost an engineer, lacking only the degree. He had lots of experience in most aspects of radio after 15+ years at a big aerospace house. That was the problem. When I asked him to do something my way, I would usually get an arguement, that his former employer did it a different way. Almost everything had to be negotiated this way. We both soon tired of each other and he found a different job (in aerospace).

My boss recommended that I look for a replacement with minimal experience, good learning abilities, and a recent military background. Why military? Because they know how to take orders. My next 4(?) techs all fit this pattern and were very successful.

Most engineers are miserable businessmen. Every time one of the local tech companies had a layoff, there would be a flood of new small businesses established by former employees. I've watched many of these flounder, thrash, and eventually die. One has to be slightly insane to be in business for themselves. I think that I qualify. More important are connections to potential customers, banks, mentors, rich relatives, and cheap (family) labor.

In this case, there was very little business involved. The company needed someone to do engineering. I'm sure there was a salary and benefits limit established. It doesn't take any business expertise to select among the qualified candidates. The interviewer was simply making the decision based upon what was best for the interviewer, not for the company. At the engineering level, I wouldn't expect anything different.

Yep. Engineers are not known for diplomacy and tact. Incidentally, the "constructive" part of criticism is dependent on which side of the criticism one happens to be.

It's a VERY good test. However, as I mentioned, it's not acceptable in today's litigious environment. Tricking an applicant by not informing them for what they're being tested, or even that a test was in progress, is not considered a proper interview. I tried to solve the problem by listing "excellent learning abilities" on the job requirement, but HR still asked me not to use it. I contrived a few other tricks that worked almost as well at testing learning ability and retention, but the original test was the best.

Hi Jeff,

Thanks for your insights; they do make for interesting readnig.

Doing something simply because a former employer did it a different way is a weak argument; did he follow it up with, "...and we did it that way because blah, blah and even tried it your way and found it didn't work as well because of blah, blah?" Those are the arguments I want to hear from people -- solid, technical ones.

Far too many people seem to do things a certain way only because that's the way they've done them in the past -- "cookbook" engineering, essentially. For many engineering projects this isn't entirely bad as many projects really are pretty simple re-hashes of the well-known!

I've watched many mediocre small businessmen end up making far more money than the average engineer by simply repeating that process and eventually becoming savvy enough to protect their own assets first. :-) Those innately skilled with (or able to learn ) the means to talk persuasively always seem to be able to find _someone_ to fund their next start-up ventures!

Quit being so pragmatic. :-)

I like the saying, "Sometimes brtual honesty is more brutal than honest."

I can see being a little ticked if it turned out you were being tested all along without your knowledge (especially if you failed, obviously!), perhaps, but judges would actually find the employer was somehow *at fault* for it? Amazing.

---Joel

"Joel Koltner" hath wroth:

They have the benefits of my 20-20 hindsight. Given a repeat opportunity, I'm sure I would have done everything differently.

Quite solid, but useless. During the initial "honeymoon" period, I would listen to his suggestions and comments carefully. That would be followed by a extended debate, where work came to a standstill. Usually, some of the other engineers and techs would want to get involved, thus maximizing the damage. Eventually, the engineering manager would arrive and attempt to settle things. Initially, that was with diplomatic considerations for all those involved. Later, it degenerated into a dictated directive. If there were any merits to his suggestions, they were fatally diluted in the huge waste of time necessary to negotiate the issue.

I recall one extended (2hr) discussion over the relative merits of replacing components on a prototype board. I'm into free-form, which means that sloppiness is acceptable as long as it doesn't leave the lab. He was into running the boards through a degreaser for best appearance. I was into tack soldering temporary test points all over the board as needed. He wanted to drill and mount them. I was into documenting only successful test results (in the name of speed). He was into documenting everything, in detail, even if it failed.

It wasn't the merits of these discussions that causes the problems. It was the large number of them that appeared (to me) to be almost continuous. If I engaged in a discussion over each item, absolutely no work would have been done for the entire day. For what value he offered in experience, it was lost in the slipped deadlines and general loss of productivity.

I have nothing against "cookbook" engineering, also known as plagiarism, reverse engineering, and rehashing existing products. In the distant past, I've noticed that every time I have a "great idea", and was actually allowed to implement it, the result was invariably a slipped schedule followed by copious overtime. One working design was simply being repackaged when I had a "great idea" on how to drastically reduce the amount of circuitry. All it required was a little R&D. That cost the schedule about a month plus overtime. It worked, and I was very proud of my changes, but everyone else involved with the product was ready to hang me from the light fixtures.

Lesson: Great ideas are not so great if they trash the schedule or impact shipments.

Most don't do it that way. The ones I was tracking were all the "consultants" that appeared after a layoff. A few did contract design work and had wisely cultivated relationships with their former employers customers. Most, just hung out a shingle, called all their friends, picked up some of the slack created by the layoff, and then ran out of paying work. The really clueless engineers would spend all their savings developing a prototype. If successful, would then fly around showing it to everyone in sight, and have their idea stolen in an instant. Lots of other ways to do it wrong. The most successful small businesses I've seen start with absolutely no physical products anywhere in sight. It's so much easier to sell an idea, than a mostly finished product. I won't claim to be any more or less successful than these people. I've made plenty of mistakes and missed plenty of opportunities. However, I've been doing my own thing since about

Sorry. I like to put myself in the shoes of the person I'm dealing with and test how I would react under the same circumstances. Empathy for other peoples agendas is something that's rather rare in engineering.

What motivates a person is not always obvious or transparent. In this case, the interviewer could have been on an ego trip and might have been trying to show off his design. He might have been looking for praise. He might have been having problems with the product and was looking for help or hints. He might even have considering a 2nd revision to cut costs or add features. However, I didn't think it was any of these. He knew the design intimately, and was therefore fully prepared to discuss the relative merits of any criticism I might offer. Had he used a different product, with which he was not so intimately familiar, that would have been more difficult.

In my younger days, fresh out of skool, that was the case. I was really brutal with my criticism. There was no gray area. It was either good or bad, black or white, cool or lame, etc. Somewhat later, I learned the value of diplomacy, tact, and subtlety. Learning to keep my mouth shut was the major achievement, although judging by the length of this thread, that lesson needs more work.

I'm not familiar with the legal implications of creative interview techniques. I was simply told to cease and desist by the personnel dept. While at this company for about 9 years, there was only one suit by a prospective applicant, and that was for racial discrimination. I don't recall the details. I've been told it's quite different these days where litigation avoidance is a key part of the hiring and firing process. I was involved in 3 separate cases of unfair employee practices before the labor board, which gave a me a good insight into how "salary enhancement" law suits work.

JosephKK joseph snipped-for-privacy@sbcglobal.net posted to sci.electronics.design:

Upon which you always hear about the smart-alec that gets a bucket, some water and a chunk of dry ice.

The Global Warmingists have been using that stuff for decades! ;-)

Cheers! Rich

At Keesler AFB, we sent them for a buffer amplifier or a can of grid-leak bias. ;-)

Cheers! Rich

Labview is cheaper for students:

also see:

and:

Frank