Re: Need Your Opinions


"Jerry Stuckle" <jstucklex@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:762dnSn_wNht3hnanZ2dnUVZ_rOqnZ2d@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Steve wrote:
"Jerry Stuckle" <jstucklex@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:2qOdnc8YBax6JR7anZ2dnUVZ_ryqnZ2d@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Steve wrote:
"Jerry Stuckle" <jstucklex@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:MOednTchgqpVHR7anZ2dnUVZ_jKdnZ2d@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
LayneMitch via WebmasterKB.com wrote:
Jerry Stuckle wrote:

Good luck. You'll need to walk before you can run. No one (in
their right mind, anyway) is going to hire a company with no proven
experience.

So that's what I'm asking. Like in addition to those languages used
for
web/database development, what languages would I need to learn to
develop a
database like the one my employer has?
Any of these will work. But you'll need experience. I've been
consulting since 1990. But before that I had 13 years of experience
with IBM to show. Even then, the first few jobs were hard. With no
experience, you're not going to get much for jobs. And certainly
not something like you're talking, which is critical to their
business.

I'm not trying to scare you off. I just don't want you to have
unrealistic hopes.
Thanks for your expertise and opinions.

I realize that I have to crawl before I walk. I have a vision for my
future
and my motivation and vision is what is going to carry me to my
goals. Honestly, not to overlook your credentials and years of
expertise, but it was
your choice to spend 13 years with IBM before you began consulting.
Your
companies success has to do with your team, vision, connections, and
ability
to sell your services. The first and the latter would be the most
important...
team and sales. I've known web/database developers that started off
consulting with smaller to mid range companies and evolved to working
with
larger companies within 5-7 years. And I personally don't like the
mindset
that you have to spend 10-13 years of your life working for someone
before
you can branch out and establish your own company. That mindset is
what they
teach you in college and it sucks.
That could be true. But in the consulting business, experience rules.
For instance, all else being the same, would you rather take your car
to someone with 10 years of experience, or someone who studied auto
manuals in his spare time and just opened a shop? I suspect it would
be the experienced guy.

Now, what if the experienced guy charged $75/hr. and the new guy
$50/hr? You might be tempted to try the new guy. But what if your
vehicle is critical to your work - and your job depends on it? Would
you still be willing to take a chance on the new guy? Probably less
likely. Some things are worth the extra money.
that may make sense, jerry...if it worked that way. generally, if the
bids are all within close proximity, the lower priced bidder wins out.
same with cars even then. here's the kicker...if you have good social
skills and half a brain, you can provide different bidding structures.
you either talk your way in (and then deliver), or your ability to
negotiate in business terms can outweigh the bid itself. to do that,
you start with the old axiom...time, expense, and quality - you can
only have two of those at the same time and the one you don't
pick...that's the one that will suffer., i.e. a quality product
developed in short order will cost a lot. that, ultimately, dictates
hiring decisions.

Not at all. Lowest price only works when you're doing government
contracts, where agencies are mandated to take the lowest bid (from
qualified companies).

In the real world, price is not as important as ability. And you called
it right there - time, expense and quality. When companies have to pick
two, expense loses out (except for the cheapskates). Otherwise, big
consulting firms wouldn't be able to farm out recent college grads at
$350/hr.


the key is understanding which of those two combinations you can
deliver on consistently and then going after the jobs under those
constraints. either bid that per hour or per project or however.

Yep, and clients want to see a proven track record of quality and
on-time delivery.

theory is great. the car analogy just doesn't work in the real world.
if it does in yours, you've been missing a lot of opportunity
needlessly.

It's perfectly accurate in the real world. I've won some contracts in
the past not because I had the lowest price - but I could give them the
best quality. Sure, I've lost some because I wasn't the cheapest. But
I learned very early in the consulting game not to bid on price. Before
I learned that, I found I was spending a lot more time on those clients
who were only interested in price than I should have been - lowering my
bottom line. Once I stopped competing on price, my income increased.

jerry, what i'm saying is that you're only looking at the quality factor.
you're leaving out time and cost. you can shop in the quality
market...the op can't. there are far more jobs available than you think
where employers want quality and are willing to sacrifice time-to-market
if their aim is two-fold...the actual product, and creating a loyal
employee that is moldable. you may even be hired because of your
familiarity with a business process (engineering, accounting, etc.)
often, especially when prototyping, you want something out there that
works...and you needed it yesturday. in both of those situations, the bid
is terciary.


No, I'm not looking at the quality factor. I'm looking at the performance
factor. The hourly cost is not a factor. What good is is to hire someone
who charges 1/2 as much - if they take 3 times as long?

since when does a consultant dictate the time span of a project? specific
performance is written into contracts, jerry. if i hire someone who charges
half as much or the most expensive bidder out there, i dictate the work to
be done and the time frame under which it will be done. there are penalties
and rewards for meeting deadlines. thinking that a $10 ph consultant will
cost you more in the long run than a $20 ph consultant is not accurate
math...and a complete failure on the hiring party to protect the company's
interests.

btw, 'performance' is based on what? time, quality, and expense! if i have a
limited budget but sufficient time available, i can hire a $10 employee to
produce quality.

When getting something to market on time, a proven track record of
completing a project on time is much more important.

i don't think so. when getting something to market, the product is what
counts. there are a range of factors you're neglecting to consider. i may
hire a mathematician and pay him not only for output, but to learn to
program at the same time - may even send him to school...simply for the fact
that i need an application that uses 4th order runge-cutta to give me
lightining fast simulation capabilities using state/space variables. if
there is anyone other than me in this news group that knows what i just said
*and* can program it, i'd be highly suprised! so, what does that mean? the
mathematician, with NO track record in programming, definitely gets the
job...even over the 'seasoned' pro's.

that's just a 'for instance'. i can think of several more scenarios all
sufficient to show your remark as a bit short-sighted.

And when hiring a consultant, you aren't looking at creating a loyal
employee. You're looking at getting a job done. Nothing more.

really? do you hire them? i do. and, everyone is looking to get a job done -
it's kind of what companies exist to do. it goes without saying. to say
'nothing more' is to think all companies do business the same way. that's a
farse. the parallel to that statement would be to say the only thing that is
important in programming is that the end-product works. you should
immediately think, "no, that's the reason you *program*. that doesn't cover
*how* you program."


It is definitely possible for me to do the same immediately after
building a
foundation in Computer Science. It's all about how quickly you apply
it to
your goals.
That's a lofty goal, and I'm not at all trying to throw water on it.
But you have to also realize you have competition out there - a lot of
it. And they have something you don't have - experience and a proven
track record. It counts even more in consulting than auto repair.
people are hired if they seem intelligent, listen, and fit in. yours is
a very traditional view. i'd contend that it counts LESS in consulting
than auto repair since a car has known parts and well defined systems
that are fixed in a straightforward fashion. programming is rarely if
ever, that.

Which means it's even more important to have that proven track record.

no, it means one should convey intelligence, listen, and fit in.


No argument that intelligence is good. But a past record of performance
rules.

please don't overlook the fact that i was clarifying your assumption you
made from reading that. i was correcting your logical conclusion, which was
wrong in no uncertain terms.

and, yes, you do think that past performance 'rules'...whatever that means.
placing employees is just like picking the right combination of db's,
languages, and operating systems and configurations when putting an
application together. your 'rules' statement is akin to saying language A is
the only language anyone should program in. i don't hire people like you
think i should...i pick them if they are right for the job. that is a
combination of equitable factors...and previous experience is on a level
playing field when i'm evaluating things.

think of it this way...if i have to fight an attacker who is bigger
than i, quicker, and even prettier, i'm not going to win by trying to
beat his strengths. less experienced people should not compete on even
terms either. people are people and not computers. i can talk my way
into any job i want. i choose those that will be able to deliver
on...slowly building up my res. your social skills far outweigh your
technical skills every time you get interviewed...and, at every stage
of your career.

you seem to leave that out.

True and false. You have to have the social skills, I do admit. But
you've got to get in the door first. And without any experience to
show, good clients won't give you the time of day.

that's a relative truth and relative false. that may be your experience,
but it isn't mine - as a consultant and an employer. you seem to think
there's only one way to have your nike keep the door open. your
technicals have little to do with selling yourself. and selling has
little to do with showing some information on a piece of paper. if that
were all there were to it, there would be very little need for so many
commercials or pr reps and the like. a products 'worth' would just be
plastered on it. hell, one well known company's foot-in-the-door into a
competative nich was by specifically saying that "they were #2...so they
worked harder" (paraphrased). have a google on that.


No, successful consultants have EVERYTHING to do with selling ourselves.
It's about building relationships and showing the prospective client that
you can do the job better at a lower relative cost than anyone else.

i almost agree 100%. almost. if one of your sales pitches is 'better...for
less', then you've missed the boat. as a consultant, my job is to convince a
prospective that they have to have me on their team/project...price be
damned! if one of your pitches is that you don't cost as much, that just
means you lack a skill set or are weak in other areas...at least in my book
anyway.

But first you need to get in the door. And without a proven track record,
you have little chance - unless you have other contacts.

jerry, it's the 'unless' that you've yet to explore. i've told you that
yours is a very traditional view of gaining employment. it isn't wrong. it's
just very slow to provide results, and in a lot of cases, it's a needless
venture. yes, if i tried to get work your way when i started out, i indeed
would have had little chance. but, in this industry, how many people do you
know that sought out this profession. in this industry, most of us saw
opportunites in business that technology could fix. i know several people
that started programming with microsoft access because they could
consolidate views of spread*** data, query it, and deliver reports that
were meaningful (and pretty).

i'm telling you, if i find a person like that - one who can see opportunity
and apply technology to capitalize on it - price be damned and experience be
damned, i want 'em. how valuable is that ability v. a code monkey who has
cranked out billions of lines of code, never lifting his head above his
monitor to look around at how my company runs?

everyone walks into an interview advantaged and disadvantaged in some
area. the one who gets the job sells himself well and "overcomes
objections" - a commonly used marketing term.


Yes, but first you have to get into that interview.

you've said your work is all referal now days. i'd believe that, otherwise
i'd suspect that you haven't looked at all the resources available to
you...like simply picking up a book on getting a job in the current market.
contacts, social skills, creativity, diplomatic persistence...those are what
get you interviews. at least, those are the ones i grant an audience when
i'm hiring.

***, i even had a friend in college who got a nursing job that required
*specific* experience. he was a lit major.


Completely irrelevant, since you have given no detailed information about
what his previous experience was, what the job required...

well, one of the requirements was that he had to be a current nursing major.
again, he was a lit major. his previous experience in nursing was nil. he
was, however, intelligent, a listener, and fit in.

btw, relevancy is not dictated by how well/poor the subject was presented:
only that the subject presented is in context with the discussion. fyi.

again, your experience is not mine. my eyes tell me that you're only
using one edge of a triangle to open a door...there are two more. if you
haven't tried them, your revenues - as good as you think they are - are
not at their full earning capacity.


It's the same door that virtually every consultant I know uses. And I do
know quite a few computer consultants, all around the country.

Those who are successful have good interpersonal skills. But they also
have experience.

your conclusion is that the experience got them the jobs, and that they have
good interpersonal skills. further, that since this path is shared by them
and they are employed, that that path is the one to go with - such to the
extent that you think it is the only path. ever wonder why 1 in n-thousand
people do something notable in any given fascet of life? you know, the 'path
less travelled' is usually the *only* thing shared by those people, and that
does indeed make all the difference. i'd just caution that the suggested
path is not the only one, and that good interpersonal skills have nothing to
do with being able to market yourself well.

i never said that path (volunteering to get experience) wouldn't work. i'm
just saying it's a waste of time for the volunteer. i'm saying that as one
who hires people. i'd think you'd be more willing to take what i'm saying to
heart. i'm not debating you, jerry. i'm telling you that i'm a hiring
manager for a fortune 50 company and that what you think i'm looking for is,
in fact, not at all what i'm looking for.

Now, that's not saying you can't get started. For instance, I know
some web developers who basically got a start with little experience.
But web development is a little different, and people are more willing
to take a chance. Most sites are not very expensive to build, and the
client isn't out that much.
i have hired at least 3 people in as many years to maintain and enhance
our corporate systems. they are mission critical applications. none of
those 3 had *any* programming experience. they were intelligent, they
listened, and they fit in. they also had a huge desire to do great
things. those turn out to be your most loyal and creative developers on
your team.

You're talking a corporate environment, not consulting. The two are
completely different worlds. Clients will not hire consultants with no
programming experience for mission critical systems.

duh! i was the hiring manager in a corporation (still am) and i have
hired 3 people (consultants) in 3 years with NO experience in programming
with *any* language. that is the whole point, jerry! and yes, they worked
on my mission critical applications.


And you hired them as employees? No problem. See my post above.

note the parenthetical. they were hired as consultants. it just so happens
that very few consultants want to be career consultants - in the IT world
anyway. it also happens happily that companies cringe at the thought of
being tied to having to use consultans as a standard of practice. their work
for us as consultants turned out, as we usually treat it, to be a 'trial
run' for them and us. it has been beneficial for all parties.

and to whatever 'see my post above' i'm supposed to look at, i'm sure you
can see my response that followed it.

remember shelly? he used to post here? guess for whom he works now? are
his skill sets in line with what i need? i think almost. however, i found
him intelligent, a good listener, and he fits in. sorry, i'm a client and
i've been doing *exactly* what you just said clients don't do. and my
company is a $4B (that's b, as in billion) dollar fortune 50.

You are paying someone to learn. They are paying someone to perform.
All the difference in the world.

i pay for both. again, it depends on what *i* need. you presuming to
think i only need one thing limits your opportunities to work for
me...simply because you think i'm only after one thing. do you really
think your wife married you because you were attractive? <that's a joke,
don't start more trolling>


You're want a job done. You hire a consultant to do it. Would you hire
someone with no carpentry experience to build an extra room on your house?

learning to program or working with little experience in programming is an
apple. carpentry is an orange. if you're going to argue this analogy once
again, then let's take it all the way. you already know my answer to that
question, and i have very loyal carpenters who started out doing detail work
on my house and in short order, they put a deck on the second story. now
i've got them building mansions on my other properties. with all of the
wonderful things they've done in my neighborhood, my propery value has
sky-rocketed.

But even then it's hard to get started. You can start with some
non-profit organizations, for instance, and build a portfolio. Now
you have something to show prospective clients.
that's a complete waste of time! bollocks. build a portfolio with
paying customers...unless you just *want* to give your time away.

Not at all. That's how I got started many years ago - while I was
scratching out customers, I did volunteer work. It got me glowing
recommendations which I was able to carry on to bigger and better
things.

i tell you what gets more people more jobs than that. connections.
everyone of us has them, not all of us use them...or know how to with any
kind of diplomacy. the last $40K i made was simply because my bosses,
bosses, boss remembered i'd consulted. he had a friend from his church
that needed some work done. that's how simple it is. make friends who are
willing to vouch for you. i volunteer for the priciple of volunteering -
something needs doing and few are willing to do it. anything else is a
gift with strings attached as far as i'm concerned. but, as an in-road to
employment? utter waste of time.


Connections are only part of the equation. Sure, they help get you jobs.
But experience rules.

'rules'...what does that mean exactly? i still contend that experience is on
a level playing field. since i'm the one doing the hiring, i'd think you'd
be happly to concede the point. you are effectively telling me i don't know
what i do know. kind of a self-nullifying endeavor, isn't it?

In your case, you got the $40K job because you had the experience.

no, it was because i had a good realtionship far up the food-chain that
opened the door of opportunity. specifically, i've worked for the past two
years consulting as a second job where the relationship began with, 'i trust
you because you know my friend, and he said you'd be perfect for this'. how
much specific knowledge about the quality, volume, timeliness of my actual
work do you think my bosses, bosses, boss actually knows...in a huge company
at that? i was hired by recommendations of character and commitment - the
only real things that my bosses, bosses, boss actually had personal
knowledge of. you've just made a poor assumption based on lack of
information. i wouldn't assume you took yourself too seriously there, since
that fact is blantantly obvious.

Sure, the work at IBM helped - it showed I had experience as a
programmer. But the volunteer work showed I could carry that over into a
consulting role, outside the corporate environment.

i'm not sure how you see consulting as outside of the corporate
environment.


Consulting is nowhere near the same as a corporate environment.

here's where you tell in what ways so that others, i.e. me, know what you're
talking about. we may or may not be in agreement.

Many consultants I know started the same way.

but make of a very small percentage of those i come across...as a hiring
manager. as a consultant myself, if someone asks if i can do something or
if something can be done, the answer is always *yes*. unequivically. my
reputation weighs into their reliance on the answer more than my previous
work. and, when it comes down to it, i'd want someone working to sustain
their reputation on my mission critical stuff rather than someone less
committed to the success of the outcome...someone with paper-backing.


But you're a hiring manager. Completely different than contracting to
provide a specific service or product. Not to become an employee.

wow. actually, that's not a job title. it is a fascet of my duties. my job
revolves around r & d and prototyping. it is my job to provide architectural
concepts and implement them, turning them into profitable solutions to the
way my company does business. i have the task to specifically seek out
*consultants* as needed to get a working model put together for evaluation.
i cannot use fte's for this as they are dedicated to standard existing
product enhancement and maintenance. part of my task is to pick good
*consultants* that can be seen as good candidates for fte...even if the
prototype doesn't ever leave that stage of development, i.e. is declined.

i fail to see how that is 'completely different than contracting to provide
a specific service or product'. serious, no matter what my role in my
company, you cannot hope to suggest that if i go to a consultant and give
him work, that he is no longer a consultant if my perspective is to perhaps
offer him a job! most people who hire a consultant are evaluating them in
the same light as i...they are always on the look out for potential
employees...good ones.

there's more than one way to skin a cat...i happen to believe in using
many knives.

No argument there. And successful consultants are able to wear more than
one hat. But beware those who say they can wear too many hats. They
typically are experts at none of them.

jack of all trades, master of none is a very old axiom. but hell, you can
even make good use of those too. :)


.