Knowledge vs. Skill

Wednesday, October 22, 2003

I’m starting to realise that the trump card for any job seeker is not the ability to do something, but the knowledge of what needs to be done.

We techies are used to thinking of knowledge only in terms of technology: choosing components for a Web server today so that it will stand up to heavy loads one year later, standardising on XML today as an interchange meta-format because as a human readable text format it’s guaranteed to remain usable forever, or hosting a project at SourceForge instead of a more reliable personal server because SourceForge will make the project more attractive to other developers.

What we don’t usually realise is just how incredibly huge this knowledge business is. Market surveys, business forecasts, news media, entire industries dedicated to understanding the what rather than the how.

skjaidev — Oct 22, 2003 8:04:03 AM — # ↩

I’m starting to realise that the trump card for any job seeker is not the ability to do something, but the knowledge of what needs to be done.

As an aside, now all a job-seeker needs is a resume with a splattering of "Linux" on it.
tariquesani — Oct 22, 2003 8:10:01 AM — # ↩

but the knowledge of what needs to be done.
Minor correction - the knowledge of what his employer wants too be done. Some direct unbelievable quotes from clients.

"Security is not a concern here"
"Doesn't matter whats in code, deadline has to be met"
"My end client will never read the code"
"We will see that when we hit 10,000 users"

What we don’t usually realise is just how incredibly huge this knowledge business is.

And how competitive the market is
- mannu — Oct 22, 2003 5:59:52 PM — # ↩
  
  I agree. Your success at an interview depends solely on how valuable your prospective employer thinks you can be to the company. Once you join the company, your performance is also rated in accordance with the value-addition you have done to the company/project. I have seen "PL/SQL only" (dumbass) programmers get paid a lot more than some "C + Java + Python + [insert hot skill]" dudes just because the work they do is more valuable.
  
  So it's the same funda: customer (employer) is king. If they want crap, you had better give them crap.
- tsk1979 — Oct 23, 2003 2:26:32 AM — # ↩
  
  And....
  And how competitive the market is
  Somebody once told me,
  Its not what you have, its what we market and in that front maybe techies are woefully inadequate.
frozenaftermath — Oct 26, 2003 2:09:52 PM — # ↩

I’m starting to realise that the trump card for any job seeker is not the ability to do something, but the knowledge of what needs to be done.

The only problem is that most employers have no clue about what needs to be done when it comes to tech.

Market surveys, business forecasts, news media, entire industries dedicated to understanding the what rather than the how.

And there is a whole thriving industry selling snake oil that way out there.