IT Director Search Committee

Here I am with one other person in our group assigned to the search committee to find a new IT Director.  Awesome, I got picked to do something important.  More motivating was that I was picked over several other team members that had been there much longer than me.  I must be doing something right?  Day one, analyze roughly 30 applicants and their resumes and provide recommendations to the search committee who would be a candidate for the first round of phone interviews.    I found 3 that were in fact qualified to do the job.  As a committee we decided to phone interview 5 candidates.

The first was our current server team leader.  We had a list of 30 or so questions that we asked each candidate in the same order to judge their responses and compare them to the other candidates.  After each phone interview we briefly discussed the overall pros and cons of each candidate.  This is a very simple concept. As it goes we discussed the first candidate immediately following the interview while it was fresh on our minds.  EVERYONE on the committee agreed that the candidate answered all the questions with great enthusiasm and expert knowledge.  Not one person had anything that could be listed as a con if you only based your decision on the interview. Why was this person not picked for a face to face interview?

Well, that is the beauty of the search committee.  Two of the members vehemently opposed this candidate based on previous interactions with this person.  I cannot tell you who was "right" in those previous interactions, but I can tell you both parties had their reasons that made sense to them.  The bashing commenced for another five minutes or so stating this individual was hard to work with.  I could only agree that he had a system that ensured stability with the lab infrastructure. This of course would result in testing if a faculty member requested new software be added to the entire lab which would take a day or two.  Which makes sense to me as that lab is used by several faculty members who cannot have their classes jeopardized by a single instructor who had to have this software now.  From my understanding, the instructor wanted this done within 24 hours.

Differences aside, should a candidate really be judged on their past experiences with a single faculty member or should you base your decision on the interview and resume of the applicant?  Keep in mind that the candidates applying from outside the University are free from this judgement as no one really knows them besides their interview and application.

One down, four to go...

Something Interesting

I wish I had something interesting to write.  Unfortunately for me, lately it has just been the biggest bunch of non-sense I have ever seen since I started working when I was sixteen.  In the past, the owner's wives have caused the most grief, giving orders and telling you to do something that doesn't matter or won't help anyone at all.  This statement has nothing to do with them being women, it is related to their role in the business.  Based solely on my two experiences, the husband in each business was really the owner and manager of the operation.  Had either one of these been owned and managed by the wife, I would auto-assume that the husband would be doing the same thing as described previously. But hey, at least they own the business and in that right have the say as to what will be done around the place.

Entering a state government position at a university was ridiculously awesome at first.  The benefits were great (compared to none), the boss had her head screwed on straight, and most of the people were great to work with.  Good ideas from the boss was not something I was used to.  I actually was engaged in doing something that mattered, something with direction, heck something that was thought out and planned.  The end result was beneficial to me as a learning experience as well as the to client that needed help.

Fast forward to our previous director's retirement.  Upon her initial announcement, everyone was shocked.  She was still young and younger at heart, but she was on to bigger and better things.  She promised us all that our jobs were secure and there was nothing to worry about that she knew of....