July 31, 2012 at 5:23 pm
Okay sports fans, here is the latest (probably not the greatest) version of the job post.
Better?
July 31, 2012 at 6:24 pm
bclyde-1080677 (7/31/2012)
Okay sports fans, here is the latest (probably not the greatest) version of the job post.Better?
Have you looked at the formatting? Something is very wrong.
Why is there a company description at the beginning? No candidate cares about that until they see what you are looking for.
How about starting with a job description that briefly describes the most important things you are looking for?
July 31, 2012 at 6:43 pm
The last 8 "Minimum Qualifications" look like padding to me.
Let's analyze your situation, you're not getting any good DBAs and yet you're still standing firm on your qualifications. My advice is to tone down your qualifications a bit and get some interviews going.
I still see A LOT of requirements, like mentioned before, tone it down on the HR stuff. Most of these abilities/skills are implied and is just making your guys look needy. Also what are the benefits? what kind of retirement plans do you guys offer? paid time off? sick leave? Believe it or not, little things like these is what employees are looking for. No one want's to work 24/7/365 with no paid vacation, etc. There's is a lot of stuff in the air in your description, I think it's time to start setting things in stone and throw some solid numbers.
You need a DBA, stop playing games and post a fair salary. With the recommendations in your description I think 70-90k is a good price point DOE.
July 31, 2012 at 6:48 pm
Abel A. (7/31/2012)
The last 8 "Minimum Qualifications" look like padding to me.Let's analyze your situation, you're not getting any good DBAs and yet you're still standing firm on your qualifications. My advice is to tone down your qualifications a bit and get some interviews going.
I still see A LOT of requirements, like mentioned before, tone it down on the HR stuff. Most of these abilities/skills are implied and is just making your guys look needy. Also what are the benefits? what kind of retirement plans do you guys offer? paid time off? sick leave? Believe it or not, little things like these is what employees are looking for. No one want's to work 24/7/365 with no paid vacation, etc. There's is a lot of stuff in the air in your description, I think it's time to start setting things in stone and throw some solid numbers.
You need a DBA, stop playing games and post a fair salary. With the recommendations in your description I think 70-90k is a good price point DOE.
Just an FYI, I wouldn't even apply for this job if the salary offered is between 70K - 90K. I'm currently making more than that where I am now. Wouldn't be worth relocating even if all the other benefits matched what I have now.
July 31, 2012 at 7:10 pm
There are still some spelling mistakes and strange grammar in there.
"Experience monitoring and fine-tuning SQL Server system performance."
Should be
"Experienced in monitoring and fine-tuning SQL Server system performance."
"Prepare for and upgrade SQL Server installations to SQL Server 2012 and implementing the new features it contains."
should be
"Prepare for and upgrade SQL Server installations to SQL Server 2012 and implement the new features it contains."
Those may look small, but they jar when reading it.
Technical expertise in database design and development.
Solid experience with T-SQL scripting and optimization.
Solid understanding of ETL processes and techniques.
Responsible for administration and technical support for the development, testing, and production database environments.
Still looks like a job for multiple people. I sure don't qualify for all of those.
It's a lot better than it was, that I must say.
Gail Shaw
Microsoft Certified Master: SQL Server, MVP, M.Sc (Comp Sci)
SQL In The Wild: Discussions on DB performance with occasional diversions into recoverability
July 31, 2012 at 7:11 pm
That's pretty much my point. Employees care a lot about the people, culture, and benefits. Most sr. DBAs I would think are already settled down and it would be hard to snatch someone. I think it's really all about patience, put your ad on craigslist, monster, etc. and do it every month or so until you find someone.
I think the company is great and you need to focus on that instead of nitpicking every single skillset known to men.
Examples:
"Communicate complex technical information in a concise and articulate manner."
"Ability to perform the essential duties and responsibilities with efficiency and accuracy."
"Performs other duties as assigned or needed."
"Ability to work under stress."
"Good written and verbal communication skills."
All that is really unnecessary and there's a lot of gray areas between them. All that could be said with just "Show professionalism and strong work ethics." Plus, a lot of these abilities can be seen during the interview.
Some more advice:
Trim down your requirements, remove redundancies.
Focus more on your company culture, benefits, etc. (make yourself look attractive)
Put hard numbers out there, no more speculation. Set your salary, PTO, etc.
Remember you're trying to a hire high-skilled worker and we/they tend to look for the other perks that come with the job rather than money.
August 1, 2012 at 7:01 am
bclyde-1080677 (7/31/2012)
Okay sports fans, here is the latest (probably not the greatest) version of the job post.Better?
Weird formatting issue showing when I look at it. Screenshot attached.
As far as the wording, etc., goes, the very first requirement, "Work to come up with strategic solutions to new business directives and existing obstacles." makes it sound like a senior management position. If that's an actual requirement for this position, it better include a C-level salary and perks, some serious stock in the company (to get some skin in the game for that kind of thing), and the authority to hire/fire in a major portion of the org chart.
I'm going to be a bit harsh here, possibly even rude, so I appologize for that.
First, the ad looks like every other ad written by an HR dept that doesn't actually know what's needed, but just read a list of "here's what makes a senior DBA" on some website. It's a shopping list of everything that could possibly come under the heading of "DBA", without a specific skillset emphasized.
Second, as a senior DBA, it does absolutely nothing to let me know what I'd actually be doing if I took that job. (No, I'm not looking. I have a great job at a good company, and get very reasonable pay and perks. I'm just going by the viewpoint of "if I were looking".) It's way too shopping-list/shotgun. Am I going to end up as a team lead? If so, why are they hiring from outside instead of promoting from within? Parts of it look like a team-lead/management position. The shotgun skill-list makes it look like a one-man-band type thing though, so I can't tell whether this is a team-lead of a group of DBAs, or a solo position that's going to be asked to do a team's worth of work by myself.
I can do all the skills asked for. I've been an exec and a manager, for large and small teams. I've done all the DBAish things on there. Some of them, I'm really good at. Others, I've tried them on for size and know I could teach myself the necessary skills with some time and opportunity. But I can't tell from this whether my existing skills would match the real needs, or whether it'd be the "I can learn that" skillset that's needed. So, either I'd kill the job on day one, or the job would kill me on day one, and I can't tell from this which it is. That's poorly written, and shows a lack of understanding of what's actually needed.
Basically, if this job offer were where I already live and I were looking, I might call and ask what skillset is actually needed. But the ad would place this one near the bottom of my list of possible jobs to look into, along with other generic "we need a 'DBA', whatever that is" type listings.
In summary, this listing is like someone asked "go buy a screw". Do you need to hit Home Depot and get something to fasten pieces of wood or metal together, and how many trips will it take to get the right connector, or is the person asking for a prostitute, or do they want a worn out horse, or maybe a prison guard, or possibly someone who's good at bargaining, or maybe a propeller for a ship? "Screw" can mean any of those things.
So, first, actually sit back and figure out what you really need. Then describe it.
If you really do need all the skills on this list, you need a team of people, not one person. You might get that full skillset in one person, but expect to pay a LOT for them, since the implied management skills alone put that salary in the hundreds of thousands per year range.
- Gus "GSquared", RSVP, OODA, MAP, NMVP, FAQ, SAT, SQL, DNA, RNA, UOI, IOU, AM, PM, AD, BC, BCE, USA, UN, CF, ROFL, LOL, ETC
Property of The Thread
"Nobody knows the age of the human race, but everyone agrees it's old enough to know better." - Anon
August 1, 2012 at 11:34 pm
bsclyde (7/31/2012)
Okay sports fans, here is the latest (probably not the greatest) version of the job post.Better?
It's a lot better. However, I agree with some of the others that you've listed a whole lot of things that are implicity "DBA" in nature. By the same token, I also understand why you listed them because some folks carrying the label of "DBA" don't get it.
I will say that you still sound a bit like a sweat-shop because of the following entries...
Fulfill requests and resolve incidents within SLAs.
Ability to work under stress.
Management has to remember that "If you want something real bad, you'll normally get it that way." 😉 I understand that you want to hire go-getters but I think it sounds like there's going to be a lot of all-night-death-marches. Personally, I'd rather have a management team that can plan things well enough to keep the stress levels down to a reasonable level. You specifying one of the qualifications as being able to "work under stress" infers there's going to be a lot of stress as well as, possibly, a fair number unreasonable SLAs dictated by someone who (also possibly) doesn't actually know what the job takes. If I needed a job, I'd certainly apply for an interview after the changes you've made but I'd also give higher precedence to other companies that specify less stressful job requirements even if it meant taking a little less pay. 😉
Also, if you're not willing to display the "Pay Rate" as other than $0.00, it would be extremely good form to drop it from the web page. It'll hurt "restrictive" searches on job-seeker engines and it does nothing to instill confidence in job seekers.
--Jeff Moden
August 2, 2012 at 12:31 am
Actually I found your latest version of the job quite interesting.
My only thoughts are that it sounds way too much for one person. I hope you are going to be able to backup your requirements by giving them a healthy budget to suit your wishes.
Everything else you have listed seems quite reasonable. Most of that to an experienced operational DBA would be do-able.
Put in an base pay you would be willing to pay from.
August 2, 2012 at 2:34 pm
I can't see the item in discussion, unfortunately, because that site is blocked by websense.
However, if I can toot my own horn and following along with the discussion and your apparent frustration, something you may want to read through are two articles of mine.
The Job posting: http://qa.sqlservercentral.com/articles/Career/72939/
Different SQL experts / duty expectations: http://qa.sqlservercentral.com/articles/Career/71608/
Lately IT hotspots were in Virginia (again) and I got pinged a bit for Vermont of all places. Idaho has never came up in my consulting/contracting career as a heavy IT area. This is going to limit the availability of good talent, thus they'll be sucked up quickly. This is an assumption based on contracting, I certainly haven't gone through census data on it.
However, add to that what it sounds like is you're trying to SQL God the position. Yeah, no. Noone wants to be the one the entire system hangs on alone. You can't take a vacation, you can't be sick, hell you can't even have two beers on Fourth of July weekend because there's literally noone to cover. Sure, when you're young and dumb it sounds great. I'm important!!! Give it five years, about the time people really settle into their jobs and realize that it's just not worth it. A few years after that you usually reach what most people consider 'senior'. And that's in one particular area, not the entire system.
From what it sounds like what you'll want are two reasonably trained people (55-65k range, IIs basically), one of whom is an administrator and the other is a developer. Those two should be able to cover most of your needs as long as the duties literally don't overlap except during emergencies. Don't expect an administrator to do development except in their downtime, they're going to need most of their time getting your system back on track... including things like automated restore tests, security auditing, etc. Your developer should most likely not have to handle any significant administration tasks, he'll be busy researching if Lookup components in SSIS will give your ETL better throughput so that the overnight job stops running over the morning loads.
Never stop learning, even if it hurts. Ego bruises are practically mandatory as you learn unless you've never risked enough to make a mistake.
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August 2, 2012 at 3:13 pm
Interesting thoughts from Craig, and I like them overall. However if you go with 2 lower priced people to handle the duties, may I suggest you grab a consultant on retainer for spot help? Someone to bounce ideas off?
Contracting with someone for 4 hours a month might do it, and give you that senior level leadership in specific areas.
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August 2, 2012 at 5:33 pm
I am humbled by the response to my original post and am grateful for all the input. Yes, even those that were
a bit harsh
and
possibly even rude
. I've even had a fair amount of interest in my open position that was generated by this forum so it's been a very positive experience so far. And by the way, for anybody that is even remotely interested in the position, give us a call, you will be pleasantly surprised.
I would like to clarify for everyone a couple apparent misunderstandings and misconceptions about the job post. I take full blame for any ambiguity or lack of clarity, but I would like to try and clear things up.
We don't need a SQL god or any other type of omnipotent, super mutant, cyborg, uber-DBA. We'd take one, but we don't need one.:-D We also don't need a "one man show" DBA. We need a senior-level, generalist DBA that can work with three other entry- to mid-level DBAs to maintain a fairly large SQL database infrastructure and support a large developer team. I included so much in the posting because as it was said,
some folks carrying the label of "DBA" don't get it
. From what I have read about most of the respondents to this post; any of you could fill, or overflow ;-), this position easily. And while some after-hours calls will occur, they are not regular, they are quick, and they are shared by the team. We have far less after-hours work here than I have ever experienced at my other jobs, which is another reason why I'm here.
I guess I am still struggling with how to word the job posting to get those points across. We continue working to improve the posting and demonstrating the great pay and benefits our company has to offer. Thanks again for the help with this, and keep the comments coming!
August 2, 2012 at 5:54 pm
bsclyde (8/2/2012)
We don't need a SQL god or any other type of omnipotent, super mutant, cyborg, uber-DBA. We'd take one, but we don't need one.:-D We also don't need a "one man show" DBA.
That was definately not what I was understanding from the snippet posts I've seen and your responses, so if I'm one of the 'harsh and/or rude' folks, apologies. I certainly didn't mean to come off that way, but I write as I speak when we get on topics like this so I think of it more as a conversation in tonality than text.
We need a senior-level, generalist DBA that can work with three other entry- to mid-level DBAs to maintain a fairly large SQL database infrastructure and support a large developer team.
This, twice. Perfect. This in a single sentence explains to me that you need a mentor and senior for an existing team for primarily administration duties. The only explicit clarifications I'd ask for there is your large developer team app only or are there SQL Devs as well (or are your app devs doing their own sql... shudder), what is a 'large infrastructure' to you (I've heard 10 servers called large and 100 called small), and a VERY brief blurb about what it is that's driven you towards desiring a higher level person then your current staff has available. Also, it's a bit vague if there's any management expected or if you're mentor/peer but non-management.
The rest is just details and specifically desired skillsets from this English version of the position.
I guess I am still struggling with how to word the job posting to get those points across. We continue working to improve the posting and demonstrating the great pay and benefits our company has to offer. Thanks again for the help with this, and keep the comments coming!
Would you be willing to post your current version here? As I mentioned, I'm unable to see the site it's currently posted on and would be willing to review it. Also, the article I mentioned above (Do I really have to be the SQL God?) reviews both good and bad job opportunities and describes where it went both right and wrong. I admit one of the 'wrong' ones was a worst case scenario, but that was done primarily because the full example list I'd intended to use showing minor difficulties and confusions just made it too bloody long. I've been intending to do a followup Part II with those examples eventually, just haven't had a chance.
The more examples I can get my hands on of 'Excellent' opportunity offerings the better my case is when I try to help other companies to change their methodology. I'd like to help you (as are some of the others) to craft one that will actually get you exactly what you desire... or at least help to keep you from getting run over by riff-raff. The more we help employers, the more we help ourselves.
Never stop learning, even if it hurts. Ego bruises are practically mandatory as you learn unless you've never risked enough to make a mistake.
For better assistance in answering your questions[/url] | Forum Netiquette
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August 3, 2012 at 1:15 am
bsclyde (8/2/2012)
I am humbled by the response to my original post and am grateful for all the input. Yes, even those that werea bit harsh
and
possibly even rude
. I've even had a fair amount of interest in my open position that was generated by this forum so it's been a very positive experience so far. And by the way, for anybody that is even remotely interested in the position, give us a call, you will be pleasantly surprised.
I would like to clarify for everyone a couple apparent misunderstandings and misconceptions about the job post. I take full blame for any ambiguity or lack of clarity, but I would like to try and clear things up.
We don't need a SQL god or any other type of omnipotent, super mutant, cyborg, uber-DBA. We'd take one, but we don't need one.:-D We also don't need a "one man show" DBA. We need a senior-level, generalist DBA that can work with three other entry- to mid-level DBAs to maintain a fairly large SQL database infrastructure and support a large developer team. I included so much in the posting because as it was said,
some folks carrying the label of "DBA" don't get it
. From what I have read about most of the respondents to this post; any of you could fill, or overflow ;-), this position easily. And while some after-hours calls will occur, they are not regular, they are quick, and they are shared by the team. We have far less after-hours work here than I have ever experienced at my other jobs, which is another reason why I'm here.
I guess I am still struggling with how to word the job posting to get those points across. We continue working to improve the posting and demonstrating the great pay and benefits our company has to offer. Thanks again for the help with this, and keep the comments coming!
From what I have read about most of the respondents to this post; any of you could fill, or overflow ;-), this position easily.
This makes me feel good, and if it weren't for working for a company with outstanding benefits (If interested, PM me and I let you know what I get), good salary, a flexible laid back work environment, and wanting to be close to my kids while they are still in school I'd consider applying.
If you are interested in looking for someone who would be willing to do remote task based oriented work, keep me in mind. I would definately like to earn extra money to augment my current income.
August 3, 2012 at 8:38 am
bsclyde (8/2/2012)
We don't need a SQL god or any other type of omnipotent, super mutant, cyborg, uber-DBA. We'd take one, but we don't need one.:-D We also don't need a "one man show" DBA. We need a senior-level, generalist DBA that can work with three other entry- to mid-level DBAs to maintain a fairly large SQL database infrastructure and support a large developer team. ...{snip}... And while some after-hours calls will occur, they are not regular, they are quick, and they are shared by the team. We have far less after-hours work here than I have ever experienced at my other jobs, which is another reason why I'm here.I guess I am still struggling with how to word the job posting to get those points across. We continue working to improve the posting and demonstrating the great pay and benefits our company has to offer. Thanks again for the help with this, and keep the comments coming!
Oddly enough, your paragraph above would make the absolutely perfect job posting (and I really do mean perfect). Job postings are to attract humans that know stuff. The more human the job posting, the more likely you are to get good humans. It's very much like fishing... you've got to use the right bait. Senior-Level DBAs that know their stuff would probably beat your door down if you posted such a "human" job description without all the details because they would know EXACTLY what they need to do for you because they know EXACTLY what you mean because they EXACTLY what you're looking for... people that "know stuff". Yes, because of the lack of details, you'll get some folks that don't actually understand what "Senior-Level DBA" actually means but that will quickly come out in the interview. Again, it's just like fishing. You'll occasionally lose some bait on an undesirable fish but it's all worthwhile when you land "the BIG one". 🙂
--Jeff Moden
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