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From: jfw@proteon.com (John Woods)
Subject: Re: No employment available for mathematician/genius/programmer(LISP)
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Date: Thu, 9 Feb 1995 18:15:29 GMT
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rem@BTR.Com (Robert Elton Maas, 21 years experience programming) writes:
>ort@netcom.com (David Oertel) said: <<maybe he simply needs to take a
>grubby sys admin or QA job until he can find something that leverages
>his brains.>>
>I've applied
>for lots of QA jobs but they always turn me down because the only
>testing experience I have is testing my own software and testing
>freeware/shareware I download for my own use. They want formal training
>with "test plans" and formal experience testing commercial products.
>...However if I ever find time to write up a formal
>document summarizing the stuff I've downloaded and tested for my own
>use, I may submit that to a bunch of Macintosh QA jobs and see if
>anyone thinks I qualify despite lack of formal experience.

Uh, a long list of software that you've compiled and tried once or twice is
*not* formal experience in quality assurance (regardless of what industry
practice might seem to be ;-).  Genuine QA work includes designing formal
tests, determining code coverage of tests, regression testing, and a bunch
of subtle things that all too often are forgotten.  (Of course, to all too
many QA *managers*, the important deliverable of a QA effort is not the
test vectors, but is instead the project plan, with b*tt coverage being more
imporant than code coverage.  Genuine QA experience will enable you to know
how to deliver *that* while also doing some useful testing, too. :-)

><<I made that machine do things ( in terms of size of database handled
>and speed with which it was handled ) that IBM said " No, you can't do
>that on this machine, you need a 4301 to do that". >>
>Aha, you were a "hacker", just like myself. I made computers do things
>that the "experts" said were impossible with the given operating
>system,

I'm sorry, I have difficulty accepting the credentials of someone who
refers to IBM's analysts as "experts"...    :-)

But in terms of advice that might help, remember to focus on that "grubby"
word in the suggestion David gave you; if your sole experience with 
administration is 1 (one) Macintosh, there are probably several small
businesses in your area where that is still 1 (one) Macintosh more than
anyone else has a clue how to operate.  Don't barge into IBM's personnel
office and tell them they want you to be their System Administrator; barge
into Joe's Plumbing Fixtures Store down the street, especially if the 
receptionist is currently banging on her IBM PC in frustration, and tell
*them* they want you to be their System Administrator...

Sometimes, SOMETIMES, going for a small job may get you a larger one; when
I was a freshman at MIT, I interviewed for a job testing some software, and
they gave me a job *writing* that software.  But I emphasized that SOMETIMES,
because it rarely works out and the process can be immensely frustrating;
I was unable to duplicate that trick at home over the summer and wound up
doing office temporary work...

Good luck.
