Dan Boland 21 Jun 05

Can you post the link to the page where you found that quote? I can’t seem to find it on their website.

Lee 21 Jun 05

“College degree required”

I have never really understood why some companies have this requirement - for positions that don’t really benefit from it (obviously Doctors, Lawyers etc it would be a given).

My previous experience as someone doing the hiring, was that freshly-graduated individuals didn’t come anywhere near the level of standard required to do the job - all they had was a piece of paper that said they understood the ‘theory’ of doing the job.

Naturally, this depends on the position, but certainly in the IT field, I have always felt experience counts for far more than pure education - it goes further by actually proving that person can accomplish the task, rather than gambling on it based on what some institution thinks.

True story - I once interviewed a recent IT graduate, and two of his answers made me laugh until I cried - Q1: How do you rate your HTML competence? A: What is HTML? Q2: When did you leave school? A: 3:30pm

Anonymous Coward 21 Jun 05

Word Doc in RTF? God, I know corporations love to scan documents of cornball keywords, but PDF is where it’s at.

Frustrated Customer 21 Jun 05

Passion for attention to details and the simple, clear interface design.

Dear IA who gets hired:

Please get rid of the complicated, annoying flash navigation on CB2.

Thank you.

Art Wells 21 Jun 05

If I were hiring an information architect, I wouldn’t specify the format for the resume. Let the candidate’s choice of format be part of the application. The difference between someone who would be happy in the job and someone who wouldn’t last could be proportional to the difference between simple ASCII and a PowerPoint presentation.

8500 21 Jun 05

RTF is a constraint. I would not hire an IA, especially for a large company, that could not work and be creative within very common constraints.

daniel 21 Jun 05

it’s official: it’s “the simple, clear interface design” now.

Art Wells 21 Jun 05

8500,
Good point. RTF isn’t enough of a restraint to be that meaningful to me though, while I think the number of format possibilties is large enough to allow some small meaning in choice.

I think a good constrainst may be. “Your resume should be readable on a default install of Windows 3.1.” or “Your resume must be in ADA-compliant HTML” or “Your resume should be in crayon and iambic pentameter”. Now those are the sorts of constraints that could tell me something.

sloan 21 Jun 05

Art, are you trying to hire an information architect or a programmer?!!! :-)

JF 21 Jun 05

Whether or not you think Word/RTF is good or bad, that’s what they require (this is a large corporation, after all). If you want the job I’d fall in line with that requirement. Being able to follow the guidelines is a filter.

When you’re hiring for your own company you can set your own format requirements (or non-requirements if you think that will bring you better candidates).

Art Wells 21 Jun 05

sloan,
Yah, I am pushing the tech issue a bit too much. (But then, it would be a cool to get an IA that could handle the limitations of diverse media, obsolescence and, um, crayons.) Also, the few times I’ve been part of a hiring process, we’ve focussed on hiring a person more than hiring for the role.

Darrel 21 Jun 05

Art:

In large companies, resume formats are dictated by HR, and, often, some bloated HR enterprise software application.

Mike 22 Jun 05

Lee, a college degree shows that someone has the ability to learn. Also, it shows that someone was able to complete a task that was started. These are two good qualities for a potential employee to have . Also, this position may not require a college degree but the candidate’s next position with C&B may require one as they move up the proverbial corporate ladder.

Bryce 22 Jun 05

It’s more remarkable (as in ‘worthy of remark’) to me that a company like C&B realizes the value of IA, and has created a position to bring such skills inhouse, than it is to bicker about their required format for resume submission.

As Darrel noted, the hiring process for any middling-to-large size company is usually pretty byzantine, and small formalities like resume format aren’t likely to change just because this req. is for an Information Architect (ooo!) who wants to use their choice of format to speak volumes about their ‘constraints-based reasoning skills.’

Let the content of your resume do the speaking: are you qualified? educated? intelligent enough to communicate the true value of your experience, and not just list vague bullet-point job titles and unclear contributions?

Here’s a constraint for ya — Can you do what is asked of you, when the request is reasonable (even if it happens to go against your personal preferences?) A truthful answer to that question alone may be one of the best data-points an employer could have to assess your fit for their organization.

eb 22 Jun 05

Also, this position may not require a college degree but the candidate�s next position with C&B may require one as they move up the proverbial corporate ladder

What like Bill Gates and Larry Ellison needed a degree to climb their respective ladders? Give me a break. A general degree, like many other qualifications is merely a status symbol - a sure sign that you can afford University and to a lesser extent, value being educated. University teaches you how to think within an established - acceptable to employers - framework.

Perhaps they should have said “Degree Preferred” - surely to require it arbitrarily is a good example of discrimination. Not sure on U.S laws as I went to Uni in London.