The problems and irritations with finding a new job...
- Thread starter Frank
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Yeah, I've had a couple accounts here at B3D over the years. After being away for a while I forget the password, and no longer have access to the throwaway email account I used when registring (or don't remember which of them I used 
).
Anyway, employers focusing more on formal education rather than actual qualifications is of course bad and essentially lazyness on their part (because investigating references and so on requires effort), but on the other hand it's difficult to blame them too - they'd have to trust you can do what you say you can do, often with little to go on other than other people's honesty to rely on. I suppose if you're an engineer, you can point at various projects you worked on, but sometimes such projects aren't always public, so...
Maybe go back to school for a year or two, get a formal degree just to be able to wave a paper in the face of whomever you apply to? Should be not so much of a challenge for someone who has already been working with this stuff for a lot of years, and who knows... Maybe you'll learn a thing or two?
).Anyway, employers focusing more on formal education rather than actual qualifications is of course bad and essentially lazyness on their part (because investigating references and so on requires effort), but on the other hand it's difficult to blame them too - they'd have to trust you can do what you say you can do, often with little to go on other than other people's honesty to rely on. I suppose if you're an engineer, you can point at various projects you worked on, but sometimes such projects aren't always public, so...
Maybe go back to school for a year or two, get a formal degree just to be able to wave a paper in the face of whomever you apply to?
Should be not so much of a challenge for someone who has already been working with this stuff for a lot of years, and who knows... Maybe you'll learn a thing or two? 
I used to use the Wonderlic for high-level positions. Back then (before I bought my company) the parent required a certain score on a test called the alpha-9. If you couldn't get that minimum score I would have wasted hours talking with you. So I would pre-screen with a 15 minute Wonderlic test before I would even meet a candidate. Silly process. The two worst employees I ever had were high-scorers on the Wonderlic and alpha-9. Don't get me wrong, I think a high IQ employee is great to have, but using those tests makes one blind to the faults that some very bright people might have. Sometimes a 90 percentile IQ with good character and interpersonal skills is better than a 97 percentile sociopath.
DuckThor Evil
Legend
Yeah, I've had a couple accounts here at B3D over the years. After being away for a while I forget the password, and no longer have access to the throwaway email account I used when registring (or don't remember which of them I used
So you ARE Guden Oden? I've suspected it a few times
Most of the time I would say a 50 percentile IQ with good character and interpersonal skills is better than a 97 percentile sociopath, unless the work you need done requires very specialized skill set and very limited interpersonal relations - so that you can keep your sociopath mostly fenced off from the rest of the employees, where he (or she, even though women obviously lack all forms of thinking and reasoning...
) can't cause much damage to the working environment.I would expect most great things to be accomplished by working in teams, rather than one person having an "eureka!"-type moment. So a number of more average people capable of working well together with others would be preferable to one really smart guy who also happens to be an utterly self-centered wanker.
...Of course, I could be wrong, but logically, I believe I'm not THAT wrong.
IMHO the 50 percentile folks are great at a well-defined, procedural job. Production management, production, HR, even CAD. R&D, engineers and sales people necessarily should be considerably higher in that their jobs change often and then need to be more creative (creativity tends to scale with IQ).
The downside of the high IQ set is they typically don't like the details of something; they're great for a concept, sketch, new customer entry, etc. but then they need the rest of the team to see things through to completion. In other words, you're better off with a few really smart folks so long as you've got good backup. If you don't have the backup you're fucked. So, essentially, I'm agreeing with you.
The downside of the high IQ set is they typically don't like the details of something; they're great for a concept, sketch, new customer entry, etc. but then they need the rest of the team to see things through to completion. In other words, you're better off with a few really smart folks so long as you've got good backup. If you don't have the backup you're fucked. So, essentially, I'm agreeing with you.
Interesting aside on men/women and IQ (since gamervick will sense you mentioned it and be here shortly). Women have, on average, higher IQs than men. Yes, it's true. Repeat it for gamervick: the average IQ for women is higher than the average IQ for men.
Now here's the really interesting part. If you plot the Gaussian distribution ("bell curve" for gamervick) of IQs the extreme high IQs (97th percentile and above) and the extreme low IQs (3rd percentile and below) are both 2/3 male.
So you can argue that geniuses are twice as likely to be male, but then you have to concede that dumbasses are also twice as likely to be gamerv...uh, I mean male.
Now here's the really interesting part. If you plot the Gaussian distribution ("bell curve" for gamervick) of IQs the extreme high IQs (97th percentile and above) and the extreme low IQs (3rd percentile and below) are both 2/3 male.
So you can argue that geniuses are twice as likely to be male, but then you have to concede that dumbasses are also twice as likely to be gamerv...uh, I mean male.
DuckThor Evil
Legend
Source? All the evidence I've always seen points to it being a wash.
I've always thought that this is the case. Well not the exact numbers etc. but the idea.
Well, there are probably as many showing a male advantage as there are that show a female advantage. The few studies that have tried to control demographic/social variables on test subject have tended to show a few point advantage for women. Obviously it's up for debate and literally impossible to make an entirely objective test or sample set. A good example is that females in more progressive geographies do better on math tests - thought to be a result of not being preached the "math is hard" mantra from their earlier education teachers (as is STILL done to girls in the midwest).
I believe IQ isn't an accurate (or at the very least incomplete) measurement of intelligence. I've seen no IQ test that is able to measure creativity or innovative skills, it's all been very dry, theoretical-centric abstract thinking tests that have little to no direct connection to real situations. Unless you're into statistics or a theoretical matematician...
Scoring higher on a particular test will generally show a higher knowledge in the area covered by that test. And scores within a standard deviation of each other are considered roughly equivalent. Not much more should be taken from an IQ test. It will show you if someone is smarter than average or less than average etc, but so will talking to the person for 5 minutes.
I had an intake meeting today, with a CEO that I could really talk to, and who totally understood me and my experience. I think I have a new job in a week or so, a very nice one with a very nice salary, for someone I want to work for.
It's contracting at ASML (they make wafer steppers), and if that doesn't work out, there are other options.
First have the contract signed, of course, but I'm pretty happy so far.
It's contracting at ASML (they make wafer steppers), and if that doesn't work out, there are other options.
First have the contract signed, of course, but I'm pretty happy so far.
I agree, from personal experience.
But another solution is to have those smart guys do the project management as well: it might not be "fun" to finish that project, but it is a challenge, and on their plate. So they'll do it anyway.
Strangely enough, being creative isn't like being an artist and coming up with new things that feel nice, but the inclination to "normalize" things.
That is, if you have experience in multiple fields and with many models and interactions, you tend to look at something and think: "that's actually just like...". And the creative process is like: "Hm, in that field (or model), it would be easy to do that. How about I translate that into something I can use here?"
Which is what IQ tests try to measure.
Excellent!First have the contract signed, of course, but I'm pretty happy so far.
Best of luck to you.Btw, mind explaining the function of a wafer stepper?
I assume it involves stepper motor(s) to position a wafer for exposure during the lithography process...?