From: wxu@spock.ecs.umass.edu (Wei Xu)
Subject: Re: Pet Peeve "No E-mail" Was (Re: Software Engineers - Applications Programming (MA/AZ) CIS (Recruiter))
Organization: University of Massachusetts, Amherst
Date: Thu, 30 Jul 1992 20:56:01 GMT

In article <ted.712007038@sage0> ted@sage0.gsfc.nasa.gov (Ted Ying) writes:
>salem@pangea.Stanford.EDU (Bruce Salem) writes:
>> I wrote:
>>>	Because in many of these cases, the person posting is not the
>>>	person receiving the responses.  I have posted several positions
>>>	before for bosses and personnel people.  In none of these cases,
>>>	was I the person receiving the resumes.  In one such case, the
>>>	person receiving the resumes did not have electronic mail access!
>
>>And maybe that person doesn't understand the job description well
>>enough to make an informed assessment of the candidate. People who post
>>here are pretty technical, programmers, system administrators and the
>>like, Do you think that they would want to report to someone who doesn't
>>have e-mail access, or be considered by someone who has as little
>>technical experience?
>>
>
>I never once said that the person receiving the resumes and job
>applications was the person hiring.  Nor did I state that the person
>receiving the resumes and letters was evaluating the applicants.
>That was not said either implicitly or explicitly.
>
>However, sometimes it is the role of a clerical staff member to collect
>the resumes and letters, take them out of envelopes and place them in
>stacks, perhaps xerox extra copies if several people (technical and
>management) might be reviewing the candidates.  This person may or may
>not be knowledgeable about using e-mail or Usenet.  This person is only
>responsible for a little bit of organization.  This means that the
>management and technical staff spend less time doing this clerical and
>paper work and more time doing the "real" work.
>
>Try having a little bit of respect for these people.  The clerical
>people are busy enough with the tasks that they already do.  They answer
>phones, do paperwork, filing, scheduling, and many other important tasks.
>And for most of their work they don't need or want net access or e-mail
>access and yet, you are belittling the process by the arrogance and
>misassumptions shown earlier in this thread.
>
>>	At issue was the outright refusal to read e-mail. I would have
>>serious reservations about working for a place that can't handle e-mail.
>>It speaks to the technical backwardness of the organization. If the
>>people in command do not use the technology than how can you expect
>>there to be a good climate for capital acquisitions of technical
>>equipment, workstations, networks, disks, tape drives, etc.?
>>
>
>There was never any implication made that a workplace cannot handle e-mail
>if resumes are requested by Fax or Snail.  Such an assumption is totally
>unwarranted.
>
>If you choose to make these assumptions than perhaps you aren't the
>candidate that is sought after.  I think it speaks well of a larger
>company that doesn't require the technical and management staff do
>the tedious clerical work (and get paid high salaries to do it)
>inherent in candidate searches, especially when there is a large
>pool of applicants.
>
>>	For the technical positions I apply for I find that HR types
>>are minimally competant to understand the hiring issues. Like alot of
>>outside recruiters they rely on buzzwords and have little in-depth
>>knowledge of the position. If the hiring manager is also not computer
>>literate, then maybe the workplace is not the best environment for a
>>technical guy, getting in the door past know-nothing HR people and
>>dealing with ignorant or unsympathetic bosses. It is almost preventative
>>medicine to expect a prospective employer to be able to deal minally
>>with the same technology and use e-mail.
>>
>Again, this is based on the assumption that the person collecting the
>resumes and doing the clerical work behind it is the hiring manager or
>a technical reviewer.  Neither of these is always the case.
>
>For us, we have clerical staff to assist us in doing the clerical duties
>and allowing the technical and management staff the leisure of spending
>as little time as possible for the hiring procedure (who has time these
>days to make such a tedious and long procedure even longer?)
>
>	Ted Ying			ted@rosserv.gsfc.nasa.gov
>	Hughes/STX			Goddard Space Flight Center

This is a testing.