Interview Candidates for Skills, Aptitude, Maybe Both

Over the years I’ve been primary a skills interviewer. In theory I know what skills are needed and in theory I want to hire someone that can do a hundred percent of those on day one. The other technique is aptitude hiring – asking questions that can reveal the interest and ability to learn new […]

First Impressions

I was chatting with a friend recently who had been in turn chatting with a colleague about first impressions. The colleague had gone to the lobby to meet a candidate and escort them to the interviewer, and during the walk had tried to make small talk, offered them some water, and didn’t get much interaction. […]

Profiled on SQLPeople

I’m late posting it, but I was featured on SQLPeople for June 27th. It’s a project Andy Leonard has going on and it’s interesting indeed to see the similarities and differences from those of that work with SQL Server.

Audio Proofreading & Writing Quality

Funny how if take time for longer conversations, ones that ramble, you often learn interesting things that you just wouldn’t learn any other way. My friend Don was in town for SQLSaturday #40 a few weeks back and we were talking about blogging. An interesting conversation because Don is a professional writer (professional = get’s […]

The Value of Blogging – Today on SQLServerCentral

I wrote the value of blogging hoping to highlight the less often discussed value of practicing writing. Too often we look at blogs solely as a branding tool, or as a way to make money, or to get a zillion hits. Nothing wrong with any of those and I wouldn’t even discourage anyone from trying […]

New SQL Server Standard: Resource Governor by Roy Ernest

The latest issue of the SQL Server Standard is available for download (login required, free registration). Volume 7 Issue 4 features an article titled Resource Governor by Roy Ernest (LinkedIn, Twitter). Good free learning! Ready to write something professional and share it with your peers? You need some previous writing experience (and obviously strong technical […]

Writing With More Than One Voice

I’ve been blogging for a couple of years now and have slowly settled into the style and pattern of blogging that you see here today. Most posts are several paragraphs, they reflect what I’m doing and reading, and they rarely are about topics that are contentious or highly popular. I write to share, I write […]