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Oct. 6th, 2009 09:31 pmHad a skills assessment yesterday on both PHP and MySQL. Figured i failed the PHP one miserably, but did acceptably on the MySQL one, primarily because the PHP test covered a lot of things I vaguely knew it could do, but never had any call to do or administration and configuration elements with which i've never needed to work. I think it was at least one major release behind, too, because it had a few questions about things I know have been removed or deprecated in place. The MySQL one was fairly easy.
Found out today that i was deemed Proficient in both. Go-go Gadget mad test-taking skills, or something, because the administration stuff was such a black hole if it hadn't been multiple choice I wouldn't have had a clue. Also thankful the test wasn't formatted like the MCP exams, where in order to get credit for some answers the taker needs to choose all correct responses- those are just evil, because invariably there's one answer which looks like absolute gibberish which may just be an obscure way to get to something which is mentioned in three-point type in a codicil to a footnote in Appendix ZZ9-Z-alpha, and of course, the taker is intimately familiar with it, in spite of there being four other, valid and less cumbersome ways to get the same damned information..
Anyway, pleased to be Proficient. It's better than i deserved, probably, but if i'm in a position where i'm the best option to administer your PHP installation or write more than the occasional snippet of code, you've got serious problems. I aspire to be good enough to not get completely lost in a developers' discussion and not to ask more than the periodic stupid question; and to know when problems are real red flags, and not just a dev sandbagging because he doesn't want to work on a particular issue. So, one happy recruiter who thinks this will make me much easier for her to represent me to a particular client.
Also got an out-of-the-blue email from the HR director with a company with which i interviewed in April. Seems they're opening a new position like the one for which i interviewed, and i was on the short list then, so they wanted to know if i'd be available to come talk with them in the next few days. So, tomorrow at 10:30 it is.
Found out today that i was deemed Proficient in both. Go-go Gadget mad test-taking skills, or something, because the administration stuff was such a black hole if it hadn't been multiple choice I wouldn't have had a clue. Also thankful the test wasn't formatted like the MCP exams, where in order to get credit for some answers the taker needs to choose all correct responses- those are just evil, because invariably there's one answer which looks like absolute gibberish which may just be an obscure way to get to something which is mentioned in three-point type in a codicil to a footnote in Appendix ZZ9-Z-alpha, and of course, the taker is intimately familiar with it, in spite of there being four other, valid and less cumbersome ways to get the same damned information..
Anyway, pleased to be Proficient. It's better than i deserved, probably, but if i'm in a position where i'm the best option to administer your PHP installation or write more than the occasional snippet of code, you've got serious problems. I aspire to be good enough to not get completely lost in a developers' discussion and not to ask more than the periodic stupid question; and to know when problems are real red flags, and not just a dev sandbagging because he doesn't want to work on a particular issue. So, one happy recruiter who thinks this will make me much easier for her to represent me to a particular client.
Also got an out-of-the-blue email from the HR director with a company with which i interviewed in April. Seems they're opening a new position like the one for which i interviewed, and i was on the short list then, so they wanted to know if i'd be available to come talk with them in the next few days. So, tomorrow at 10:30 it is.
