wrote in message
...
On Jan 29, 10:58 pm, "RogerN" wrote:


But, would you prefer an employee that knows nothing but is able and
willing to quickly learn everything, or an employee that knows everything
and can't be taught anything?

RogerN
/
/Fortunately one does not have to choose between just those two
/extremes. Once I advertised for a part time bookkeeper/ secretary and
/got some huge number of responses. Something like two or three
/hundred. After carefully reading all the letters, was able to select
/a few to talk to, and the one we picked did a great job. We could
/have gotten someone for minimum wage, but paid about twice that for a
/really competent worker.
/
/ Dan
/

I presented 2 extremes and most fit somewhere in the middle. My point is
that the greatest that have ever lived wouldn't pass the test at some point
in their life. I once heard that Walt Disney was turned down for a job, the
interviewer said he had no imagination. Trying to determine an applicants
potential is one thing, what I don't appreciate is incompetent HR. "I
realize you can rebuild a fighter jet, but I'm not sure if you're qualified
to repair bicycles for us". Or "So, you can make almost anything in a
machine shop but I'm not sure you're qualified to work at JiffyLube". Or
"So I see from your resume that you worked with kinematics for articulated
arm robotics, but we need someone that can figure sales tax". You get the
picture, the applicant has abundant qualifications but HR doesn't understand
well enough to know. I don't think this is the case here (this thread) but
in many places it is. At least it seems the golf club companies realized
former NASA rocket scientists were qualified to design golf clubs from space
age materials :-)

RogerN