I pass job adverts from the list on to our careers advisors, but note that
many specify knowledge of SAS as essential or an advantage. The comment
I would like to pass back to recruiters is that highlighting one tool may
be restricting their intake and may be counter-productive. It smacks of
the government straitjacket that all education should be "relevant and
vocational", in other words "training" is exactly the Barbara Woodhouse
sense (NB she trained dog *owners*).
As it happens, this university does not provide or support SAS, but my
argument would apply to any named software. A person who claims intimate
knowledge of one product and no more may be technically highly competent,
but is not necessarily a data analyst. On the other hand, a good versatile
analyst can quickly be trained or pick up the use of a new tool - hell, we
seem to have to do this with every new version of "the same" software on
a regular basis.
Some suggestions are that, unless you expect only a short-term employment,
your adverts might read "package x or equivalent" or "experience of
software (we use package x)", and that your interview panels should
explicitly probe for evidence that applicants have used software
*critically*.
R. Allan Reese Email: [log in to unmask]
Associate Manager Direct voice: +44 1482 466845
Graduate Research Institute Voice messages: +44 1482 466844
Hull University, Hull HU6 7RX, UK. Fax: +44 1482 466846
====================================================================
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
|