Virgil

I think people may find this interesting. About five years ago I was tasked with hiring for my division. We were in a hiring spurt and I had come off a project and had a little more time than some of the other managers and we needed newbies. Actually my boss at the time had hired a few engineers and frankly had done a terrible job. We were looking to change our age demographics to get us younger. We had a sparse number of young engineers and in the long run that’s not good for the organization. We were looking to get younger and yet my boss hired someone in his fifties and someone in his late thirties. And neither were anything to rave about. Where was his brain?

So I went looking for college graduates. I read a bunch of resumes and wound up selecting a number for interviews and I hired six. I was just reflecting on the progress of those six and how they’ve made out now that five years have passed. Let me tell you about them.

First was Phil. Phil was an exceptional candidate and a down right genius. I don’t think I’m exaggerating either. His grades were incredible and near perfect A’s, even in engineering. Actually his liberal arts brought his grade point average down, which is unbelievable in engineering schools. I think he had a B in history or something. Not only that he had worked through school and had a summer job at one of the airplane manufacturing companies (Boeing I think it was). So he had everything, grades, work experience, engineering experience. Plus he looked great. He had an athlete’s body (actually he’s a semi-pro mountain bike racer) and well spoken. I knew right away that he’s a top notch person and I told my boss who figured he was too good. I said what? Yeah my boss thinks small. So I went to personnel and I told them this guy was a superstar candidate and I asked how I could raise the top new hire salary bar. Ultimately I got permission to exceed our new hire salary as much as I could, and though he was considering a company out in California he ultimately did take our offer. Yay! And he has been a superstar. He has been absolutely incredible. After a few months working with me he got pulled away from me and put on a hot program that was in trouble and despite all the efforts of the grey beard engineers it was Phil’s redesign that made the thing work and it’s in production and working great. When I got put in charge of my current program around sixteen months ago I pulled what I could and got Phil on my program and he’s again been fabulous. He’s amazing, diligent, works hard, common sense on top of his engineering skills. He was definitely worth it.

Dave came next I think. He came recommended by one of my friends at work. He had decent grades and was a few years older than most college graduates and had started, stopped school and then went back to finish. He spoke well and had a bright happy face and what I liked about him was that when out of school he had worked as a mechanic fixing cars. That kind of hands on experience with tools and metal parts and working parts is invaluable to us school learned engineers. Plus he was getting married and I thought that was mature for a college student. I look for maturity above all things. So I hired him and then he called with bad news that he had miscalculated his final term classes and had forgotten to take a class. He couldn’t graduate but said he was going to summer school to make up that class. Our company policy was not to hire people in the future but I did get an ok that a summer class (which is typically two months) was not a violation of our policy. So I held the job for him. He’s worked out great too. He’s definitely not the genius like Phil, but he works hard and his mechanic’s background really has helped him. He just understands how complex things go together well. It took me years of experience for me to catch on to stuff like that. It just seems natural for Dave. He’s worked for me since the beginning and we’ve done well together, complimenting my strengths with his. When I was put in charge of this current project I had him replace me as the lead of the most complicated sub system, and he’s done great. Remember that really bad engineer Bob I mentioned a few blogs ago, well he handles Bob well, not putting up with his crap but still getting him motivated. He really strikes a great balance. He's just mature level head; he must because he's now got three kids in five years. I was so thrilled with his recent work that when I had my last review with upper management I gave him fifteen minutes as part of the presentation. And he must have really impressed them. And that’s what saddens me, and this is the reason I've been thinking of these engineers I hired. He has now been given his own program and will be leaving me. It’s great for him but I’m going to miss him.

Rob, I think he was next, is an African-American from a poor, inner city neighborhood and had below average grades. He had to borrow a car to get to us. He was dressed nice and was very knowledgeable about what we did and knew all the right answers that I threw at him. He really did his homework. In fact he had done a school project along the lines of what we were doing. So that helped. When I asked about his grades he explained it was mostly one year that he had personal problems that brought his grades down. And here’s the kicker, the personal problems were that he had gotten his girl friend pregnant and the girl turned into a drug addict and he had to go to court, have the child taken away from the mother, and he was raising the daughter himself as a single father. That really impressed me. I’m a sucker for people who fight the odds and overcome a lot. I was going to hire him when he told me he wasn’t graduating until another semester. Oh shoot, that company policy. And his problem was that he had the summer months and the fall semester, and so I couldn’t hire him. So I gave him my card and told him to call me sometime in the fall semester and check if we were still hiring. He did and we were and I got him in. Rob has also been with me since he was hired and done outstanding. He too is diligent and responsible and definitely mature. He’s still raising his daughter and helping his parents. You all know how that warms my heart. He's brought his daughter in a couple of times and she looks so cute sitting at his computer playing like she's doing his work. But he’s also an outstanding engineer. He picks up all the complex situations and his technical decisions seem to all turn out well. He’s not as flashy as some of the other guys and I sometimes chagrin at the casual jeans and untied shoe laces he comes in with. But everyone really likes him and he’s got a smile for everybody. Now that Dave will be leaving me, I’m putting Rob in that lead role. Now Rob works very well with people who are also diligent, but my only qualm is he doesn’t seem to handle problem people well. He gets frustrated with them and winds up fighting with them when I think you just have to get the best out of them and move on. I’m concerned about how he will deal with Bob, that lousy engineer. We’ll see.

Continued on the next blog entry...