The best job interview I ever had was laying on the sofa watching television. Shorts and tee shirt was the attire. It was a telephone interview of course. The client was a large multi-national and 'needed someone like me asap'. Two days later I had seven face-to face interviews with the IT and Finance teams at their EMEA HQ in a beautiful European capital city. Three days later I was in at the deep end...
There was much to do. A large and diverse professional user community was very demanding, Super User groups needed to be established, new modules to implement and upgrade, and an EMEA project on the horizon. Great stuff I thought and a big challenge. Especially, trying to keep up with the Harvard and Oxbridge starlets that swarmed around the place. Everyone had to add value at SUPER ORG PLC, and egos reigned supreme.
I managed to build a bridge between the IT and Finance teams – no mean achievement. I translated and interpreted, and kept the 'company interest' as the focal point. Super User groups were set up and were driving value out of the applications. Everyone seemed content, even happy, except the IT director one day....
“John this is your No. 1 priority this week. There is a top management graduate from the USA who is torn between two offers of management positions. One in Finance and one here in IT. He must end up here working on Oracle applications. Joe will give you all the details and I've agreed with the Finance Director that you will talk to the graduate and after that we need a decision from him. The right decision John.”
“ OK I understand” I said. “He must end up in IT to massage your ego and it's one in the eye for Finance. And it won't look too bad for you back in CORP HQ .“
“ Correct, and it must be in the company interest of course” he concluded with a wink.
The young guy was a fast-stream candidate with many connections back in the USA. He enjoyed his time in Finance and IT as part of his graduate programme and had a degree in accountancy. He understood the challenges and rewards within the company. They were virtually the same whether he was in Finance or IT.
I spoke to him for less than 3 minutes. He joined IT and the director was ecstatic...in the company interest of course.
“Brilliant John! How did you manage it?“ asked the IT Director.
“ I told him there was a world outside of SUPER ORG PLC and it was full of opportunities. And it was a fact that 70% of graduates left the company within 5 years of becoming managers.”
“ And?” he asked.
“ I asked him a question. 'If I could show you a way of earning $1000 per hour would you join the IT team?' He agreed he would if I could show him how to achieve it.”
“ And”, he pressed me.
“ Well we agreed that he would probably leave SUPER ORG PLC by the age of 30. And he would work for 30 years in the 'other world' outside SUPER ORG PLC. Where, and I showed him the research, Oracle applications staff earn at least $10,000 per year more than the accounting and finance equivalents.”
“And?”..
.“ He knew that training and development would mean him spending personal time on it also. About 300 hours was our agreed estimate. The rest was simple maths. Total additional lifetime income of 30 years x $10,000 a year divided by the number of additional training/development hours on Oracle”.
“Being?”...
“ $300,000 / 300 or $1000 per hour”.
“ Excellent John! Well they didn't teach us that one at Harvard! Where did you pick it up?” he grinned.
“ Bootle Tech......”.
Great post and I like your calculation as well. Reality can be slightly different with the competition of the offshore partners. But still it's a market for few folks.
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