My way of categorizing IT personnels
Over the years, I had the chances to work with a lot of people, both locals and foreigners, in the IT/Engineering fields. Most of them are software engineers, while some others are system engineers, network engineers, IT administrators, system analysts, etc. And slowly, I deviced a way to categorize these IT personnels according to their abilities and ego :
Category 1 - High abilities, Average ego
Category 2 - High abilities, High ego
Category 3 - Average abilities, Average ego
Category 4 - Average abilities, High ego
It may be a bit of generalization here but most of the overseas-based foreign IT professionals I had worked with belong to categories (1) and (2). Of course there are always some clueless IT professionals no matter where you go, but I am speaking from my general impression after working with some of these germans, russians and israelis professionals. It could be due to their education or environment, most of these people have in-depth knowledge in their own specialized fields instead of having superficial knowledge in many areas yet expert in none. And some have very high egos while some are reasonably humble.
On the other hand, the Singapore-based foreign-talents that I had worked with mostly belong to category (3). Most of them can boast knowledge of a dozen programming languages in their resume, but in reality their abilities are just average. Fortunately, most of these people whom I had worked with do not have high egos, and thus can still get the job done, albeit needing more guidance and supervision.
Lastly, the forth category is the category that I feel, the most difficult to work with. Unfortunately, quite a number of locals belong to this category. They have very limited abilities, yet possessing super high egos. Even when they are young and inexperienced. Even when they really have got nothing to show for. For this category of people, I can only say, the moment you acknowledge how average you are, would be the moment you can truly start to improve as a real professional.
P/S: There are good and humble local IT professionals too, just that a bit few and far between.
Category 1 - High abilities, Average ego
Category 2 - High abilities, High ego
Category 3 - Average abilities, Average ego
Category 4 - Average abilities, High ego
It may be a bit of generalization here but most of the overseas-based foreign IT professionals I had worked with belong to categories (1) and (2). Of course there are always some clueless IT professionals no matter where you go, but I am speaking from my general impression after working with some of these germans, russians and israelis professionals. It could be due to their education or environment, most of these people have in-depth knowledge in their own specialized fields instead of having superficial knowledge in many areas yet expert in none. And some have very high egos while some are reasonably humble.
On the other hand, the Singapore-based foreign-talents that I had worked with mostly belong to category (3). Most of them can boast knowledge of a dozen programming languages in their resume, but in reality their abilities are just average. Fortunately, most of these people whom I had worked with do not have high egos, and thus can still get the job done, albeit needing more guidance and supervision.
Lastly, the forth category is the category that I feel, the most difficult to work with. Unfortunately, quite a number of locals belong to this category. They have very limited abilities, yet possessing super high egos. Even when they are young and inexperienced. Even when they really have got nothing to show for. For this category of people, I can only say, the moment you acknowledge how average you are, would be the moment you can truly start to improve as a real professional.
P/S: There are good and humble local IT professionals too, just that a bit few and far between.
Labels: Miscellaneous
posted by The Uncharted Waters @ 1:28 PM
Comments: 7
