A turnip on a stick with a crudely drawn face could do large portions of my job - meetings -and better than I do, thinking about it as it would say less and do marginally less
It not usually can anyone but more could a lot of people do my job and for sure a lot of people could do my job but they might work in completely different industries or sectors. I could be a tree surgeon with a bit of training, or teacher or load of other things but the cost (time and money) in transfering is too high so I am never going to.
As for my job I think anyone halfway technical mind could learn to do it after some training. I'm not special and neither are you.
HR seems to be one of those jobs where in the land of the blind the one eyed is king. So many incompetent people who like to make work with poor procedures and lack of context.
I think a lot of "load of people try to do x and can't" just shows how poor recruitment industry is, which it's self is the perfect example of anyone can do it and many do but few can do it well. Even most who think they are doing it well are not actually.
I'm a senior research technician in a molecular biology laboratory at the University of Glasgow. I'm our lab's long-read Nanopore sequencing specialist.
If you can follow a recipe in a book, you can do my job .
If you can follow a recipe in a book
Well that's me out.
It varies between 2 and 5 years (depends on area) of full time training to do my job.
I honestly believe anyone can be trained up to the standard, it just depends on how much time and resources you're willing to throw at the individual.
Obviously these are not infinite, so eventually there comes a point where you either qualify or training is terminated.
I've seen Oxford graduates fail and people straight from A-levels pass. I've got 5 GCSE, my mate studied part time for a PHD. It takes all sorts.
Someone, somewhere in the company who does the recruitment knows what they're looking for.
I run a GP Practice. In theory anyone with enough brains to put on a pair of trousers the right way could do my job. In practice there's so much stuff that's like "Oh, in order to do that, you need to contact this part of the NHS business services and collect form 201A-(c) take that form to this other part of this Govt.org website and fill in part b, but first you'll need a log on and in order to do that you need form 202A- (b) and email those together with a photo of a sliced melon to this person in Edinburgh...."
It takes years just to keep on top of it.
I've been teaching for 21 years, I've seen a lot of people think it is easy then fail, themselves and their pupils, horribly. I observed a teacher with 25years experience and realised that if it had been for a job interview she'd have not made the short leet.
It'll be the same in a lot of jobs doing it badly is easy doing it well not so much.
I think I could teach someone with the right mindset and base skills my job, but the problem is finding someone with the right base skills (general IT skills in a bunch of different OSs) and right mindset (suspicious, jaded, cynical, untrusting).
It seems the kids coming into the market these days have learned a bit about Security in Uni when they do their programming course and expect to be able to get the high-paying jobs with no experience. It just really doesn't work like that. You need a feel for what is wrong and the ability to correlate all the wrongness into a picture of what really happened.
In contrast the second job (skydiving) is easy. For filming, it's just timing and distance. And making sure that you turn the camera on.
I think a lot of “load of people try to do x and can’t” just shows how poor recruitment industry is, which it’s self is the perfect example of anyone can do it and many do but few can do it well. Even most who think they are doing it well are not actually.
from the point of "have I filled a vacancy and got paid for it" they're doing ok. from the point of "have I weeded out the dross and sent only genuine candidates", less so. From the rather more advanced viewpoint of "have I genuinely understood the requirements of the job, the needs of my clients, and the skillsets and aptitudes required so that I can match my candidates to provide both what the client needs and what the candidate hopes to obtain rather than just copying and pasting a job spec", well....
There are many bits of my job that I do well. Other bits I'm still winging it and waiting to be found out... Then I look around and realise so is everyone else 🤣
Magazine page layout. It's just copy & pasting. Heard that a lot. To be fair sometimes it practically could be but it was the little things you needed to use your eyes for that some seemed to find difficult.
I’m a senior research technician in a molecular biology laboratory at the University of Glasgow. I’m our lab’s long-read Nanopore sequencing specialist.If you can follow a recipe in a book, you can do my job .
A lot of my early lab days were basically that. Cooking. Most people could have followed the recipe if they'd have been given a basic instruction book of what all the lab equipment was.
Later on I did more research-based chemistry where you have to create the recipe and cooking method and that did actually take some skill and knowledge.
I have a job (writer) that everyone can do to a certain level.
A few people at work are excellent at it, some are quite decent and some are terrible. But hopefully the value I add is bringing everyone's efforts up to a professional level.
Magazine page layout. It’s just copy & pasting.
Is it not dragging and dropping these days? 😉
TBH my main distinguishing skill throughout my career was the ability to write a good headline.
Engineer for a COMAH site, after seeing the zombies round the town at lunchtime I might hand it over to someone less capable....
TBH my main distinguishing skill throughout my career was the ability to write a good headline.
Junior colleague working on PR which didn't have a headline so he plastered the company name in big letters across the left hand page of the spread, Unfortunately he mistook the name of the company from one industry for the practically-household-name of another company from an entirely different industry and proofed it to them as such.
and email those together with a photo of a sliced melon to this person in Edinburgh….”
Any particular melon? Honeydew, Galia, Cantaloupe, Piel de Sapo? I imagine the NHS are very strict on this.
Any idiot can fell trees apparently.
Maybe that’s why it’s so dangerous?
Yes, my neighbour trained up as a lumberjack so he could follow his dad into the trade (the whole family is in the trade).
About 6 months after he joined the family business he watched his dad get laminated all over the scenery by 10 tonnes of timber. 30 years later and he's still in the depths of PTSD and alcoholism.
And no, not anyone could do my job. As can be seen by some of the responses to my posts elsewhere on the forum 😉
If there is, it’s a very well kept secret.
The important thing with HR is understanding what its purpose is.
Namely to look after the company.
Why people dealing with it are often disappointed.
Firefighter here. Anyone could do 99% of my job, the 1% less so.
IT professional services consultant specialising in HR / identity management / information governance & management. I have a suspicion chatGPT is after my job.
If anyone works out what I do, could they let me know?
If you can follow a recipe in a book
I always add Garlic and Tumeric, no matter what it is...
But hopefully the value I add is bringing everyone’s efforts up to a professional level.
Something which is always on my team wishlist is a good technical author.
Makes a massive difference to user documentation and hence lack of users coming to us since they cant understand what we wrote.
I was going to say transport planner but Crazy legs beat me to it. Terrible at parties when someone finds out your trade and thinks a local bit of infrastructure is a bit shite and asks was it me who designed it.
From the rather more advanced viewpoint of “have I genuinely understood the requirements of the job, the needs of my clients, and the skillsets and aptitudes required so that I can match my candidates to provide both what the client needs and what the candidate hopes to obtain rather than just copying and pasting a job spec”, well….
You have said what I wanted much better thanks
I have a suspicion chatGPT is after my job.
I have a suspicion management would like to replace me with ChatGPT, so I've been trying to explain that my job starts where ChatGPT stops anyway.
Something which is always on my team wishlist is a good technical author.
Makes a massive difference to user documentation and hence lack of users coming to us since they cant understand what we wrote.
The majority of my work is trying to say the same thing, but with fewer words and shorter sentences.
😀
I’m a senior research technician in a molecular biology laboratory at the University of Glasgow. I’m our lab’s long-read Nanopore sequencing specialist.
If you can follow a recipe in a book, you can do my job .
A lot of my early lab days were basically that. Cooking. Most people could have followed the recipe if they’d have been given a basic instruction book of what all the lab equipment was.
My first proper job was as research technician in a cancer research department. It remains the most interesting job I ever had. I needed to learn so many skills and info very quickly to top up what I learned on a not very good HND course. Unfortunately, the prof was retiring and funding for the department dropped off a cliff so I was only there for two years.
If you can follow a recipe in a book
I always add Garlic and Tumeric, no matter what it is…
So, not only would you make a crap lab researcher, you're also a crap cook as well. 😀 (Garlic is my fall-back as well...)
IT project manager, my job is pretty easy and I recon a lot of people could do it but probably wouldn't want to. Mainly just needs good organisational, communication and people management skills (working with people, not lording it over them). Also need be self confident (or in my case, good at faking it) and be able to give the impression of not getting fazed when things are going pear shaped. Coming from an IT technical background (developer) definitely helps but not essential.
That said, it took me a fair number of years to get to the stage where I'd consider myself "good" at it. Maybe I'm a slow learner 🙂
IT project manager, my job is pretty easy and I recon a lot of people could do it but probably wouldn’t want to. Mainly just needs good organisational, communication and people management skills (working with people, not lording it over them).
I had an excellent relationship with the Head of IT at my former place - we shared a similar sense of humour and the fact that I was half decent with IT set me apart from most of my colleagues.
His job was not "fixing computers", it was explaining gently and professionally to people why they were totally wrong and clueless. The vast majority of IT problems are not issues with the laptop or the network, they're issues with the pillock trying to use it.
Mainly just needs good organisational, communication and people management skills (working with people, not lording it over them). Also need be self confident (or in my case, good at faking it) and be able to give the impression of not getting fazed when things are going pear shaped
I work in medical/academic libraries. Sums up how I feel about my role TBH. Surprises me whenever we get applications where people say they love books. Very little book use in my sector, it's all online, mostly journals and publishing research. Need an MA/MSc to get a professional post, but that feels like an artificial barrier, experience and attitude is really more important. But how do you get experience without the qualification....
The vast majority of IT problems are not issues with the laptop or the network, they’re issues with the pillock trying to use it.
PICNIC
Problem
In
Chair
Not
In
Computer
I’ve been teaching for 21 years, I’ve seen a lot of people think it is easy then fail, themselves and their pupils, horribly
Yep, and also the ones who think it's easy, work stupid hours, be great teachers and then burn out withn five years
Just about anyone could do my job, grass cutting in the summer, pruning in the winter (although we have had a few people over the years I wouldn't even trust with a pair of plastic scissors)
Not everyone could put up with my bosses though, that's the toughest part of the job
Another IT Project Manager. Feed pretty much sums it up.
That said, it took me a fair number of years to get to the stage where I’d consider myself “good” at it. Maybe I’m a slow learner.
Nope it's not get the qualification and away you go, it takes a while to be able to practice confidently especially in the face of people who don't understand the role or see the value of a good PM. The soft skills you mention are essential, particularly keeping your head while everyone else is losing it. Which is why not everyone can do it. 🙂
I’ve been a school teacher, which a lot of people assume is easy but it isn’t
Every teacher who contributes to any thread tells us how difficult it is, so I think we all know by now.
Edit: to add context to this - I used to work in a lab and there was one girl who, when asked if she was busy, would always reply 'Rushed off my feet, Jon, rushed off. Bois bach, haven't got time to talk.' And off she'd go. Guess who the laziest person in the place was?
😀
Guess who the laziest person in the place was?
I am going to say you. Your username presumably means something, after all.
Every teacher who contributes to any thread tells us how difficult it is, so I think we all know by now.
Well we all know they like a good moan, but come on, how hard can it really be?
😉
I am going to say you. Your username presumably means something, after all.
Idleness is not laziness, I'll have you know! (Well, not always.)
😀
Well we all know they like a good moan, but come on, how hard can it really be?
And the holidays... 😀
Im work in the wider HR team in a very large company. I agree we are there to protect the companies interests more than the employee. If you don’t know what you are doing however, I can pretty much guarantee you’ll end up costing your company a lot of money in double quick time
Other than knowledge of policy, process and legislation it doesn’t require any specific skill set, however you need to have half a brain to actually add any value to what you do. I imagine it’s no different than any other office job. Certainly I’ve worked with hundreds of other professionals in my time and never once (with the exception of some accountants) have I thought that they had a particular unique skill set beyond the job specific knowledge that was required
The reason I’m an ex-teacher, IdleJon, is that it took too much out of me. I’m sure that as with any job there were some that did as little as they could, but I wanted to do the job well and found the workload too high.
I’ve had many jobs, and I’d happily return to most of them if circumstance required, but I’d never go back to state school teaching. It takes everything out of you and demands more.
I've spoken to enough teachers to see a pattern of over-work, which I think is exacerbated by the results-at-all-costs culture in some schools, and the way they are run as mini-empires by "high performing" heads.
I suspect the sector has a huge bullying problem, which may come to light in future.
