How to decode an Oracle DBA Want-Ad

When one peruses the want-ads, it is easy to think they are straightforward requests for given skillsets. The sad truth is, they are out of context of the situation they refer to. However, one may read between the lines to get a realistic set of expectations. Most jobs wind up different than their descriptions anyways. So here is what they say, and what it may really mean:

• OCP certification required: Oracle Consulting marketing ploy backfired.
• RMAN required: They couldn't understand Velpuri.
• High Availability and RMAN required: They have a big old obsolete Sun box, and insufficient budget for for a 7/24 shop, so they hired someone with NT Oracle experience who screwed up big time, so you have to clean it up.
• NT and backup experience required: Last guy didn't know NT idiosyncracies or RMAN bugs.
• Tape backup experience required: Those DLT's got another one.
• Cabling experience preferred: You will wear a lot of hats, and none will say "DBA."
• Good communication skills required: Previous DBA had a gambling problem.
• Must have very good communication skills: Management expectations need adjustment.
• Must have excellent communication skills: Previous DBA was inscrutable.
• Must have premier communications skills: It's a sales job.
• Must be a star at communicating: Previous DBA on trial in criminal court.
• Will not sponsor H1-B: [Answer under review by Political Correctness Department]
• Applicant will be expected to wear a pager: Their firewall product doesn't play well with Oracle; their firewall is full of holes from previous DBA's hacks.
• VSAM, CICS, Forms 6.0, Perl, and COBOL: HR department being used to screen out all applicants so project lead's nephew 's half-brother's wife's cousin can get a government job.
• FORMS, PREL, SQL, Dba: HR department clueless, non-communicative IS manager not helping matters any.
• 4 years 9iAS experience required: Headhunter having a waking wet dream.
• Forms 5 experience desired: They just woke up to the fact the plug is about to be pulled on the VAX with Forms 2.3.
• Telecommuting Forms development: After you've got two years face time.
• Some travel required: They are afraid of hackers.
• 50% travel required: 100% travel required.
• Experience with writing Stored Procedures: You will be the Oracle guy in a SQL Server shop with "strange" ideas about what a DBA does.
Functional DBA wanted: No DBA skills necessary if you know app.
• Must have thorough knowledge of roles and privileges: Developers have DBA privileges.
• Must be a team player: Boss is biased towards Microsoft.
• [Long laundry list of Oracle skills]: They made the last guy write a job description before they arbitrarily released him to get someone cheaper after the dot-com debacle.
• Oracle DBA to $120K: Headhunter farming.
• Oracle DBA to $80K: Revolving door job.
• 3 month contract-to-hire: 6 month contract.
• Oracle DBA's needed now!: Headhunter farming.
• Local applicants only: Been burned moving someone out who left after 3 months.
• Good presentation skills: Geeks need foxy babe to gawk at.
• Training provided: But not before you are let go because you didn't know it already.
• B2B: Knowledge of non-Oracle tools necessary because numb-nuts will be sending all sorts of garbage data, rendering all referential integrity useless. Unannounced format changes alone make it a full time job, then there's the actual work...
• XML: Venture capital funding about to run out, so everyone has left.
• 1-3 years DBA experience necessary: Vice-President of Sales was once a secretary, and she used an Access database, so she thinks she knows what a DBA does.
• 3-5 years DBA experience necessary: Manager was an Ashton-Tate expert and thinks Oracle should be able to do everything just like Dbase.
• 7+ years DBA experience necessary: V5 conversion project.
• C++ required: Last gasp of company that was leading edge a few years ago, now just a ghost of former self.
• ODBC and PRO*C required: Apps company living off past glory.
• Knowledge of Lotus Notes essential: Someone high up convinced board that a bunch of PC's can replace a real server.
• Manufacturing apps experience required: They don't have Internet access yet. When they get it, you will get fired for cause due to "surfing the net" to metalink, comp.databases.oracle.* and orafaq, rather than working.
• Supervisory experience required: Spend all your time "managing" rather than working.
• Successful implementation track record: Thar be lawsuits.
• Successful track record of a Data Warehouse implementation required: They still don't get what a DW is and won't be told.
• Will share responsibility with 2 other DBA's for critical 7/24 system: You will be low man on the totem pole in a place with insufficient budget, so no vacations, 100 hour weeks exempted from overtime, and you get the worst hours.
• Technical DBA: It will start out with normal DBA functions, but application visibility will force you into pure coding until the functional DBA leaves, then you have to do that too. Then the database will start whining for attention...
• Shell scripting: Previous DBA liked cryptography.
• Perl scripting: Previous DBA won obfuscation contest.
• Posix: App runs under obscure and/or orphaned OS such as MP/E.
• Knowledge of Database Design essential: Database needs a _lot_ of reverse engineering. Developers were under pressure to produce, with no DBA...
• Additional comments cheerfully accepted.

jg

These opinions are my own. 
http://www.garry.to Oracle and unix guy.
mailto:joel-garry@nospam.cox.net     

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