Harald,
Perhaps I'm the only one for whom the schedule on this has prevented comments: the IETF is not my full-time job and other priorities took over the last week or two. But I have finally had the opportunity to browse through the comments today. I find most of them interesting and helpful, but they are also not completely consistent. For example, at least one set of comments pointed out the "COO of the IETF" is a statement not justified by the draft BCP test and that it has significant implications. Another set indicated approval of that terminology, the others did not comment on it. I think there are other, similar, cases. Still other comments point, I think, to a fairly significant change in tone and, in particular, the need to better establish the level of this position and its relationship to other bodies. In my personal experience, and that of many of the HR and recruiting professionals with whom I've had discussions over the years, job descriptions that leave too much open encourage applications from inappropriate people and, especially for relatively senior positions, actually discourage appropriate people from applying.
This is, as some of the commenters pointed out, important. It is important enough, IMO, that it really should represent community consensus, especially if the job description cannot be checked against a BCP that is still under discussion and development.
Given that, and given also that, at least in this case, contradictory comments should not, IMO, be taken as "do whatever you like", I want to make two very strong suggestions to you and the transition team:
(1) Don't just take the comments, figure out what you think they mean and how they should be reconciled, rewrite the description and send it out. Instead, post it back to the IETF list for a quick review by the community before declaring it as the final job description. My experience is that nothing happens in the week before the Xmas holiday anyway: whether you get the job description posted on Monday or Thursday is unlikely to make any practical difference. For that reason, I share the skepticism of some of the comments about trying to start evaluations, and perhaps fill the position, on January 15, but that is another issue.
(2) Please review, within the Transition Team and in conjunction with whatever budget you are working from, whether the nature of this position is such that it would be appropriate to engage professional executive search/ recruiting talent to review and edit the job description for us even if not to conduct the search itself. Personally, I think I'd be happier with a professionally-conducted search, but YMMD (and probably does). As others have commented in other ways, we are not looking for an administrative assistant here, but someone on whose skills, experience, talent, and effectiveness the future and functioning of the IETF may critically depend. To me, at least, several aspects of the way in which the description is written scream out "amateur job". That isn't a comment about content, but about style of presentation. But it isn't clear to me that we can afford the appearance of amateur jobs: just as an amateurish resume can sometimes prevent an otherwise-qualified candidate from getting the attention and interviews needed to get a job, an amateurish job description may convince people we would like to have apply that we don't have our acts together sufficiently to be an organization he or she wants to work for or with.
regards, john
--On Sunday, December 19, 2004 11:18 AM +0100 Harald Tveit Alvestrand <harald@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Brian, Avri, Allison, Spencer and Adrian: Thank you for your feedback!
Kurtis is off on holidays now, so I'll be taking on the job of integrating your comments with the text of the announcement.
We're aiming to get it out on Monday (Friday proved over-ambitious).
Thanks again!
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