Being liked or likeable is one thing. Trying to get people to like you is quite another. People who are trying to be liked reek of it. It's blatantly obvious and shallow.
There is a difference between acquiring knowledge and acting on it.
Closing off hints and tricks to new graduates only hurts your company, the industry, the economy and ultimately yourself. Knowledge is power, yes, but a person has to want to act on that knowledge. As anyone who has taken Computer Science knows, the concepts may be easy, but 80% of people can't apply them to pass a simple course.
No, it is important to be able to get along with people.
Being liked by people isn't necessarily a good thing to pursue, because people will detect that you're trying. It's a fact of human nature. Trying to be liked is seen (for better or worse) as manipulative.
In my opinion, as a Canadian post-secondary grad working in IT for three years, your biggest asset will be your ability to reconcile your people skills and your technical skills. A lot of Information Technology work in Canada is basically massive companies saying "We want to understand this objective, or corner this market, and we want to do it using modern tools." That's a pretty big problem set, and is going to require both a lot of analytical problem-solving, and a lot of communication.
Whether you focus more on the technical or on the people aspects, never lose your ability to work in either.
I graduated college without any C# experience, and heard the same rumours -- that C# knowledge opens a lot of doors. I bought the O'Reilly 'Programming C#' book by Jesse Liberty, worked through the examples, and it gave me enough knowledge to get hired as a C# developer.
Since I've been developing C# professionally, I've found the 'C# Cookbook' and the 'ADO.NET Cookbook' extremely useful (both by O'Reilly). People on my team are constantly borrowing these books from me.
There is a surprising lack of Canadian replies to this post, so I thought I should get the ball rolling.
Canada is nearly identical in a lot of ways to the U.S. We have a lot of the same principles, goals and opinions. My opinion is based that of someone who has lived in a small town, mid-size and large cities.
Where Canadians and Americans are similar:
1) An industrious hard-working workforce. Which translates into a very strong economy, which currently relies very heavily on U.S. trade. But our economy is also rapidly diversifying globally. Workers believe in long hours and a strong work ethic. Especially in IT.
2) A commitment to bring "peace and prosperity" to the world. Only we tend to stay the course with the UN/NATO as opposed to unilaterally attacking sovereign nations. We too have a flair for intervening in global events.
3) Family values, with a more liberal twist. We also believe very strongly in our social safety net (universal health care, employment insurance, etc). This philosophy helps redistribute the wealth, keeping the middle class more stable.
4) A strong Information Technology sector. There are numerous technology companies that were founded or are based in Canada (ATI, EA, etc). Through NAFTA these companies have done very well in North America as a whole.
Despite all of these similarities, we have some distinct differences that we are proud of:
1) Productivity and skill are rewarded with higher salaries, while keeping the social safety net in mind. Yes, some small percentage of what we make go towards keeping those on welfare happy and fed, but the social programs also enable those who truly want to contribute. It puts them back on their feet. You can argue that this rarely happens here, but I see it regularly.
Unlike the concerns listed above regarding Europe - there is very little nepotism here. It's more about what you know, than who you know.
Therefore, you may see developers make 75% of what the same American developer will make. But if s/he's unemployed, or must help someone who is critically ill, he is able to utilize the programs available. This is part of "quality of life" and we're all about it.
2) Less partisan. Yes, people have tendencies towards conservatism or liberalism. But a bad leader will cause his party to lose leadership, irrespective of party affiliation.
Politicians who blatantly lie (i.e. we never said "stay the course") will be outed. Publically. It will literally be the topic for conversation for days. As opposed to being ignored by the media. The politicians here are scrutinized. There is more of a "participatory democracy" mentality.
3) A more "level" interaction. You will find that the class boundaries between upper, lower and middle class are more blurred. Canadians are less afraid of being mugged (or shot) by their fellow citizens. This is a property of the social safety net that helps to keep people from those extreme survival measures.
4) Biased media. There is definitely a slant on our media organizations, but this plays less of a role in the reporting. For instance, when the Liberals went through their corruption allegations last, there was not a single paper or news show in the country that did not cry bloody murder.
If you were to pick a spot to live in Canada, I would recommend Ottawa, Toronto, Vancouver or Montreal (the big 4).
If you are an IT worker, choose Ottawa, due to the more friendly attitude and because it is "Silicon Valley North". I currently work in Markham, near Toronto, and would recommend it as well.
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No, I explain what I mean fully.
Being liked or likeable is one thing. Trying to get people to like you is quite another. People who are trying to be liked reek of it. It's blatantly obvious and shallow.
There is a difference between acquiring knowledge and acting on it.
Closing off hints and tricks to new graduates only hurts your company, the industry, the economy and ultimately yourself. Knowledge is power, yes, but a person has to want to act on that knowledge. As anyone who has taken Computer Science knows, the concepts may be easy, but 80% of people can't apply them to pass a simple course.
No, it is important to be able to get along with people. Being liked by people isn't necessarily a good thing to pursue, because people will detect that you're trying. It's a fact of human nature. Trying to be liked is seen (for better or worse) as manipulative. In my opinion, as a Canadian post-secondary grad working in IT for three years, your biggest asset will be your ability to reconcile your people skills and your technical skills. A lot of Information Technology work in Canada is basically massive companies saying "We want to understand this objective, or corner this market, and we want to do it using modern tools." That's a pretty big problem set, and is going to require both a lot of analytical problem-solving, and a lot of communication. Whether you focus more on the technical or on the people aspects, never lose your ability to work in either.
To summarize the interviewer: "That was cool, back in the day, and stuff like that..."
I graduated college without any C# experience, and heard the same rumours -- that C# knowledge opens a lot of doors. I bought the O'Reilly 'Programming C#' book by Jesse Liberty, worked through the examples, and it gave me enough knowledge to get hired as a C# developer.
Since I've been developing C# professionally, I've found the 'C# Cookbook' and the 'ADO.NET Cookbook' extremely useful (both by O'Reilly). People on my team are constantly borrowing these books from me.
There is a surprising lack of Canadian replies to this post, so I thought I should get the ball rolling.
Canada is nearly identical in a lot of ways to the U.S. We have a lot of the same principles, goals and opinions. My opinion is based that of someone who has lived in a small town, mid-size and large cities.
Where Canadians and Americans are similar:
1) An industrious hard-working workforce. Which translates into a very strong economy, which currently relies very heavily on U.S. trade. But our economy is also rapidly diversifying globally. Workers believe in long hours and a strong work ethic. Especially in IT.
2) A commitment to bring "peace and prosperity" to the world. Only we tend to stay the course with the UN/NATO as opposed to unilaterally attacking sovereign nations. We too have a flair for intervening in global events.
3) Family values, with a more liberal twist. We also believe very strongly in our social safety net (universal health care, employment insurance, etc). This philosophy helps redistribute the wealth, keeping the middle class more stable.
4) A strong Information Technology sector. There are numerous technology companies that were founded or are based in Canada (ATI, EA, etc). Through NAFTA these companies have done very well in North America as a whole.
Despite all of these similarities, we have some distinct differences that we are proud of:
1) Productivity and skill are rewarded with higher salaries, while keeping the social safety net in mind. Yes, some small percentage of what we make go towards keeping those on welfare happy and fed, but the social programs also enable those who truly want to contribute. It puts them back on their feet. You can argue that this rarely happens here, but I see it regularly.
Unlike the concerns listed above regarding Europe - there is very little nepotism here. It's more about what you know, than who you know.
Therefore, you may see developers make 75% of what the same American developer will make. But if s/he's unemployed, or must help someone who is critically ill, he is able to utilize the programs available. This is part of "quality of life" and we're all about it.
2) Less partisan. Yes, people have tendencies towards conservatism or liberalism. But a bad leader will cause his party to lose leadership, irrespective of party affiliation.
Politicians who blatantly lie (i.e. we never said "stay the course") will be outed. Publically. It will literally be the topic for conversation for days. As opposed to being ignored by the media. The politicians here are scrutinized. There is more of a "participatory democracy" mentality.
3) A more "level" interaction. You will find that the class boundaries between upper, lower and middle class are more blurred. Canadians are less afraid of being mugged (or shot) by their fellow citizens. This is a property of the social safety net that helps to keep people from those extreme survival measures.
4) Biased media. There is definitely a slant on our media organizations, but this plays less of a role in the reporting. For instance, when the Liberals went through their corruption allegations last, there was not a single paper or news show in the country that did not cry bloody murder.
If you were to pick a spot to live in Canada, I would recommend Ottawa, Toronto, Vancouver or Montreal (the big 4).
If you are an IT worker, choose Ottawa, due to the more friendly attitude and because it is "Silicon Valley North". I currently work in Markham, near Toronto, and would recommend it as well.