Re: Getting Young People into IBM i

And if you have someone like Scott as a mentor, you will do great!

At my school the COBOL teacher was super nice. The RPG teacher was dry and
boring. I think that's why I liked COBOL.

At my internship (which was RPG) I worked under a GREAT mentor (thanks
Julie Hills!) and she taught me many things. Especially don't change a
display file and move live without recompiling the program (yes, I brought
down the clinic my first day at work..haha)

Then at my next job I had a boss who said "if you use RPGIV, you get to
maintain it and only you. I won't touch it." That was only a year before
I went to Taylor and met another great boss/method (Brian!)

So, just imagine if someone like Scott or a lot of people on this list is
your mentor at your RPG job.

On Wed, May 10, 2023 at 8:11 PM Scott Klement <sk@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Seriously.

I've hired a LOT of people that way. Just find someone who is young and
looking for a job, interview them and make sure they have the right
attitude and aptitude, and then train them in IBM i.

It's not hard AT ALL.

Obviously you don't want to hire someone who wants to work on a
particular non-IBMi environment -- but typically these people won't
apply to you, anyway. If they do, you just weed them out via their
resume and/or interview, just like any other thing that would make a
candidate a poor fit.

If you're a COMMON member (if not, become one, it's not expensive) there
are bootcamps that are provided free with membership designed to help
people learn about the system. (And more are on the way!)

Additionally there's a huge content library with tons of things you can
learn. And it's also free with membership (i.e. no need to come to a
conference, unless you want to, of course.)

I have done this a LOT -- it's an easy and powerful way to bring people
to the platform. Don't expect them to have particular skills like RPG
out of the gate.... if you hold out for those people, you probably
won't find them. Hire someone who's just generally good with computers
(or networks, or admin, or programming, etc) and train them.

THAT is how we bring young people to the platform.

*-SK*


On 5/10/23 2:38 PM, Jack Woehr via MIDRANGE-L wrote:

Heard at NEUG:

Questioner: “How do we bring young people into the platform?”
Scott Klement: "Hire them."
❤

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