About honors on sober head

At the height of the holidays, the first holivar of 2018 appeared on Habré - an article about why it is bad to be an excellent student. The article is ambiguous, but rational and strong, if only because it raises a serious question that confronts all employers and the IT industry in particular. It is even surprising why no one has raised this topic here before, because this, including the problem of companies. Actually, this is why the author at the end turned to employers with a request for adaptation. And you know, with excellent students in business, sometimes it's really not easy, but in general these are either good employees, or brilliant performers, or intellectual innovators. And very rarely - offended sinister. In general, everything is difficult, and we have something to say about this.



First of all, we re-read all the comments on the original article on Habré and even on social networks. They boiled down to several types.

• “I am an excellent student myself, everything is correctly stated, the same story was with me, +100500, the author is right, all parents are strictly required to read.”
  
• “I am an excellent student myself, a PhD / businessman / teacher and everything is actually very simple: learn, go towards your goal and get career and intellectual growth. And you did not know? Delov something. ”
  
• “I am a master of sports in figure skating, Colonel Chingachkuk - as in a Soviet joke. These are some fantastic generalists who told about their successes in their studies, science, sports, and communications. In all and at once. "
  
• “The author needs a psychotherapist, a coach, an expert in emotional intelligence, and in general it’s time to do self-development, and not spread your cockroaches at all.” There were a lot of those in business publications.
  
• “The article has a personal one and a common one, the problem exists, it’s good that we don’t keep silent about it.”
  

We stick to the last point more. We in the company RegionSoft Developer Studio have excellent students, almost all of them are not with one red diploma. And I must say, there are those features that are described in the article, and those that are not in it - huge positive moments. And the best students come to the interview, worked with our employees earlier, etc. In general, on the very first day after the holidays we joined the work for a small discussion of this issue and are ready to share our thoughts with you.
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And yet - we will not talk about "drawn" honors pupils, around which a dispute flared up in the comments to the original post. Yes, they are, they were in our schools and our universities, they come to work "to pull". We do not have these, we avoid them. Therefore, it will be about diligent and / or talented guys who learned consciously and had some goals in front of them.

You are an excellent student - good

In general, talking about an excellent student after 5–15 years of his working experience may seem strange — after all, an employee has already acquired experience, skills, and communications, has bumped and learned lessons. But this is only at first glance. The desire to achieve goals, knowledge, skill to learn and consistently well perform diverse tasks over the years of study have become habits and formed a special character. By the way, this is not always perfectionism, that is, an extreme form of the desire to do everything perfectly. In general, perfectionism is another psychological phenomenon, it is not necessary to equate perfectionists and excellent students.

Here they are, bonuses of excellent students as employees.

• High goals lead to high results. Excellent students are able to set themselves precise goals and take on really difficult tasks - they have the realization that they will understand the new topic for sure. It is these guys who can once take up and learn a new stack or programming language, for example, to start developing a new product or mobile application. They are also able to master various sales strategies, synthesize something of their own and successfully apply them in their work.
  
• Excellent students have unique abilities to learn: when the fear of a five-point scale passes, they easily and with pleasure master new things that have nothing to do with their work. This is an invaluable trait for the IT sphere: they can be programmers, but with an interest to penetrate into finance, sales, production, etc., and then develop thoughtful software that is good both from a profile point of view and from a software one.
  
• Excellent employees are always focused on results and often this increases the self-esteem of self-confident colleagues, helping to find positive results in any activity. If the team is psychologically healthy, these guys are a powerful motivator - a kind of “engine”.
  
• Excellent students deeply understand things from the inside and are able to explain , they make good internal trainers, mentors, mentors, and employees who are just ready to help. Sometimes they are able to completely open up the skills and hidden abilities of people.
  
• They have a developed will to win , and both intellectual and physical. You can rely on an excellent student and know that he will certainly bring the matter to the end.
  
• Excellent students may not be innovators or inventors, but these are always early followers of technology and good performers who will do the work carefully and intelligently. If we are talking about programmers, they are neat, obligatory, they follow the code style, they are ready to refactor and do not snort, which is a waste of time.
  
• Excellent students are masters of flexible skills (so-called soft skills). This is due to their broad horizons, erudition and ability to reach the essence of things. In psychology, soft skills include the ability to persuade, find an approach to people, lead, negotiate, take responsibility, manage their own time, etc. These skills, by the way, greatly contribute to productive work and career development.
  
• Excellent students even from school get used to public speaking , so they make good speakers and speakers at specialized conferences. If you need to present a product or service in terms of intelligence, then the best speaker can not be found.
  

This is a positive view of excellent students. These features are present in many of them. As a rule, these are responsible, planning-able, disciplined children who have learned to love learning, and now know how to love work.

But, as you know, the medal has two sides.

You are an excellent student - bad

Excellent students may be capricious and demanding employees, may burn out, may become uncontrollable. Many of their "dark" sides are associated with the peculiarities of behavior and character, hardened in the battles for the desired five. However, they are quite easily overcome, if the leadership and tops do not give a damn about the psychological climate in the team.

• Often, excellent students are precisely those employees who "carry everything that they ship . " Thus, many work tasks and processes are locked in on them, a significant part of the work depends on these specialists. In the case of their vacation, illness or dismissal for a while, their project plunges into a collapse, from which it comes out with difficulty. And sometimes this is a conscious strategy of the employee - he wants to show his importance and necessity, closes the processes on himself, strives to work for everyone. As a result, the rest are lazy (and what to plow, when this blessed from 8 to 22 plows?), The honors boy gets tired, the company suffers at its slightest absence.
  
• Erroneous prioritization is often formed among employees with an “excellent” past — they cannot separate important tasks from less important ones. If they become leaders, then every letter from them and every ticket will fall down with the marks "important" and "urgent." Such an approach necessarily leads to deadlines - because time is sometimes spent on the lowest priority work. Excellent students often set too narrow goals. They will defocus within their duties and go deep into a minor problem, forgetting about the rest of the work. Alas, excellence in work does not always correlate with productivity, a good employee turns out to be ballast on the way to commercial goals.
  
• And yes, indeed, such employees take a lot of time to work . This is certainly bad for the socialization and communication of the person himself, but no less bad for the employer. Just an excellent student sees that he works more than others, but the salary does not grow or the attitude of the manager does not change. And the employee begins to believe that he is worse than the others, begins to work even harder. The circle of insults and reproaches is closed, an absolutely shocked and eternally dissatisfied colleague appears in the team.
  
• Excellent students (especially if there are two of them on the same job site) can create unhealthy competition and social services . competition out of the blue. It is a great pity for the leaders who encourage such competition and expect high performance from it - this will soon end, and the whole race will be reduced to conflict.
  
• High achievers tend to theorize (and this was in the original article). Often they tend to first understand the question to the last comma, and then proceed to perform the work. It is clear that this is an irrational waste of time.
  

The story of life. In the software company was the head of advanced development. He was asked to beginner, who was a walking Wikipedia and Stackoverflow immediately. How not to take such a thing when he brilliantly answered all the questions, had two red diplomas and 6 years of experience, however, some very fragmented one. But it soon became clear that he didn’t understand at all how the project functions, how corporate software is created, how to work with bugtracker, etc. That opened the secret of his frequent job changes. He was eventually sent to the accounting department by the june to the developers. Now, after 4 years, he has become a good and competent team leader.

• Alas, almost all excellent students are extremely sensitive to failures and are subject to burnout . Even a petty remark by a manager or a colleague can permanently knock them out of the rut, cause stress and even depression. This happens because of a strong dependence on the opinions of others and a heightened sense of guilt. They may not show what happened to them, but inside they will experience it terribly and these experiences will certainly affect both the mood and the quality of work. Such people constantly, continuously assess themselves and correlate their behavior with the outside world - from such “analytics” sometimes it is bad for everyone.
  
• It is very bad when an excellent student begins to consider himself the smartest and stops learning and striving for the new. Work - not study, in practice, some new items and secrets of activity are updated almost daily. If you stop developing, you can quickly lose all your skills and fall out of the clip.
  
• The worst thing in honors for themselves, relatives, others and employers is psychological extremes . It happens that a person “raped” by years of intense study, internships, postgraduate studies and work, having received a good place and a good position, having got into a good team, relaxes and rolls back, which is sometimes revealed in the most bizarre and difficult way.
  
  • They are completely covered up, vulnerable and cannot reveal neither their knowledge, nor their skills, nor their mind, because they are afraid to make even a tiny, insignificant mistake. From each blot they shrivel, as under execution.
    
  • At the other extreme, everyone owes them. The directors are required to post a portrait and diplomas in the reception room, colleagues are obliged not to distract and consult on each issue, department heads - endlessly select from the rest, in public.
    
  • They can ignore teamwork and collective tasks, because the team and the distribution of responsibility within it frightens them, although they will show that the team simply does not deserve to work with such clever people like them.
    
  • They can ignore the rules and regulations: KPI is not for them, the plan is not for them, meetings take up too much time, etc. Although, we must pay tribute, they rarely call for the disobedience of others.
    
  • They have big health problems: many excellent students from the institute are used to nootropics, antidepressants drink anxiety, often suffer from constant stress, etc.
    

But this, of course, is already more extreme than the rule. Nevertheless, they can be encountered both at work and in ordinary informal life. Unfortunately, almost all of our problems come from childhood - and these guys hardly wanted to become neurotic, just the environment, family, school led them to this state. And yes, it is overcome and “cured” with the right approach from others and, if desired, the person himself.

So what to do?

You will be surprised, but the employer pushes himself, prescribing in the vacancies not upcoming tasks, but skills ( For example, not “bring a new product to regional markets”, but “have the skills to work with branches” or not “develop a mobile application”, but “ knowledge of development for Android, Swift ownership. ”Here you have a network for theorists. ) The reason is simple: different companies have different tasks and different tools for their implementation. So it turns out that formally the person of the vacancy meets the requirements, he repulsed himself at the interview, and then it is not clear. Speaking of interviews. Ask the applicant about the achievements. If this is a person with work experience, but lists to you diplomas, trainings and other testimonies, before you is a "cram" and "eternal student". The specialist should be able to allocate results in their activities. You can also ask to talk about the interaction with the leadership in the previous place: a good candidate will focus on solving / not solving work tasks, and not on how he was awarded a diploma and a gold badge on the 20th anniversary of the company.

But, of course, you need to take the honors pupils - as we already wrote above, they are excellent performers, speakers, helpful colleagues, reliable and smart guys. And if negative symptoms appear, of course, you should be helped. After all, we repeat, personnel management is not only in the organization of food and entertainment.

In response, we will write a checklist for excellent students and employers - how to work on yourself, to become a truly invaluable, indispensable and involved employee.

• If you are a racer, then you need to rejoice at the race, and not just win it. You get experience on your life tracks: you are mistaken, you see unexpected turns, you meet talented rivals. Therefore, do not go from victory to victory - work productively and with pleasure, work for the goals of the company and the goals of your development. With this approach, the victory will not keep you waiting.
  
• Do not forget that the theory is over - practice has begun. It is mega cool that you are deeply versed in everything new and complex. Just do it in parallel with the execution of the work - the more so that the material is much easier and better absorbed.
  
• Do not overload yourself with work, picking it up on all fronts. It is important for the employer that you perform your duties well. If you want to bring more benefits to the company and show your abilities, talk to your supervisor and ask what other work you can do.
  
• There are strategists who see ahead of themselves and move toward set and independently adjusted goals, but there is a work force that pulls the 8-hour strap. Your mind and your abilities allow you to be strategists and innovators - try it!
  
• Do not be afraid of mistakes, but learn from them. The one who does nothing is not mistaken. Know how to recognize your mistakes and work on them.
  
• Do not compare yourself with others - each person is gifted in something of his own and has his own set of abilities. If you are a good salesman and you understand commerce three heads and shoulders above the rest, do not waste your time studying programming just because this job seems more intelligent to you. There is no such separation; there is a division into productive and mediocre employees.
  
• Learn to work in a team. So you can broadcast your knowledge and skills, and in return to get new ones. Be open to the lessons and information you receive from your colleagues.
  

What a specialist within the company will become depends largely on the environment and position of the employer. Nobody calls to mess with each colleague, as with a child. But employers are required to have systems of adaptation and practice of dealing with different employees. And this should not be a flattering and thoroughly deceitful HR-person with a psychology diploma - this should be a principled position and leadership policy. An excellent employee or not an excellent employee - it is the tenth. The main thing is that he strives to be a good employee, possess the necessary skills and knowledge, and preferably was a good person. Although the theme of the ratio of "badness", conflict and professionalism is already outside our theme.

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By the way, we are looking for partners in the regions of the Russian Federation and the CIS - write, call, especially if you are able and willing to work and earn. Companies and entrepreneurs are welcome to write reports, scripts, train users and take all the income from this for themselves, and only share the cost of licenses with us.