Bad IT Managers
I have worked several IT jobs where the Managers have been less than stellar. Who ever hired them never took the time to see the signs that made them bad managers. So here are a few sign that I have seen, maybe it will help identify the good and the bad.
You look at their resume and find they jump from position to position every 18 to 24 months. I don’t mean a promotion within a company; I mean a true jump from company to company. I have seen IT projects can take up to 4 years to complete, and someone jumping from job to job just doesn’t have the ability to see projects through.
During an interview the candidate starts to drop names. One of my former managers would always drop names or say “Well, we could always contact ..” He would never follow through and the manager had no proof that he actually knew any of the people he would mention.
The candidate is only interested in the breathand depth of their power. It is normal for someone to ask about the size of the IT department, or even the budget. But when the candidate brags about the budgets of former employers, while not discussingany results of his work, there is a good chance that that manager did very little. Find out how much the manager was directly responsible for and if there was contract work that the manager supervised.
Good managers can prove evolution. As with most good workers, the candidate should be able to share experiences that have helped their career. Asking to share details of difficult projects they completed, or even lessons learned from failures will not be a problemfor a good manager. Bad managers can’t share any details, because they never did the work or they never really had a large part in the accomplishments they are telling you.