How I found my latest hire on Twitter.

I joined Twitter in April 2008 after hearing a speech by Brian Wallace  (@nowsourcing). I joined primarily for small business networking. One of my earliest follows was Holly Kolman (@mobienthusiast). One weekend this year, she recommended in a tweet to follow Sarah Stanley (@sarahstanley) because Sarah was tweeting while running a 50-mile ultra.

Being a runner and twitterer, I started following Sarah. A couple weeks later Louisville hosted it's annual marathon and half marathon that precedes the Kentucky Derby. I woke up the Saturday of the race and turned on the TV to watch race coverage and opened Twitter. I was curious if anyone in Louisville was tweeting during the race like Sarah. I found only two, one of which was Clay Noe (@noefool) and I started following him.

Soon after that, we decided to advertise for a new position at work. We posted it on Career Builder and I posted the link in a tweet. Clay  suggested to his sister Carrie (@carrienoedavis) that she follow me.  She sent me a DM, we exchanged emails, and she sent me her resume.

We received over 400 resumes for the job. We narrowed them down to a half-dozen to interview based on qualifications. I ended up interviewing two candidates from Career Builder, two from traditional netwoking, and two from social networking. I did not intend to separate interviewees equally among the there networking means, it just happened that way.

Again, based on qualifications and the interviews, we made an offer to Carrie and she accepted. She was (and is) a combination of the best qualified and the best fit for our firm.

It's amazing how a few seemingly insigificant tweets could result in a job offer.

Posted via email from Mike Campbell's posterous

Is it enough to learn SQL or should I get certified?

This question was posed to me by a college student. I was first impressed by the question. Most college graduates that I have worked have had no SQL skills and oftentimes minimal Excel skills. This was quite disappointing as a CFO. I was hoping that they would be able to show me new technologies and new ways of doing things. If I saw SQL skills on a resume, I would be most likely to move it to the 'A' pile.

Now to the question at, is it enough to learn SQL out of a book or should one get certified. Let me address this from a hiring standpoint. I look to see if candidates lists Excel, Word, and at least one accounting package. I would be impressed if I saw SQL also listed. And I would certainly expand on it in an interview. So, no, the certification is not necessary for me.

Next let me address it from a necessary skill standpoint. Is SQL a necessary skill in accounting? From my experience in small business, absolutely. A SQL script is very basic: SELECT fields FROM tables WHERE criteria. Reporting, data extraction, and financial analysis are critical skills for auditors and accountants. The SQL script enables one to extract data quickly and efficiently. It also enables one to extract any info in the database. Many reporting packages limit the info that can be pulled for a variety of reasons.

With that being said, I do not think that one needs certification to effectively use SQL in practice. Excel, Access, and SQL Management Studio have tools that assist one in creating SQL scripts. This is especially useful when create complex WHERE clauses with INNER JOINS to combine multiple tables. Once the script is created, it can be used in pivot table tools such as Excel or Tableau.

Once one has a basic knowledge of SQL and can create scripts for extracting data, one can gain further knowledge from search engines and discussion boards. I have created triggers, stored procedures, parametrized queries, and pivot reports using SQL. The skills to learn is creating web reports and SQL Server Reporting Services. These skills have enabled me to mine and report data without hiring additional staff or outsourcing. The biggest benefit is that once these reports are created, they are dynamically linked to live data and eliminates manual report creation.

Finally, if you have SQL scripting skills, you need to display it prominently on your resume in both the skills section and experience sections. Explain how you used it in practice to solve a problem or create efficiency. Another reason certification may not add value is because many small business owners and even financial executives of small businesses do not see the value of it. Many do not even know what type of database their data resides in. And this gives you the opportunity to set yourself apart from the competition.

Posted via email from Mike Campbell's posterous

I just set up Google analytics on posterous.

As I mentioned a few days ago, I have been seeing more and more people using Posterous. I thought, wouldn't it be nice if I could post to my blogger account from Posterous. So I logged on, clicked autopost from anywhere and, voilà, blogger was a choice. Within two minutes I had my blogger account setup to post from Posterous. I am curious to see if the formatting comes across well. Blogger has a post from email feature, but the line breaks are always messed.
 
One thing was holding me back from fully embracing Posterous -- Google analytics. As a numbers guy, I really enjoy analyzing my blog stats. However, when I was setting up my blogger account, I saw the option to add Google analytics. Again, within a couple minutes I had it set up.
 
I think I will continue to maintain my blog separate from posterous, but I may post everything to blogger from posterous. My posterous account will, therefore, contain all my blogger posts, but not vice versa.

Posted via email from Mike Campbell's posterous