Subject: Draft version of the IAD job announcement from the IASA TT

From: Kurt Erik Lindqvist <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 16 Dec 2004 10:18:36 +0100

All,

please find below the draft call for applications for the IAD position.
The current timeline for moving forward is as follows

DEC 18 	Send out call for applications to
	o IETF-Announce list
	o ISOC announcement lists
	o NANOG, SANOG, NORDNOG, AFNOG, etc
	o Ask RIRs to forward to their respective announcement lists
JAN 15 evaluation of applicants start

We would appreciate any feedback as soon as possible, either on the 
[email-masked] list OR directly to the IASA team at 
[email-masked].

On behalf of the IASA-TT

- - kurtis -

  The IETF Administrative Entity is seeking a highly capable individual
  to serve as Administrative Director. You will report to the
  Internet Administrative Oversight Committee (IAOC) be accountable
  to the IETF community. This is a highly visible and very demanding
  job. You will be expected to:

  o Working with the IAOC to document and cater for the administrative
    requirements of the IETF, IESG, IAB and IRTF.

  o Establish the IASA/IETF annual budgets, and the financial
    administration and reporting of IASA/IETF.

   o Work with ISOC and various service providers to establish 
appropriate
     agreed budgets and related financial and performance reporting.

  o Contract negotiations with service providers, and establish
    procedures for meassuring the performance of these providers.

  o Eventual mangagement of support staff and contractors.

  o Serve as the day-to-day chief operating officer of the IETF,
    managing a number of contractors and working with a number of
    volunteers.

  o Work with our liaison organizations, such as the RFC Editor and
    the IANA.

  o Serve as the primary staff resource for the governing body of the
    administrative entity for the IETF.

  o Work with your contractors and members of the IETF community to
    provide adequate support and planning for 3 IETF meetings
    annually, and for frequent meetings and teleconferences of the
    IAB, IESG, and other bodies that support the IETF.

  The following characteristics are necessary for this job:

  o This job is public service. You should be able to work
    successfully with large numbers of people. This requires a high
    clock rate, a large stack, and the ability to listen carefully.

  o This is an operations job. IETF meetings are large and complex,
    and the day-to-day activities of the standards-making process is
    demanding. You should be adept at getting real results and
    helping large groups work together towards common goals and
    deadlines.

  o This is a public job. You will be required to present the
    results and achievements of the IASA in front of the community
    as well as dealing with questions from individual members of the
    community. The goal of IASA is to achieve as much transparency
    as possible so good communication skills, and previous similar
    experiences are valued.

  o This job requires a financially astute individual. The IETF is a
    $2-$3 million/year operation. IETF funds are tight and we expect
    you to take leadership in establishing our budgetary procedures,
    our procurement standards, and understanding our revenue sources.

  In-depth familiarity with the IETF prior to assuming this position is
  not required, but you must be able to quickly get up to speed and
  learn the unique culture and requirements of the organization.
  Likewise, long-term technical experience is not required, but you
  must be a quick learner and adept at using the Internet effectively.

  The Internet Society is based in Reston, Virginia and the job will
  require a high level of travel for IETF meetings and preparation and
  related meetings.

  You may work out of a home office as a telecommuter, or use the
  Internet Society facilities in Virginia. In either case, you should
  be prepared to travel to Virginia, IETF meetings, and the locations
  where the IETF has contractors.

  Salary levels commensurate with experience and qualifications.

  You must be fluent in spoken and written english.

  Applicants should forward a resume, references, and any other
  relevant materials, with a cover letter explaining why they feel they
  are the right person for this position written in text or PDF, in an
  email sent to [email-masked]

  Applications will be evaluated starting January 15th. The evaluation
  of applications, selection and appointment of the IAD will be made
  by the IASA transition team.

  The list of applicants will not be posted publicly, but will be
  reviewed in confidence by members of the evaluation committee, the
  IAB, and the IESG.

_______________________________________________
Ietf mailing list
[email-masked]
https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf

---

From: "Adrian Farrel" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 16 Dec 2004 12:06:02 -0000

Typos etc. are easily fixed (in-line).

Isn't it normal to give a closing date for applications rather than to
say when evaluation of applications will start? It might also be usual
to indicate from when we are hoping to fill the post.

Is "Salary levels commensurate with experience and qualifications" a
cop-out? You might say "expected to be in the range..."

Adrian
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Kurt Erik Lindqvist" <[email-masked]>
To: <[email-masked]>
Cc: <[email-masked]>
Sent: Thursday, December 16, 2004 9:18 AM
Subject: Draft version of the IAD job announcement from the IASA TT

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>
>
> All,
>

s/(IAOC) be/(IAOC) and be/

>   o Working with the IAOC to document and cater for the administrative

s/Working/Work/

>     administration and reporting of IASA/IETF.

If you mean that there are two separate operations here:
1. establish budgets
2. establish financial admin and reporting
I suggest you split this into two bullets

> appropriate agreed budgets and related financial and performance
> reporting.
>

s/Contract negotiations/Negotiate contracts/

>   o Eventual mangagement of support staff and contractors.

s/Eventual mangagement/Assume eventual mangagement/

>   You must be fluent in spoken and written english.

s/english/English/   :-)

>   relevant materials, with a cover letter explaining why they feel
they

s/cover/covering/

>   Applications will be evaluated starting January 15th. The evaluation

s/15th/15th 2005/

>   by the IASA transition team.

This is the first mention of "IAD".

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---

From: "Spencer Dawkins" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 16 Dec 2004 06:39:56 -0600

> cop-out? You might say "expected to be in the range..."

Agree with Adrian here - "commensurate" makes sense when you hire 
several people with a range of experience, or when you are waiting to 
see who actually applies before approving budget for a position.

The first condition does not apply here, and I'm having a hard time 
imagining someone being selected for the position with a LOT less 
experience than we expected the selected candidate to have.

No, don't name a number, but naming a range is likely to help people 
decide whether you're actually looking for THEM!

Spencer

---

From: Harald Tveit Alvestrand <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 16 Dec 2004 13:46:26 +0100

Thanks for the comments, Adrian!

> to indicate from when we are hoping to fill the post.

The date for filling the post is "ASAP" - but this is an important 
position. If we have to wait 6 months before the best available person can 
disentangle from other arrangements, so be it - but if the obviously 
qualified person is able to drop whatever he/she's doing and start on Jan 
15, I'm sure we'll figure out some way to make that happen too.

> cop-out? You might say "expected to be in the range..."

It's a cop-out - we don't know what we need to pay to get the people we 
want.

---

From: Brian E Carpenter <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 16 Dec 2004 14:15:27 +0100

> 	o Ask RIRs to forward to their respective announcement lists

That's pretty tight... 24 hours for IETF comments?

> JAN 15 evaluation of applicants start

Even if you get it out this week, that is also tight due to the
various holidays. I think you will have to accept applications at
least until end January.

Comments and suggested changes below.

>   The IETF Administrative Entity 

 >>>>There is no such thing defined - we have only defined the
 >>>>IETF Administrative Support Activity.

>   ....is seeking a highly capable individual

 >>>>Flame-bait! It's the IETF Administrative Oversight Committee. Also
 >>>>there is a missing "and" after "(IAOC)".

>     requirements of the IETF, IESG, IAB and IRTF.

   o Work with the IAOC to document the administrative
     requirements of the IETF, IESG, IAB and IRTF, and manage
     their implementation.
>     administration and reporting of IASA/IETF.

   o Establish the IASA/IETF annual budgets and the financial
     administration of IASA, and be responsible for their reporting
     to the IETF.

>     procedures for meassuring the performance of these providers.

   o Negotiate contracts with service providers, and establish
     procedures for measuring and reporting the performance of these
     providers.
>   o Eventual mangagement of support staff and contractors.

   o If applicable, mangage support staff and contractors.

 >>>>These are not liaisons. The RFC Editor is under contract and the IANA
 >>>>operates under an MOU. They are service providers and should not be
 >>>>mentioned at all in this document as special cases.

 >>>>What on earth does that mean? I think it just means "you report to the
 >>>>IAOC" which is stated above. I recommend deleting it.

 >>>>Add:
   o Work with contractors and members of the IETF community
     to ensure support for the IETF's various on line systems
     and tools, used to support IETF activities and to make IETF
     drafts and specifications generally available to the public.

 >>>>mention international nature of the community

>     our procurement standards, and understanding our revenue sources.

   o This job requires a good understanding of modern information
     technology including networks, but does not necessarily require
     the individual appointed to be an IT or networking specialist.

 >>>>What about the ISOC facilities in Geneva? Is there any reason the IAD
 >>>>needs to be US-based? If yes, you'd better say so explicitly.
> 

   You must be fluent in spoken and written English.

 >>>>Need to say we're equal opportunity and applicants will be considered
 >>>>regardless of nationality, age, gender, etc.

     Brian

---

From: [email-masked]
Date: Thu, 16 Dec 2004 10:27:37 -0500

>   The IETF Administrative Entity

Isn't it the transition team that is seeking the IAD at this point?

> is seeking a highly capable individual
>   job.

Shouldn't we state explicitly that the IAD will be an employee of ISOC?

> You will be expected to:

cater is a difficult word that ussually refers to food.  I would 
recommend 'provide for'

>     administration and reporting of IASA/IETF.

These should be established in cooperation with ISOC and IASA.  This 
will not be done in isolation.

>     managing a number of contractors and working with a number of

Have we gone so far as to call this job the COO of the IETF?
Not only is the IETF not an organization that is structured to have a 
COO, but i think giving this position the COO designation may be 
misleading.

>   o Work with our liaison organizations, such as the RFC Editor and

liaison?

>     administrative entity for the IETF.

What does this mean?

>     clock rate, a large stack,
>

Well, i understand how you would measure these thing in a robot, but I 
am not sure how to determine these capabilities in a human.  I think, 
it might be better to refer to  these attributes in human terms; 
something like the ability to handle a multitude of simultaneous tasks.

> and the ability to listen carefully.

>     helping large groups work together towards common goals and

should we mention that the nature of working together is consensus 
based?

>     community. The goal of IASA is to achieve as much transparency

and accountability?

>   learn the unique culture and requirements of the organization.

Should we require experience in running a similar type of operation?

>   Salary levels commensurate with experience and qualifications.

you might want to ask applicants to state salary requirements

>   Applicants should forward a resume, references,

should ask for a certain number of references

> and any other

Is this a rolling process, where the evaluation will begin on Jan 15 
and continue until the 'right' person is found?  Should say so, if it 
is.

---

From: Harald Tveit Alvestrand <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 19 Dec 2004 11:18:26 +0100

Brian, Avri, Allison, Spencer and Adrian: Thank you for your feedback!

Kurtis is off on holidays now, so I'll be taking on the job of integrating 
your comments with the text of the announcement.

We're aiming to get it out on Monday (Friday proved over-ambitious).

Thanks again!

                       Harald

---

From: John C Klensin <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 19 Dec 2004 15:53:00 -0500

Harald,

Perhaps I'm the only one for whom the schedule on this has 
prevented comments: the IETF is not my full-time job and other 
priorities took over the last week or two.  But I have finally 
had the opportunity to browse through the comments today.   I 
find most of them interesting and helpful, but they are also not 
completely consistent.  For example, at least one set of 
comments pointed out the "COO of the IETF" is a statement not 
justified by the draft BCP test and that it has significant 
implications.  Another set indicated approval of that 
terminology, the others did not comment on it.   I think there 
are other, similar, cases.  Still other comments point, I think, 
to a fairly significant change in tone and, in particular, the 
need to better establish the level of this position and its 
relationship to other bodies.   In my personal experience, and 
that of many of the HR and recruiting professionals with whom 
I've had discussions over the years, job descriptions that leave 
too much open encourage applications from inappropriate people 
and, especially for relatively senior positions, actually 
discourage appropriate people from applying.

This is, as some of the commenters pointed out, important.  It 
is important enough, IMO, that it really should represent 
community consensus, especially if the job description cannot be 
checked against a BCP that is still under discussion and 
development.

Given that, and given also that, at least in this case, 
contradictory comments should not, IMO, be taken as "do whatever 
you like", I want to make two very strong suggestions to you and 
the transition team:

(1) Don't just take the comments, figure out what you think they 
mean and how they should be reconciled, rewrite the description 
and send it out.   Instead, post it back to the IETF list for a 
quick review by the community before declaring it as the final 
job description.   My experience is that nothing happens in the 
week before the Xmas holiday anyway: whether you get the job 
description posted on Monday or Thursday is unlikely to make any 
practical difference.  For that reason, I share the skepticism 
of some of the comments about trying to start evaluations, and 
perhaps fill the position, on January 15, but that is another 
issue.

(2) Please review, within the Transition Team and in conjunction 
with whatever budget you are working from, whether the nature of 
this position is such that it would be appropriate to engage 
professional executive search/ recruiting talent to review and 
edit the job description for us even if not to conduct the 
search itself.  Personally, I think I'd be happier with a 
professionally-conducted search, but YMMD (and probably does). 
As others have commented in other ways, we are not looking for 
an administrative assistant here, but someone on whose skills, 
experience, talent, and effectiveness the future and functioning 
of the IETF may critically depend.  To me, at least, several 
aspects of the way in which the description is written scream 
out "amateur job".  That isn't a comment about content, but 
about style of presentation.  But it isn't clear to me that we 
can afford the appearance of amateur jobs: just as an amateurish 
resume can sometimes prevent an otherwise-qualified candidate 
from getting the attention and interviews needed to get a job, 
an amateurish job description may convince people we would like 
to have apply that we don't have our acts together sufficiently 
to be an organization he or she wants to work for or with.

regards,
   john

--On Sunday, December 19, 2004 11:18 AM +0100 Harald Tveit 
Alvestrand <[email-masked]> wrote:

> Kurtis is off on holidays now, so I'll be taking on the job of
> integrating your comments with the text of the announcement.
>