IBM experience a plus?

[ramseyhere]

We have a position to fill for an MCP support person, dedicated to a single account. As one might expect, there aren't a plethora of MCP-experienced folks banging down our door for the job. We are getting folks with deep IBM backgrounds (Z/OS, CICS, etc.)

Here's my question - would those of you who have worked in both camps (MCP and Z/OS) consider such a person a good candidate? I"ve worked in MCP systems for 45 years and have never touched an IBM environment.

Any insight would be appreciated. Thanks.
ler

[Stephen Fuld]

Since no one else has responded, I thought I would throw in my 2 cents.

While both Z/OS and MCP systems are mainframes, and so such a candidate
would benefit from the "mainframe mindset", i.e. the importance of up
time, the discipline in making changes, multi-user environment, etc.
there are profound differences between the two systems, so any specific
knowledge is simply not applicable.

Hope this helps.

--
- Stephen Fuld
(e-mail address disguised to prevent spam)

[Paul Kimpel]

-------- Original Message --------

Subject: Re: IBM experience a plus?
Date: Thursday, October 26, 2023 at 10:03 AM
From: Stephen Fuld <sf...@alumni.cmu.edu.invalid>

I'll echo Stephen's comments. I have some IBM mainframe experience from
the 370 era, and most of that with DOS/VS. COBOL skills are fairly
transferable, once a person masters the differences in data
representations, file systems, and software development practices, but
beyond that there's no significant transferability. Data bases, OLTP,
communications, batch control, source maintenance tools, debugging
techniques, etc., are all so different that an IBM-experienced person
coming to the MCP would be a stranger in a strange land, and not only
inept, but likely dangerous.

You could consider doing this for an application developer, if you had
the time tutor them on MCP differences and supervise their initial work,
but for an MCP support position, I think it would take one to two years,
minimum, of study and mentoring before you could risk even introducing
them to a client.

Paul