I've been thinking lately about a career switch. This brings me into contact with
all sorts of pages on the subject of different types of work, what the requirements
are in order to be a this or a that, and so on.
Today, as I was browsing the NASA
job board, I thought I'd go ahead and check to see if there were any astronaut
positions available. Times being what they are, I didn't see anything. However,
visiting the site gave me an idea...
People who are in the position of hiring other people often wonder about what the
best way to interview someone might be. Interviewing is a tricky process, and a poor
interview allows all sorts of totally
unqualified people to get hired on for various positions.
So, I thought to myself, what can the employers of this world do in order
to ensure a better interview process which keeps out the riff-raff?
The answer is simple: Adopt the astronaut selection and training process to your own
hiring needs. You'll only get the best of the best.
First of all, the educational requirements are pretty solid:
For mission specialists and pilot astronaut candidates, the education and experience
requirements are at least a bachelor's degree from an accredited institution in engineering,
biological science, physical science, or mathematics.
Not bad, not bad. You won't get any liberal arts pansies, nor will you get people
like me who don't even have a degree from an unaccredited institution.
But, education isn't everything. You need to know how people are going to perform
under stress, and although there are currently many different ways of testing your
candidate, let's just cut to the chase and admit that the superior method is to stuff
your prospective employee into a centrifuge and scare the piss out of him/her for
a day.
Along these lines, we could take a cue from the Canadians:
During liftoff and climb to space, and reentry the astronauts will experience up to
5g of acceleration. With the care and attention of our expert staff you will be trained
up to 6g. The Centrifuge Trainer is computer controlled and will safely take astronaut
trainees through a complete flight acceleration profile.
How do you like that? The Canadians go the extra mile and tack an extra, entirely
unnecessary g on there.
If an afternoon of being strapped into a weird little pod and spun around a room at
high rates of speed doesn't show you what your candidate is really made of, then it
will at least show you what he/she had for lunch, which can be just as revealing.
If you need to judge problem-solving abilities in a group setting, then the "Water
Recovery Trainer" is your friend:
The Canadian Arrow is recovered in water and each astronaut trainee is required to
complete the water recovery and emergency escape training. With the attention of three
expert divers you will be taught how to escape from the crew cabin while on the surface
and just under the water.
Nothing like survival of the fittest as a metric of competency.
Finally, we have training for unexpected decompression:
Canadian Arrow will provide space suit and decompression training for each astronaut
trainee. DRDC has expert staff that can safely and efficiently simulate high altitude
and emergency decompression situations.
This is perfect for people who work in tall buildings that are at risk of HVAC failures.
You'd be surprised, but a lot of the people who you thought were qualified
for a given position probably didn't know anything about how to handle an
emergency decompression situation. Oh, sure, your candidate did really well in the
earthquake drill, but let me tell you something: You could teach a dog to
react properly to an earthquake drill. There are legions of three year olds who can
do it. You just get under the desk and try not to laugh about how seriously everybody
is taking themselves, and wait for someone to blow the "it's OK to come out now" whistle.
Let's see your candidate manipulate his/her space suit in a race against time for
which there is no second place. Only those with an especially high ability to work
under pressure (ha ha!) will be able to make the quick adjustments that make it possible
to avoid the peculiar sensation of one's blood boiling and then freezing.
Yup. I think I'm on to something here. It's been another million-dollar idea day.