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Christmas is over, 2010 is here, and it's time to move my jobsearch forward.
As I've written previously a few times, I'm giving up on trying to get
hired as a programmer. (It's not like I can go work for Google writing
in Haskell...) Instead, I'm going to try to get hired as a system
administrator. At least that way I can say "hey, I've been doing this
exact job for the last 7 years continuously" rather than "well, I could
_probably_ learn this..."
The first task, then, is to adjust my CV. I wrote it to try to
demonstrate what an awesome programmer I am; most of it is completely
irrelevant if I'm not trying to be a programmer any more. So in summary,
I've just spent an hour working on my CV, and it's now about half the
length it was before. o_O
The trouble is, when I'm trying to be a programmer, I can say "hey,
dude! I know Pascal, Prolog, Java, JavaScript, Smalltalk, Tcl, Haskell,
Eiffel, pick me! Pick me! I've learned all about data compression,
cryptography and cryptanalysis, digital signal processing, database
theory, logic design, error-correcting codes, binary data
representation, I know stuff about stuff! Pick me!!"
...all of which has absolutely nothing to do with just keeping a few
servers running. So having just deleted all that stuff off my CV, it
looks a tad bare now. :-/
I suppose now I need to come up with a bunch of keywords to fill my CV
with. Stuff like "Active Directory" and "BackupExec" and "Oracle" and
"Ethernet". But then my CV ends up just being a soup of keywords.
Besides, if I just sit there and spew fourth a long list of technical
terms, that just proves that I'm good at looking up technobabble. The
most likely response is going to be "yeah? prove it."
Of course, assuming I ever get my CV sorted out, the next task is to
find somewhere to stick it... but I'll worry about that when I get to
it. I have at least got one reference to offer people now...
--
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*
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Good luck. I'm fed up with TI's bureaucratic face of the last few years
(or decades) and am willing to drop off programming altogether too. I'm
moving on to testing, as creepy as that sounds. it's a nice change of
pace anyway...
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"Orchid XP v8" <voi### [at] dev null> wrote in message
news:4b4b435c@news.povray.org...
> Christmas is over, 2010 is here, and it's time to move my jobsearch
> forward.
>
> As I've written previously a few times, I'm giving up on trying to get
> hired as a programmer. (It's not like I can go work for Google writing in
> Haskell...) Instead, I'm going to try to get hired as a system
> administrator. At least that way I can say "hey, I've been doing this
> exact job for the last 7 years continuously" rather than "well, I could
> _probably_ learn this..."
>
> The first task, then, is to adjust my CV. I wrote it to try to demonstrate
> what an awesome programmer I am; most of it is completely irrelevant if
> I'm not trying to be a programmer any more. So in summary, I've just spent
> an hour working on my CV, and it's now about half the length it was
> before. o_O
interviews for a DBA with some programming exposure (In my case, I'm looking
for someone who can at least read a stored procedure and have some idea of
what it does).
When I'm going through these mounds of paperwork, there are certain problems
one is plenty, and two is almost too much. I want to grab some of these
people and shake them and say, "Look at the job description we posted, the
one you're applying for... let me know if you can do THOSE things. While
it's lovely that you can program in x86 assembler left handed while grooming
monkeys, we don't use that skill here." It doesn't take a whole lot of work
that a candidate read the job description and isn't just shooting out
applications like water from a fire hose.
I really just want to know what you've been doing for the last four or five
years. If you've been in the industry for 20 years, that's great, but the
stuff you were doing then isn't likely to be relevant, and that company is
probably out of business anyway. I *absolutely* don't care what you did or
learned in school; I have never seen anything picked up by a student (myself
included) that is useful for the real world. I am less interested in a
candidate's GPA than the number of warts on his or her nose.
to HR and say yay or nay on calling the person up for an interview. If you
have someone you trust who has some experience or knowledge about what you
attention. Time them with a watch, and stop them after 20 seconds or so.
Then ask them what they remember about the document. That'll be about what
sticks out to somebody looking at a couple of hundred of the things, trying
to pick someone to interview.
On a related note, I don't know what things are like in your neck of the
woods, but over here in the middle of the U.S. the big needs seem to be .NET
developers (about 30/70 VB to C#), and either MS-SQL or Oracle. If you don't
have any experience with the MS tools but you do have a Windows OS, you
might try getting the (free) Express editions of those programs and hanging
out in some of the VB or C# newsgroups. Those tools aren't awfully hard to
pick up, and it may get you in the door, anyway, where you can wow them with
your boyish charm and eagerness. :-)
--
Jack
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Captain Jack wrote:
> interviews for a DBA with some programming exposure (In my case, I'm looking
> for someone who can at least read a stored procedure and have some idea of
> what it does).
>
> When I'm going through these mounds of paperwork, there are certain problems
OK, well that sounds way, way too long. Currently there's little or no
danger of my CV being anywhere near that long. It *was* just under 2
pages before I started, and now I've taken out all the stuff that's no
longer relevant given my new target area, it's only just more than a
single page. Looks quite bare, actually...
> I really just want to know what you've been doing for the last four or five
> years. If you've been in the industry for 20 years, that's great, but the
> stuff you were doing then isn't likely to be relevant, and that company is
> probably out of business anyway. I *absolutely* don't care what you did or
> learned in school.
Fair enough.
On the other hand, what *have* I done in the list four or five years?
Sat at my desk surfing the Internet. Well, obviously I don't mention
that part. ;-)
> On a related note, I don't know what things are like in your neck of the
> woods, but over here in the middle of the U.S. the big needs seem to be .NET
> developers (about 30/70 VB to C#), and either MS-SQL or Oracle. If you don't
> have any experience with the MS tools but you do have a Windows OS, you
> might try getting the (free) Express editions of those programs and hanging
> out in some of the VB or C# newsgroups. Those tools aren't awfully hard to
> pick up, and it may get you in the door, anyway, where you can wow them with
> your boyish charm and eagerness. :-)
Seems like around here, if you want to do any serious kind of computing,
you must be in London, end of story. Hence my slight shift in focus...
--
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*
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On 11-1-2010 16:27, Orchid XP v8 wrote:
> Christmas is over, 2010 is here, and it's time to move my jobsearch
> forward.
>
> As I've written previously a few times, I'm giving up on trying to get
> hired as a programmer. (It's not like I can go work for Google writing
> in Haskell...) Instead, I'm going to try to get hired as a system
> administrator. At least that way I can say "hey, I've been doing this
> exact job for the last 7 years continuously" rather than "well, I could
> _probably_ learn this..."
>
> The first task, then, is to adjust my CV. I wrote it to try to
> demonstrate what an awesome programmer I am; most of it is completely
> irrelevant if I'm not trying to be a programmer any more. So in summary,
> I've just spent an hour working on my CV, and it's now about half the
> length it was before. o_O
>
> The trouble is, when I'm trying to be a programmer, I can say "hey,
> dude! I know Pascal, Prolog, Java, JavaScript, Smalltalk, Tcl, Haskell,
> Eiffel, pick me! Pick me! I've learned all about data compression,
> cryptography and cryptanalysis, digital signal processing, database
> theory, logic design, error-correcting codes, binary data
> representation, I know stuff about stuff! Pick me!!"
>
> ...all of which has absolutely nothing to do with just keeping a few
> servers running. So having just deleted all that stuff off my CV, it
> looks a tad bare now. :-/
>
> I suppose now I need to come up with a bunch of keywords to fill my CV
> with. Stuff like "Active Directory" and "BackupExec" and "Oracle" and
> "Ethernet". But then my CV ends up just being a soup of keywords.
> Besides, if I just sit there and spew fourth a long list of technical
> terms, that just proves that I'm good at looking up technobabble. The
> most likely response is going to be "yeah? prove it."
>
> Of course, assuming I ever get my CV sorted out, the next task is to
> find somewhere to stick it... but I'll worry about that when I get to
> it. I have at least got one reference to offer people now...
As many people have said: adjust your CV to the situation.
If you would want to apply with us, programming skills would be
essential. Anyway something went wrong with the submission of the grant
proposal so you have at least a few more months to definitively decide
not to leave MK
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Captain Jack wrote:
> I really just want to know what you've been doing for the last four or five
> years. If you've been in the industry for 20 years, that's great, but the
> stuff you were doing then isn't likely to be relevant, and that company is
> probably out of business anyway.
I think it depends on what kind of job you're advertising. I wouldn't want
to work at a job where my experience of 10 years ago isn't relevant. Indeed,
I've made quite a lot of money in the last 4 years based on what I was doing
in 1994.
If you say "We have a start-up company building a new and innovative X, but
don't bother to apply unless you understand Visual Basic and ASP.NET 3.5",
you're going to fail right there.
If you say "We have a McDonalds, and don't bother to apply unless you've run
a cash register in a fast-food restaurant before", I'm not going to apply.
--
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
Forget "focus follows mouse." When do
I get "focus follows gaze"?
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On 11-1-2010 22:47, Darren New wrote:
> --
> Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
> Forget "focus follows mouse." When do
> I get "focus follows gaze"?
You had it when you were younger
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Orchid XP v8 wrote:
> The trouble is, when I'm trying to be a programmer, I can say "hey,
> dude! I know Pascal, Prolog, Java, JavaScript, Smalltalk, Tcl, Haskell,
> Eiffel, pick me! Pick me! I've learned all about data compression,
> cryptography and cryptanalysis, digital signal processing, database
> theory, logic design, error-correcting codes, binary data
> representation, I know stuff about stuff! Pick me!!"
>
> ....all of which has absolutely nothing to do with just keeping a few
> servers running. So having just deleted all that stuff off my CV, it
> looks a tad bare now. :-/
>
--
Best Regards,
Stephen
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On Mon, 11 Jan 2010 15:27:35 +0000, Orchid XP v8 wrote:
> The first task, then, is to adjust my CV. I wrote it to try to
> demonstrate what an awesome programmer I am; most of it is completely
> irrelevant if I'm not trying to be a programmer any more. So in summary,
> I've just spent an hour working on my CV, and it's now about half the
> length it was before. o_O
It's a good start - and good to hear you're starting this in earnest.
> The trouble is, when I'm trying to be a programmer, I can say "hey,
> dude! I know Pascal, Prolog, Java, JavaScript, Smalltalk, Tcl, Haskell,
> Eiffel, pick me! Pick me! I've learned all about data compression,
> cryptography and cryptanalysis, digital signal processing, database
> theory, logic design, error-correcting codes, binary data
> representation, I know stuff about stuff! Pick me!!"
>
> ...all of which has absolutely nothing to do with just keeping a few
> servers running. So having just deleted all that stuff off my CV, it
> looks a tad bare now. :-/
Being able to program is a very useful skill when doing system
administration, especially in larger companies. I would still include
your programming skills, even if they're not as prominent. I think I
showed you one of my old CVs, where I listed about 15 languages I've
written some code in. I've never been a professional software developer,
only sysadmin work before I moved into training.
Programming (and more importantly, the type of problem solving that
programming requires) is very useful when looking to build automation
solutions. That's something a fair number of sysadmins do, if only to
keep their sanity from doing repetitive tasks that a computer can do
better.
> I suppose now I need to come up with a bunch of keywords to fill my CV
> with. Stuff like "Active Directory" and "BackupExec" and "Oracle" and
> "Ethernet". But then my CV ends up just being a soup of keywords.
> Besides, if I just sit there and spew fourth a long list of technical
> terms, that just proves that I'm good at looking up technobabble. The
> most likely response is going to be "yeah? prove it."
Which you can do, because you've been doing it. Chances are you'll be
asked to do some sort of test (or at least answer some questions) to show
that your skills are more than just words on paper. :-)
Jim
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>> The first task, then, is to adjust my CV.
>
> It's a good start - and good to hear you're starting this in earnest.
Heh. I've wasted enough of my life here already. (Not that there's
realistically much hope of getting anything better, mind you...)
> Being able to program is a very useful skill when doing system
> administration. I would still include
> your programming skills, even if they're not as prominent.
>
> Programming (and more importantly, the type of problem solving that
> programming requires) is very useful when looking to build automation
> solutions.
Point taken. I can still mention it. But I do need to find something to
fill up the rest of my CV now.
>> I suppose now I need to come up with a bunch of keywords to fill my CV
>> with. Stuff like "Active Directory" and "BackupExec" and "Oracle" and
>> "Ethernet". But then my CV ends up just being a soup of keywords.
>> Besides, if I just sit there and spew fourth a long list of technical
>> terms, that just proves that I'm good at looking up technobabble. The
>> most likely response is going to be "yeah? prove it."
>
> Which you can do, because you've been doing it. Chances are you'll be
> asked to do some sort of test (or at least answer some questions) to show
> that your skills are more than just words on paper. :-)
Chances are, they'll see a page full of buzzwords and conclude that I
don't know what the hell I'm talking about and I just copy & pasted as
many technical-sounding words as I could find.
And if they conclude this, I'll never even get as far as an interview. :-(
--
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*
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