>> One guy told me that Hell's Angels are "actually really friendly
>> people". But I don't know whether that's actually true...
> 
> It is, in my experience.

Oh, fair enough.

Certainly bikers have a reputation for being the sort of thungs who'll 
rip your arms out of their sockets just for looking at them wrong. But 
as we all know, reputations are always founded on solid facts... ;-)

Post a reply to this message

>> Hmm, thinking about it... back when I was trying for "programmer" this
>> would be a non-starter. But given that I'm now considering sys admin
>> instead - ah, wait, it's still going to be London, isn't it? Yeah, it'll
>> be Central London, where all the heavy telco stuff is. Hmm.
> 
> Pay might make it worth it.  Wouldn't hurt to try, you can always decide 
> after an interview that you don't want the job.  Even then, it's 
> experience for applications and interviews.

Now you're talking some kind of sense...

I might do this, just for a giggle. I think whatever I do it's going to 
happen after Christmas now, but this one might be worth looking at.

Post a reply to this message

>>> Fact:  People get paid to write programs in Haskell.
>> Yes. In the entire world, there are approximately 50 of them, I would
>> estimate.
> 
> That estimate is based on what....?

The size of Galios, Well Typed and the Haskell division of MSRC, plus a 
few percent for random people and companies scattered around the world 
that might also be using it.

> You could probably get a tech job with Nokia if you actually applied for 
> one.

Do *you* have any evidence whatsoever to back up such a bold claim?

They don't let just anybody work for Nokia, after all...

>> I would think my level of skill and experience would be a far bigger
>> problem. It's not exactly like I live in some small village in the
>> middle of nowhere...
> 
> What you've demonstrated here is a fair amount of skill.  Experience 
> comes with time.  Nobody leaves school or their first job with massive 
> amounts of experience.

Well Warp seems fairly convinced that I'm a rubbish programmer - and, 
AFAIK, he's the only person here who writes programs for a living. My 
total inability to spell properly is the stuff of legend. I'm pretty 
hopeless with mathematics too... What makes you think I have skills?

> Bingo, that's my point.  Some people can't expect to be employed near 
> where they live because where they live may not be near the jobs they're 
> able to do.

Erm... like I say, I don't know of anybody who had to move just to find 
work.

>> Or rather, "I'm looking for the wrong kind of job". Clearly there aren't
>> any programming jobs around here, so I should look for something else.
> 
> That would be another change in scope, yes - but if you really want to be 
> a programmer, then you can fix that requirement and change the others.  
> It's the combination of "I want to program" and "I want to stay in MK" 
> that seem to be the problem - so change the things that will make what is 
> the overriding desire happen.
> 
> If you really want to be a programmer, then fix that point.  If staying 
> in MK is more important, then fix that point and get a job bagging 
> groceries & stocking shelves at the local Tesco or Safeway.  Personally, 
> I get the impression that you would be happier programming, but it's YOUR 
> life and not mine - so if the desire to stay in MK is that strong for 
> you, then stay there and find a job - any job - in the area.

Amusingly - or perhaps not? - I hear Benny's teenage son who's still at 
school earns more money than me stacking shelves part-time at Tesco. 
Which is slightly ridiculous, considering I spent 6 years of my life in 
higher education...

Anyway, I'm not looking at stacking shelves just yet. I'm thinking about 
system administration - basically, doing a job like the one I currently 
do, but for money. Let's face it, at least I can walk into the room and 
say "I have *actually done this* for the last 7 years. I can prove I 
know how to do this."

Post a reply to this message

>> I mean, it's nice to go play with the snow and everything, but I'm
>> always very relieved to get back home again afterwards. I wouldn't want
>> to never return home ever again.
> 
> Home is where you hang your hat.  If you turned Switzerland into "home", 
> then you would be "home" and able to ski more frequently.

"Home" is where you feel safe and secure - which isn't Switzerland. It's 
nice to visit, but I wouldn't want to be forced to stay there.

>> I don't think it's feasible for me to get an enjoyable job. Let's face
>> it, nobody is going to pay me to sit around geeking out over monadic
>> combinator libraries. They're going to pay me to get a job done, no
>> matter how boring it turns out to be.
> 
> Well, again, I call BS on this.  It's feasible, but it's not going to 
> fall in your lap.  You have to seek it out.

Clearly jobs don't find you. (Unless you're ludicrously talented and 
very well-known. I am neither.) The question is whether the sort of job 
I've been looking for actually exists, and how many other people are 
competing for it.

Most of the stuff I do has no useful function. Nobody is going to pay me 
to do something useless. The stuff that *is* vaguely useful is extremely 
niche. It seems to me that what I'm doing is the equivilent of trying to 
get a job as the next J. K. Rowling - there's only room for a tiny few 
such people, and there's a lot of hopeful contenders who are far more 
qualified than me. I need to target something more realistic.

> And yes, I know you have 
> tried - but you give up FAR too easily - you send a CV and don't hear 
> back, so you say "well, that was a waste of time" instead of being 
> persistent.  Companies don't want passive employees - they want hungry 
> employees - hungry for a challenge, ready to step up and to persist in 
> doing what they want to do.

Applying for jobs isn't what I really want to do. (It's one of the most 
depressing things *ever*! Surely nobody enjoys doing this...)

You go to some jobs website. You click the button that says "apply", and 
it tells you "your CV has been forwarded". You never hear back. What 
else can you do? You don't know what company you're applying to, you 
can't contact them, you usually can't even contact the recruiter except 
through the website. And when you do speak to recruiters, they always 
tell you that "we're processing your application now". If you ring them 
every day, or you ring them once a month, it's always the same tune. 
"We're working on it." Seriously, what more can you actually do?

> Applying for a job and then giving up 
> because your initial contact didn't give up (a) doesn't get people's 
> attention, and (b) isn't *REALLY* trying to make a change.

Ah yes, nothing like somebody telling you that all your hard work "isn't 
really trying" to motivate you to continue.

> How many times do we have to tell you that just because it's listed in 
> the job requirements doesn't mean it's mandatory?  Job ads are generally 
> written by HR people who don't actually know the first thing about the 
> job they're advertising.

Ah, I see. So what you're saying is I should read this:

   "Candidates are expected to have a relevant PhD in Finance, 
Economics, Mathematics or Computing Science. In exceptional cases we may 
consider candidates with outstanding degree grades."

as meaning this:

   "We will accept anybody who applies."

Sure, seems completely plausible to me. :-P

> So let's be real here - you're giving up before 
> even trying because you think everyone is 100% honest and accurate in 
> stating their job requirements.  If someone asked for 30 years of Windows 
> experience, would you apply for the job, or would you say "I don't have 
> 30 years of Windows experience" and not bother trying?  EVEN THOUGH 30 
> YEARS OF EXPERIENCE WITH WINDOWS IS IMPOSSIBLE FOR ANYONE?

If somebody says that they want 3 year's experience, they might accept 
2. They might look at you if you can prove that you know what you're 
doing by some other method. If you have something really outstanding to 
show them, they might still consider you.

The above makes it perfectly clear that they *expect* a PhD before 
they'll even bother to speak to you - or at the worst, you should have 
truly exceptional degree grades. I have neither. They're going to have 
an electronic system to automatically filter out anything that doesn't 
say "PhD" on it somewhere. My CV will never even be seen by a human being.

I might as well go apply to be the CEO of Sony BMG. I'd have as much 
chance of success.

The fact of the matter is, there are some jobs that you're not qualified 
for. And for me, this is one of them.

> Why should they hire you?  Because if you're applying for the job, you 
> have some passion in the area (because you wouldn't apply for a job you 
> didn't have passion for, right?) and because you know your skills will 
> grow as you learn the job.

By that metric, they should just hire anybody who actually applies. 
Doesn't work like that.

> Nobody - and I mean *NOBODY* has 100% of the skills they need for a job 
> they've just started.

No. But you *do* need to have more skills than anybody else who applies 
- otherwise they're going to hire the other person.

> So don't think for one minute that people won't hire you because you 
> don't have 100% of what's on the job requirements - nobody really expects 
> that, and you need to learn that.

Sure, but they expect you to have at least *some* of the necessary skills.

> Formal education is overrated.

Pity. That's about the only good thing I've got going for me.

>> You want to design digital logic? We have engineering graduates who have
>> been *actually doing* this stuff for, like, the last 8 years. Why should
>> be hire some guy who's read about it in a book when we have a queue of
>> people who have done it for real?
> 
> Again, everyone has to start somewhere.  Apply for a job like that;

I did?

> if 
> you don't get it, ask the hiring people what would help you be better 
> prepared for a position like that.

They just said "we feel that the other applications have more relevant 
skills".

> You're not quite 30 if I remember 
> correctly - you've got plenty of time to learn new skills, but new skills 
> take time to develop.

My point remains - why hire some guy who read about designing digital 
logic from a book, when there's a guy standing right next to him who has 
*actually done it*, for real, and got it to work? It's a no-brainer.

>> I need to be realistic about what work it is actually possible for me to
>> get. I'm never going to be a software architect or a document writer.
>> These jobs are few and far between, and there are plenty of people far
>> more qualified than I am already competing for them. I need to look at
>> jobs I might actually be able to get - and I doubt location makes a huge
>> difference to that.
> 
> It does make a huge difference.  Look at the number of software architect 
> positions in, say, Lagos, and the number in San Francisco.  Huge 
> difference - and someone who might not get such a position in Lagos 
> certainly might be able to where there's actual demand for their skills.
> 
> That's what it boils down to - supply and demand.  The demand is not 
> uniform the world over, so if you want to do something specific, you have 
> to go where those jobs are in demand.

I meant that the location isn't going to chance me not having the 
necessary skills and qualifications.

>> Like I said, some people *like* to travel. I don't.
> 
> You seem to like going to Switzerland. ;-)

I like *being* there. I don't like *getting* there. ;-) (Or coming back, 
actually.) Like I said, nice to visit, wouldn't want to live there.

>> I've tried applying to Wolfram. (They specifically requested
>> applicants.) I applied to some bluechip on the M25. I've applied for
>> just about every Haskell-related job going in the UK. Want to take a
>> guess how many of these people even bothered to reply?
> 
> You applied.  Did you follow up on the application?  Or did you passively 
> wait for something to happen?

OK, so I'll answer the rhetorical question: Exactly one of these 
companies bothered to reply. The bluechip people. I applied late 
Wednesday night. At approximately 120 seconds past 9AM the next morning, 
they sent me a rejection email. I emailled them back asking why, and 
they just said "we feel other applications have a more appropriate set 
of skills" and "no this was not an automated decision". (Pull the other 
one, it's got bells on...) They were seemingly quite friendly about it, 
but I still didn't get anywhere.

(I recall at the time Scott said something about his company website 
still having vacancies on display, even though in fact none currently 
exist. That's nice...)

> Don't let life happen to you - take control!

You say this as if it's actually physically possible.

Post a reply to this message

> You go to some jobs website. You click the button that says "apply", and 
> it tells you "your CV has been forwarded".

Fail!  You should check and double check the job description and update your 
CV to match before applying to each job.  Simply sending an exact copy of 
the same CV to everywhere that sounds interesting is a recipe for failure. 
Also I see a lot of jobs are advertised through agencies, sometimes several 
agencies will be advertising the same job, it's worth applying through *all* 
the agencies for the same job (in this case obviously you can post the exact 
same CV and cover letter).

> You never hear back. What else can you do?

If you are sure your CV is the best it can be then just keep searching and 
apply for more jobs.  More jobs come up daily so don't worry.  You can get 
monster.co.uk to automatically email you new jobs that match your criteria 
every day, very useful.

> "We're working on it." Seriously, what more can you actually do?

Apply for more jobs.

>   "We will accept anybody who applies."
>
> Sure, seems completely plausible to me. :-P

Depends who else has applied.  When we were trying to get an Engineer for 
our office here in Munich we had to work really hard to just find 4 or 5 
people to bring in for interview, this was after having advertised on 
monster.de and in several newspapers.  None of the ones we interviewed were 
particularly great (an electrical engineer who has never used an 
oscilloscope, wtf!), we had to take someone as we desperately needed another 
person - in the end our company got a recruitment freeze just before we were 
about to offer him the job!

> The above makes it perfectly clear that they *expect* a PhD before they'll 
> even bother to speak to you - or at the worst, you should have truly 
> exceptional degree grades. I have neither. They're going to have an 
> electronic system to automatically filter out anything that doesn't say 
> "PhD" on it somewhere. My CV will never even be seen by a human being.

If they are willing to accept people without a PhD then it's not going to 
automatically filter out people without a PhD is it?  Anyway, depending on 
the number of people who apply, every single one might well be read by a 
Real Person.

> I might as well go apply to be the CEO of Sony BMG. I'd have as much 
> chance of success.

Now for that job your CV is definitely completely wrong.  By a very very 
long way.

Post a reply to this message

>> You go to some jobs website. You click the button that says "apply", 
>> and it tells you "your CV has been forwarded".
> 
> Fail!  You should check and double check the job description and update 
> your CV to match before applying to each job.

1. Most of these websites don't allow you to do that. (You can only have 
one version of your CV - or sometimes 3 or something.)

2. I don't have time to write thousands of custom versions of my CV.

3. Usually the jobs I'm applying for are so tangentally related to what 
I'm actually after that it's dubious that I *could* make my CV look any 
more relevant than it already does (i.e., not very).

> Simply sending an exact 
> copy of the same CV to everywhere that sounds interesting is a recipe 
> for failure.

I don't have a lot of choice here. It took *months* to get my CV to the 
stage it's at now. God only knows how long it would take to customise it 
for every single job I've ever applied for. And it would be just my luck 
that I'd end up missing out important information or adding spelling 
mistakes. By having only one CV, I can work on making it a very strong 
CV. By having millions, I dilute that effort.

>> You never hear back. What else can you do?
> 
> If you are sure your CV is the best it can be then just keep searching 
> and apply for more jobs.  More jobs come up daily so don't worry.  You 
> can get monster.co.uk to automatically email you new jobs that match 
> your criteria every day, very useful.

Monster currently sends me one email roughly every 6 months containing 
one not-very-relevant job vacancy.

I guess if that isn't a clear sign that you're looking for the wrong 
job, what is?

> Apply for more jobs.

See above.

>>   "We will accept anybody who applies."
>>
>> Sure, seems completely plausible to me. :-P
> 
> Depends who else has applied.

We're talking about the investment branch of Lloyds TSB, in the 
financial district of London. I doubt they're short of applicants.

> When we were trying to get an Engineer 
> for our office here in Munich we had to work really hard to just find 4 
> or 5 people to bring in for interview, this was after having advertised 
> on monster.de and in several newspapers.  None of the ones we 
> interviewed were particularly great (an electrical engineer who has 
> never used an oscilloscope, wtf!), we had to take someone as we 
> desperately needed another person - in the end our company got a 
> recruitment freeze just before we were about to offer him the job!

Ouch. Sounds like a lot of fun...

>> I might as well go apply to be the CEO of Sony BMG. I'd have as much 
>> chance of success.
> 
> Now for that job your CV is definitely completely wrong.  By a very very 
> long way.

It's also definitely completely wrong for a job that demands a PhD - you 
know, with it not mentioning a PhD anywhere and all...

Post a reply to this message

Invisible wrote:
>>> You go to some jobs website. You click the button that says "apply", 
>>> and it tells you "your CV has been forwarded".
>>
>> Fail!  You should check and double check the job description and 
>> update your CV to match before applying to each job.
> 
> 1. Most of these websites don't allow you to do that. (You can only have 
> one version of your CV - or sometimes 3 or something.)
> 

Poo! You don’t use the CV registered on the website. You upload a fresh one.

> 2. I don't have time to write thousands of custom versions of my CV.
> 

You do it as the jobs appear and as for time. How long to you spend here?

> 3. Usually the jobs I'm applying for are so tangentally related to what 
> I'm actually after that it's dubious that I *could* make my CV look any 
> more relevant than it already does (i.e., not very).
> 

Keep trying and one might work.

>> Simply sending an exact copy of the same CV to everywhere that sounds 
>> interesting is a recipe for failure.
> 
> I don't have a lot of choice here. It took *months* to get my CV to the 
> stage it's at now. God only knows how long it would take to customise it 
> for every single job I've ever applied for. And it would be just my luck 
> that I'd end up missing out important information or adding spelling 
> mistakes. By having only one CV, I can work on making it a very strong 
> CV. By having millions, I dilute that effort.
> 

Why not listen to people who apply for and get jobs? Hmm. :)

>>> You never hear back. What else can you do?
>>

Phone the agency even if it is on the pretext of ensuring that they got 
your CV.
That’s what I do.

> 
> We're talking about the investment branch of Lloyds TSB, in the 
> financial district of London. I doubt they're short of applicants.
> 

In the hotel where I am staying in Chester there are a couple of long 
term residents who are training new starts for Lloyds TSB. So there must 
be a demand for the training.

-- 

Best Regards,
	Stephen

Post a reply to this message

Invisible wrote:
> Well Warp seems fairly convinced that I'm a rubbish programmer - and, 
> AFAIK, he's the only person here who writes programs for a living.

*snort*

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   Human nature dictates that toothpaste tubes spend
   much longer being almost empty than almost full.

Post a reply to this message

Invisible wrote:
> Clearly jobs don't find you. (Unless you're ludicrously talented and 
> very well-known. I am neither.) 

Or unless you know people who deal with lots of people. I get jobs for 
people all the time, and vice versa. If I was impressed working with you, 
I'll recommend you to people looking to hire. The same as any other brand. :-)

> They just said "we feel that the other applications have more relevant 
> skills".

Be aware that even if you're the perfect fit for the job, *with* a PhD and 
30 years experience, this is *still* how it works. 90% of the time you hear 
nothing back. Of the rest, 90% of the time it's an instant rejection. And 
that's for jobs that practically list you by name.

If you want a new job, send three or four resumes a day for a month.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   Human nature dictates that toothpaste tubes spend
   much longer being almost empty than almost full.

Post a reply to this message

Invisible wrote:
> Monster currently sends me one email roughly every 6 months containing 
> one not-very-relevant job vacancy.

I have the best luck with craigslist.

http://london.craigslist.co.uk/sof/

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   Human nature dictates that toothpaste tubes spend
   much longer being almost empty than almost full.

Post a reply to this message