On Sat, 09 Jun 2012 12:40:52 +0100, Orchid Win7 v1 wrote:

>>>> How to properly use google?<scnr>
>>>
>>> You laugh, but this is actually non-trivial.
>>
>> Not in my experience.
> 
> The double-negatives make this ambiguous.

I find it to be trivial.  Occasionally I have to do some word 
association, but it's rare that I have trouble finding stuff with the 
right selection of keywords.

One thing that helps tremendously is to just use keywords, not to write a 
novel as the question.

>> But then again, when I was in high school selling software and computer
>> books, I was often amazed when people would grab a book of the shelf
>> and just flip through it to find what they were looking for, rather
>> than looking in the index or TOC first.
> 
> To be fair, depending on what you're looking for, the TOC may not be
> that helpful. The index usually works though. It depends how badly put
> together the book is.

The TOC can provide a good high-level view, but I do tend to agree, which 
is why I always started with the index.

>>> I live in a city with a population of 200,000 people, and an
>>> unemployment rate well below the national average. /Clearly/ there are
>>> jobs here. I just need to find them.
>>
>> You've also stated (in the past, maybe it's changed) that you hate
>> living there except that it's logically laid out and you can find stuff
>> easily.
> 
> I don't hate living here, it's my favourite place. I hate living WITH MY
> MUM, that's for sure. ;-)

Your favourite place from a very limited selection, admittedly.  

>> But yeah, there are probably jobs there, just perhaps not in the fields
>> you're interested in.
> 
> Perhaps. I very much doubt anyone here wants computer programmers. But
> the guy who looks after the computers? Surely any company that has a lot
> of computers will want one of those. (Doesn't mean they need a new one
> though...)

Yes, but if there are largely small companies, they may typically hire 
some kid recently out of school (often times before they've been to uni) 
because they know the kid because he/she fixed their computer once.

>> When you start filtering by too many criteria, you end up with no
>> options.  The logical thing to do when that happens is to relax some of
>> the criteria, such as where you're willing to look or what you're
>> willing to take as a job.
> 
> Sure. And if a job was in, say, Northampton, that would be fine.
> Anything that's within a reasonable commuting distance of where I live.

What distance would you consider?

>>>> or your unwillingness to believe that anyone on the planet who works
>>>> a "normal" job makes enough to live on.
>>>
>>> Uh, when did I say that?
>>
>> It's been a couple of years probably, when you and I were talking about
>> it being good for you to move out of your mum's place.  You asserted
>> that it simply isn't possible for anyone to make enough money to buy a
>> house or rent a flat, regardless of all evidence to the contrary.
> 
> Interesting...

You don't recall that?  At around the same time, you were making 
assertions about the uselessness of car insurance IIRC.

>>> It's good to be righteous. It's not so good when you're actually
>>> wrong. :-/
>>
>> It's good practice.  The stakes ultimately are pretty low here, so it's
>> a largely safe environment to try stuff out and see what works and what
>> doesn't.
>>
>> "Practice makes perfect" and all that.
> 
> Try "practice makes permanent" and you'll be nearer the mark. ;-)

Of course, I was citing a common quote. ;)

> And hey, I've actually /met/ a tiny few of the people on here, so...
> (Damn, if only I could remember their names!)

Don't worry about remembering names - I never remember names myself, 
especially when it comes to seeing people out of context.  I went for 
sushi with my wife last week, and ended up seated at a table next to two 
software engineers I'd worked a contract with in January.  I said 'hi' as 
we sat down (they recognised me), and then we got to talking and I had to 
admit that I couldn't remember their names, but I did remember working 
with them.

>> It may well - I understand they use SSD storage exclusively (local
>> company here in Utah called Fusion-IO provides the hardware,
>> apparently).  It's all about advertising, apparently.  Dunno how they
>> manage it with ad blockers and things like the fb purity, but I figure
>> that's not my problem.  If it goes away, I likely won't miss it.
> 
> It seems to be classic Internet bubble type stuff. Everybody is really
> excited about how much money Facebook is going to start making ANY DAY
> NOW... and yet, where's the money?

Indeed, the IPO happened and the stock has been pretty much declining 
since.

>> Well, you also only have 7 connections, IIRC.  One of the useful things
>> to do, though, is to have someone you know introduce you to someone
>> they know.  That's how I ended up with an interview in Portland - a
>> colleague of mine in Florida knows the HR person at the company I
>> applied to, and he introduced me.  Within 2 weeks, I had an in-person
>> interview.
> 
> The idea that somebody actually knows the guy who does the hiring just
> seems... really, really far-out. I mean, I suppose there must *be* a guy
> who does the hiring, and *somebody* must know that guy. But the chances
> of actually connecting with that guy seem vanishingly small. It would be
> like winning the lottery or something.

When you only are networked to 7 people directly, the chances are pretty 
small.  When you are networked to 500+ people, the chances get 
significantly larger.  After all, people know their HR managers 
typically.  Bosses have people who report to them and those people know 
them.

> Actually, you know what? What /really/ sounds far-fetched to me is that
> somebody would know somebody who needs to make a hire, and that person
> would think that *I* am even worth mentioning. I have no skills useful
> in a workplace. I find it hard to imagine anybody wanting to hire me...

It's a question of scale.  And you don't be someone worth mentioning, you 
have to pursue it.  Most HR professionals say that they're not interested 
in hiring someone who doesn't show initiative.  You don't say to an HR 
person "if you see something that looks like a good fit, get in touch 
with me".

> So in the interview, they always seem to ask you something along the
> lines of "what excites you about our company?" or "why did you choose
> us?" or something similar.

Yep.  So you have to find something to be excited about - and there has 
to be something that interests you beyond the paycheck, or there's little 
reason for you to stay.  Hiring people is expensive, so they want to hire 
people who have a peripheral interest.

So in my case, the company in question has an administrative automation 
product (it's their primary product).  I've long had an interest in 
automating administrative tasks on systems, and their implementation is 
somewhat unique in how it approaches the problem of distributing 
automated tasks and performing system inventories.

So while the position was a "Certification program manager" position, I 
demonstrated interest in the company by (a) downloading and looking at 
the product, (b) downloading and looking at their training VM, and (c) 
being familiar with how the product works.

> Why did I pick this company? The honest truth is obviously "this is all
> I could find". I know that. The person interviewing me must, surely,
> know that too. (Unless they're a total moron.) And yet, if you say that,
> you're instantly removed from consideration. WTF?

m-/

Telling them "nobody else will hire me" makes them think "yeah, so there 
must be a reason for that so we'll just back away slowly".

You have to find something about what they do that piques your interest.

> I mean, if you were applying to work for *Google* or somebody, yes, you
> could legitimately claim to be actually *excited* about the prospect.
> But for any other company? It's a job. I need the money. End of story.
> It seems silly to have to pretend otherwise...

You don't have to pretend about it.

My first job out of college was working for a company that manufactured 
painting equipment.  I had worked there during the summers on the 
assembly line, and had considered getting a forklift license to work in 
the warehouse (assembly line work is very demanding work).

I left college for a job in their MIS department.  What excited me about 
the job?  Flexible hours, the ability to build new systems and to affect 
the bottom line indirectly.  I did my first large-scale project (only 
$30,000, but it was a full rewiring of the building for voice/network), 
and had a chance to learn from someone I came to respect how to make a 
business case so I could do the things I wanted to do.

It was an exciting job for me at that time - I worked with good people 
who were good at their jobs.

I left that job for one with a call centre here in Utah that handled 
company benefits administration.  What excited me about that job?  The 
ability to move out of my parents' basement and get out on my own, and 
the ability to work with a larger environment than the one I was (at that 
time) currently working in.  Opportunity to work with a multi-site 
company and to pick up additional skills, learn new things, and grow 
professionally.

That job ended up largely sucking because of management changes. <shrug>  
It happens.  Next job was working on the corporate network for a Fortune 
50 food & drug retail company.  More users, larger systems, more complex 
network, etc.  That job was a lot of fun.

After that, I changed career paths and became a technical instructor.  
The challenge of presenting to students and interacting in a classroom 
was a draw for me.  A chance to teach people how to properly implement a 
product I'd built up expertise in.

Loved the work, ultimately disliked the travel.  So I moved into product 
support, and then into community building and program management.  On the 
surface, what's exciting about program management?  Nothing in particular 
(I fell into that job because I was at risk of being laid off), but I 
ended up helping set direction for the training department.  Figuring out 
what customers needed in terms of training and then figuring out how to 
get it to them - that was fun.

Now I'm looking to move into product management.  Looks like I'll 
probably start out doing some writing or product testing or something 
along those lines, and then move into defining product specs and finding 
out what customers want from a product.

The point is that while yeah - it's a job and you need the money - there 
should be something about the job or the company that makes you /want/ to 
get up and go to work in the morning.

> I read an article somewhere about how investors hear that there are X
> million accounts on Facebook and they think "wow, if I could just be on
> Facebook, I could have X million customers!" Yet these same investors
> don't really understand what "be on Facebook" actually means. And most
> of those millions of profile are for people's cat, fictional TV
> characters, people's children who can't read or write yet, etc. (E.g.,
> Jamie's son has a profile. He's 4 weeks old. His mum posts all the
> actual stuff...)

Well, not "most of those millions", but yeah, a not insignificant number 
of them.

But at the same time, TV advertisers spend a fair bit of money on 
advertising on TV that is watched by 4-year-olds, birds, cats, and dogs.  
The TV folks figured out a way to count how many they're advertising to 
that matter, and that's the trick with something like Facebook (as an 
advertising engine).

Ads are primarily Google's "product" as well.

Jim

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