>> Given that we were discussing my next career move, don't you think if
>> she knew who I need to speak to, she might have mentioned this exact
>> fact?
>
> Not necessarily.  In fact, if she were to get a referral bonus, I'd
> expect her not to tell you, but to take your info and submit it
> internally herself.

Well, she didn't offer to do that either. She just said "you should 
totally apply here".

>> I assumed it's just that I'm not worth hiring...
>
> We've talked about this before, Andy.  If you go through the front door,
> you're on the same level as everyone else applying for the job.  One way
> to get an advantage - and to show initiative - is to find other ways to
> get your info in front of the hiring manager.

Given that I don't even really understand the correct procedure for 
getting in the front door, it seems unlikely that I'd succeed trying to 
talk my way in through the back. And, at the end of the day, if I'm not 
worth hiring, they aren't going to hire me, no matter what I do.

>>> You know someone at Unisys, you said.
>>
>> I don't think I did...
>
> Um, not the person that you above said "I don't think she knows anybody
> in a hiring position."?

No. Network Rail.

> What do you /like/ doing?  You might be surprised at what people will
> actually pay for.

Nobody is going to pay me to write a ray-tracer. Because, as cool as 
that is, it's a solved problem. Similarly, nobody is going to pay me to 
sit around playing with compression algorithms or designing weak ciphers 
or generating pretty pictures from sound signals or... you know what? 
These things are all very cool, but none of them actually generate 
money. What people /actually/ want is somebody who can migrate their SQL 
Server database to Oracle, or find a way to run a legacy MS-DOS program 
on a shiny new server farm, or something like that.

>> If I can't convince anybody to hire me to write Java (pro tip: Java is
>> popular), then nobody is ever going to hire me to write Haskell.
>
> Wrong, wrong, wrong.  If you're competent in Haskell and that's what
> they're looking for, then being one of a smaller number of developers who
> write in a language that they're using is far, far better than being one
> of the billion people (yes, hyperbole, but there are a /lot/ of Java
> programmers out there) who can write code in Java.

It puts me in a smaller pool of employees, but it also puts them in a 
smaller pool of employers.

>>> If the language were that unpopular, it would cease to exist.
>>
>> For twenty years, it /was/ that unpopular.
>
> Yet it still exists.

See, the thing is, when you're not making a product for profit, it 
doesn't /matter/ whether it's popular or not. It doesn't /need/ to be 
popular in order to exist.

>> Sure, but nobody works for AT&T or Facebook. (Actually, given our
>> earlier discussion, I wouldn't /want/ to work for Facebook...)
>
> "Nobody works for AT&T or Facebook" - are you /serious/?  AT&T is one of
> the larger companies in the world.  Facebook has a fairly significant
> sized staff.  Those server rooms don't take care of themselves, and
> people don't do it for no pay.
>
> AT&T:  https://www.google.com/finance?q=NYSE:T
>
> Number of employees:  252,330
>
> Facebook:  https://www.google.com/finance?q=fb
>
> Number of employees:  3,539
>
> Far from "nobody".

OK, so let me get this straight: Out of all the people IN THE ENTIRE 
WORLD, only three thousand of them work for Facebook? And only a quarter 
of a million of them work for AT&T? Yeah, those are some huge percentages...

>> I'm not arguing that liking your job isn't a good thing. I'm arguing
>> that it isn't a common thing.
>
> I've worked in companies with 200 employees and companies with 250,000
> employees.  Most of the people I have known in those companies have liked
> their jobs.

> But all the people I know in the UK also seem to really enjoy what they
> do.  Now I don't know everyone in the UK, probably not even enough to
> constitute a statistical sample - but of the ones I know, you're the only
> one who actively /hates/ his job.

I guess when The Bangles sang "Manic Monday", nobody could relate to 
waking up on Monday morning and dreading going to work, which explains 
why the song sold to well.

>>>> You say "adwords", but I've yet to see it...
>>>
>>> m-/
>>>
>>> Do you use an ad blocker?
>>
>> Not until recently.
>
> Then you must not use Google a lot.  Oh, wait....

Alternatively, maybe there aren't many adverts actually related to 
"transfinite cardinal numbers" or something...

Post a reply to this message

On Mon, 11 Jun 2012 09:17:22 +0100, Invisible wrote:

>>> Given that we were discussing my next career move, don't you think if
>>> she knew who I need to speak to, she might have mentioned this exact
>>> fact?
>>
>> Not necessarily.  In fact, if she were to get a referral bonus, I'd
>> expect her not to tell you, but to take your info and submit it
>> internally herself.
> 
> Well, she didn't offer to do that either. She just said "you should
> totally apply here".

Then you should do that.  Or ask her if she might be able to help/gets a 
referral bonus.

>>> I assumed it's just that I'm not worth hiring...
>>
>> We've talked about this before, Andy.  If you go through the front
>> door, you're on the same level as everyone else applying for the job. 
>> One way to get an advantage - and to show initiative - is to find other
>> ways to get your info in front of the hiring manager.
> 
> Given that I don't even really understand the correct procedure for
> getting in the front door, it seems unlikely that I'd succeed trying to
> talk my way in through the back. And, at the end of the day, if I'm not
> worth hiring, they aren't going to hire me, no matter what I do.

You'd probably do better with the back door rather than doing the same 
thing everyone else is doing.

>>>> You know someone at Unisys, you said.
>>>
>>> I don't think I did...
>>
>> Um, not the person that you above said "I don't think she knows anybody
>> in a hiring position."?
> 
> No. Network Rail.

That makes no sense to me.

>> What do you /like/ doing?  You might be surprised at what people will
>> actually pay for.
> 
> Nobody is going to pay me to write a ray-tracer. [...]

You didn't answer my question.  What do you /like/ doing?

>>> If I can't convince anybody to hire me to write Java (pro tip: Java is
>>> popular), then nobody is ever going to hire me to write Haskell.
>>
>> Wrong, wrong, wrong.  If you're competent in Haskell and that's what
>> they're looking for, then being one of a smaller number of developers
>> who write in a language that they're using is far, far better than
>> being one of the billion people (yes, hyperbole, but there are a /lot/
>> of Java programmers out there) who can write code in Java.
> 
> It puts me in a smaller pool of employees, but it also puts them in a
> smaller pool of employers.

It's not the size of the pool of employees or the size of the pool of 
employers, it's the relative sizes of each and whether there's *one* 
opportunity that's a good fit.

And unless you're willing to take the time to *look* and *do* something, 
you'll never know.

>>>> If the language were that unpopular, it would cease to exist.
>>>
>>> For twenty years, it /was/ that unpopular.
>>
>> Yet it still exists.
> 
> See, the thing is, when you're not making a product for profit, it
> doesn't /matter/ whether it's popular or not. It doesn't /need/ to be
> popular in order to exist.

*sigh*  It's survived for 20 years.  It hasn't died out.  People use it 
for stuff.  Corporations use it for stuff.  Corporations pay people to 
program in it.  That means YOU CAN GET A JOB DOING IT.

>>> Sure, but nobody works for AT&T or Facebook. (Actually, given our
>>> earlier discussion, I wouldn't /want/ to work for Facebook...)
>>
>> "Nobody works for AT&T or Facebook" - are you /serious/?  AT&T is one
>> of the larger companies in the world.  Facebook has a fairly
>> significant sized staff.  Those server rooms don't take care of
>> themselves, and people don't do it for no pay.
>>
>> AT&T:  https://www.google.com/finance?q=NYSE:T
>>
>> Number of employees:  252,330
>>
>> Facebook:  https://www.google.com/finance?q=fb
>>
>> Number of employees:  3,539
>>
>> Far from "nobody".
> 
> OK, so let me get this straight: Out of all the people IN THE ENTIRE
> WORLD, only three thousand of them work for Facebook? And only a quarter
> of a million of them work for AT&T? Yeah, those are some huge
> percentages...

*sigh*

How many people work for the company you CURRENTLY work for?

One of the companies I worked for was about the size of AT&T.  I was one 
of about 2 dozen systems engineers when I was hired.

And one of about 600 in the IT department as a whole (which included a 
lot of developers).

It's not about the percentage of the global population that works for the 
organisation.  Again, it's about finding a position.

You can continue to despair that nobody's going to hire you and just give 
up, or you can put the effort in to try to find something.

The latter is more productive.  It takes time, it takes rejection, but 
eventually, YOU WILL GET A BETTER JOB IF YOU WORK AT IT.

>> But all the people I know in the UK also seem to really enjoy what they
>> do.  Now I don't know everyone in the UK, probably not even enough to
>> constitute a statistical sample - but of the ones I know, you're the
>> only one who actively /hates/ his job.
> 
> I guess when The Bangles sang "Manic Monday", nobody could relate to
> waking up on Monday morning and dreading going to work, which explains
> why the song sold to well.

Of course people sometimes don't want to get up in the morning and go to 
work on Monday.  *Some* people even do that every Monday.  I know people 
who love their jobs who don't want to work on Mondays.  That doesn't mean 
they don't love their jobs.  It means they're human.

It also doesn't mean there aren't days that they don't bounce out of bed 
in the morning and look forward to what they're going to do.

>>>>> You say "adwords", but I've yet to see it...
>>>>
>>>> m-/
>>>>
>>>> Do you use an ad blocker?
>>>
>>> Not until recently.
>>
>> Then you must not use Google a lot.  Oh, wait....
> 
> Alternatively, maybe there aren't many adverts actually related to
> "transfinite cardinal numbers" or something...

You'd see other types of ads.  They don't just display ads related to 
your searches; if your searches are frequently things that they don't 
advertise for, you'll get generic ads.

Jim

Post a reply to this message

Le 2012-06-09 10:27, Orchid Win7 v1 a écrit :
> On 09/06/2012 03:11 PM, Francois Labreque wrote:
>> Le 2012-06-08 06:18, Invisible a écrit :
>>> I don't know that there are any sites that do /exactly/ what Linked-In
>>> does. But there are plenty of sites that let you search humans for
>>> various reasons. (Exhibit A: Monster.)
>>>
>>
>> Monster is nothing like LinkedIn. Linked-In is much closer to Facebook
>> than Monster.
>
> Both LinkedIn and Monster let you search for humans for work-related
> purposes though. That was the comparison I was going for.
>
>> In Linked-in, you are supposed to build a network of contacts (school
>> buddies, coworkers, family, etc...), which then lets you get introduced
>> to THEIR contacts, etc... Hopefully helping you on your quest to find a
>> good job. E.g.: There's this guy in your dance classes that works in
>> accounting at a big company. You become a contact in LinkedIn. While
>> taking a break, he mentions the sad state of their IT. YOu say: "I
>> betcha I could help improve things." The next day, you ask him over
>> LinkedIn to introduce you to his HR rep or IT manager. you get
>> introduced, you go on an interview, you may not get hired, but the HR
>> person knows you exist, and when the time comes to hire an Haskell
>> expert, she'll have one in her network already.
>
> That's a great story. Pity I don't know anybody like that...
>

How do you know that no one you know works for a company that is looking 
for a sysadmin, a programmer, a desk-side support technician, or a 
church organ player?

There was an article posted here a while back, by Darren I think, that 
included this sentence that is very appropriate: "Job offers move at the 
speed of beer".  This means that simply putting your resumé on Monster 
or your blogspot page is not enough, you need to network.  If you are 
looking for work, you need to BUILD and MAINTAIN relationships with 
other people who will (a) let you know of opportunities and (b) may even 
put in a good word about you.

>> Just like Facebook or Myspace, LinkedIn lets post blog-like messages;
>> you can make recommendations on books, seminars, speeches, and other
>> people's work. You can also participate in various forums on a variety
>> of topics.
>>
>> You can (and could back in 2007, when I joined! so it must have been
>> there when you did too) also join trade groups, alumni groups, interest
>> groups, etc... All have mailing lists that will let you know of other
>> group members' postings, forum discussions, etc...
>
> 1. I had no idea that any of this functionality existed.
>
> 2. I'm not really sure how you would use such functionality to do
> anything "useful". (Not that I'm saying you can't, I'm just saying I'm
> not sure how.)
>

Posting in say, a Haskell forum, or general programming forum, might get 
you noticed by the recruiters who scour the site looking for potential 
candidates, or by other programmers who might say "Boss, I don't have 
time to work on this project, but I might know just the guy for you!"

-- 
/*Francois Labreque*/#local a=x+y;#local b=x+a;#local c=a+b;#macro P(F//
/*    flabreque    */L)polygon{5,F,F+z,L+z,L,F pigment{rgb 9}}#end union
/*        @        */{P(0,a)P(a,b)P(b,c)P(2*a,2*b)P(2*b,b+c)P(b+c,<2,3>)
/*   gmail.com     */}camera{orthographic location<6,1.25,-6>look_at a }

Post a reply to this message

Le 2012-06-09 14:42, Orchid Win7 v1 a écrit :
> That's impressive and everything, but... why would any of these people
> give a damn about me? I'm nobody.
>

HE'S JUST A POOR BOY FORM A POOR FAMILY
SPARE HIM HIS LIFE FROM THIS MONSTROSISTY!


-- 
/*Francois Labreque*/#local a=x+y;#local b=x+a;#local c=a+b;#macro P(F//
/*    flabreque    */L)polygon{5,F,F+z,L+z,L,F pigment{rgb 9}}#end union
/*        @        */{P(0,a)P(a,b)P(b,c)P(2*a,2*b)P(2*b,b+c)P(b+c,<2,3>)
/*   gmail.com     */}camera{orthographic location<6,1.25,-6>look_at a }

Post a reply to this message

Le 2012-06-11 04:17, Invisible a écrit :
> Nobody is going to pay me to write a ray-tracer. Because, as cool as
> that is, it's a solved problem.  Similarly, nobody is going to pay me to
> sit around playing with compression algorithms or designing weak ciphers
> or generating pretty pictures from sound signals or...you know what?
 > These things are all very cool, but none of them actually generate
 > money.

I just spend 8 hours looking at a foetal cardiac / contraction monitor. 
  They were using a custom software made for hospitals.  Do you think 
the company that made this software made it out of the goodness of their 
heart?  No.  They made it for money.

Right before my wife told me we needed to go to the hospital to see if 
everything is ok (it was!  we're back home), I was watching expensive 
cars go reaaaaallly fast around a racetrack.  The tv channel had a cool 
graph that shoew the RPMs of the engines based on the pitch of their 
sound.  Do you think that the company that made this software, made it 
for fun?  No.  They were paid for it.

Making pretty pictures out of sounds DOES make money.


> What people /actually/ want is somebody who can migrate their SQL
> Server database to Oracle, or find a way to run a legacy MS-DOS program
> on a shiny new server farm, or something like that.
>

While these might be in higher demand, there's sometimes demand for 
quirkier skills.

>>> If I can't convince anybody to hire me to write Java (pro tip: Java is
>>> popular), then nobody is ever going to hire me to write Haskell.
>>
>> Wrong, wrong, wrong. If you're competent in Haskell and that's what
>> they're looking for, then being one of a smaller number of developers who
>> write in a language that they're using is far, far better than being one
>> of the billion people (yes, hyperbole, but there are a /lot/ of Java
>> programmers out there) who can write code in Java.
>
> It puts me in a smaller pool of employees, but it also puts them in a
> smaller pool of employers.
>

Most entreprise grade software solution, from HR, to accounts 
payable/receivable, to inventory management, to industrial control 
system has some java-based doohickie somewhere.

>>>> If the language were that unpopular, it would cease to exist.
>>>
>>> For twenty years, it /was/ that unpopular.
>>
>> Yet it still exists.
>
> See, the thing is, when you're not making a product for profit, it
> doesn't /matter/ whether it's popular or not. It doesn't /need/ to be
> popular in order to exist.
>

It's not like every single web site out there uses java, or anything 
like that...

-- 
/*Francois Labreque*/#local a=x+y;#local b=x+a;#local c=a+b;#macro P(F//
/*    flabreque    */L)polygon{5,F,F+z,L+z,L,F pigment{rgb 9}}#end union
/*        @        */{P(0,a)P(a,b)P(b,c)P(2*a,2*b)P(2*b,b+c)P(b+c,<2,3>)
/*   gmail.com     */}camera{orthographic location<6,1.25,-6>look_at a }

Post a reply to this message

On 11/06/2012 02:47 PM, Francois Labreque wrote:

> HE'S JUST A POOR BOY FORM A POOR FAMILY
> SPARE HIM HIS LIFE FROM THIS MONSTROSISTY!

Galileo?

Post a reply to this message

On 6/11/2012 6:46, Francois Labreque wrote:
> There was an article posted here a while back, by Darren I think, that
> included this sentence that is very appropriate: "Job offers move at th
e
> speed of beer".

I don't remember that, but it's certainly true. :-)

 > This means that simply putting your resumé on Monster or
> your blogspot page is not enough, you need to network. If you are looki
ng
> for work, you need to BUILD and MAINTAIN relationships with other peopl
e who
> will (a) let you know of opportunities and (b) may even put in a good w
ord
> about you.

As an aside, I have had exactly three jobs in my career that I got by 
applying for them without already knowing the people I'd be working for. 

I've had a dozen or more because some guy I knew needed someone who could
 do 
what I do, and called me up and said "come work here."

> Posting in say, a Haskell forum, or general programming forum, might ge
t you
> noticed by the recruiters who scour the site looking for potential
> candidates, or by other programmers who might say "Boss, I don't have t
ime
> to work on this project, but I might know just the guy for you!"

And I'd suggest giving your writings a wider distribution too.

For example, go to reddit.com/r/programming and post them there, marked "
OC" 
(Original Content). There are hundreds or thousands of people there starv
ing 
to read about cool stuff like that, as an example, and lots of them work 
at 
places better than your place!

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   "Oh no! We're out of code juice!"
   "Don't panic. There's beans and filters
    in the cabinet."

Post a reply to this message

On 16/06/2012 05:32 PM, Darren New wrote:

> And I'd suggest giving your writings a wider distribution too.
>
> For example, go to reddit.com/r/programming and post them there, marked
> "OC" (Original Content). There are hundreds or thousands of people there
> starving to read about cool stuff like that, as an example, and lots of
> them work at places better than your place!

I'd ask "what the heck is reddit", but no doubt everybody will just tell 
me to Google it. (As if that explains anything...)

Post a reply to this message

On Sat, 16 Jun 2012 21:16:53 +0100, Orchid Win7 v1 wrote:

> On 16/06/2012 05:32 PM, Darren New wrote:
> 
>> And I'd suggest giving your writings a wider distribution too.
>>
>> For example, go to reddit.com/r/programming and post them there, marked
>> "OC" (Original Content). There are hundreds or thousands of people
>> there starving to read about cool stuff like that, as an example, and
>> lots of them work at places better than your place!
> 
> I'd ask "what the heck is reddit", but no doubt everybody will just tell
> me to Google it. (As if that explains anything...)

First hit of searching points to the reddit site, and includes the text 
(from the page):

"User-generated news links. Votes promote stories to the front page."

So yeah, that does explain something about it. :P

Jim

Post a reply to this message

On 6/16/2012 13:16, Orchid Win7 v1 wrote:
> I'd ask "what the heck is reddit", but no doubt everybody will just tell me
> to Google it. (As if that explains anything...)

Or you could, you know, go to the URL I gave to see what's there.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   "Oh no! We're out of code juice!"
   "Don't panic. There's beans and filters
    in the cabinet."

Post a reply to this message