OK, so nothing focuses the mind on job hunting quite like imminent 
unemployment. (!)

Deciding to get another job is easy. Getting one is another matter.

When I first heard the news, I thought "great, now I can leave". Right 
now, I'm just a little bit concerned that I might be unemployed for the 
rest of my entire life. After all, I've only had one job in my entire 
career. What if they were the only company on Earth stupid enough to 
employ me? I'm screwed! o_O



In the past, the problem I've always had is being utterly unable to find 
any jobs even remotely worth applying for. Everybody says "Computer 
jobs? Oh, that's easy! Jump onto the Internet and get searching. There 
are *millions* of IT jobs!" Well, uh, no there aren't.

I'd log in to Monster.com and spend hour after hour wading through 
thousands of jobs which are all located in London, all have titles like 
"senior systems architect" or "lead development coordinator" or "UK IT 
strategy executive", and all offer £80,000 or so. In other words, jobs 
that I have no hope in hell of getting (even if I actually wanted them, 
which I don't).

What I /never/ found /any/ of is jobs anywhere near I live, with words 
like "junior" or "trainee" or "graduate" in the title. It's as if these 
jobs somehow don't exist or simply aren't advertised.

At least, these jobs aren't on Monster, and don't appear in any Google 
search. But every jobs site I tried did some combination of:

- Every search returns zero results, or returns less than 6 results.

- Every search returns miles of utterly irrelevant crap. (E.g., "finance 
administrator" and "office administrator" both contain similar lexemes 
to "systems administrator", but they're utterly unrelated jobs.)

- Every search returns jobs in London, regardless of the selected 
geographic region of the search.

That last one is by far the most common; apparently the vast majority of 
jobs websites don't comprehend that "London" is *not* "within 15 miles 
of Milton Keynes". (Hint: It's roughly 35 miles to the M25, which 
circles the outside of London.)

On top of that, I had to battle with utterly /systemic/ levels of bad 
quality job descriptions. I mean, seriously. Who writes this crap? A 
trained monkey??

Probably the reason half the geographic searches utterly fail is because 
whatever idiot copy-pasted the data in didn't fill out the location 
field. So you see a job, it says "Location: unspecified". And then in 
the actual text, you find out that it's in... London. Again.

Add to that the horrifyingly broken grammar, and levels of waffle and 
power-speak matching what you might expect to hear from a dodgy used-car 
salesman trying to sell you an illegal cut-and-shut, and it's just a 
horrid, horrid experience.

(I especially love the job adverts that just say something like "SQL 
Oracle 11g Agile PHP RDBMS MCP Java.NET TCP/IP". WTF does that even 
*mean*?? And phrases like "must have detailed knowledge of Oracle 
(preferably with RDBMS experience)". Erm... you have absolutely no idea 
what the sentences you're writing actually *mean*, do you?)

I can only imagine that the jobs agencies [because /all/ job adverts on 
the Internet are /always/ from agencies, never the actual employer] 
receive an MS Word document from the employer stating what they want. 
They then pass this on to a highly trained monkey who blindly 
copy-pastes fifty of these things per hour into the input forms of 
dozens of online recruitment websites. I can't think of anything else 
which would explain the shear, utter BROKENNESS of what I have witnessed.

On top of that, on the few occasions that I've actually /spoken/ to an 
agency, the person I'm speaking to quite obviously has /no clue/ what 
the hell I'm talking about or what any of the words in the job-spec 
mean. They just see a bunch of word-like things, and see which words 
sound similar to which other words. That it literally the summit of 
their analytical powers.



In short, it has always been a completely mystery to me how anyone, 
anywhere on Earth, *ever* finds any jobs at all to apply to. All I seem 
to find is utter crap.

But after the announcement of the site closure, my dad started bringing 
me printouts of jobs he thought might interest me. Now usually when 
people do this, the stuff they bring me is actually no good at all. But, 
surprisingly, this stuff /does/ look good - and there's a /lot/ of it.

I noticed it all seems to come from Total Jobs, so I headed over there 
to take a look. Apparently /this/ is where all the jobs are actually 
hiding. Seriously. Today alone I've applied for 30 jobs. Oh, I don't 
expect to /get/ many of them. But get this:

- ALL of these jobs were within less than 10 miles of my front door. 
Some of them are near enough for me to realistically /walk/ to work.

- They're all programming jobs.

- Lots of them over well over £30,000.

- Many of them only want A-levels or maybe a CS degree. (Although some 
of them do demand commercial coding experience.)

So, uh... where the HELL have these jobs been hiding all this time?! o_O

I'm actually not sure if there's been a radical change in the market, or 
whether I've just been looking in the wrong place. But it's staggering 
that every single jobs website could be so utterly useless, and then 
this one is /actually useful/.



All is not perfect, of course.

Currently, I'm at the stage of simply applying to everything that looks 
vaguely plausible. 2 weeks ago, I applied to about 25 jobs. Over the 
coming days, I got a handful of phone calls from various agencies. 
(Weirdly, /all/ of these people, without exception, seem to actually 
know WTF they're talking about. They don't talk like used-car salesmen. 
They seem /actually helpful/ and stuff...)

I did have one telephone interview with an actual employer. I very much 
doubt I got that job, and I don't particularly want it if I did. 
(There's a face-to-face interview plus a C++ coding test first. I'll 
presumably fail that.) They're talking about being on-call 24x7, 
short-notice travel to other continents, etc.

What seems to happen is that I send out a bunch of applications, I get a 
few phone calls the following week. I ask some of them to forward my CV. 
And after a while, the calls peter out. And then I go back to Total Jobs 
and apply to anything and everything that looks remotely plausible. I 
don't study them too hard; I just read each one and hit apply.

I'm ambivalent as to whether this is actually the best strategy. On one 
hand, the more stuff I apply to, the more likely it is that somebody 
will call me. OTOH, if I apply for something totally unsuitable, and the 
recruiter phones me, they're not going to be amused at having their time 
wasted.

Another problem that keeps biting me is references. I don't have any. 
Oh, I mean, I've been told to quote the HR department of our USA head 
office. So that's one. (I've already happened upon one website which 
demands the name of a /person/, not simply a department.) But many 
systems demand 2 or even 3 references. Apart from my employer, nobody 
knows me. So I'm rather stuffed there. :-S

I've applied to Google again. On past experience, it'll probably me 6 to 
12 months before I hear back from them. I really want to get into the 
Open University, but it's a nightmare to apply, and they have very, very 
few computer jobs going. I got turned down on my last application 
without even being interviewed. And the application I'm trying to fill 
out today demands 3 references. And than there's Network Rail. A friend 
of mine works there and insists it's the best job in the world... But 
they have ZERO computer jobs listed.

It's all rather troubling...

Post a reply to this message

On 04/08/2012 2:44 PM, Orchid Win7 v1 wrote:
> What I /never/ found /any/ of is jobs anywhere near I live, with words
> like "junior" or "trainee" or "graduate" in the title. It's as if these
> jobs somehow don't exist or simply aren't advertised.

Even if they did you would not get one. How many juniors or trainees are 
your age? Graduate means just graduated, straight out of education with 
little or no experience. At your age you are expected to have moved on. 
So if there is no suitable work in Milton Keynes and you don't want to 
be on the dole for the rest of your life, follow in Dick Whittington's 
footsteps.

Jobserve shows up 134 permie syst admin jobs within 25 miles of Milton 
Keynes with rates below £40,000.

https://www.jobserve.com/gb/en/JobSearch.aspx?shid=0BF70FE01CD75DCD2D

The first one to show up is in Milton Keynes

https://www.jobserve.com/gb/en/search-jobs-in-Milton-Keynes,-Buckinghamshire,-United-Kingdom/IS-SUPPORT-ENGINEER-JUNIOR-SYSTEM-ADMIN-SQL-SERVER-SQL-IIS-E9FB46DC23BF81E1/




-- 
Regards
     Stephen

Post a reply to this message

On 04/08/2012 04:11 PM, Stephen wrote:
> On 04/08/2012 2:44 PM, Orchid Win7 v1 wrote:
>> What I /never/ found /any/ of is jobs anywhere near I live, with words
>> like "junior" or "trainee" or "graduate" in the title. It's as if these
>> jobs somehow don't exist or simply aren't advertised.
>
> Even if they did you would not get one.

You don't think so?

> How many juniors or trainees are your age?

I don't know; I've never met anybody who writes software for a living.

> Graduate means just graduated, straight out of education with
> little or no experience. At your age you are expected to have moved on.

Sure. Anything that specifically says /graduate/ is unlikely to be open 
to me at this point. But I would have thought "trainee" would be fine...

> So if there is no suitable work in Milton Keynes and you don't want to
> be on the dole for the rest of your life, follow in Dick Whittington's
> footsteps.

Like I said further down, I tried a different site, and it seems to be 
finding boatloads of jobs; more jobs than I can actually apply to! 
(Well, without losing my sanity...)

Whether I will actually get to interview for any of these is another 
matter. So far it's not looking so hot.

Post a reply to this message

On 04/08/2012 4:19 PM, Orchid Win7 v1 wrote:
> On 04/08/2012 04:11 PM, Stephen wrote:
>> On 04/08/2012 2:44 PM, Orchid Win7 v1 wrote:

>>
>> Even if they did you would not get one.
>
> You don't think so?
>

No I don't. Unless you're doing a career change, those job descriptions 
are for people in there twenties. Aero is right, you are aiming too low.

>> How many juniors or trainees are your age?
>
> I don't know; I've never met anybody who writes software for a living.
>

Do you? I thought that you were syst admin.

>> Graduate means just graduated, straight out of education with
>> little or no experience. At your age you are expected to have moved on.
>
> Sure. Anything that specifically says /graduate/ is unlikely to be open
> to me at this point. But I would have thought "trainee" would be fine...
>

How long have you been working? You should be trained by now and if you 
are not then who would employ someone who is not trained after ten years?
I am not slagging you off I am giving advice. (As have a lot of people 
here.)

>> So if there is no suitable work in Milton Keynes and you don't want to
>> be on the dole for the rest of your life, follow in Dick Whittington's
>> footsteps.
>
> Like I said further down, I tried a different site, and it seems to be
> finding boatloads of jobs; more jobs than I can actually apply to!
> (Well, without losing my sanity...)
>

Finding a job is a full time job. And that means that you have to work 
at it. Most people do not like working and have to force thenselves to 
do it.

> Whether I will actually get to interview for any of these is another
> matter. So far it's not looking so hot.

It never does until it happens.

-- 
Regards
     Stephen

Post a reply to this message

Am 04.08.2012 15:44, schrieb Orchid Win7 v1:

> I did have one telephone interview with an actual employer. I very much
> doubt I got that job, and I don't particularly want it if I did.
> (There's a face-to-face interview plus a C++ coding test first. I'll
> presumably fail that.)

That's bullshit thinking. Stop that. From my experience, such "coding 
tests" are merely there to filter out people who do know the syntax but 
don't have the slightest clues about algorithm design, performance 
issues and so forth.

For instance, they might ask you to write a small function to compute 
factorials. Someone might program this as a recursion because he 
happened to come across it as an example in the "programming for 
dummies" section on recursion.


> I'm ambivalent as to whether this is actually the best strategy. On one
> hand, the more stuff I apply to, the more likely it is that somebody
> will call me. OTOH, if I apply for something totally unsuitable, and the
> recruiter phones me, they're not going to be amused at having their time
> wasted.

Best thing is if you do inform yourself about what the company actually 
does, and which of your skills might be of interest to them. (And don't 
just think "this particular job", but "this particular company" - they 
might have other opportunities available.) Then, when applying, 
emphasize those skills. (Don't forget the "soft skills"!)


> And than there's Network Rail. A friend
> of mine works there and insists it's the best job in the world... But
> they have ZERO computer jobs listed.

Ask your friend to dig around what they've got cooking wrt IT. Do apply 
for a job at companies you'd probably enjoy working for, even if they 
don't seem to offer jobs right now. They might just happen to ponder 
hiring someone - or they may the moment they read your CV. You know, you 
can't actually lose anything, can you?


And by all means, get rid of that "I'll probably fail" attitude. You 
CANNOT LOSE at a job interview (or when sending in your CV, or whatever).

Post a reply to this message

Am 04.08.2012 17:19, schrieb Orchid Win7 v1:

>> Graduate means just graduated, straight out of education with
>> little or no experience. At your age you are expected to have moved on.
>
> Sure. Anything that specifically says /graduate/ is unlikely to be open
> to me at this point. But I would have thought "trainee" would be fine...

What do you need to be trained for?

I've been a software developer for a decade, mostly getting my hands 
dirty on code myself. Last job I applied for (and got) was as a 
"software project coordinator", with my job being to coordinate between 
the software developers, testers, customer and whoever else would be 
involved, to get one particular product ready on time. It was a step 
higher than I had aimed for, two steps higher than what I had been doing 
until then, wouldn't let me touch any code myself, and I was seriously 
worried if I'd be really fit for the task. But I did take the challenge, 
and it turned out that I really did a great job at it.

The point I'm trying to make is this: When applying for a new job, don't 
aim for what you've been doing until now. Aim higher. And don't expect 
anyone to train you for that new challenge - instead, rely on what might 
be your strongest soft skill: Your ability to teach /yourself/ whatever 
new stuff you'll be facing. (Hey, you've taught yourself how to program 
in /Haskell/ - what more proof do you need? :-P)

Let people know that you're not afraid of taking on new challenges, and 
that you have what it /really/ takes for that: The will and ability to 
learn.

Post a reply to this message

On 04/08/2012 5:28 PM, clipka wrote:
> I had been doing until then, wouldn't let me touch any code myself,


The way to go! Keep the project managers and coordinators off the tools. ;-)

and
> I was seriously worried if I'd be really fit for the task. But I did
> take the challenge, and it turned out that I really did a great job at it.
>

I am sure you did. :-D

> The point I'm trying to make is this: When applying for a new job, don't
> aim for what you've been doing until now. Aim higher. And don't expect
> anyone to train you for that new challenge - instead, rely on what might
> be your strongest soft skill: Your ability to teach /yourself/ whatever
> new stuff you'll be facing. (Hey, you've taught yourself how to program
> in /Haskell/ - what more proof do you need? :-P)
>
> Let people know that you're not afraid of taking on new challenges, and
> that you have what it /really/ takes for that: The will and ability to
> learn.

Andrew, these are words of wisdom, take heed.
We are rooting for you.

-- 
Regards
     Stephen

Post a reply to this message

On 8/4/2012 9:03, clipka wrote:
> are merely there to filter out people who do know the syntax but don't have
> the slightest clues about algorithm design, performance issues and so forth.

They work pretty well for filtering out people who, amazingly, have been 
programming for 20+ years and can't (for example) write a program to print 
out the first 50 prime numbers.  We wouldn't have fizzbuzz if we were 
filtering out people who knew syntax but not algorithms.

-- 
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 8/4/2012 6:44, Orchid Win7 v1 wrote:
> In the past, the problem I've always had is being utterly unable to find any
> jobs even remotely worth applying for. Everybody says "Computer jobs? Oh,
> that's easy! Jump onto the Internet and get searching. There are *millions*
> of IT jobs!" Well, uh, no there aren't.

As you've learned, you need to go to some of the sites where the people who 
aren't drones go to advertise jobs. Craigslist is another good example, at 
least in the USA.

> I'd log in to Monster.com and spend hour after hour wading through thousands

Because everyone knows of Monster.com, so everyone who doesn't know anything 
about hiring goes to monster.com to advertise.

> In short, it has always been a completely mystery to me how anyone, anywhere
> on Earth, *ever* finds any jobs at all to apply to. All I seem to find is
> utter crap.

You know someone, and they recommend a position for you. If you were willing 
to move to where someone on p.o-t lives, there would probably be people 
offering you jobs based on what they know of you here.

-- 
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

clipka <ano### [at] anonymousorg> wrote:
> Let people know that you're not afraid of taking on new challenges, and
> that you have what it /really/ takes for that: The will and ability to
> learn.
I've always wondered about this.  I would think that most every applicant for an
IT position, especially those with limited formal training or experience in the
specific technologies required for the job, will make this claim. How do you
provide evidence that, in your case, you're not wildly exaggerating or outright
lying about having this skill?

Does the IT job application process allow submitting a portfolio of your work?

For example, I have no formal training in any programming language.  I could
list URLs to a few web applications I've written for my own amusement using PHP,
JavaScript, SVG, and CSS (the last three now known collectively as HTML5),
provide a research-quality Octave/MatLab engineering application, and provide a
(beta version) production-quality Fortran 95 plugin for a commercial
application.  I could even show them a patch to add some functions to POV-Ray in
C, and a whole lot more, attempting to demonstrate that I can program in just
about anything, despite having held down only one "real job" for about two of
the past twenty-five years.

How does one work this into the process without coming off as a lying jerk?

Post a reply to this message

>> Let people know that you're not afraid of taking on new challenges, and
>> that you have what it /really/ takes for that: The will and ability to
>> learn.
> I've always wondered about this.  I would think that most every applicant for an
> IT position, especially those with limited formal training or experience in the
> specific technologies required for the job, will make this claim. How do you
> provide evidence that, in your case, you're not wildly exaggerating or outright
> lying about having this skill?

This.

The fact that fizzbuzz even needs to exist in the first place... scares me.

Post a reply to this message

Darren New wrote:
> You know someone, and they recommend a position for you. If you were willing
> to move to where someone on p.o-t lives, there would probably be people
> offering you jobs based on what they know of you here.
>
This.  Looking back on it, most of the positions I've held, including those
while I was active duty in the military, I got through word-of-mouth referral,
despite the fact that I suck at networking.

Post a reply to this message

On 04/08/2012 09:09 PM, waggy wrote:
> Darren New wrote:
>> You know someone, and they recommend a position for you. If you were willing
>> to move to where someone on p.o-t lives, there would probably be people
>> offering you jobs based on what they know of you here.
>>
> This.  Looking back on it, most of the positions I've held, including those
> while I was active duty in the military, I got through word-of-mouth referral,
> despite the fact that I suck at networking.

...right... so given that I don't know anybody, I should just give up 
now? Is that what you're saying?

Post a reply to this message

>> (There's a face-to-face interview plus a C++ coding test first. I'll
>> presumably fail that.)
>
> That's bullshit thinking. Stop that. From my experience, such "coding
> tests" are merely there to filter out people who do know the syntax but
> don't have the slightest clues about algorithm design, performance
> issues and so forth.
>
> For instance, they might ask you to write a small function to compute
> factorials. Someone might program this as a recursion because he
> happened to come across it as an example in the "programming for
> dummies" section on recursion.

/Sometimes/ it's a trivial test. Sometimes it's very intense. It's 
difficult to know until you get there.

I'm sure I told you guys about the SQL test I took once. The one with 
tasks such as "list all customers in alphabetical order"...

>> I'm ambivalent as to whether this is actually the best strategy. On one
>> hand, the more stuff I apply to, the more likely it is that somebody
>> will call me. OTOH, if I apply for something totally unsuitable, and the
>> recruiter phones me, they're not going to be amused at having their time
>> wasted.
>
> Best thing is if you do inform yourself about what the company actually
> does, and which of your skills might be of interest to them. (And don't
> just think "this particular job", but "this particular company" - they
> might have other opportunities available.) Then, when applying,
> emphasize those skills. (Don't forget the "soft skills"!)

When you see a job advertised, you don't know who the company is. (If 
you did, you could just phone them up, and then the agency wouldn't get 
their £££ for finding you.)

As to whether trawling jobs websites for advertised positions is the 
best option... well, that remains to be seen.

I am on a mission to stalk the OU. (Fat lot of good it's done me so 
far...) Oh, and Google. Because, you know, it's Google. But /everybody/ 
wants to work there, so there's no particular reason to believe they'll 
ever hire me.

>> And than there's Network Rail. A friend
>> of mine works there and insists it's the best job in the world... But
>> they have ZERO computer jobs listed.
>
> Ask your friend to dig around what they've got cooking wrt IT.

She says "keep looking". Uh, yeah. That's not much help.

> Do apply
> for a job at companies you'd probably enjoy working for, even if they
> don't seem to offer jobs right now. They might just happen to ponder
> hiring someone - or they may the moment they read your CV. You know, you
> can't actually lose anything, can you?

Finding good companies to work for is nontrivial. Figuring out how to 
apply to them when nothing is advertised is intractable. If you send 
them a letter, they'll just be like "why didn't this guy bother to look 
at what's advertised?"

> And by all means, get rid of that "I'll probably fail" attitude. You
> CANNOT LOSE at a job interview (or when sending in your CV, or whatever).

Last I heard, /most/ people fail at /most/ interviews. It takes many 
hundred thousand interviews before a hire occurs. Which, given that so 
far I've been to 2 interviews this lifetime, doesn't bode well...

(Unrelated: Apparently Bode is also the name of a type of chart used in 
signal processing, invented by Hendrik Wade Bode...)

Post a reply to this message

On 04/08/2012 06:46 PM, Darren New wrote:
> On 8/4/2012 9:03, clipka wrote:
>> are merely there to filter out people who do know the syntax but don't
>> have
>> the slightest clues about algorithm design, performance issues and so
>> forth.
>
> They work pretty well for filtering out people who, amazingly, have been
> programming for 20+ years and can't (for example) write a program to
> print out the first 50 prime numbers. We wouldn't have fizzbuzz if we
> were filtering out people who knew syntax but not algorithms.

When I went to my second interview, the interviewer asked me to take a 
simple SQL test. Before the test, he didn't seem very keen on hiring me. 
After the test, he was absolutely hyped. He was actually sitting there 
having a verbal monologue with himself, out loud, trying to decide how 
he could hire me.

The test was laughably trivial. Anybody who's read Chapter 1 of SQL for 
Dummies would have aced this test. It was literally "do you know what 
SELECT, WHERE, ORDER BY and GROUP do?" And yet, the interviewer told me, 
with a straight face, that "I have people walk in here telling me they 
have 20+ years' SQL experience and they can't do /any/ of that test!"

And that was the day I realised that unlike me, /some/ people must be 
utterly LYING THROUGH THEIR TEETH. O_O

Jesus....

Post a reply to this message

Am 04.08.2012 20:44, schrieb waggy:
> clipka <ano### [at] anonymousorg> wrote:
>> Let people know that you're not afraid of taking on new challenges, and
>> that you have what it /really/ takes for that: The will and ability to
>> learn.
> I've always wondered about this.  I would think that most every applicant for an
> IT position, especially those with limited formal training or experience in the
> specific technologies required for the job, will make this claim. How do you
> provide evidence that, in your case, you're not wildly exaggerating or outright
> lying about having this skill?

Step #1: Make them invite you for a job interview. This is admittedly 
not always easy.

Step #2: In the interview, be open, don't wear a mask; let them feel 
that you're not hiding anything and that your word can be trusted. Be 
active, don't just sit there answering their questions - proactively 
shove your relevant skills into their face (figuratively speaking :-)). 
Don't hesitate to talk about stuff you did for fun, and how it relates 
to the job you're applying for. Let them feel that you'd be eager to get 
/this/ particular job.


> For example, I have no formal training in any programming language.  I could
> list URLs to a few web applications I've written for my own amusement using PHP,
> JavaScript, SVG, and CSS (the last three now known collectively as HTML5),
> provide a research-quality Octave/MatLab engineering application, and provide a
> (beta version) production-quality Fortran 95 plugin for a commercial
> application.  I could even show them a patch to add some functions to POV-Ray in
> C, and a whole lot more, attempting to demonstrate that I can program in just
> about anything, despite having held down only one "real job" for about two of
> the past twenty-five years.
>
> How does one work this into the process without coming off as a lying jerk?

Turn your problem (not having had many "real jobs") to your advantage: 
You've done a hell lot of stuff for fun, which proves that (A) you're 
very good at teaching yourself new things, and that (B) you /love/ to 
program. And having cranked out research- or even production-quality 
stuff along the way obviously shows that (C) you're very good at drawing 
long-term motivation out of this type of pastime.

If you want them to take notice of - and believe - all this, why not 
proactively offer to show them what you've done?

Post a reply to this message

Am 04.08.2012 22:46, schrieb Orchid Win7 v1:

> The test was laughably trivial. Anybody who's read Chapter 1 of SQL for
> Dummies would have aced this test. It was literally "do you know what
> SELECT, WHERE, ORDER BY and GROUP do?" And yet, the interviewer told me,
> with a straight face, that "I have people walk in here telling me they
> have 20+ years' SQL experience and they can't do /any/ of that test!"
>
> And that was the day I realised that unlike me, /some/ people must be
> utterly LYING THROUGH THEIR TEETH. O_O

"SQL experience? Yeah, the system we were using was based on some SQL 
database. Check."

Yes, that happens.


Congratulations, you just discovered another soft skill of yours: 
Honesty and trustworthiness.

Post a reply to this message

Orchid Win7 v1 <voi### [at] devnull> wrote:
> On 04/08/2012 09:09 PM, waggy wrote:
> > Darren New wrote:
> >> You know someone, and they recommend a position for you. If you were willing
> >> to move to where someone on p.o-t lives, there would probably be people
> >> offering you jobs based on what they know of you here.
> >>
> > This.  Looking back on it, most of the positions I've held, including those
> > while I was active duty in the military, I got through word-of-mouth referral,
> > despite the fact that I suck at networking.
>
> ...right... so given that I don't know anybody, I should just give up
> now? Is that what you're saying?

Absolutely not.  I have no intention of giving job-hunting advice here.  I suck
at finding a job even more than I suck at networking.  That's why I have an
interest in your saga.

I failed to find a job for a year after receiving my undergraduate degree in
civil engineering, that's why I'm back in school.  It didn't help that the
economy melted down shortly before I graduated, or that my best contacts in the
civil engineering department left or retired, some in disgrace.

I got my current position because, after being accepted into several graduate
programs, I went and talked with someone in each program to decide which to
attend.  While talking with the (then) chair of the mechanical engineering
department, he picked up the phone and called someone (now my advisor), leaving
a message along the lines of, "I have someone here who seems like a good fit for
that research position you have open."

Despite sucking at networking, that's how I landed my current position.  Strange
things happen.

Post a reply to this message

On Sat, 04 Aug 2012 14:44:06 +0100, Orchid Win7 v1 wrote:

> I'm ambivalent as to whether this is actually the best strategy. On one
> hand, the more stuff I apply to, the more likely it is that somebody
> will call me. OTOH, if I apply for something totally unsuitable, and the
> recruiter phones me, they're not going to be amused at having their time
> wasted.

The best strategy is volume.  The outplacement service I was provided 
with during my layoff last year provided information about searching for 
a job being a full-time job unto itself.

R.I.C.H. – (Resumes, Interviews, Contacts, Hours)

This is what they describe the process as - it's about volume, sending 
resumes, getting interviews, getting contacts, and putting in the hours.

Given the quality of job descriptions, don't rely on the description to 
tell you whether or not it's suitable or not.  That's what the recruiter 
is there for.  That's what they get paid to do - to identify potential 
matches for a position.  They spend their days talking to people who are 
and who are not suitable for the position - and they're usually good at 
helping the candidate identify whether or not they're a good fit for the 
position or not.

Recruiters generally won't be angry about having their time wasted by 
unqualified candidates.  They get paid to properly identify the qualified 
and unqualified candidates.  So being a bad fit isn't your problem to 
solve.  It's their job to make that determination.

Jim

Post a reply to this message

Am 04.08.2012 22:43, schrieb Orchid Win7 v1:

> I'm sure I told you guys about the SQL test I took once. The one with
> tasks such as "list all customers in alphabetical order"...

Actually, I'm sure to really /win/ such tests, you need to fire a few 
questions at them right in return, such as what collation scheme they 
want to sort by. THEN offer to them to solve the simple task of using 
the database's default collation scheme.

>>> I'm ambivalent as to whether this is actually the best strategy. On one
>>> hand, the more stuff I apply to, the more likely it is that somebody
>>> will call me. OTOH, if I apply for something totally unsuitable, and the
>>> recruiter phones me, they're not going to be amused at having their time
>>> wasted.
>>
>> Best thing is if you do inform yourself about what the company actually
>> does, and which of your skills might be of interest to them. (And don't
>> just think "this particular job", but "this particular company" - they
>> might have other opportunities available.) Then, when applying,
>> emphasize those skills. (Don't forget the "soft skills"!)
>
> When you see a job advertised, you don't know who the company is. (If
> you did, you could just phone them up, and then the agency wouldn't get
> their £££ for finding you.)

Then phone the agency and try to find out as much about the company as 
they're willing to leak.

Rule #1: BE PROACTIVE. Don't just take what is shoved into your face.


> As to whether trawling jobs websites for advertised positions is the
> best option... well, that remains to be seen.
>
> I am on a mission to stalk the OU. (Fat lot of good it's done me so
> far...) Oh, and Google. Because, you know, it's Google. But /everybody/
> wants to work there, so there's no particular reason to believe they'll
> ever hire me.

You're as good a choice as all the other suckers out there. In Germany 
we say, "they're all cooking with water".


> Finding good companies to work for is nontrivial. Figuring out how to
> apply to them when nothing is advertised is intractable. If you send
> them a letter, they'll just be like "why didn't this guy bother to look
> at what's advertised?"

Did you try?

And even if you were right, they'd just trash your application and 
forget about you. Nothing lost.


> Last I heard, /most/ people fail at /most/ interviews. It takes many
> hundred thousand interviews before a hire occurs. Which, given that so
> far I've been to 2 interviews this lifetime, doesn't bode well...

Nonsense. The #1 reason for failing at an interview is not wanting to be 
hired in the first place. The #2 reason (and often related) is having 
thrown out applications indiscriminately like spam: Most won't reach a 
suitable target. Be more selective, and you can cut down on the number 
by orders of magnitude without any disadvantage.

Post a reply to this message

On Sat, 04 Aug 2012 22:48:06 +0200, clipka wrote:

> Step #2: In the interview, be open, don't wear a mask; let them feel
> that you're not hiding anything and that your word can be trusted. Be
> active, don't just sit there answering their questions - proactively
> shove your relevant skills into their face (figuratively speaking :-)).
> Don't hesitate to talk about stuff you did for fun, and how it relates
> to the job you're applying for. Let them feel that you'd be eager to get
> /this/ particular job.

This ^^^^^

The interview process is a BS-detector process.  If you lie on your CV 
about being able to code in a particular language, this will become 
apparent during a well-conducted interview.

In the end, if one lies on their CV about a skill and the company ends up 
not detecting the BS and hires the candidate, the candidate will end up 
not staying in the job for very long.  This is one of the reasons why 
hiring managers get nervous about 'job hoppers'.  It can mean that 
they're unqualified for the positions they've taken.  It can mean that 
they're flaky and opportunistic.  Neither of these traits is a good trait 
for a new employee to have.

Jim

Post a reply to this message

On Sat, 04 Aug 2012 18:03:49 +0200, clipka wrote:

> For instance, they might ask you to write a small function to compute
> factorials. Someone might program this as a recursion because he
> happened to come across it as an example in the "programming for
> dummies" section on recursion.

Yep.

I had an interview years ago with a software engineering team, and during 
the interview, I was given a problem to solve that was along the lines of 
having a container to fill with liquid, with an "input" (where the liquid 
came in) and an "output" (where the liquid went out).  The goal of the 
program was, given two functions that had two inputs each (I forget what 
now, it's been over a decade ago), keep the water between a high and low 
watermark in the container.

They asked me to solve it without a particular language - just in 
pseudocode or methodology.

I was unprepared to do that, and as a result, the day's worth of 
interviews ended up not resulting in my getting the job.

And now, over a decade later, I'm working with some of the same engineers 
I would have if I'd taken that job, but they respect me and my ability to 
learn technology quickly - and I'm writing documentation on a contract 
basis for them.

But if I'd gotten the engineering job itself - I would be somewhere else 
and wouldn't have their respect.  For this contract, though, they were 
actively excited that I was coming back to work with them again (I'd 
worked with them before at the start of the year for about 6 weeks; this 
time it's for 6 months).

Jim

Post a reply to this message

On Sat, 04 Aug 2012 22:58:34 +0200, clipka wrote:

> Congratulations, you just discovered another soft skill of yours:
> Honesty and trustworthiness.

+1 - and there are employers who consider that highly valuable.

Jim

Post a reply to this message

On Sat, 04 Aug 2012 21:43:11 +0100, Orchid Win7 v1 wrote:

>>> And than there's Network Rail. A friend of mine works there and
>>> insists it's the best job in the world... But they have ZERO computer
>>> jobs listed.
>>
>> Ask your friend to dig around what they've got cooking wrt IT.
> 
> She says "keep looking". Uh, yeah. That's not much help.

Here's something I've learned in my search for permanent employment:  
Don't ask people to do the work for you.  Especially HR people.  Don't 
ever say "if you see something that looks like a fit, please let me know" 
- they won't.  You've got to put the effort in.

Jim

Post a reply to this message

On 4-8-2012 22:35, Orchid Win7 v1 wrote:
> On 04/08/2012 09:09 PM, waggy wrote:
>> Darren New wrote:
>>> You know someone, and they recommend a position for you. If you were
>>> willing
>>> to move to where someone on p.o-t lives, there would probably be people
>>> offering you jobs based on what they know of you here.
>>>
>> This.  Looking back on it, most of the positions I've held, including
>> those
>> while I was active duty in the military, I got through word-of-mouth
>> referral,
>> despite the fact that I suck at networking.
>
> ...right... so given that I don't know anybody, I should just give up
> now? Is that what you're saying?

Hmm, why are you talking to people you don't know?

Even if we can't offer you a job (or at least not close enough to your 
mothers house, so you will turn it down anyway), we might still know 
somebody in our network. And we an testify that you
- are a good technical writer
- are very motivated to learn new things
- have in some areas of CS a good knowledge, in particular in the more 
mathematical fields
- do not have a problem posting about internal issues in your company


-- 
Women are the canaries of science. When they are underrepresented
it is a strong indication that non-scientific factors play a role
and the concentration of incorruptible scientists is also too low

Post a reply to this message

Am 04.08.2012 23:23, schrieb Jim Henderson:

> Recruiters generally won't be angry about having their time wasted by
> unqualified candidates.  They get paid to properly identify the qualified
> and unqualified candidates.  So being a bad fit isn't your problem to
> solve.  It's their job to make that determination.

While Jim mentions it: A recruiter might also come to the conclusion 
that while you won't fit the job you applied for, you might make a good 
fit for some other opportunity he has open. Not sure if that happens 
often, but it's a non-zero probability.

Post a reply to this message

Am 04.08.2012 23:33, schrieb Jim Henderson:
> On Sat, 04 Aug 2012 22:58:34 +0200, clipka wrote:
>
>> Congratulations, you just discovered another soft skill of yours:
>> Honesty and trustworthiness.
>
> +1 - and there are employers who consider that highly valuable.

... unless they have a job at sales to offer :-)

Post a reply to this message

On Sat, 04 Aug 2012 23:26:15 +0200, clipka wrote:

> Nonsense. The #1 reason for failing at an interview is not wanting to be
> hired in the first place. The #2 reason (and often related) is having
> thrown out applications indiscriminately like spam: Most won't reach a
> suitable target. Be more selective, and you can cut down on the number
> by orders of magnitude without any disadvantage.

Yes and no on #2 - volume can help, but you're right that just spamming 
for every position isn't good.

Finding the right balance between selectivity and volume is tricky.  I've 
been highly selective in who I'll apply to - but I've also been generally 
in a position where I could afford to be picky.

I was laid off about 14 months ago.  In that time, I've interviewed with 
maybe 5 or 6 companies, gone to one in-person interview, and in the end 
I'm still doing contract work.

I could be pushing for volume and applying for every possible fit, but my 
wife and I have a plan to move out of Utah, so I'm looking for jobs that 
are in Portland, OR (where we want to move to - though we wouldn't say no 
to the right opportunity in the UK, either, but that's now our second 
choice rather than our first) or that will let me work remotely.  I have 
a skill set that can appear to be overbroad - which makes selling my 
abilities to a prospective employer very difficult.  

I'm very good at learning new technologies, and also at applying 
technology to solve business problems.  For example, the company I'm 
currently on contract to, I'd done some work for at the start of the year 
on a 6-week contract.  I was brought in to fill in for a doc writer who 
was going on medical leave.  At week 5, the lead engineer said that they 
felt that any contractor they brought in wouldn't be productive until 
week 5, but I was productive on about day 3, because I learned the highly 
complex technology in a couple of days.

And that wasn't a fluke, either - the prior contract was with a company 
doing kernel-level Linux stuff for managing CPU, memory, network, I/O 
channel, etc resources.  Very highly technical stuff; the engineer 
working on the network bandwidth stuff explained the technology to me in 
about 15 minutes, and I understood it.  He said that he'd spent hours 
explaining it to others, and they still didn't understand it.  But I 
picked it up so quickly that I was able to (a) explain it back to him in 
my own words, and (b) to ask intelligent questions about why they chose 
specific implementation details rather than others that I specified - ie 
"why did you do 'x' instead of 'y'?" type questions, and 'y' was 
something that actually would have made sense.

In about 25 years of work experience, I've been a programmer, writer, 
program manager, project manager, salesperson, and IT professional.  I've 
managed training programs and testing (exams) programs, have studied and 
applied what I've learned about adult education and learning.  I've 
worked with about 30 different programming languages, including assembly 
and machine code - debugged kernel-level code, and learned highly complex 
technologies.

And the result is that if I put all my skills on my CV, very few people 
believe that I could have possibly done all of that and achieved any 
level of expertise in it.

But I tend to take what I learn and learn as much as I possibly can about 
it.  The end result is that I can talk to Linux kernel developers about 
cgroups and managing block device I/O bandwidth, and I can also talk to 
people who have spent a lifetime in adult education and technical 
training about how education is truly changing for the first time since 
the 12th century because of technologies that connect people together 
outside the classroom.

Jim

Post a reply to this message

On Sat, 04 Aug 2012 21:35:04 +0100, Orchid Win7 v1 wrote:

> ...right... so given that I don't know anybody, I should just give up
> now?
> Is that what you're saying?

You know people here. You know coworkers that you work with - coworkers 
who are all in the same boat as you are.

That actually gives you a leg up in finding jobs in other companies 
together.  When I was laid off from Novell (and my former coworkers at 
Albertsons are learning this now as well as they've all just been made 
redundant), those of us who were laid off looked out for each other.

Take some time and talk with some of your soon-to-be former coworkers.  
Ask them what they are looking for, tell them what you're looking for.  
If you see something that looks like it might be a good fit for them, 
tell them - they'll do the same for you.

They are in a position to empathize with your situation because you share 
it.  That's something that you all can benefit from.

Jim

Post a reply to this message

>>> Congratulations, you just discovered another soft skill of yours:
>>> Honesty and trustworthiness.

Heh, yeah - like nobody else claims to have those. :-P

>> +1 - and there are employers who consider that highly valuable.

There are employers who DON'T highly v-

> ... unless they have a job at sales to offer :-)

...oh.

Post a reply to this message

> Finding the right balance between selectivity and volume is tricky.

This.

I'm really not sure I'm hitting this quite right at the moment.

Post a reply to this message

> And we an testify that you
> - are a good technical writer
> - are very motivated to learn new things
> - have in some areas of CS a good knowledge, in particular in the more
> mathematical fields

Heh. Shame I can't put that on my CV. ;-)

> - do not have a problem posting about internal issues in your company

...well, maybe not.

Post a reply to this message

On 04/08/2012 10:23 PM, Jim Henderson wrote:

> Recruiters generally won't be angry about having their time wasted by
> unqualified candidates.  They get paid to properly identify the qualified
> and unqualified candidates.  So being a bad fit isn't your problem to
> solve.  It's their job to make that determination.

I was on the phone to one recruiter, and she kept asking me "Are you 
serious? Are you messing me around?" And after a few minutes, she told 
me "You're not for real. You're wasting my time." And then she just hung 
up on me. I've never had that before...

Post a reply to this message

>> ...right... so given that I don't know anybody, I should just give up
>> now?
>> Is that what you're saying?
>
> You know people here.

Sure. But I don't see any way that's going to help me get a job. Only a 
tiny fraction of the people here live in the same country. And it's not 
like just because you work for company X, that means you can hire somebody.

> You know coworkers that you work with - coworkers
> who are all in the same boat as you are.
>
> That actually gives you a leg up in finding jobs in other companies
> together.  When I was laid off from Novell (and my former coworkers at
> Albertsons are learning this now as well as they've all just been made
> redundant), those of us who were laid off looked out for each other.
>
> Take some time and talk with some of your soon-to-be former coworkers.
> Ask them what they are looking for, tell them what you're looking for.
> If you see something that looks like it might be a good fit for them,
> tell them - they'll do the same for you.
>
> They are in a position to empathize with your situation because you share
> it.  That's something that you all can benefit from.

That's a nice idea. But remember:

- I'm the one and only computer guy in a company full of lab guys.

- I live in a different city.

- I'm at a different life stage. (They're all married with children, for 
example.)

I've never really fitted in at work.

Post a reply to this message

On Sat, 04 Aug 2012 23:47:52 +0200, clipka wrote:

> Am 04.08.2012 23:33, schrieb Jim Henderson:
>> On Sat, 04 Aug 2012 22:58:34 +0200, clipka wrote:
>>
>>> Congratulations, you just discovered another soft skill of yours:
>>> Honesty and trustworthiness.
>>
>> +1 - and there are employers who consider that highly valuable.
> 
> ... unless they have a job at sales to offer :-)

LOL, point. ;)

Jim

Post a reply to this message

On Sat, 04 Aug 2012 22:53:36 +0100, Orchid Win7 v1 wrote:

>>>> Congratulations, you just discovered another soft skill of yours:
>>>> Honesty and trustworthiness.
> 
> Heh, yeah - like nobody else claims to have those. :-P

You demonstrate it, though.  It's one thing to say you're honest and 
trustworthy, quite another to actually be it.  (I say that as someone who 
values both traits very highly, and who has worked for companies that 
value it as well)

>>> +1 - and there are employers who consider that highly valuable.
> 
> There are employers who DON'T highly v-

Sure.  Do you really want to work for someone who doesn't value those 
traits?

>> ... unless they have a job at sales to offer :-)
> 
> ...oh.

;)

Jim

Post a reply to this message

On Sat, 04 Aug 2012 22:56:37 +0100, Orchid Win7 v1 wrote:

>> Finding the right balance between selectivity and volume is tricky.
> 
> This.
> 
> I'm really not sure I'm hitting this quite right at the moment.

You're not a professional job seeker, so you're not going to hit it quite 
right.  Neither am I.

I'm too selective.  I find myself in the somewhat fortunate position of 
being able to be highly selective in who I even apply to much less 
interview with.

Jim

Post a reply to this message

On Sat, 04 Aug 2012 23:04:47 +0100, Orchid Win7 v1 wrote:

>>> ...right... so given that I don't know anybody, I should just give up
>>> now?
>>> Is that what you're saying?
>>
>> You know people here.
> 
> Sure. But I don't see any way that's going to help me get a job. 

It's a question of knowing people and networking.  Not just that, of 
course, but those things help.

> Only a
> tiny fraction of the people here live in the same country. 

That doesn't matter.  How many of the people you interact with work for 
companies with offices in the UK?  I'm contracting to a company now that 
has an office in Bracknell.

> And it's not
> like just because you work for company X, that means you can hire
> somebody.

That's certainly true.  The company I'm contracting to actually would 
like to hire me, but the CEO has to approve every new hire, so it takes 
time to do that. The engineering manager I'm working with said if it were 
up to him, he'd have hired me months ago.

He and a few others managed to get me a contract position with them 
through the end of the year, so I'm hoping that's a sign that they're 
trying to get a full-time permanent position.  In the meantime, I'm 
working with products that are relevant to being a valuable member of the 
team (this company eats their own dog food, so to speak), and they 
recognise the value of hiring someone who doesn't have a steep learning 
curve to learn the products.

>> You know coworkers that you work with - coworkers who are all in the
>> same boat as you are.
>>
>> That actually gives you a leg up in finding jobs in other companies
>> together.  When I was laid off from Novell (and my former coworkers at
>> Albertsons are learning this now as well as they've all just been made
>> redundant), those of us who were laid off looked out for each other.
>>
>> Take some time and talk with some of your soon-to-be former coworkers.
>> Ask them what they are looking for, tell them what you're looking for.
>> If you see something that looks like it might be a good fit for them,
>> tell them - they'll do the same for you.
>>
>> They are in a position to empathize with your situation because you
>> share it.  That's something that you all can benefit from.
> 
> That's a nice idea. But remember:
> 
> - I'm the one and only computer guy in a company full of lab guys.
> 
> - I live in a different city.
> 
> - I'm at a different life stage. (They're all married with children, for
> example.)
> 
> I've never really fitted in at work.

None of those things matter.  *None* of them.  In fact, not fitting in 
but still helping them might just show them what they missed out on.  
Help one of them, even in a small way, find a new job - and they'll 
realize they underestimated you.

Not that you should spend your time looking for jobs for them - but if 
you see something that's a good fit for someone you worked with, let them 
know about it.

Especially as they have a family, that you'd have taken the time out of 
your own needs and said "hey, Joe would be a good fit for this" - that's  
a kind of selflessness that can be useful.  Plus it's the right thing to 
do.

Jim

Post a reply to this message

On Sat, 04 Aug 2012 23:03:50 +0100, Orchid Win7 v1 wrote:

> On 04/08/2012 10:23 PM, Jim Henderson wrote:
> 
>> Recruiters generally won't be angry about having their time wasted by
>> unqualified candidates.  They get paid to properly identify the
>> qualified and unqualified candidates.  So being a bad fit isn't your
>> problem to solve.  It's their job to make that determination.
> 
> I was on the phone to one recruiter, and she kept asking me "Are you
> serious? Are you messing me around?" And after a few minutes, she told
> me "You're not for real. You're wasting my time." And then she just hung
> up on me. I've never had that before...

There are jerks in all lines of work.  Don't take one or two or 10 
recruiters being assholes to mean that none of them want to talk to 
people to see if they're qualified.

Maybe she was having a bad day.  Maybe her dog had just been hit by a 
car.  Who knows?

Don't give up.

Jim

Post a reply to this message

Am 05.08.2012 00:07, schrieb Jim Henderson:
> On Sat, 04 Aug 2012 22:53:36 +0100, Orchid Win7 v1 wrote:
>
>>>>> Congratulations, you just discovered another soft skill of yours:
>>>>> Honesty and trustworthiness.
...
>>>> +1 - and there are employers who consider that highly valuable.
>>
>> There are employers who DON'T highly v-
>
> Sure.  Do you really want to work for someone who doesn't value those
> traits?

Word!

Post a reply to this message

Orchid Win7 v1 wrote:

>
> When you see a job advertised, you don't know who the company is. (If
> you did, you could just phone them up, and then the agency wouldn't get
> their £££ for finding you.)
>

For several years, I haven't applied for such jobs. Just because I like 
to know who and what I'm negotiating with. I might have missed a great 
job, OTOH they might have missed me. Granted, I would be so harsh if I 
was unemployed, but as long as I have a good job, I think I'm allowed to 
be picky.

I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one, so there's probably less 
applicants for such jobs, therefore easier to be number one.

> Last I heard, /most/ people fail at /most/ interviews. It takes many
> hundred thousand interviews before a hire occurs. Which, given that so
> far I've been to 2 interviews this lifetime, doesn't bode well...

Once again: correct your attitude. If you don't get hired from an 
interview, that only means you didn't appear to them as The Best of The 
Best of The Best. Sir! There might be many, many reasons and the best 
thing is that you don't actually know them, so you can always just think 
"Nah, they probably hired the bosses son/cousing/lover/addhere" and 
forget that job and move on. If you don't get the job, it doesn't mean 
you failed nor you are hopeless - it *just* means they liked someone 
more than you. Simple as that, end of story, check your calendar for the 
next interview and try harder.

-Aero

Post a reply to this message

On 8/4/2012 15:04, Orchid Win7 v1 wrote:
> - I'm the one and only computer guy in a company full of lab guys.

All the better. They only have one person to recommend when their new boss 
says "hey, were there any computer guys laid off?"

> - I live in a different city.

You may have to ease yourself out of your comfort zone.

> - I'm at a different life stage. (They're all married with children, for
> example.)

That doesn't matter for jobs.

> I've never really fitted in at work.

See #1.

No, really, print up some business cards and pass out a few to everyone at 
work with your personal cell phone number on them. Let the folks you work 
with, your local friends, etc pass them around.

-- 
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

Orchid Win7 v1 wrote:

This:

> Only a
> tiny fraction of the people here live in the same country.

and this:

> - I live in a different city.

are actually partly played out by this:

> - I'm at a different life stage. (They're all married with children, for
> example.)

You don't have family. You don't own a house. That means it's physically 
easier for you to move than for them. Put out an EU-wide search for the 
websites and check the intresting jobs that you find. See where they 
are, and then check the environment out there. What activities/hobbies 
etc are available, how are people out there, how does the place look 
like. Just think if you could see yourself living there, even for a 
small while. If yes, apply. If you don't like living there, just move 
back. At least you'll have more experience and at the next interviews 
you can say you've worked - or at least checked - at <name the place here>.

-Aero

Post a reply to this message

clipka wrote:
> Am 05.08.2012 00:07, schrieb Jim Henderson:
> > On Sat, 04 Aug 2012 22:53:36 +0100, Orchid Win7 v1 wrote:
> >
> >>>>> Congratulations, you just discovered another soft skill of yours:
> >>>>> Honesty and trustworthiness.
> ...
> >>>> +1 - and there are employers who consider that highly valuable.
> >>
> >> There are employers who DON'T highly v-
> >
> > Sure.  Do you really want to work for someone who doesn't value those
> > traits?
>
> Word!

Doesn't that depend on how much they're paying and how desperate you are?

Consider the financial services industry.  They appear to value, very, very
highly, those who can think up new and creative ways to defraud people.

Post a reply to this message

On 8/4/2012 15:39, Eero Ahonen wrote:
> it *just* means they liked someone more than you.

Or that they hired nobody at all, either because the job shouldn't have been 
advertised in the first place, or because they're too picky anyway.

-- 
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."

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On Sat, 04 Aug 2012 18:57:27 -0400, waggy wrote:

> clipka wrote:
>> Am 05.08.2012 00:07, schrieb Jim Henderson:
>> > On Sat, 04 Aug 2012 22:53:36 +0100, Orchid Win7 v1 wrote:
>> >
>> >>>>> Congratulations, you just discovered another soft skill of yours:
>> >>>>> Honesty and trustworthiness.
>> ...
>> >>>> +1 - and there are employers who consider that highly valuable.
>> >>
>> >> There are employers who DON'T highly v-
>> >
>> > Sure.  Do you really want to work for someone who doesn't value those
>> > traits?
>>
>> Word!
> 
> Doesn't that depend on how much they're paying and how desperate you
> are?

Personally, I don't think so.  But I've never been so desperate as to 
have to compromise my principles for pay.

> Consider the financial services industry.  They appear to value, very,
> very highly, those who can think up new and creative ways to defraud
> people.

I don't think I could work in that industry at all because of that - I 
wouldn't even consider looking at it as a career option because it's an 
industry that's all about greed, and I don't see greed as a virtue.

Jim

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On Sat, 04 Aug 2012 16:03:29 -0700, Darren New wrote:

> On 8/4/2012 15:39, Eero Ahonen wrote:
>> it *just* means they liked someone more than you.
> 
> Or that they hired nobody at all, either because the job shouldn't have
> been advertised in the first place, or because they're too picky anyway.

I had that experience once recently.  Flew to Portland for an in-person 
interview, and they ended up saying I clearly had the skills, but not the 
"passion for their company or product" (I think that's how they put it).  
<shrug>  Their loss, I'd have done a damned good job for them.  They 
ended up calling a former coworker back and after 30 minutes talking to 
him, decided (a second time) that he wasn't right for the job, and they 
opted to not fill it rather than fill it with someone who had all the 
skills they were looking for but not the 'enthusiasm'.

I guess I didn't jump up and down enough and say "oh my gawd, you have 
the best products EVAH!!!!!" - because I felt I was pretty enthusiastic.

But I was so much in shock when they said they were terminating the 
process before I talked to their CEO (a meeting that, if it had happened, 
would have had me missing the flight out that they had booked for me - 
which makes me wonder how serious they actually were or if they were 
looking for free consulting) that I didn't ask any intelligent questions.

Maybe they expected me to fight for it.  I thought it had gone pretty 
well.

Jim

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Jim Henderson  wrote:
> On Sat, 04 Aug 2012 18:57:27 -0400, waggy wrote:
> > Doesn't that depend on how much they're paying and how desperate you
> > are?
>
> Personally, I don't think so.  But I've never been so desperate as to
> have to compromise my principles for pay.
>
I hope you never are.

Although being just shy of living on the streets did help me figure out exactly
what my principles are, before selling a few.

> > Consider the financial services industry.  They appear to value, very,
> > very highly, those who can think up new and creative ways to defraud
> > people.
>
> I don't think I could work in that industry at all because of that - I
> wouldn't even consider looking at it as a career option because it's an
> industry that's all about greed, and I don't see greed as a virtue.
>
Stay away from the US health care industry, too.  "Pay us money or you and your
loved ones will suffer and die needlessly," is pretty much the definition of
extortion.

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On 05/08/2012 5:05 AM, Jim Henderson wrote:
>> Doesn't that depend on how much they're paying and how desperate you
>> >are?
> Personally, I don't think so.  But I've never been so desperate as to
> have to compromise my principles for pay.
>

Lucky you.

-- 
Regards
     Stephen

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On 04/08/2012 10:37 PM, andrel wrote:
> - do not have a problem posting about internal issues in your company

I do not believe that this is a plus point for employers. ;-)

-- 
Regards
     Stephen

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