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 

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.



- 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 


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