----- Original Message -----
Sent: Thursday, November 01, 2001 9:53
AM
Subject: Re: Posting your resume @
ajug
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Thursday, November 01, 2001 2:20
PM
Subject: Posting your resume @
ajug
Steve,
My name
is Michael[Myke]Brinson, a Java Developer, and I saw that you posted
your resume to AJUG. Well the big
question. Did you receive any interest as a result
of posting your resume. I AM LOOKING FOR
A JOB in ATL and my resume is
attached.
THANKS
Myke
Myke,
No, not yet. I really appreciate the opportunity given to
all of us to post our resume on the AJUG web site.
In my current experience in Atlanta there really are no jobs
at all. Every single job that I have pursued in VaporJobs.com (can't use a
real name) has either been "pulled" by the client, already filled, or doesn't
even get mentioned when I occasionally get called back by a representative of
the posting organization. I was told by one company that if they didn't post
something they could not continue to use the service so I guess what they do
is just continue to use job descriptions that have no substance. One staffing
company representative told me that I could not be considered unless I could
provide a file containing a sample of some code that I had written. When I
said that all of the code I write contains a copyright which means that I can
not comply, his response was that I would not be considered. The fact that you
had to produce a code sample was actually stated in the job posting. This is
not just VaporJobs.com. I have encountered several companies that have
wonderful postings for jobs that have been posted for many months and several
others that stated that they currently have a hiring freeze in effect while
the jobs postings remain. All of these entities actively solicit and accept
resumes which leads me to believe that the Dilbert cartoon that we saw today
on this list is actually quite close to the truth.
Another thing that I have noticed is that if you don't have
the years of experience which sometime seem to meet or exceed the time the
products have existed, you're not going to be considered. What HR people and
recruiters seem to have lost is the fact that this field is about constantly
learning and acquiring skills, not becoming as specialized as a structural
steel welder. If we can't become more flexible in our hiring practices we are
going to go down the same rathole that auto manufacturers went down and all
software development will probably go offshore. As an example of this
particular gripe: my efforts to get a job working with embedded systems. An
embedded system is basically a computer, usually small, contained in a larger
system such as one of the currently popular set-top boxes which does all sorts
of fantastic things with your TV. I feel that my skills and experience in
real-time, digital signal processing, assembler/C/C++/Java language skills,
etc. would allow me to do a great job in this field. I can't even get in the
door ostensibly because I don't have an exact match for the customers
requirements which were copied verbatim by the staffing company. I say
ostensibly because it could be possible that the staffing company and/or the
hiring party does not understand how to evaluate my skills. Isn't that a hell
of a note? We all know by now that most resumes are qualified by scanning
applications and not by people and we also know that applications are not as
smart as the developer, well, maybe not always. A current guideline is to
limit your resume to three pages. If you have been doing this work as long as
I have it seems rather demeaning to have to remove part of what I think is
valuable information that I want my potential employer to see. Could it be
that whomever made this recommendation was not aware of the great
price-performance ratio of the new disk drives.
I love this field and I am passionate about learning as much
as I can and doing as many things as I can. I will not chop off my resume just
so I can look like anybody. Over the years I have invested a lot of money,
time, and energy in soaking up technology-related information and I am by
no means unique. I consider myself a scientist, an engineer, and an artist.
Have you ever seen some of the CVs (curriculum vitae) of accomplished
university professors? They are quite long and I am sure that no one ever told
them to "dumb it down".
Hang in there Myke. We may need to work in some other town
for a while. Good Luck to everyone.
Steve