[geeks] Bad monster. No donut.

[Michael Parson]

On Thu, Nov 09, 2006 at 02:47:25PM -0500, velociraptor wrote:
> Those with delicate emotional sensibilities might want to take a pass
> on this message--I'm just warning you it's not warm fuzzies.
>
> On 11/8/06, Lionel Peterson <lionel4287 at verizon.net>wrote:
>
>> No, it gets then a stack of resumes to hand to department heads
>> in record time. Before Monster.com, it could take weeks to get 10
>> applicants for a job to choose from, and you got them by either
>> offering major MAJOR "bounties" for a successful placement, or by
>> running numerous ads in the local paper.
>
> I disagree.  I have kept my resume on Monster pretty much continuously
> since 03/04.  I'd say between 80-90+% of the "hits" I get are from
> head hunters and contracting agencies (i.e. people who get paid by
> placing candidates).

<snip>

> If you're not getting hits on your resume, IMO, you are either a)
> someplace that has no demand for what you are pimping, b) you have
> some "negative" in your background which makes you a perceived risk,
> or c) your resume is turning off eyeballs because of poor
> content/design.  "a" can't be fixed without a relocation, or pimping
> some other skillset.  "b" can be mitigated somewhat by the judicious
> application of the same resources you use to resolve "c"--hiring a
> professional resume writer.  Just like you'd hire an expert to rebuild
> your vehicle engine if you don't have wrenching expertise, or would
> hire a roofer or other $skilled_trade, hire an expert to (re)craft
> your resume if you don't have the chops, or get out there and learn.
> There is nothing wrong about admitting you don't have a certain
> skillset and hiring an expert, or finding out what it takes to get
> that skillset yourself.

I didn't hire a professional resume writer, but I did heavily rewrite
and reformat my resume a few years ago when the dot-com bubble burst and
I last found myself unemployed.  The girlfriend of a friend of mine was
a long-time HR type and was at the time the VP of HR at some company,
she offered to go over my resume with me and helped me redo it to make
it more marketable.

I'm also not saying all the job boards are bad.  I've just never gotten
anything but misses from Monster.  I did get one job through Yahoo jobs
a while back, and this round, I think I got two interviews out of my
posting on careerbuilder.com, neither of which could meet my salary
requirements.  I also get hit by recruiters that find my resume through
Google and pull it off my webpage.

> The unemployment rate just hit a 5 year low.  IT people are in demand
> in the areas where they are always in demand when business is not
> busting: DC, California, Seattle, Atlanta, DFW, yada, yada.
>
> It's nice to vent about the cluelessness of HR folks, but the reality
> is, if you aren't getting hits on your resume something else is wrong.
> To put it bluntly, these kind of comments about job hunting remind
> me of the horror stories told here about bad sys admins--rather than
> analyzing the problem and getting to the root cause, said sys admins
> just keep rebooting the server.

I've inherited a few of those shops.  Did my best to clean them up,
when I was done, I was often told that they didn't know that computers
could run like that (w/o semi-weekly reboots, etc).  A lot of shops just
accept downtime as part of the workday.

> I only say this because aside from my long experience with Solaris,
> there's not a whole lot to *technically* recommend me as a SA.  Most
> of my saleability has to do with attitude about quality support and
> skills in communication.  At LISA, I'm just another middle of the road
> SA.  Yet I have no trouble finding positions and getting hired.  Now
> finding the *right* (for me) work environment is a different story,
> but in the the meantime, bills are paid.
>
> =Nadine=
> _______________________________________________
> GEEKS:  http://www.sunhelp.org/mailman/listinfo/geeks
>

-- 
Michael Parson
mparson at bl.org