[CLUE-Talk] Re: Marketing Your Linux Skills

[Sean LeBlanc]

I just wanted to comment on the PDF thing. I applied for a job over a year
ago with one recruiter. I happened to send a PDF, IIRC, and I got a message
from this guy later - note he didn't hit reply to mine, he wrote up a
different message, and all the message had in the body (no subject) was:

can't read it.

Since it was/is? a down market and I was out of work, I tried to continue
working with him, but I definitely made a mental note of this guy and it
wasn't a positive one. I'm sorry, but these people are recruiting for
technical positions. They could at least have basic competency in the field
they are recruiting for. This guy gets two strikes for:

1. Not knowing how to open a PDF file, and 

2. Not possessing even basic communications skills. I mean, even an eight
year old child with no business experience should know you need to provide
some CONTEXT with your communications. "can't read it" doesn't cut the
mustard. Yeah, in a down market, you can be flexible in how well you treat
the worker side of the recruiting equation[1], but memories last a long time,
and markets have a strange way of turning tables...in a good market, I would
have struck the guy off my contact list. If he's giving me that sort of
impression, what must his clients be getting? 


Anyway, bottom line is, I ended up falling back to Word. Some of the people
you have to get through to get to the competents are not the brightest
of bulbs. But even the lowest of the low know how to open a Word doc. As for
creating stuff in OO and hoping it will look okay in Word, I'm with Jed.
Without knowing for sure, I wouldn't count on it, and when you need money to
pay rent/mortgage, it's too much at risk. 










[1] Sorta off subject here, but the other day I was pondering if the
employee/employer relationship is going to be a vicious cycle now that
things are maybe turning around a bit. Here's a brief synopsis of how I see
the cycle. Keep in mind this only an impression, and I didn't enter the
workforce fulltime until 1994.

Once upon a time, loyalty meant something. People worked hard and when their
30+ years were up, they'd get a gold watch, get an "atta boy" and would
retire. 

Then came the late 80's/early 90's and the downsizing/rightsizing fads swept
the corporate world. Employee loyalty was given a slap in the face. So,
employees remembered that burn and wanted to get a payout when things got
better in the mid to late 90's. They wanted flextime, telecommuting, signing
bonuses, laidback dress, stock options and overtime pay. Job-hopping
didn't seem to have the taint that it once had. The impression was that we
got all we wanted as IT workers and then some. 

Then the downturn hit.  Recruiters and HR people alike seemed to want to get
"revenge" (some, not all) on "uppity programmers" and other IT folks who
somehow are viewed as making out like bandits in the 90's. Some corps
starting making the geeks at least wear biz casual, in some cases, ties.
Arrogance and a "you had it coming" attitude seemed to greet me on some of
the calls I received/made. People would post ridiculous contracts for $20
hour and turn me down for them because I "didn't have enough JSP" on my
resume, for example. 

Now, things seemed to have turned the corner. Maybe. Hard to say. I've had a
few calls (unsolicited, mind you) from recruiters testing the waters. Do you
think potential employees will turn the screws even harder this time around,
and the next downturn, you think HR/recruiters will be even more nasty? I
was never a hardass on my salary negotiation. I did leave one perm position
and told them frankly on the exit interview that I was leaving for more pay,
but that was it. And it was REALLY low pay, even for the low cost of living
in that area.

I'm just wondering what the long term effect will be on the so-called social
contract between employee/employer. Personally, I wonder if it ever really
existed, but again, I really wasn't in the workforce when it supposedly did.
Anyone care to comment?

-- 
Sean LeBlanc:seanleblanc at comcast.net  
Great things are accomplished by talented people who believe they will 
accomplish them. 
-Warren Bennis