requesting job seach tips

[charlieg]

Ray - more than likely, the big boys used an executive search firm, sort of like a sports agent :). As far as finding work, network network network. My best jobs have always come from friends calling me. Why? Because they circumvented HR for me. Call your friends, let them know you are looking for work. If your reputation is good (I'll assume it is :-\ ) then you might just land something decent. Here's the real deal. I work on a small development team. We do not have staff or patience to tolerate bad apples. Either do the work, fit in with the team, or don't apply. So when we look for people, rare these days I admit, we're very, very, very careful. I had a boss years ago tell me that if the person wasn't a good fit, we could just fire them. It isn't that easy.

Charlie Gilley Will program for food... Hurtling toward a government of the stupid, by the stupid, for the stupid we go. —Michelle Malkin This crap sandwich is all yours.... 2009 "Stimulus Bill"

[Rocky Moore]

Man, if you got C#/ASP.NET there should be plenty of jobs as long as you live in a decent size metro area. You might check into the .NET user groups in your area, they are ripe for job contacts. Guess you could take out a personal ad: .NET developer seeking other local .NET developers.. :)

Rocky <>< Recent Blog Post: Playing with Kubuntu Linux.. Thinking about Silverlight? www.SilverlightCity.com

[charlieg]

".NET developer seeking other local .NET developers.." better state your gender preference :))

Charlie Gilley Will program for food... Hurtling toward a government of the stupid, by the stupid, for the stupid we go. —Michelle Malkin This crap sandwich is all yours.... 2009 "Stimulus Bill"

[Dalek Dave]

Yeah, check out your ports and sockets!

------------------------------------ "Children today are tyrants. They contradict their parents, gobble their food and tyrannize their teachers. I despair for the future." Socrates 400BC

[Ennis Ray Lynch Jr]

Must be female and hot. ...Why do I suddenly hear crickets chirping?

Need custom software developed? I do C# development and consulting all over the United States. A man said to the universe: "Sir I exist!" "However," replied the universe, "The fact has not created in me A sense of obligation." --Stephen Crane

[Mustafa Ismail Mustafa]

Or doors creaking and you can see tumbleweeds rolling. I've always wondered at the lack of hot girls (not including their minds, that's a different story) in science and engineering. When I was an undergrad, any girl with a visual rating above 6 was certainly not studying anything scientific.

If the post was helpful, please vote! Current activities: Book: Foundation's Edge by Isaac Asimov Project: Hospital Automation, final stage Learning: Image analysis, LINQ Now and forever, defiant to the end. What is Multiple Sclerosis[^]?

[Dalek Dave]

Thankfully there are all us hot guys, so they should come running soon! (Nurse, Nurse! My medication seems to be running low...)

------------------------------------ "Children today are tyrants. They contradict their parents, gobble their food and tyrannize their teachers. I despair for the future." Socrates 400BC

[PIEBALDconsult]

WinForms would be fine, but I prefer Windows Services, database, and system integration -- shuffling data around in the background, as I've been doing for fifteen years. Unfortunately, not many companies seem to need that, or don't realize they do, or list unrelated requirements for the position for no apparent reason. My last job was ideal... until they realized that I had finished the project and laid me off. On the bright side, I'm going over there today to get the specs for a new project. :cool: On a side note; I recall you were asking about sturdy keyboards a while back. I have since bought an IBM 101-key keyboard[^] through ebay (new in box), it was assembled in 1997 (I think) and is significantly heavier than the keyboard I had been using. It's not clicky, but the keys do seem a little stiffer than others I've used recently.

[Ennis Ray Lynch Jr]

I bet it's nice with no GD Windows key in the way.

Need custom software developed? I do C# development and consulting all over the United States. A man said to the universe: "Sir I exist!" "However," replied the universe, "The fact has not created in me A sense of obligation." --Stephen Crane

[Henry Minute]

Number 1 on your priority list should be to get a spell-checker "requesting job seach tips". :-D

Henry Minute Do not read medical books! You could die of a misprint. - Mark Twain Girl: (staring) "Why do you need an icy cucumber?" “I want to report a fraud. The government is lying to us all.”

[Vikram A Punathambekar]

Mustafa Ismail Mustafa wrote:

When I was an undergrad, any girl with a visual rating above 6 was certainly not studying anything scientific.

When I was an undergrad, guys around any girl with a visual rating above 6 were certainly not studying anything scientific. :laugh:

Cheers, Vikram.

Current activities: Films: Sense and Sensibility TV series: Friends, season 2 Books: Longitude, by Dava Sobel.

---

Carpe Diem.

[Anna Jayne Metcalfe]

JeffCirceo wrote:

does any one have any good job seach tips?

Sure. Avoid recruiters if you can, since they are almost invariably scum. Building your network of contacts (e.g. LinkedIn, ACCU, BCS etc.) can also help if you hit on the right people (who are invariably not recruiters...). Good luck! :rose:

Anna :rose: Having a bad bug day? Tech Blog | Anna's Place | Tears and Laughter "If mushy peas are the food of the devil, the stotty cake is the frisbee of God"

[Ennis Ray Lynch Jr]

Wow, that would be a terrible socket exception to have to catch. They all apply :p #define WSAEWOULDBLOCK (WSABASEERR+35) #define WSAEINPROGRESS (WSABASEERR+36) #define WSAEALREADY (WSABASEERR+37) #define WSAENOTSOCK (WSABASEERR+38) #define WSAEDESTADDRREQ (WSABASEERR+39) #define WSAEMSGSIZE (WSABASEERR+40) #define WSAEPROTOTYPE (WSABASEERR+41) #define WSAENOPROTOOPT (WSABASEERR+42) #define WSAEPROTONOSUPPORT (WSABASEERR+43) #define WSAESOCKTNOSUPPORT (WSABASEERR+44) #define WSAEOPNOTSUPP (WSABASEERR+45) #define WSAEPFNOSUPPORT (WSABASEERR+46) #define WSAEAFNOSUPPORT (WSABASEERR+47) #define WSAEADDRINUSE (WSABASEERR+48) #define WSAEADDRNOTAVAIL (WSABASEERR+49) #define WSAENETDOWN (WSABASEERR+50) #define WSAENETUNREACH (WSABASEERR+51) #define WSAENETRESET (WSABASEERR+52) #define WSAECONNABORTED (WSABASEERR+53) #define WSAECONNRESET (WSABASEERR+54) #define WSAENOBUFS (WSABASEERR+55) #define WSAEISCONN (WSABASEERR+56) #define WSAENOTCONN (WSABASEERR+57) #define WSAESHUTDOWN (WSABASEERR+58) #define WSAETOOMANYREFS (WSABASEERR+59) #define WSAETIMEDOUT (WSABASEERR+60) #define WSAECONNREFUSED (WSABASEERR+61) #define WSAELOOP (WSABASEERR+62) #define WSAENAMETOOLONG (WSABASEERR+63) #define WSAEHOSTDOWN (WSABASEERR+64) #define WSAEHOSTUNREACH (WSABASEERR+65) #define WSAENOTEMPTY (WSABASEERR+66) #define WSAEUSERS (WSABASEERR+68) #define WSAEDQUOT (WSABASEERR+69) #define WSAESTALE (WSABASEERR+70) #define WSAEREMOTE (WSABASEERR+71)

Need custom software developed? I do C# development and consulting all over the United States. A man said to the universe: "Sir I exist!" "However," replied the universe, "The fact has not created in me A sense of obligation." --Stephen Crane

[CalvinHobbies]

Resumes and Cover letters are a pain. Everyone has an opinion and no right answers ( as HR and IT that are hiring all use different tactics). one thing that is important (least I've seen) is listing what you have achived or done at previous job. Shows you used some skills at the previous place. I find IT interview with an HR personal to be gentler as they don't quiz you like an IT manager would ( with having the experience and the knowledge).

///////////////// Thus spake the master programmer: ``A well-written program is its own heaven; a poorly-written program is its own hell.''

[CalvinHobbies]

I have had mixed results with recruiters. on the plus side they tend to be my higher paying jobs then the non recruiters. the down side is they were sometimes short. :/ my Current company is the equalvent of a M*A*S*H unit minus the Martini set, house coat, and shelling. (mmm Martini ..) so the middle ground of a full time but being contracted out. weeee :omg:

Anna-Jayne Metcalfe wrote:

JeffCirceo wrote: does any one have any good job seach tips? Sure. Avoid recruiters if you can, since they are almost invariably scum. Building your network of contacts (e.g. LinkedIn, ACCU, BCS etc.) can also help if you hit on the right people (who are invariably not recruiters...). Good luck!

///////////////// Thus spake the master programmer: ``A well-written program is its own heaven; a poorly-written program is its own hell.''

[Lost User]

Sneak into a big universitie's Job fair... although the Career Dev group of the U tells the students to put their student ID on the resume and informs the companies of this, I doubt they (the company) would through a shiny resume of a possible super start away just because it was lacking the student ID at the bottom... I mean sometimes the students just forget or dont know they are suppose to do that. Anyways, if you live in a big city go to the fairs. Although I am guessing most are done for this semester, but you never know unless you check.

[Mark_Wallace]

PIEBALDconsult wrote:

Actually I think the problem is that the HR fool who writes the ads doesn't know what she's doing and so lists every acronym she can or simply copies someone else's ad, not knowing what the actual job requires.

Twice, I've had to kick the arse of an HR idiot (a different one each time) for not showing me what turned out to be ideal applicants for the jobs, because they make the first cut with some kind of point system, based on keywords found in a search of the CV. Who decides on the keywords to enter into the list to search on? Well, an HR idiot, obviously. They don't believe that the person who will actually be employing the candidate knows enough to make such difficult choices. They've had training on how to do it, so they obviously know best.

I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!

[Joe Woodbury]

I disagree. I am in contact with five recruiters, two of whom got me jobs in the past ten years, all have gotten me very good interviews. All are very honest, perceptive and helpful. (I even had one who advised me not to pursue one job since it was a contract position without benefits and he wasn't sure it would ever transition to full-time. He did leave the choice to me.)

Anyone who thinks he has a better idea of what's good for people than people do is a swine. - P.J. O'Rourke

[Joe Woodbury]

Register on every job board you can. Be very specific about what skills you have and what kind of jobs you would consider. If you must, eliminate skills that would fool search engines into thinking you want to work in an area (I hate SQL programming, but I can do the basics; as a skill it comes and goes on my resume.) That said, when you find hits on a place like Dice, do some detective work to find out what company is actually hiring, perhaps even who the hiring manager is. That's your best shot. The next best if finding out which recruiter works with the company and isn't simply trolling company "career" sites. Don't dismiss recruiters. Many are scum, but there are also honest, hard working, intelligent recruiters out there. I've gotten two jobs in the last 10 years through recruiters, including the one I'm at now. One thing to find out is whether a specific recruiter is simply trolling job sites or whether they have a contract with a company (some companies ONLY use recruiters for professional positions.) Check out your local unemployment office. Some companies register there as a matter of course. My local office has a decent web site. Be prepared for a long slog and lots of rejection. Be prepared for fickle management, especially ones who advertise one salary amount and then low ball you with the actual offer (I had one offer where they told the recruiter and me before I flew out that they would pay 90,000+, only to be told after all the interviews that they couldn't pay more than 60,000.)

Anyone who thinks he has a better idea of what's good for people than people do is a swine. - P.J. O'Rourke

[Anna Jayne Metcalfe]

NightJammer wrote:

I have had mixed results with recruiters. on the plus side they tend to be my higher paying jobs then the non recruiters. the down side is they were sometimes short. :/ my Current company is the equalvent of a M*A*S*H unit minus the Martini set, house coat, and shelling. (mmm Martini ..) so the middle ground of a full time but being contracted out.

Eek! Well, I guess at least you get to practice the art of dark humour there.... :rolleyes: We've had a really crap time with recruiters/agencies over the past few years - probably exacerbated with the fact we were in the freelance market in the time, and the agencies only understand the "bums on seats" model (the one thing we don't do in those engagements as it tends to be viewed very unfavourably by the tax authorities in the UK). We're very thorough when it comes to contract terms too - and they certainly don't seem to know how to handle that! Long story, but the end result is that we no longer deal with agencies, and focus on product development instead. For us, dealing with agencies proved not to be worth the stress it caused.

Anna :rose: Having a bad bug day? Tech Blog | Anna's Place | Tears and Laughter "If mushy peas are the food of the devil, the stotty cake is the frisbee of God"