[GRLUG] Job searches - any good tips?

[Michael Mol]

"They went through a formal hiring process...and then hired the one
they wanted from somewhere in the department" is a phrase I've heard
more often than not.

On Mon, Mar 14, 2011 at 2:47 PM, Bob Kline <bob.kline at gmail.com> wrote:
> There are probably still legal reasons
> why a job has to be advertised, even if
> it's already been filled.  To avoid all kinds
> of allegations.  Discrimination. Cronyism.
> Etc.  Not clear whether the public announcement
> has to have the same requirements. e.g.,
> "Can you solve Maxwell's equations for a PC?"
> might not be on the private list of requirements.
>    -- Bob
>
> On Mon, Mar 14, 2011 at 2:37 PM, Philip J. Robar <philip.robar at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>>
>> On Mar 14, 2011, at 12:49 PM, Rob Steenwyk wrote:
>>
>> > I am currently employed, but in the interest of keeping my options open
>> > have been looking around for any open Sys Admin position in West Michigan.
>> > Haven't had much luck. I've been looking on Craigslist, Dice.com and the
>> > classifieds in the GR Press.
>>
>> Most job seeking related articles I've read say that only about 10% of
>> positions in any field are filled via the big sites like Monster, Dice, etc.
>> In Silicon Valley, where I'm from, it's who you know (including lists and
>> user groups like this one. There's been a hand full of announcements, you
>> might want to check the archives.), Craig's List, jobs posted by companies
>> themselves at their sites, job shops and maybe LinkedIn. (In that order, in
>> rapidly diminishing order of value.)
>>
>> My Dice experience from a couple of years ago was that I got lots of calls
>> from junior head hunters paying their dues by ploughing through piles of
>> resumes found by Resumix. Most of them couldn't spell C and though that UNIX
>> was a type of unicorn. If you don't match what they're looking for exactly
>> you were unlikely to hear back from them. But, on the other hand I did get a
>> couple of interesting leads this way and a couple of calls from actually
>> hiring firms.
>>
>> At least in the Vally, Craig's List had lots of interesting real job
>> openings.
>>
>> Newspaper ads for exempt positions like engineering are pretty much there
>> only to fulfill Federal H1B visa requirements, they're not actually looking
>> for U.S. applicants.
>>
>> My first real job in the Valley was a testing position at a start-up which
>> I found on a bulletin-board at a junior college. (I'm self taught in
>> computers and was willing to work relatively inexpensively.) When they had
>> to lay me off a year later they made my job for my last few weeks to be
>> getting a new job.* They got me three interviews which resulted in two
>> offers, one from Intel and one from Sun. While at Sun I got an offer from
>> Taligent (which I still regret not taking) from the manger who had hired me
>> at Sun. After 11 years at Sun I took some time off (I thought I was well
>> off, the 2001 tech bubble bursting informed me otherwise. ;-) My next job
>> was at Postini (Pre Google buy out. :-( I was hired there by one of my best
>> friends—whom I met at Sun. As I said, it's mostly who you know—and a little
>> luck.
>>
>> My brother, who lives in Columbus, has had some luck with job shops, but
>> you're giving away a serious amount of money by going that route. He got his
>> current job via a happenstance meeting with a stranger at a FedEx/Kinkos.
>> (Who you know…)
>>
>> Many of the big tech and development sites (Arstechnica, Dr. Dobbs, etc.)
>> have job boards which seem to be listing real positions. As do many of the
>> tech companies whose sites I visit—especially the smaller ones.
>>
>> I was under the impression (perhaps mistakenly) that Grand Rapids was one
>> of Michigan's tech centers, but given the reality of Michigan's economy and
>> ongoing brain drain if you really want get into system administration you
>> have to be willing to move—probably out of state—or be patient. Hiring is
>> definitely on the rise in Silicon Valley and other parts of the country.
>>
>> BTW, I take offense at your "only want to be a sys admin", as if system
>> administration can't be high level engineering. System administration jobs
>> run the gamut from extremely junior operations position like replacing hard
>> drives in a server farm to running that server farm. Two of the smartest
>> people ever at Sun where, take away the fancy titles, system administrators.
>> One of them runs Netflix's engineering department now. Perhaps you meant,
>> "I'm looking for an entry level or junior sys admin position." ;-)
>>
>> Phil
>>
>> *Yes, there are at least a few people in Silicon Valley with the level of
>> integrity that says that even when you don't know if the company that you
>> founded is going to be alive in the foreseeable future that you still have
>> an obligation to make sure that your junior engineers in their first job
>> with only a year of experience make a successful transition to a new job.
>> (There's that luck thing again. :-)
>>
>>
>>
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