[Note: this is probably more on-topic for perl-jobs-discuss, but that list
seems to be pretty much vacant at 1 subscriber, according to ezmlm]
On Thu, Aug 24, 2000 at 10:07:13AM -0700, Vicki Brown wrote:
[snip lots of interesting stats about Perl jobs in Silicon Valley]
Yep, there are plenty of Perl jobs out there. The demise of Perl
professionally has been greatly exaggerated or some such cliche. I've gone
through several job searches in the past two years, and my problem has never
been finding the positions...
> Then, even nicer, the recruiters have started to call me. I posted my
> "availability profile" and the phone is ringing a lot. I'm a Perl programmer
> with background in QA, documentation, a little C. No C++, no Java, I don't do
> Windows. And I got a dozen calls yesterday alone. Two this morning before 9am
> (bleh). Thank the Maker for answering machines. Not only that, a lot of them
> are actually close to interesting matches :-)
_This_ is the problem I've encountered. For my past two jobs and for one
near-job before that, I've had horror story upon horror story relating to
recruiters and headhunters.
I've finally decided to never work with a recruiter again.
The first time I placed my resume online, I was flattered and overjoyed at the
response it garnered. Recruiters from all over the country call, email, and
just plain beg you to take their jobs or recommend someone who might be a
"good fit".
After a while, it starts to get old -- the line between a recruiter and a
spammer starts to blur. If it doesn't get old, and you find a job through one,
you might find out that the recruiting firm is marking up your rate enough
that they're making $40/hr for your time.
Unfortunately, my experience in this industry is that it's not very easy to
find jobs without going through recruiters other than by word-of-mouth. I
initially thought that it would simply take more legwork; instead of putting
my resume up and waiting for them to come to me, I'd go searching on dice,
monster, hotjobs, etc. The big surprise there is that most of the jobs
_posted_ are from recruiters.
So what does this all have to do with Perl advocacy? After my recent problems
with trying to find employment without the "aid" of a recruiter, I was doing
some thinking about how the process could be made easier for other Perl
people.
I don't have a particularly good answer right now. I think if I had a little
more equity in the community, I'd try to put together some sort of
not-for-profit organization dedicated to helping Perl people find jobs. Not a
consulting firm, not a recruiting agency, just a ... collective of hackers.
The PJA/PJW list on steroids. But I don't think I could pull it off; no one
knows who I am, and name value will be very important for something like this.
It will have to be sold to companies and to programmers.
Would that help? I don't know. I also don't know if anyone else feels this way
about it. Maybe I've just been incredibly unlucky, and I shouldn't be spending
my time trying to hatch plots to cut out recruiters from the Perl job economy.
Sorry for the pseudo-rant. I feel a little better now.
-dlc
