On Thu, Sep 18, 2008 at 02:32:36PM -0500, Bill Walton wrote: > Gregory Seidman wrote: > > Job notices are always noise here, as opposed to the signal > > of technical discussion of Rails, > > I guess my reaction to that statement would depend on what you mean by > 'technical discussion of Rails. You mean to include the dozens of "will > somebody do my homework?" that we get per week? What about the "my > framework's bigger than your's" posts we endure. Or, one of my favorite > recurring discussions --- "let's start a beginner's list. these beginners > are _soooo_ not ME.". I'd much rather figure out a way to eliminate the > dozens, if not hundreds, of those I see each week than the three or four job > postings, no matter what their source.
The beginner's list discussion is a trap that every technical mailing list I've ever been on has fallen into. Same with do my homework. Over and over. The problem there is filtering. The people who participate in all of those discussions are mainly the same people who contribute in valuable ways to other threads. (Even the kids with homework sometimes become valuable contributors.) The same cannot be said for job announcements. Direct employer job announcements are sometimes posted by folks who contribute to discussions and just want to help their company fill a spot. Other times it's an actual HR type. As a category, they cannot be said to be posted by noncontributing people. They also contribute some value to the ever-changing segment of the list membership seeking employment. In comparison, job announcements from third-party recruiters contribute less value and are 100% posted by people who contribute in no (other?) valuable way. More below. > > but those from third-party recruiters are actively unpleasant > > It's three or four a week, Greg. What's got your back up? A third-party job announcement is spam masquerading as value. It's unsolicited and commercial, clearly, but it's worse than that. Anyone who responds to the posting, regardless of whether they get the job or not, is permanently in the recruiter's database and will continue to get spammed by the recruiter indefinitely. Third-party recruiters work exactly like spammers, and for the same reasons: even a very small conversion rate pays off, and it's simple to take a shotgun approach by spamming everyone. I saw two or three messages just today. I'm worried that the trickle will become a flood. > > and largely useless noise in a way in which direct employer notices are > > not. > > While I don't disagree that postings from employers are typically better, > the impact of screening postings from third-party recruiters would be > nothing but negative WRT the growth of the job market for RoR developers. > The fact is that large companies rely on 3rd-party recruiters to fill > their position openings. There are more than a few of us out here > working hard to get RoR positions opened up in those companies. More power to you, but third-party recruiters do not aid in your endeavors. The best at what they do rarely, if ever, get involved with third-party recruiters. The candidates third-party recruiters bring in average below the level of direct hires, and poor candidates for these jobs you're trying to open up does nothing to help your cause. If there's a job opening at your company, go ahead and post it here. You're providing at least as much value to the list membership and to your employer as any third-party recruiter could, and you're saving your employer the recruiter's fee. > Ignore the posts if they bother you. I delete 80-95% of the messages I receive from all the mailing lists I'm on by looking at nothing more than their subjects. The problem is that there is no good way to distinguish by subject an interesting direct job announcement from recruiter trash. If the recruiter spam increases, I'll stop bothering with job announcements at all and just delete them outright. I won't be the only one. The legitimate, direct announcements will disappear into the noise and companies will have more trouble filling RoR positions. There is no win from ignoring the problem. > Best regards, > Bill --Greg --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Ruby on Rails: Talk" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/rubyonrails-talk?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
