-----Original Message-----
From: Peter J. Schoenster <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: WC:>: Web jobs...
>On 27 Jun 98, at 9:15, Andreas Ramos wrote:
>
>> Here's yet more web jobs...
>
>Andreas,
>
>Where did you get the job listing from?
Go to www.dice.com and sign up. It's free. They'll daily email you jobs
within specific categories, such as "web". I sent this one out only because
there were seven, instead of the usual two-three daily.
>But in any case I wonder who these people hire. I have long sent my resume
>(albeit not in the most congenial ways -- I usually just send a url and
tell them if
>they can't understand what they see then no Word doc will get me a job I
want
>anyhow).
Well... maybe it's your style. This past winter (around here, several weeks
ago...) I did research to write a book on how to find high tech jobs in
Silicon Valley. I interviewed a dozen recruiters and talked to several dozen
agencies.
In many cases, recruiter agencies have primitive computer systems. If you
sent them your resume as a Word 97 attachment, then...
1) they have no idea how to open an attachment.
2) they are using a primitive program that couldn't deal with attachments
3) they are using WordPerfect 4.x for Windows and couldn't read Word files
4) they are using WordPerfect 3.x for DOS (yes, right this minute, people
STILL use DOS.)
5) they are using Word 5.0, but haven't upgraded to Word 97
6) they are using Macs and can't read Windows docs
7) they are using unix and can't read anything at all
8) they are too busy to bother with silly people who send attachments.
You get the point, right? Attachments don't work.
Here's the best method (approved by the top recruiters): Send your resume in
plain ASCII in the body of the email. The email usually goes to a resume
database (for example, [EMAIL PROTECTED]) and it's added to the
database. If you sent it as an attachment, no luck. Along with the resume in
the main body, you MAY also choose to add the resume in Word as an
attachment, for those few recruiters who want that.
(Regrettably, Mac users must be certain that their emails can be read by
others in plain ASCII. Don't send email in html format or any such thing.)
Your attitude ("If they can't deal with Word, I don't wanna work for them!")
is great, but well... the reality is that recruiters and human resources
(HR) will filter nearly all resumes. As for me, if the recruiter doesn't
have email at all, I won't deal with them. Of some 200 recruiting agencies
in Silicon Valley, at least 10-15 don't have email.
It's a cute idea to put your resume on a web page and then just send them
the URL. But... in many cases, they're at machines without web access. They
only have email, but no web. I did this for a while, but realized that many
recruiters couldn't deal with URLs.
>And oddly enough I have seen ads locally as the ones you sent. They usually
>require skills I have not acquired (like C++ for web development, and yet
they
>also want you to know Perl and C and Java and be a web designer and know
>network engineering ...). And then I see the people that are hired. They
are
>usually people who simply know how to use some html editor like Front Page.
>I have seen this in 3 cases. I have met many people working for web
>development companies and few, few of them have any knowledge of what is
>really going on.
Oh, I worked at a place last year where they hired two people for the web
department who spent the first two weeks at their desk reading "HTML for
Dummies." They hadn't the slightest idea about HTML. One of them said to me
"What is this H-E-mail?" (say it out loud.)
Much of the "Requires ten years of expert knowledge in C++, Java, Perl,
PhotoShop, etc." is just hot air. Anyone who is an expert at Java
programming is getting $150-250/hr and has all they work they can handle.
The companies are just hoping that a total idiot will apply.
Last year, at a party, this fellow very proudly told me that he'd just moved
here from Arizona to do a FrameMaker job and the company was paying him
$15/hr, and that was more than he'd ever made. I certainly wasn't going to
ruin his party by telling him that he'd gotten royally screwed. He had more
than ten years of experience and could easily get jobs at $50-70/hr.
>In any case, I am wondering if I would be better off if I moved to say NYC
or SF
It's job city here in Silicon Valley. There's a huge demand for web people.
Don't go to NYC; it's low-level graphics design jobs. The same for SF;
they're trying to convert Multimedia Gulch (another dead trend) into web
designers. Both offer low pay at companies that are under-funded. There's
few, if any, high tech jobs in San Francisco. SF is a quaint town north of
Silicon Valley.
>or .... and just went in person looking for a job. Locally (in the
mid-south) there
>are not too many opportunities.
Don't go around here in person for jobs. Managers generally hire only
through recruiters. People are too busy to talk to someone at the door.
>I would have to make a minimum of 50K ; would that be possible?
Well, I guess you could demand that they pay you $50K, but generally,
they'll try to pay you much more. But if you insist, they'll go down to meet
your salary requirement. They'll also ofter stock, but take a firm stand and
refuse it. When they offer benefits, just sulk. When they wave the keys to a
BMW Z3 at you, get violent!
Around here, new contractors with only a few years of experience get $45/hr
at the low end. That's around $90,000 a year, at 2000 hours per year. It's
okay money, to start, but you'll soon make more if you work 2,300 or 2,500
hours per year. I helped a friend get a job several weeks ago; he had ten
years of experience in journalism and only a sketchy six months at web/html.
He started at $45/hr.
The best job strategy: register at... www.dice.com , www.headhunter.net ,
and www.vjf.com . These are the job databases that Silicon Valley recruiters
use. Dice is far away number one. Nearly everyone uses Dice, some use
headhunter.net, and a few glance at vjf (virtual job fair, sponsored by the
San Jose Mercury News, the newspaper of Silicon Valley).
Another great resource is the NWU's job hotline. They have a person who
lists jobs. www.nwu.org/nwu/hotline
Based on my interviews with Silicon Valley recruiters, they don't look at
careerjobs, monster jobs, jobsUSA, or any of the hundreds of other job
boards on the web. It's a waste of time to register with those. Certainly
you shouldn't pay to register. (This may be different for job seekers in
other parts of the country.)
Dice has been around for ages. It used to be a totally funky, DOS
menu-driven dialup BBS, with extremely arcane commands that bordered on its
own language. One had to be an engineer to figure out how to use it (damn,
one had to know unix just to figure out what the hell it did!) and that kept
out the riff raff. Ah, the good old days! On Monday mornings, Dice sends
your resume to some 750 agencies and companies.
Dice purges you after 21 days; this keeps the listing pool fresh and that's
way recruiters use it. Just mark this on your desk calendar and sign up
again. But don't worry about that; you'll get lots of calls when you sign up
with Dice.
Be sure to emphasize that tho' you live in the mid-south, you're willing to
move to Silicon Valley.
Good luck!
andreas
___________________________________________________
Andreas Ramos [EMAIL PROTECTED] www.andreas.com
____________________________________________________________________
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