[wplug] OT: Interviewing?

[paris lundis]

I'll speak up.... :)

The Tech Council use to be a good resource... Then again, I was there writing the applications that ran the site and portions of that career center. I also would fight with my collegues about their decisions and how they impacted a crowd they weren't part of.

The Tech Council is minimally valueable as a job resource today.  It's a free perk for paying member companies.  It's actually the core usage of their entire website. Minus this the website would not be used much.

The Council was more effective when the boom was going on. Everyone was.  There was more milk and honey to go around. Although their membership rolls count over say 1300 today, they were more number in the past.  Also, it's worth noting how many of the member companies are not technology focused but are the people trying to sell stuff to the technology companies - the copier store, the law firms, the accountants, etc.

The Tech Council since I have left has most notably removed salary information from the job postings - which I thought was highly relevant considering what a cheapskate town this can be. After three times of coming in for interview process people like to spring bargain basement salary, smelling your desperation. It really gave applicants a heads up and one more way to choose prospective employers.

The Tech Council is company focused and recruiter friendly.  A good percentage of the jobs are dupes - non-qualified leads that the head hunters all run around with hoping to get referral fees. So same job lead gets posted by two or three head hunters and maybe the real hiring company. Thus inflation in numbers of jobs.

A big chunk of the jobs are also recycled- meaning they appeared before, reached say 90 or 180 days of being up and the poster says keep them running.  So you see new jobs - that aren't new at all. Usually they aren't ever hiring the position or the person who got hired was never communicated to the person who does the web posting for them.

Couple that with the fact that the Tech Council isn't loaded with technology background or interested people and you have a pretty interesting mess. Most folks there employed have no computer/technology background and little interest in learning more about such.

The Council is fairly predictable for our fair region. Very typical of the non-profit scene.  I always chalk it up as an obligation and a form of social welfare for the population here.  Having said this, if you went to the doctor for his expert opinion and he had an Aeronautics background or was an English major he wouldn't be there, you wouldn't be there and it wouldn't happen.  But there are tons of these scenarios here in the non-profit scene where people without letters of qualification and without interest have the job and go through the motions.

As such, from my unique inside perspective, the Council's postings are typically about as relevant and going to get you as much traction as a Post-Gazette job posting will.

To close, I'd keep and eye on the Tech Council's postings as a matter of becoming aware of new companies and maybe some that are rapidly expanding... Job postings are a key indicator.

Additionally, I like the following job sites that I check with some regularity:

http://www.dice.com
http://www.monster.com

I'd also look to see if there is a mailing list for whatever you specialize in.  Typically, you will find relevant job offerings there through the network of similarly interested folks.

-paris



---------- Original Message ----------------------------------
From: "Drew from Zhrodague" <drew at zhrodague.net>
Reply-To: General user list <wplug at wplug.org>
Date:  Fri, 18 Jun 2004 14:32:47 -0400

>> So far, the best local resource I've found has been the Pittsburgh
>> Technology Council site at http://www.pghtech.org.  It gets updated
>> pretty frequently, and has a pretty good selection (again, I can only
>> speak for the programming side of things).
>
>    Different market for developers, all of my developer friends are
>employed.
>
>    I've personally found that the pghtech.org website frequently has bogus,
>ficticious, and old postings, I've applied for some and found that the
>contact information, or the positions were just plain made-up. I have never
>had any response from any positions I've applied for on pghtech.org.
>
>    Being as absolutely disgusted with the local recruiting market (as well
>as Boston's recruiting market), I've started documenting my jobsearch at
>http://recruiter-rater.zhrodague.net, where users can find and rate
>technical recruiters. A great majority of recruiters I talk to put me
>through the hoops, make me tweak or completely rewite my resume, and some
>even have me in for a pre-interview. After kowtowing to whatever requests
>rather quickly, I find that the recruiters don't return emails or phone
>calls, until they have another position that they call me about.
>
>    Then again, I don't have a college edumication, but I would expect that
>8 years of unix systems experience would count for something -- it used to!
>
>
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