Journal Skevin's Journal: Are job sites for Newbies and Losers? 1
Many books on finding your dream job would indicate that you have almost no control over the nicer jobs that exist out there. In fact, you get nominated not in the interview or application, but rather, on the golf course or fishing trip where you're not even present. Pointy Haired Boss (PHB) #1 asks PHB #2 if he happens to know anyone who has X set of skills. PHB #2 remembers some service you did for him and suggests that you might be the man for the job. When I say service, I don't necessarily mean you optimized his company's database to Boyce Codd Normal Form or implemented some elaborate Bayesian Spam filter for the office. I'm talking about some *personal* service such as picking his kids up from school, or dropping off his cat at the vet. (In my case, it was being a Sabbat Goy for 18 months, and being a good conversationalist in spite of being stuffed senseless on all manner of kosher eats.) Otherwise, actual skill accounts for 50%, at most.
As per the subject of this message, I've pondered the question: are job sites like Dice and Monster even worth anyone's while anymore? As time goes on, I see more and more job offerings with outrageous requirements, not the least of which entail experience with technologies that goes back to before the technology even existed. Oh, we all laugh at the job postings that ask for Java experience going back to 1990, but in the end, you're dealing with a PHB in Human Resources that doesn't give damn: "Well, do you or do you not fulfill the impossible requirement?" You were doomed from the very start of the interview.
Most job sites ask you to bend over and take it up the ass. They want to know how vulnerable you are. They want to make the bucks and not have their money departing frivolously out some needless channel such as *gulp* paying employees.
I've become afraid of job boards. Dice has, in the past, led me along such promising career moves as: a clothing manufacturer in a bad part of El Monte where my vehicle was broken into during the *interview*, and the application I filled out on paper asked me about my high school, as well as my junior high school. I received bewildered looks from the staff when I attempted to hand over a resume. In the end, I didn't get the position because I wasn't fluent in Spanish.
I'm about to arrive at a terrible conclusion: the fact that you're even contemplating looking through dice is reprehensible; the scraping noise you're hearing is the bottom of the barrel. Several job postings are not legitimate - they are there strictly to let the originating company "prove" to the State Board of Equalization (and any other applicable government organization) that they made a reasonable attempt to hire locally before they outsource the position overseas to people willing to work for 2 dollars an hour. Truth to tell, it's pretty hard to keep up when you live in Los Angeles: my modest 1300 sqft house has a monthly mortgage of $1600. Gasoline costs more here than in any other part of the country.
It is commonly heard that the only means out of this rat race is to work for yourself. Oft times, the implication of this statement is that you should start your own business, find some clients, and make yourself beholden to their deadlines. You are now responsible for the administration of your own business. That's fine and dandy if you have a good head for juggling finances and running project management, but if not, then it's a perilous game to play.
The other means of "going into business for yourself" is to increase the value of what you already have - real estate, patents, pre-existing royalties... the only problem with this method is that you have to have something significant to begin with. Martha Stewart did it. So did Kenneth Lay and Hillary Clinton. The remaining question is how not to get caught.
Monster (Score:2)