OK, this is just too good an opening line to pass up: I'm one of the useless people who writes the job news and career advice for Dice. (Actually, I'm probably worse than that, since I EDIT the stuff from Dice.) We're really trying to write good stuff here. Yvonne's job is to try to get more people to ask us questions about work and job-hunting, either on Dice or Slashdot. What we write isn't advertorial or a customer puff piece, I promise. We keep the sales/marketing/business people pretty far away from the editorial team, so we can write pretty much what we want. I'm not saying we don't screw it up some time, but we try to write things that are helpful. (Which is, actually, an invitation to tell me about what we can do better, or what we should stop screwing up.) Personally, I think the problem with almost every career story -- whether it's posted on Dice or somewhere else -- is that it can't apply to every person and every situation. I still haven't figured out how to make that more clear, but finding work is so granular it's hard to avoid. Anyway, I just wanted to jump in and tell you where we're coming from. I know I'm new here, but like I said to someone else, all I can ask is that my word for this, and give us a chance to show you what we can do. Thanks for listening.

Quantaman, Thanks. I haven't met Timothy in person, and I'd hate to do something back to him the first time I do, but I'll bear it in mind. And, actually, it's not his fault, as it were, anyway. Since we're sister sites now, we're trying to figure out ways to work together and sharing posts is one of them. I appreciate you feedback, and am going to go look at the story format again. I wish you would check out our stuff, though (news.dice.com). I like to get any comments I can (just be gentle, OK?). These particular stories aren't meant to be general career advice -- it all comes from the company itself and, like I said, we started writing them because people on our side kept asking for them. I'm actually wondering if they're specific enough even now? I mean, wouldn't it be better if we could focus on a certain job type at Red Hat? I think we also need to do some on smaller companies, since that's where most of the jobs are. Anyway, take a look at Dice and fire away. Mark

I know a lot of you won’t believe me, but this isn’t an ad. Slashdot wouldn’t have posted it if it was, even if we're sister companies. I oversee the editorial side of Dice, and I don’t accept advertorial or take story ideas from customers, and the rule here is I’m not even supposed to be asked to. I admit we’re not muckrakers, but if you look at news.dice.com, you’ll see it’s not happy talk. It’s certainly not meant to be. We cover layoffs, or dumb moves a company might make. Like, for example, if Meg Whitman ever went overseas and told workers there that they’re safe from layoffs while she was moving some thousands here out the door. (Oh, wait, she did do that.) We don’t let companies read our stories before we post them, either. Personally, I think looking for a job sucks and I approach things from that angle. We write stories like this one because people said we weren’t helping them very much if we didn’t give them company-specific advice. I’m not going to pretend that our approach is perfect, and maybe our stories should be more skeptical. But everyone knows some companies are better than others and that fewer of them seem to think good skills and experience are worth paying for. I could write lots about that, but it wouldn’t help anyone get a job and at the end of the day, that’s what I’m supposed to do. I don’t know what else to say, except to promise you our stories aren’t ads or anything like that. If they were, I could go get a job in PR or something and make more money.