Re: [tlug] Job opportunity

[Jonathan Byrne <jq@example.com>]

On Wed, Jun 23, 2004 at 10:36:27AM +1000, Abe, Rena wrote:

>PS:  My husband and I finally purchased our first car, and it is coming to our parking today!  We bought a VW golf GTI.  I don't remember how long we had to wait to own a car.  Just wanted to share this exciting news with you all.  

Just to keep this on topic, I will also suggest setting hard word wrap at, say, 72 columns,
because with soft wrap (what you have now) your lines look really, really, really long in
some mail clients (mutt, or instance) :-)

OK, now to go off-topic.  Your car made me do it? :-)

I don't know if VW used this advertising campaign outside of the US or not, but some time
back (15 years maybe; certainly it was before I lived in Japan, and that was 1994 - 2002),
but they took the old surf/hot rod song "Little GTO", changed the name to German, maybe
translated it (you German speakers will have to tell me about that) and called it
"Kleine GTI."  It was a pretty good commercial :-)

OK, straying kind of back on topic, maybe, sort of :-)

I followed the headhunter thread but didn't have time to respond, but I'll belatedly comment
on one thing you said, that "now I know what people think of headhunters like me" or something
pretty close to that.  That's the spirit of it, anyway, and it ended with "like me."

Whether people think that about "headhunters like you" really depends on what sort you
are.  If you are the good kind, like Steve Turnbull described, no, we don't think that
about you.  But we are wary of recruiters in general because anyone who has been in
IT for a while has had bad experiences with recruiters.  I have.  Probably everyone on
this list has, too.  I've had a few good (or at least not bad) ones too, but the bad ones
are the ones you remember.  In the last year or so before I left Japan, I dealt with a
recruiter (whose name I'll leave out of this, but he used to lurk on TLUG and some of
you might know who I mean; if he's reading this, he'll probably recognize himself).  All
he cared about was jamming me into some kind of job so that he could get a commission.  My
areas of competence were *nix system administration and Cisco networking and my job experience
was working for ISPs.  He was trying to get me to go on interviews to be a project manager,
despite the fact that I've never been a project manager and don't really know much about it.
He tried to get me to go to some interview that required Java programming skills, despite the
fact that I know nothing at all about Java and I told him so. He didn't care at all whether
I fit the company or the job, or whether the job or the company fit me.  He just wanted to
get me shoved into some job so he could get a commission.

That became painfully obvious very quickly, and it must be so to hiring managers as well.
I never went to any of the things he tried to sell me on.  I have more integrity than that,
even if he doesn't.  If I were a hiring manager and he showed up at my office, I'd throw
him out.  He's the kind of guy who gives recruiters a really bad name.

I know there are at least some good and skilled and truly professional recruiters out
there.  Sadly, it has been my experience (and probably the experience of most of the 
people reading this) that recruiters like that are a small minority.

If many TLUGgers doubt you and become suspicious as soon as we hear you're a recruiter,
that's why.  I don't think anyone means it personally, but where recruiters and many or
most IT workers are concerned, well, most of us will expect you to prove yourself and win
our trust.  The fact that you didn't get scared off and came out and had honest dialogues
with people speaks well of you, I think.

Stick around.  Get to know us.  Let us get to know you.  Maybe even learn a little
Linux.  Maybe even learn a lot of Linux and quit using Windows :-)  I'll tell you one thing:
a recruiter who ran Debian on her notebook and compiled her own kernels would get Linux
people's attention when she showed up at meetings :-)

Oh, yes, and come to a TLUG nomikai.  A drunk TLUGger is easiest to talk to :-)
If you survive the nijikai and the sanjikai, then you're a real TLUGger ;-)

Cheers,

Jonathan
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