Job Hunting Lessons Learned

OK, last job search rant-- I start a new gig on Monday, Finally.

Here's what I learned:

• I need to be comfortable with my resume. Changing job titles or 'punching up' qualifications is dishonest. Screw the recruiter who wants this done.

• Recruiting 'experts' tell you your resume should be one page, no more than two pages, well, you can go to three if you're really qualified but you really need the last ten years. Screw that. I'm a consultant. I do different stuff on different projects. Even edited to the bone my resume takes five pages. My vitae is around 30. Could I edit it? Well, sure. But these HR software programs are looking for keywords and no one knows what those key words are. New resume for each job. Yeah, right.
  

• Each recruiter has the same wind-up and pitch. The good ones are laughing while they do it. There are very few good ones.

• I have never, ever, gotten a job from a downtown Chicago recruiter. Every time they demand I show up, I've wasted gas or train fare and/or parking money- around $40. And you are never reimbursed for it. When you're getting all of $314 per week for unemployment compensation, that takes a lot of nerve. From now on, I'm going to invoice them for my time and cost of travel next time.

• If the hiring manager pauses slightly after you ask about next steps and says "Our process is a little cumbersome...." Hang Up. Immediately.

• Don't get old in a job that pays more than $75K/year- Ageism, it's real.

• Don't be real good in the job you had that paid more than $75K. It means no one will consider you for a lesser gig...anyone see a Catch 22 here?

• A lot of HR people are flakes. Seriously. I think most of them are Psychology Majors.
  

• A lot of hiring managers are worse than their HR staff (see above). I think these people are at the other end of the spectrum: Dilbert.
  

• Does anyone else see the logical flaws in these massive meetings of 'networkers?' Why would I network with people who don't have a job? And am I the only one who feels silly about 'power networking?'
  

I've been told its because they may know something I don't.

Whaaaa?

You're telling me an electrical engineer is going to know when a software development firm is going to hire a BA?

Right.

I'm only going to network with people I really know.

One guy who tracked me down on LinkedIn aid he wanted my input on something and then spent an hour and a half on the phone with me. In boring detail, he told me how to get a job. It was such a good system that he had not only been out of work longer than me, he refused to introduce me to one of his contacts when I actually tried it.

Networking is phony, counterproductive, a waste of time> Worse, it gives you the illusion of actually doing something. Stick with people you actually know.

• The job boards are pretty much populated by body shops. 
• Be careful of what you put on your Dice, Monster or LinkedIn profiles. The bodyshops, like HR software, have no ability discern nuance. I get a lot of matches for an IBM network tool called Tivoli. When I was with OCE-USA, we used a help desk software package called Expert Support. IBM bought the company that made it and put it into the Tivoli product line. Yes, my resume says Tivoli Expert Support.

They also can't read. I still get 'requirements' (when did a job become a requirement? When I became a number instead of a person?) for San Diego, New Jersey, Texas, etc. They want a BA for $25/hour for four years. When I reply and ask them to remove me from their listss, they started getting snippy in the last couple of months. "Well, your resume is on Monster,' or 'But your profile on Dice says...' Yes. It is. It also says I won't relocate...much less do it for $15/hour for a two month contract. What were you thinking?

 Do you know how many times I was called by the same firm for the same job from the same LinkedIn, Monster or Dice Profile? One job resulted in 57 phone calls over two days. Of those, 12 were repeats from four different recruiting forms. And I was already in their systems but they never looked. Can you imagine how much unused horsepower is in those databases? And I actually got into the finals for the gig. And I was into it until the hiring manager told me she wasn't sure if he'd promote from within or take somebody from the outside. And the job is a technical support role, not what I advertised(for a BA). I'm till waiting to hear from her. Not.

• There's a new business model out there- job sites are getting 'exclusive' listings and want cash money to let you see them. Some of them have free 'memberships' with 'basic' responses (JobFox, Ladders) and have unusually bad interfaces (JobFox- if the site has identified more than a couple of jobs for you, you're gonna be on line for a looooong time. And why is it I found more roles searching on aggregators than on the 'profile' on JobFox?).

• And what's the deal with the date resets, Dice? CareerBuilder? When you reset dates, a lot of us think there are new listings, when in fact, you're wasting our time. Stop it.

• Monster- didja have to go to flash? Taking a screen shot with EverNote is now impossible. And the log in i a pain in the neck. Stop it.
  

• The only good way I see of hiring anyone is to get a prospect vetted by an upper level whatever (BA, PM, Developer, Architect, etc.) and then either test the candidate or let me demonstrate what I can do for you. No one did that. I've had phone screens with development leads, Project Managers, Chief Information Officers, Chief Technology Officers, president, HR generalists and 'other team members.' I'm sorry. Once or twice I had a BA interview.
  

The answers are:

Hidden Requirements you never seem to be able to track down. Someone in Detroit has all of them neatly typewritten and three days before you're off the project he says, "oh, didja want that?'(Question: What's the hardest thing facing a BA?)

A simple abstraction of the process- in a step action table, it includes at least one identified Actor (human or system) with a quantifiable goal. The title should be Verb-Predicate with a unique number from a consistent naming convention. Oh yeah- success and failure states would be nice with an overview and context explanation. You also need at least one color graphic for the managers). NOTE:  Nobody ever reads it. (Question: What' a Use Case)

A quantifiable , 3-4 sentence abstract feature description with tests to determine if the feature is complete and is used to start the discussion between the developer and the end user. Can be placed on a 4x6 Card (Note: seems the Agile Book Authors have asked the Commissioner and 4 x 6 is the official card size) or on a wiki page. (Question: What is a User Story?)

An unidentified, highly educated and emotional visionary whose ideas kept coming and coming and coming. I shunted the visionary into a wiki Blog to capture the ideas and put them in the backlog and explained the process and why we had to concentrate on this small part of the project now so the business requirements would be met (Who was your worse client and how did you handle it?)

So how did I get my new job? I didn't. A close friend had a major project dumped on her at the right time, which allowed her to hire me for the third time. Not really kismet- someone who knows me, knows what I can do for her and her company (actually, my client company, now) on what I expect to be a major enterprise project.

Can't wait.

OK, let's get back to work and Analyzing Business! 

Ubuntu Test Drives

Well, I've had more than week to play with Ubuntu 10.04 and I think it's great. There are a few rocks out there, but overall, it's rock stable, feature rich and totally customizable.

Here's the good:

• Ubuntu, the Open Source Community and a few business have pretty much every application you want. For free. With source code. With the ability to contact developers easily to suggest improvements and features. In other words, Screw the Ribbon. Open Office has everything you need, fer free, there's one exception which I'll discuss in the Disadvantages list.
• It doesn't slow down.
  
• You can blow off PhotoShop. The Open Source Gimp photo 'manipulator' and Open Office's Draw Program pretty much have all the features of PhotoShop and Correl Draw for vector and raster graphics files.
• I've only seen one blue screen and it was my fault.
  
• Much as I love Winamp, Rhythmbox pretty much beats it in every feature.
• I can do without the Outlook replacement Evolution (fingers crossed) because, while it does everything Outlook does. I'm used to and like Thunderbird and its Lightning Add-In, I don't like the way Evolution' calendar works and I like having separated InBoxes for my e-mail accounts. This is obviously a matter of preference.
• There are so few of us using it right now (comparatively speaking) that the evil forces of Virii and Malware pretty much don't care about us. Hence- while you should still run an Anti-Virus Program and software firewall (both free, of course), there's not much out there to hurt your 'puter.
  
• You don't need Snag It. There are a couple of screen grabbers (free) that work very well.
• Ubuntu comes with Open Source versions of Disk Burners, E-mail client. IM client (that will handle all of your IM accounts in a single screeen), FireFox (Linux Version- slightly different), a video editor, video viewer, print manager... yuddah, yuddah. In short, you can get started right after the installation is complete with new, free tools that work as well, if not better than Windows tools and applications.
  
• It doesn't crash.
• There are three ways to download and install software. Two are very easy. One isn't. So use the Ubuntu Software Center or Synetics Package Manager to handle this for you.
• It doesn't crash.
  
• Wireless not only worked right of the box, the client actually knew what security my system has and just asked for the password.
• It doesn't crash.
• If you have a smarphone, the makers of Ubuntu have a new service called Ubuntu One (actually it came out with release 9.04, but I had no idea what it was).... a combination Boxnet.net (i.e. secure cloud file space) and activesynch (for Windows Mobile) on Mozilla's Thunderbird. If you use the built-in email client called Evolution which synchs right out of the box. I don't like its calendar since I'm used to Lightning o the $10 a month for the synch service and 50 Gb of free cloud space is a good deal. You get 2 Gb for free.
• It doesn't crash.
• It will integrate all your social media- including Instant Messaging, Web Services and e-mail in a superb user interface.
• Ir doesn't crash

Now there are some minor issues, nits, really:

• Once I paid my first ten bucks to Ubuntu One, they took down the synch to Windows Mobile option. Arrrrgh.
• While I can install Microsoft VISIO using the WINE application, and it will launch. It craps out very easily and consistently. Yes, I have a certified copy. I couldn't open a 2003 VISIO document and had to make due with creating a bunch of boxes in Draw. It worked, but was a pain. I use VISIO a lot, so I guess my next employer is going to have to gimme a laptop with Windows on it.
• Do NOT put your media files on an external drive and have that drive unavailable when you launch Rhythmbox. It indexes media files on initiation and  it has to re-index when you get your external drive up. You're supposed to be able to put media files up on your Ubuntu Cloud share, but I haven't had time to check that out yet.
• The documentation (web-based) is fine for very unsophisticated users and walk them through simple processes and procedures. You really gotta dig for answers on the community wiki or other websites if you have something more complicated than installing a software package from Ubuntu Software Center. I spent a half hour finding out what to do with a *.bin file containing a program I wanted. It was a simple answer (you right click on it, change the properties by adding 'execute' permission and taking out 'read only' permission and then double click it or right click again and select EXECUTE).

Would I install it on my mother's machine? I'm actually thinking about it. She gets so much adware and malware on her machine it's not funny. I'm thinking not because you do have to be a little technical.

For my wife? Yew betcha. But she's a developer using Visual Studio, so that' out.

The kids? Like a shot. Fast, malware and spyware resistant, FREE software and IT DOESN'T CRASH. Yeah, I'm thinking about doing a demo for them.

Oh Yeah---did I mention it doesn't CRASH?

Ubuntu 10.04

Well, it took a bit of doing, but I've got Ubuntu 10.04 LT on my Lenovo T-61 laptop. I had version 9.04 installed as a dual boot Windows XP/Ubuntu system. All of the issues I've identified were caused my me, not Microsoft nor Canonical, the company that creates and supports Ubuntu.

You say you're not sure what this stuff is? Well, you must have heard of UNIX, right? UNIX (and there are variety of flavors out there such as Sun OS, AT & T, etc.) usually runs on what used to be called 'mini-computers,' which used to be between a PC and a Mainframe. Now it runs on what are known as 'workstations,' which are nothing more than really beefed up PCs. Anyway, LINUX is UNIX which can run on your PC.

The problem has been that despite installation scripts, graphical user interfaces and better installation programs, LINUX has been the haven for the technical among us. Until Ubuntu.

Ubuntu has a philosophy. And in its most recent revisions, shown that it can replace your Microsoft or Apple-centered operating system (in fact, one of the reasons Apple moved away from the Motorola Chips a few years back was to get the Intel x86 architecture. OS 10 and above are based on LINUX.

With Ubuntu, you download a file (called in image file) and burn it to a CD. You then boot your PC with the CD. After it boots, you have the option of playing with Ubuntu to see if you like it, or install it on your PC.

Here's where Ubuntu shines over many other forms of LINUX (because the operating system is 'open source,' anyone can change, adapt and create his/her own version...just like the different flavors of UNIX) since the installation routines have been honed for several years. And its very easy to do.

You have a couple of decisions to make during the install. Of course, I blew it. The power was going on and off during a storm and I had to get it done so I could re-do my resume. This is a recipe for disaster.

The first decision you have to make is whether you want to run Ubuntu as the sole operating system on your PC or with Windows or OS 10. If you pick the former, the installation program completely reformats your hard drive and then installs the new OS. If you select the second option (which I did), Ubuntu adds a 'boot manager.'

This is a program that interrupts your PC's start-up routines and allows you to use either Windows/OS 10 or LINUX. This is what got trashed on the second of my installations. Yeah, I know. I use a laptop and the battery should have taken care of it.

Except the battery wasn't installed because I read an article that says you sharply reduce the life of a Lithium battery by not using it and charging it well before it needs to be charged.

Then, I had trouble. Lord did I have trouble. I knew what I did and knew what I had to do to get out of it. I rebooted into the setup routine.

And pressed the wrong button without realizing it (because I didn't read the damn screen). Big Shot IT professional.

I pressed the button that lays in Ubuntu as the only operating system. And I didn't realize what I had done until the re-format routine was half over.

Office 2003. Gone. All my e-mail archives. Gone. All my resume and archive files. Gone. All my website files. Gone.

Wait a sec.

Ubuntu comes with Open Office (a free, open source Microsoft Office replacement) right out of the box.

It comes with FireFox. XMarks will re-synch all my bookmarks. The password synching didn't work for some reason.

It comes with GIMP, an open source alternative to PhotoShop. It also comes with free Instant Messaging, integrated E-Mail/Personal Information Manager (Evolution), allows you to install Thunderbird and its Lightning add-in and a raft of other 'must have' utilities.

There are dozens of free, downloadable open source programs. In fact, Ubuntu doesn't use the Synaptic Program Manager anymore- it has its own Add/Delete software utility now.

The interface is much cleaner than before. All those upper panel icons have been grouped together to make things a lot easier to find.

Hmmm.

Yes, I can install Microsoft Project and VISIO (the only programs that the open source community or Apple have no replacements for) using WINE- a real time application that allows you to run Windows programs under LINUX without the hurky-jerky screens we used to see on Apple machines running similar utilities.

Version 10.04 comes with integrated social media (a one stop application that gathers all the Tweets, Status Changes and FaceBook attaboys you got).

It integrates with Ubuntu One. That's a web site in the 'Internet cloud' that automatically gives you 2 Gigs of free, integrated data space and the option to pay $10/month for 50Gb (yeah, you read that correctly) AND will synch your Smart Phone (even my Windows Mobile 6!).

Maybe I won't miss Windows much at all.

It's been five days and there's been no withdrawl symptoms at all.

I recommend you run it in a dual boot configuration like I did for a few months so you can ease yourself into it. There's a lot to learn if you have trouble (and I realized I had trouble with R9.04- WINE didn't work, the OS didn't recognize the SD Card Reader nor the USB connection to my phone) and it was because of the multiple installs I did on 9.04.

Don't do that.