Honest Job Sites? 95
theirpuppet asks: "I've hit every job site I can find, and it's pretty much impossible to find an honest one. Dice displays the same ads regardless of whether you want the last day's postings or the last week's. Monster sells your email addy to every spammer in the universe. The other ones lie about the amount of viable postings that they have, or they just rip them from Dice/Monster. Where are the honest ones, worth visiting? Yes I know the tricks, don't give your email addy out, apply to the companies directly. But it's not the point. Spending hours a day combing through the same ads over and over in search of one that might be new is ridiculous!"
I would tell you... (Score:2, Funny)
Try the newspaper. (Score:1)
That said, good luck in your job hunting!
And death before the internet too (Score:2)
Re:And death before the internet too (Score:1)
They don't exist (Score:5, Insightful)
The best "job site" I have found is networking the old fashioned way. Calling up old friends and looking around. My parents, friends, their friends, etc. etc. Also, you'll be surprised how easy it is to walk into some places and just ask questions.
Don't settle for that "have you looked at our website?" excuse either, nine times out of ten, that thing isn't updated, ask to talk to someone important. It's a down economy, but good, smart people are always hard to find.
I found my job about a year ago, and I _still_ get calls/emails from the Monster.com Spam Lover's Club.
Re:They don't exist (Score:1)
I never get emails or any kind of calls from my Monster postings. I guess spams would suck but I'd like a call once and awhile.
selling addresses (Score:3, Informative)
Re:selling addresses (Score:3, Informative)
Re:selling addresses (Score:1)
Re:selling addresses (Score:1)
BTW - anyone know why I need to use HTML breaks when I'm posting as "Plain Old Text"? If I don't use the HTML break, the paragraphs run together.
HTML breaks (Score:1)
If you want more spacing between paragraphs, just add another blank line.
Re:HTML breaks (Score:1)
or
I used two line breaks between the e.g. and
Also, if you insert some HTML tags like BR, it interprets it as HTML, even if you have the Plain Old Text turned on. e.g.
HTML
line
breaks
here.
To me, it seems the "Plain Old Text" setting is actually a HTML/text morphing.
Re:HTML breaks (Score:1)
If you want <BR> to show up as <BR> and not a line-break, you need 'extrans'. Basically , "Plain Old Text" really means "try to guess where to insert <BR> tags and whitespace for me, but let all the other markup go through."
This link [slashdot.org] has more details.
--JoeRe:HTML breaks (Score:1)
I've noticed other changes to Slashcode recently, including this 'friend of a friend' and 'foe of a friend' business. Getting even more interesting...
BTW - Regarding the other thing I described with the
i.e. I put two line breaks before the last
[OT] is this a slashcode bug? (Score:1)
Weird, definitely. They must have a broken pattern somewhere. Anyway, as far as I can remember, the 'Extrans' option has been around as long as I've been on Slashdot. Judging by my user ID number, it's longer than it seems. :-)
Oh well. BTW, I did some investigation, and looked at the HTML that Slash is producing. Here's something that's curious looking. Notice the <nobr>, <wbr> and </nobr> tags?
It would appear that the weird handling of "." and "/" at the start of a line are part of some misguided word-break-control attempt. I mean, as best as I can tell, the tag sequence is a no-op. Perhaps it's worth filing a bug against Slashcode?
--JoeRe:[OT] is this a slashcode bug? (Score:1)
Yeah, I might file the Slashcode bug in a couple of weeks, after I get my Masters thesis defense finished.
Dave (without the . or
honest? what? (Score:2, Insightful)
other then that, word of mouth is the best way to go. just ask everyone! be it someone you know or not. some jobs have openings that never hit websites or papers etc, they just wait for the right people to come along.
It's a different world (Score:3, Insightful)
I have 4-5 years of perl development experience, and this is what I had to do to get in. If you are unemployeed, be shameless. If you are just looking for a job upgrade, network. The old rules apply now. It's no longer an employees market.
Re:It's a different world (Score:2)
Employees have wised up, learned to play the game better. They're just waiting their turn. Or they're picking up their marbles and going out on their own.
Small job, big job (Re:It's a different world) (Score:3, Insightful)
Sometimes you have to go for the bite and tag that lower-end. I'm an IT Administrator (actual title). Actually, it's a small business, with a routered internet connection, and about 6 computers. I do a lot of programming custom software though, but the IT Admin part rarely bothers me as keeping things patch usually prevents breakage and the other employees are relatively informed.
I don't get paid a whole whack of money, surely not as much as many other "IT Admins" do. But they appreciate my work, and having IT Admin on my resume along with glowing recommendations certainly helps in the long run.
I definately see the secretary to programmer thing. Sometimes all it takes is a foot into where you want to work, and a little patience.
X many years ago if you went to college and got a piece of paper, it got you a good job. I think employers finally got royally sick of all those that couldn't actually pull the weight of that piece of paper. Until we get rid of all the losers that are getting shoved through IT programs (people with degrees who couldn't program their way out of a paper bag), then we'll continue to have a lot of really overqualified secretaries.
It's nice to see I'm not the only one that faced this problem. No matter what one's experience, without a lot of really good recommendations a resume on monster is only get an inbox full of spam. I tried and that's all it got me, until I started looking at the lower rungs on the ladder.
Power to the overqualified secretaries, you'll get that promotion when you FSCK the super-important linux server that the MS-certified geek keeps looking for a GUI on - phorm
Re:Small job, big job (Re:It's a different world) (Score:1)
Try to increase your bankroll during the up-curve. Hold on to a job during the down-curve. Hey!!! It's like surfing.
Re:Small job, big job (Re:It's a different world) (Score:1)
A job you enjoy, that pays well, that's legal. Pick two.
Somebody's going to kill me for mangling that sig - phorm
craigslist.org for bay area (Score:3, Interesting)
Your newspaper's classifieds are indicative of the market. Don't see any tech jobs in there? Then there probably aren't any -- at least none they're considering unsolicited candidates for. Start looking at temping and be prepared to take some truly crappy and short-term jobs in that field...
Re:craigslist.org for bay area (Score:3, Informative)
'jfb
Re:craigslist.org for bay area (Score:2)
flipdog.com (Score:4, Informative)
Pro: Stuff you'll never see anywhere else, even the local paper
Con: Their listings are usually a few days or a week old so in today's market they're often already filled!
Pro: No headhunters!
Con: No headhunters...
Pro: No spam!
Con: Their interface is a little clumsy and sometimes the search bot doesn't grab the ad correctly. It's easy enough to just click directly to the originating site though.
Re:craigslist.org for bay area (Score:2)
sections for, among others, Boston, New York,
and, I think, Colorado and Chicago areas. Check it out.
Re:Honest Job Sites? (Score:5, Informative)
Local headhunters that specialize in specific career areas are helpful but you need to call them constantly so they have your name fresh in their heads. Another I found useful was the local newspaper web site that had career listings in just this area. While looking at specific employers web sites pay attention to where they say they post jobs, a lot of employers I looked at didn't post jobs on their web site, they used another "Career oriented" specialty site.
Good luck.
I have had the BEST luck with: (Score:3, Informative)
Typical bait and switch (Score:4, Informative)
Its getting pretty typical for hearhunters to do a bait and switch on the postings. Since September, 2001, its been getting worse and worse. Jobs are listed on Dice with outlandishly high salaries (for what they are), just so a headhunter can increase their resume-base. I've called on a number of those hours after they were posted, and I get "Oh, that position is no longer available, but what about this other horrible job?"
Its horribly dishonest, and I've had better results from a local paper every time. I've also seen pretty good results from net-temps [net-temps.com], although I haven't looked there in months.
Good luck!
Re:Typical bait and switch (Score:3, Insightful)
I haven't gotten many calls but the ones I did get went like this:
"I see you worked for Siemens"
"Yes"
"Do you know Novius Radiology"
"No, I was a programmer on the Home Health End"
"Oh, um hey do you know of anyone who knows Novius Radiology?"
"No, not really, but..."
"Okay bye then"
Funny thing is that my resume pretty much explicitly said what I worked on, so his claims of "reading my resume" were lies.
ridiculous? (Score:5, Insightful)
Of course, if you go into an interview with the same attitude problem you display here, it could be a long wait indeed.
Now is not the time for being picky or elitist. If a company is in business right now, and has been for a few years, they might be stable enough to make it through this drought right now.
Bite the bullet, take a job that is not perfect, and spend your leisure time away from work looking for the "perfect job."
Chances are, there are many people that are in your immediate area that are immensely more qualified than you are, and realising that this is the time to eat some crow.
Also, check out the headhunters in your area. Avoid the newer ones that do most of their stuff online too. The crusty 60 year old guys who've been doing this for 20 or 30 years have the best networks imaginable. Use them to your advantage, they don't get paid until you get a job, and the money usually comes out of your new employers pocket.
Re:ridiculous? (Score:1)
Good point and I'd do that tomorrow, if that offer ever comes..... People seem to think that because I have been unemployed for almost a year that I am just being 'picky' Well to be picky youhave to have something to pick from and I haven't. Oh yeah I could go work at McDonald's but I have bills, that have to be paid, and at the end of the week I'd still be losing money, just not as quickly.
Re:ridiculous? (Score:3, Insightful)
Of course, the less money tucked away, the harder it is to follow this path.
Rid of claus (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:ridiculous? (Score:2)
Actually, the last time I went job hunting, I found that the ads in the paper were mostly 'example' job descriptions posted by agencies who wanted more resumes for their filing cabinet.
The hard part is determining who is sincere and who is just leading people on when they can least afford it.
I did end up getting a job through a headhunter, but it was one who advertised honestly as an agency.
Go direct (Score:4, Insightful)
The job placement industry is, alas, dominated by moral and technical morons. Yes, there are serious, ethical headhunters who actually try to meet the needs of employers and workers. But they are few and far between. Most are depressingly similar to spam advertisers. They don't care how much of other people's time they waste with cold calls, resume flooding, and sending people to interview on jobs they have no hope of getting. Just as long as they place enough people to meet the rent.
Last time I tried to find a job through techies.com, they allowed you to restrict your search to jobs offered directly. But that was 3 years ago, and they seem to have droped that feature. Cut too much into their revenue stream, I guess.
You simply have to connect directly with the employers. Google is indispensible for this purpose. Every day, do a search on your title and qualifications, and throw in a few keywords that companies tend to use on their jop openings pages, like (duh!) "opening" and "careers".
You should also troll local company sites directly. Make a list of likely employers in your area, and go to their web sites every day. That's how I got my current job.
Employers don't like them either (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Employers don't like them either (Score:1)
Re:Employers don't like them either (Score:2)
Re:Employers don't like them either (Score:2)
I think I've tried working with at least 10 in the St. Louis area now, and this is what commonly happens:
They call and call, acting super-interested to meet me and get ahold of an updated (or slightly revised to suit their needs) resume, promising they have an employer that needs someone to "start immediately".
I do exactly what they ask for, and take out my time to drive to their place and visit with them in person. (Usually, we spend about 10 minutes exchanging greetings and talking a bit about things we could have just discussed over the phone, really. Then they thank me and promise to keep in touch.) After that, I hear nothing for days. After I get ahold of them, asking for an update, I get told "Sorry, but it turns out that job opening has been cancelled. The good news is, they could open it up again though - so I'll let you know if anything happens!"
After that, I basically never hear back from them again.
Sometimes it doesn't even go that far. I just hear nothing, and when I call them, they say they don't have any more information yet. (This is when they typically get that slightly annoyed tone of voice, that says "Quit calling, wasting my time. I'd have called you if something actually happened with this company.")
Am I just using the wrong people, or is this pretty often how it goes? When recruiters contact me these days, it just turns me off more than it gives me any hope....
Re:Employers don't like them either (Score:3, Informative)
None of the above helps people of average skill set in a down economy. Thus, if you are one of those people you sould avoid recruiters.
Re:Employers don't like them either (Score:2)
The problem is, even if I view a recruiter as an "agent" - they're the ones contacting *me* in most of these cases.
If they contact me, they should be pretty certain my skills are perfect for one of their employers.
In reality, they usually don't even know much about technology. (The last guy I talked with asked me if I could give him a "more detailed list" of all the types of servers I've worked with than what was on my resume. I started listing things such as "IIS server", "Apache server" when he stopped me and said, "No, I mean - servers like HP or Compaq or Dell." I said "Oh! I've worked with almost all of the different major *brands* like IBM, Compaq, etc." Then he said "Good. I see you have Citrix listed. Haven't heard of that brand before."
Re:Employers don't like them either (Score:2)
FlipDog (Score:2, Informative)
Re:FlipDog (Score:2, Informative)
Mod parent up (Score:2)
Job sites (Score:1)
ConsultUtah.com (Score:2, Interesting)
I am a senior developer at a mid-sized company in Utah. As we were trying to hire people, we received millions of calls from "headhunters" wanting 25-35% of the person's first year salary!
I, then, started ConsultUtah LLC.
ConsultUtah.com will do the following:
1. Never give out your personal information to advertisers
2. When a company wants to contact you, you will receive an email asking if you want to give that company permission to contact you
3. We charge 10% of the person's first year salary (to the hiring company) and that percentage can be negotiated based on volumn.
Right now I am accepting emails addresses to notify you when we go live. (November 1st) You will only receive a single email from us, then our knowledge of your email address will be blown away...
Re:ConsultUtah.com (Score:1)
Re:ConsultUtah.com (Score:2)
If you want to earn that 10%, you are going to have to do some WORK for that money. Considering that most other job sites only charge a couple hundred bucks for listings, you are at a serious disadvantage right off the bat.
So are you going to interview all potential candidates and employers and only match them when the fit is good? Are you going to schedule interviews? What's your "value add?" What makes you different? Your list of features is a "me too" list as other sites have pretty much the same thing.
Re:ConsultUtah.com (Score:1)
(And we are developers with a great deal of experience, so they won't be as likely to blind us with @#!@%@... Have you ever dealt with headhunters? 1 in 1000 actually matches their candidates with the job. Most try to push candidates...)
-Yes, we do schedule interviews.
-Most importantly, ConsultUtah.com caters to Utah. We have been in business for 2 years and have been mildly successful. The old site was just a slashdot ripe-off that we tweaked to work as a job posting board. The new site is much more.
-One more thing. We will NOT get your phone list at work and call from cubical to cubical...
Re:ConsultUtah.com (Score:2)
Still, if it's 10% before taxes, that's a slaughter. If it's after taxes then I'd be quite willing to pay that for a job that pays 130% of a cheap job. Even in other cases it may round off to more take-home than on the crappy job you get elsewhere.
Of course, not everyone get a 130% pay increase. But then, they get nothing unless one takes the job, correct?
I don't work for them, I've never heard of 'em, but I suppose it works for somebody - phorm
Be your own recruiter... (Score:1)
Pittsbugh Technology Council (Score:1)
What about contract work? (Score:1)
Or both? (Re:What about contract work?) (Score:2)
Small things lead to bigger things - phorm
my epxeriences (Score:2, Informative)
From the employer perspective we get something like 400 resumes for every posting. 375 of them are useless. The people are severely underqualified, way over qualified, live outside of a reasonable commuting area, have unrealistic salary requirements etc. Because of the ease of submission, or perhaps because they can't read we get all of these useless resumes. That makes it harder for us to sort, and less likely that we'll be able to spot the best candidate before becoming fatigued
From the prospective employee side, everytime I send a resume I know that 500 other people, most of whom aren't qualified have sent resumes for the same job. OTOH whenever we run a newspaper only ad, or when I have replied to newspaper ads, we get a small number, of almost always qualified applicants, and as an applicant I almost always get a call back
I'd recommend using all of the traditional methods, friends, family, classified etc. And if you're going to send a resume, if they dont speccify email, send one printed, it gets far more attention
Re: (Score:1)
www.directemployers.com (Score:1)
In other words, they don't have any job listings, they just provide you search services.. And hey, you gotta love the fact that it's non-profit and they don't even force you to set up an account.
drawback - they don't store your resume either.. you are actively searching (as you should be! don't wait for jobs to come to you)
Re:www.directemployers.com (Score:1)
www.ajb.org (Score:1)
As honest as it can get..
America's Job Bank, run by the gov. Has all the jobs from the departments of labor around the US. Plus other gov jobs, and alot of private industry. There's alot of crossover from moster and dice and the like, but some stuff thats not on either of those. Plus, its one of the few that has virtually every single type of job out there.
On the down side, the interface is horrible. But that will be changing soon..Don't bother with Job Scout, it doesn't work right.
Ironicly, the company that runs the website (ClearBlue, formally AppliedTheory) laid me off in January. (don't worry, I recently found other employment.)
Good luck in your job search (now I feel like spam)
jobs.perl.org (Score:2)
If you're looking for a job with Perl, I've heard good things about jobs.perl.org [perl.org]. I have no personal experience with the site, however.
Quite simple (Score:2)
Still in beta, but here's an honest site (Score:2, Informative)
Disclaimer: I'm not associated with the company in any way.
How about jobs in Denver? (Score:2)
As was stated above - Dice is almost worthless after the first time you search it. The market here is just awful. No jobs that I can find anywhere, and those that are available have 10k applicants.
Anyhow I'm a Senior UNIX admin and network/system security expert seriously seeking a job in Denver!!!
HELP!!!
sedawkgrep
Re:How about jobs in Denver? (Score:1)
Simple Equation (Score:2, Informative)
Number of interviews from local newspaper ads - 9
+ Number of interviews from online ads - 0
= Never looking at online ads again.
It has become an annoyingly common fact that the online resources, once revolutionary and powerful are now junk. The jobs are always filled, and that is the 1 in 1000 submittals that get a response. The only way to move jobs now is through local papers and personal networking (in my area at least).
Just my 2/100 of a dollar.
Re:Simple Equation (Score:2)
Re:Simple Equation (Score:1)
I obviously have no idea of your age, but I have found that as I have gotten older networking has gotten much easier. A boss here that I got along with leaves, a co-worker there that I had beers with joins a new company, ect. Now I find quite a few people in my area know my name and it is *FINALLY* making my job search go a bit easier.
Three interviews this week! Wooo-Hoooo!
regional sites! (Score:2)
As far as locating regional job sites that apply to you
Newspaper is useless where I live (Score:1)
Now, when I lived outside of DC, the Washington Post was great for finding work. In fact, all my jobs up there came from the Post.
But where I live now, the onlines are really my only option, other than networking.
Now, if I move to Vegas next year like I'm planning, anybody know what the newspapers are like out there?
Mojolin!!! (Score:1)
Spam... from monster???? (Score:2)
In fact, net-temps is the only place I've received spam from.
(No, I don't want to pay you $70 to have your automated system tell me about my resume, when I can just have my career counselors to do it for free.)
Directemployers.com : companies tired of job sites (Score:2)