Slashdot Mirror

(Posting anonymously since I am in the job market)

In addition to salary history, Employers in the United States often ask for tax forms or permission to obtain tax transcripts. Sometimes this is to prove who you worked for without contacting them. But other times this is used to see your salary history, and/or prove it is what you said it was.

The short US answer seems to be employers can require, and you can voluntarily give. But this information cannot be used to try and determine anything discriminatory (married status, if you have children, etc.) under Federal law.

In general, the *best* salaries I have received in my career happened when I did not reveal my previous salary, but only suggested roughly where it was. That way the new employer has to do their homework and hopefully give you a better deal. You should use various salary calculators to see roughly where you are as well.

It is perfectly acceptable to tell an employer that a previous employer considers your salary confidential.

I find that Nick Corcodilos' website www.asktheheadhunter.com, as well as the various third-party websites which have him as a guest are a very good resource on this as well as a variety of other topics. This is true even if you don't have the money to pay for his books.

or somebody somewhere is spreading crap about me.

Hey man,
Take care of this. Clean this up. If you don't know what's broken with your ability to find a job, and if you suspect it's bad references, you've got to investigate it.

Check your references. Below is an article on ways to go about doing that.
http://asktheheadhunter.com/hareferences.htm

Job-hunting is important. Think of it like a full-time job. But do pair up with someone, either someone else who is also looking for a job but who can get things done, or a professional friend you respect who can act as your adviser and who's not afraid to get on your case if you don't make progress on your own stuff.

I can't believe anyone can find a job with those requirements. Perhaps the mass of positions advertised these days are just a ploy to allow more H1Bs and outsourcing.

It's worse than that. It's managers who don't know how to tell someone who can learn on the job from someone who can't, and can't run a solid team that can teach the new guy the ropes. There's a pretty good article about how this happens at some companies. In my own job, I came on board a year ago with a solid team of upper tier people ready to take me under their wing, I taught myself more about SQL than anyone else there had ever bothered to learn (there's plenty more to worry about than the database stuff), and I moved up pretty quickly. There's a whole slew of resume bullet points where I went from never touched to proficient in one year. Then the technical leads largely left, the frontline people they weeded out (almost) all the worst of them, but they doubled or even tripled the workload on everyone with any idea what they were doing.

I couldn't come on board today and learn what I learned. Hell, fresh-faced kid who's as smart as me just started and I don't have time to teach him, word's gotten out through the whole company that I'm one of two people in the department you want to talk to and I'm being worked to death.

Why am I still there? The one thing they've got going for them is they've got a wicked smart über geek who knows his own doing the technical interviews. Until I can find another place doing the same thing where I can say, "I came in to find everyone frantic and the phones ringing off the hook. I tweaked a query I had written some months back to not join the two tables we didn't need, just return the column in question, added a date/time function, plugged it into my batch file to run it at 300 remote locations, had the data to resubmit within 20 minutes of when I walked in the door, and for the first time in four hours, everything was OK." I'm just some guy who's "only done SQL one year".

Failing that, I definitely recommend to the original poster that he become familiar with all of Nick Corcodilos' Ask the Headhunter materials. It's a book, website, excellent weekly newsletter, and blog. Start reading everything Nick has to say. It's invaluable.

If you need to pare down the list, then you aren't hiring intelligently.

I would expect the ones with the most job openings would be the "hottest" jobs.

Not as much as you'd think. A good portion of openings I've seen there are from headhunter agencies that put up phony jobs for clients that don't exist. This gives them a pool of resumes to boast to their own clients about.

Out of all the career books I've read, Ask The Headhunter is the one that struck a chord with me. His take on Monster/Careerbuilder, while old, still holds true.

"I don't see how the hell a web developer/designer is supposed to find work in a city for a year..."

He's not, that's why you ask for full time income for one year (in addition to the standard severance package) to compensate for the time he won't be employable. You can tell your friend this is the "standard" response for this "standard" clause. Either that, or you can tell your friend to strike out the clause, initial it, and ask the employer to initial it as well. Crossing out clauses, or modifying clauses to make them more reasonable, is another very "standard" practice.

Whatever happens, tell your friend to not let this clause slip by untouched (even if he does live in a State where it's not really enforced). If his boss is going to be uncompromising, your friend needs to find this out now *before* he accepts a job from him. For some good reading on this topic, I recommend he takes a look at http://asktheheadhunter.com. I would also suggest "When I Say No, I Feel Guilty" by Manuel J. Smith -- which is the best book I've read on assertiveness.

I've pointed you before to Nick Corcodilos' Ask the Headhunter, which is a great way for salaried employees to start building the important perspective you're talking about. He's got an article about how to handle performance reviews that talks about basing your review on the profit you actually make for the company.

I've pointed you before to Nick Corcodilos' Ask the Headhunter, which is a great way for salaried employees to start building the important perspective you're talking about. He's got an article about how to handle performance reviews that talks about basing your review on the profit you actually make for the company.

http://www.asktheheadhunter.com/hasalary.htm

In 2003 I tried to arrange an interview with Nick Corcodilos.. The story stayed in the queue as "pending" for about six months (!) before it was finally rejected. I think they tried, but it fell through.

... from the article, the author states that 'coding is dead' because

The advent of the Codeless Development Environment

Ahh, the mythical Blue Unicorn; users will be able to make their own Uber Apps and developers will sink into the La Brea Tar Pits. That could be the case if development was only banging code. It is actually deconstructing a business process/issue into manageable chunks, then writing code to make those chunks work together. I have yet to meet a business person who can explain the function of their job in a linear process, so there is no way that person could write their own program, unless you had a magical CDE that could translate abstract, random process descriptions into real code (forget about efficient code/processes).

The emergence of the software factory

Ahh, the anonymous factory that churns out components that our business person can then assemble into a working application? Been there, tried that with EJB. Somehow that whole promise of component EJBs never really took off. I wonder why? Could it be that this idea is CRAP? Hmm...

The decrease in the number of programming jobs in IT

Non Sequitur. The number of quality jobs aren't decreasing. The monkeys that thought they could get a MCSE and start making $65k with no experience are (hopefully) flushed out of the pool. Soon the monkeys who are unable to do the work of Business Analyst/Junior Project Manager will also be gone/outsourced. The jobs are there; you just have to know how to look for them.

Fewer students enrolled in computer science courses

Another non-sequitur. A degree means nothing in terms of fitness for doing a job---except to PHBs who don't know how to judge a candidate's worth other than by dead trees (resume/degree: equally worthless). You can certainly be a good developer without having ever taken one college class. What matters is skill, experience, adaptability, talent, and self motivation to learn new stuff.

More:

When was the last time you cracked open one of Knuth's volumes? Do you even know who Knuth is?

Yes, last week, in fact. I've been plowing through Vol 3 looking for a better way to search a bunch of stuff across multiple iSeries/DB2 files. So what? Reading Knuth doesn't mean you're a better code monkey. It can help, but just like any other resource, it is in the application. Einstein said something to the effect that the most important fact one could know is the Library's address.

Part of the problem is that serious experience is needed to do a number of difficult jobs. In some cases, you won't be "good enough" until you've worked for a decade (at which time you'll be 35 or so and finding a job will be truly challenging...).

Another problem is the over-specification of positions; the best explanation I've heard for this (beside HR only being able to match words and not concepts) is that technically weak managers have to hire specific skill sets because they are not capable of mentoring and otherwise growing "merely" talented people.

This essay is where I got that concept, and the entire site is highly recommended for its advice in finding a job.

To try to answer your questions, what I've gathered is that you simply have to get the experience: for you, stay in your current job for a couple of years, or jump now, since leaving after six months doesn't look too bad. But you want your first or second job to be a minimum two years in duration.

And get experience in the specific areas you're interested in (hopefully your company actually does some of them :-). For people who are still in school, be sure to get some industry experience before you graduate; if it's not on your resume as such you have some fast talking/networking to do....

Don't panic, but do realize this "market" of people and jobs is really messed up right now, and you're going to have to work hard to keep a career (unless you want to become a manager, and then you're still going to have to work hard since good management is just as hard in its own ways).

Good luck!

http://www.asktheheadhunter.com/index.htm has information on just about anything a job hunter would want to know.

The bulk of it boils down to getting to know people that work where you want to work, and keep your dignity intact.

Do not call secretaries and HR people. Find newspaper articles (or online or whatever) that mention names and call those people. Be very polite and respectful, as well as appreciative of their time. Call to ask questions; do not call to ask for an interview or a job. Call with good questions that the person you're talking to will enjoy answering.

Definitely go check out the Ask the Headhunter site, weekly email newsletter, and book for more details on how to do this.

Ask the Headhunter (the website with the original article) has some good advice about hiring.

• This is not a test: a hiring tool for managers (guest author)
• 10 stupid hiring mistakes
• 7 mistakes internal recruiters make
• (more articles)

Ask the Headhunter (the website with the original article) has some good advice about hiring.

• This is not a test: a hiring tool for managers (guest author)
• 10 stupid hiring mistakes
• 7 mistakes internal recruiters make
• (more articles)

Ask the Headhunter (the website with the original article) has some good advice about hiring.

• This is not a test: a hiring tool for managers (guest author)
• 10 stupid hiring mistakes
• 7 mistakes internal recruiters make
• (more articles)

Ask the Headhunter (the website with the original article) has some good advice about hiring.

• This is not a test: a hiring tool for managers (guest author)
• 10 stupid hiring mistakes
• 7 mistakes internal recruiters make
• (more articles)

Here's Ask the Headhunter's take on how to be your own headhunter. He's not hawking his services as a headhunter; he's offering excellent advice on how to get (and keep) a job. The articles section is invaluable, along with his newsletter (free) and book (cheap).

Here's Ask the Headhunter's take on how to be your own headhunter. He's not hawking his services as a headhunter; he's offering excellent advice on how to get (and keep) a job. The articles section is invaluable, along with his newsletter (free) and book (cheap).

Instead of compiling a resume, follow the advice of Ask the Headhunter's Nick Corcadilos and create a working resume: win the job by doing the job. Check out that website for the best job hunting advice I have ever seen. Read everything you can from the site, and get his book as well. He also produces an excellent weekly newsletter by email.

Best advice ever about how to stand out from the crowd, bypass the resume/job listing sinkhole and get directly to a manager who wants to hire you.

I appreciated all the insightful comments you made today. May I recomment Ask the Headhunter? I think you may find this book complements your philosophy quite well.

For some truly excellent articles on this topic, check out Ask the Headhunter, where you can find such gems as Keep Your Salary Under Wraps and Everything You Know About Job Hunting Is Wrong.

Anyone who is looking for a job or in danger of being laid off (that's everyone these days!) should take a few hours and read the Ask the Headhunter site from top to bottom. It really is an incredibly valuable source of knowledge.

For some truly excellent articles on this topic, check out Ask the Headhunter, where you can find such gems as Keep Your Salary Under Wraps and Everything You Know About Job Hunting Is Wrong.

Anyone who is looking for a job or in danger of being laid off (that's everyone these days!) should take a few hours and read the Ask the Headhunter site from top to bottom. It really is an incredibly valuable source of knowledge.

For some truly excellent articles on this topic, check out Ask the Headhunter, where you can find such gems as Keep Your Salary Under Wraps and Everything You Know About Job Hunting Is Wrong.

Anyone who is looking for a job or in danger of being laid off (that's everyone these days!) should take a few hours and read the Ask the Headhunter site from top to bottom. It really is an incredibly valuable source of knowledge.

For some truly excellent articles on this topic, check out Ask the Headhunter, where you can find such gems as Keep Your Salary Under Wraps and Everything You Know About Job Hunting Is Wrong.

Anyone who is looking for a job or in danger of being laid off (that's everyone these days!) should take a few hours and read the Ask the Headhunter site from top to bottom. It really is an incredibly valuable source of knowledge.

I've got karma to burn, so here goes.

Joel's article is 100% non-Scottish. Think your shiny resume and cover letter with perfect formatting and punctuation will get you a job? Think again. You're just one paper amongst the other hundreds; you're competing with Bernard Shifman and the guy who paid $3k to send his resume to 3,000 companies. You're not competing with people who know how the system works, and how to make it work for them. Those people already have the jobs while you're stuck filling out applications for HR.

Let us remember why a company is hiring: to use labor to make money, NOT to distribute jobs for charity. Tell me how, on god's green earth does a dead piece of paper prove that you're going to make that employer money?

It doesn't.

By submitting your past list of accomplishments, you're in effect saying, "Hey, Mrs. Employer, here is what I did in the past. Please figure out how this applies to the problems you're having right now, and then pay me to solve them."

So, one, you've added extra work to that hiring manager's plate (on top of her regular job), and two, you're asking her to do your job to figure out if you can make them money! No wonder most managers make the mistake of using HR do all their hiring---it is "easy(ier)"! Too bad it doesn't work very well. Would you have someone who knows nothing about the position you're trying to fill screen out potential candidates? Hmm?

Now then, let us look at how Safety gets a job:

1. Find a company I want to work for,
2. Cultivate contacts within that company,
3. Discover who needs the help that I can provide,
4. Use contacts to recommend me to the hiring manager,
5. Research and prepare to answer the question of how hiring me will make/save money,
6. During the interview, take control and give presentation; talk about how I will solve the manager's problems today,
7. Ask for job at the end of the interview, and
8. Drop off thank you notes with receptionist.

No resume necessary (except as a security blanket for managers who don't know how to conduct an interview...but you'll never use it). Want to know more?

~ the products/projects involved looked very good from a resume standpoint.

I can't recommend Nick Corcodilos' Ask The Headhunter enough. This advice is just wonderful, either for getting a new job, or for showing your worth to your current employer. It takes a little bit of mental adjustment to accept what he says (and it may be a bit scary), but he is absolutely right about how to go about it! The problem we in IT face right now is the feeling that our worth is going down as many of us are replaced through outsourcing and foreign labor. Brush up your skill set, but most importantly, learn how to apply your talents to solve real business problems in terms of dollars and you will never doubt your worth (nor will your potential employers).

ATH's advice is great. Be sure to get the book, read as much of the website as possible, and subscribe to the weekly newsletter. It's the only HTML mail I receive every week that I actually look forward to and enjoy reading.

http://www.asktheheadhunter.com/crocs66nca.htm
" Signing non-compete agreements for fun and profit.

Companies love to have new hires sign non-compete agreements (NCA's), whereby the employee agrees that if and when he leaves the company, he will not join a competitor or compete with the company for a prescribed period of time. The prospect of signing an NCA worries most people, and it should. An NCA can prevent you from working in your field and it can cost you a lot of money in lost income.

There are many tactics you can use to limit the effects of an NCA, including restricting the time period and the geographic area to which it applies. But, I've got a better approach that startles most companies. Try it when you negotiate your next NCA.

Recognize that signing an NCA costs you money and confers a benefit on the company. For the deal to be fair, the NCA should cost the company money, too, and it should confer a benefit on you.

If a company wants to restrict your ability to earn a living, it should give you something in return: a guaranteed severance package for the term of the NCA, to tide you over while you're out of work and not competing. The severance should be yoked to the terms of the NCA. That is, if the NCA applies whether you quit or are fired, then the severance should be paid in either case. This is a deal that shows good faith when the company hires you.

It's no fun to be left holding the bag when you leave your job. If a company wants to lock you out of the market, it must compensate you for it. What I'm suggesting is a win-win approach to NCA's that forces the employer to put some skin in the game. When it has to pay for the benefit of an NCA, an employer will think carefully before asking you to sign one.

Let's make sure there's fun and profit for everyone in NCA's."

This layoff news is giving you incredible leverage in this negotiation. Don't be afraid to use it. So once you've done your research, you should talk (not email) to your hiring manager, share your concerns, and ask him what kind of (written) guarantees he can offer you to reduce the risk of impending layoffs. Any promise made over a phone line won't do if the person is being laid off, or if there is a general hiring freeze. And make it clear that you won't accept an offer until you have a signed copy of it in your hands with all the concessions they've made to you.

Here are a couple of links that may be of use:
"In many cases, the same companies that are firing people out one door are hiring people... Don't waste time fretting over the news..."
http://www.asktheheadhunter.com/basics4.htm

How to avoid a "bait and switch" job offer.
http://www.asktheheadhunter.com/crocodile.htm

Don't get fired on day #1.
http://www.asktheheadhunter.com/crocs24dontgetfire d.htm

Beware The Cause Clause.
http://www.asktheheadhunter.com/crocs57causeclause .htm

Due Diligence: Don't take a job without it
http://www.asktheheadhunter.com/hadiligence.htm

Signing non-compete agreements for fun and profit.
http://www.asktheheadhunter.com/crocs66nca.htm

This layoff news is giving you incredible leverage in this negotiation. Don't be afraid to use it. So once you've done your research, you should talk (not email) to your hiring manager, share your concerns, and ask him what kind of (written) guarantees he can offer you to reduce the risk of impending layoffs. Any promise made over a phone line won't do if the person is being laid off, or if there is a general hiring freeze. And make it clear that you won't accept an offer until you have a signed copy of it in your hands with all the concessions they've made to you.

Here are a couple of links that may be of use:
"In many cases, the same companies that are firing people out one door are hiring people... Don't waste time fretting over the news..."
http://www.asktheheadhunter.com/basics4.htm

How to avoid a "bait and switch" job offer.
http://www.asktheheadhunter.com/crocodile.htm

Don't get fired on day #1.
http://www.asktheheadhunter.com/crocs24dontgetfire d.htm

Beware The Cause Clause.
http://www.asktheheadhunter.com/crocs57causeclause .htm

Due Diligence: Don't take a job without it
http://www.asktheheadhunter.com/hadiligence.htm

Signing non-compete agreements for fun and profit.
http://www.asktheheadhunter.com/crocs66nca.htm

This layoff news is giving you incredible leverage in this negotiation. Don't be afraid to use it. So once you've done your research, you should talk (not email) to your hiring manager, share your concerns, and ask him what kind of (written) guarantees he can offer you to reduce the risk of impending layoffs. Any promise made over a phone line won't do if the person is being laid off, or if there is a general hiring freeze. And make it clear that you won't accept an offer until you have a signed copy of it in your hands with all the concessions they've made to you.

Here are a couple of links that may be of use:
"In many cases, the same companies that are firing people out one door are hiring people... Don't waste time fretting over the news..."
http://www.asktheheadhunter.com/basics4.htm

How to avoid a "bait and switch" job offer.
http://www.asktheheadhunter.com/crocodile.htm

Don't get fired on day #1.
http://www.asktheheadhunter.com/crocs24dontgetfire d.htm

Beware The Cause Clause.
http://www.asktheheadhunter.com/crocs57causeclause .htm

Due Diligence: Don't take a job without it
http://www.asktheheadhunter.com/hadiligence.htm

Signing non-compete agreements for fun and profit.
http://www.asktheheadhunter.com/crocs66nca.htm

This layoff news is giving you incredible leverage in this negotiation. Don't be afraid to use it. So once you've done your research, you should talk (not email) to your hiring manager, share your concerns, and ask him what kind of (written) guarantees he can offer you to reduce the risk of impending layoffs. Any promise made over a phone line won't do if the person is being laid off, or if there is a general hiring freeze. And make it clear that you won't accept an offer until you have a signed copy of it in your hands with all the concessions they've made to you.

Here are a couple of links that may be of use:
"In many cases, the same companies that are firing people out one door are hiring people... Don't waste time fretting over the news..."
http://www.asktheheadhunter.com/basics4.htm

How to avoid a "bait and switch" job offer.
http://www.asktheheadhunter.com/crocodile.htm

Don't get fired on day #1.
http://www.asktheheadhunter.com/crocs24dontgetfire d.htm

Beware The Cause Clause.
http://www.asktheheadhunter.com/crocs57causeclause .htm

Due Diligence: Don't take a job without it
http://www.asktheheadhunter.com/hadiligence.htm

Signing non-compete agreements for fun and profit.
http://www.asktheheadhunter.com/crocs66nca.htm

This layoff news is giving you incredible leverage in this negotiation. Don't be afraid to use it. So once you've done your research, you should talk (not email) to your hiring manager, share your concerns, and ask him what kind of (written) guarantees he can offer you to reduce the risk of impending layoffs. Any promise made over a phone line won't do if the person is being laid off, or if there is a general hiring freeze. And make it clear that you won't accept an offer until you have a signed copy of it in your hands with all the concessions they've made to you.

Here are a couple of links that may be of use:
"In many cases, the same companies that are firing people out one door are hiring people... Don't waste time fretting over the news..."
http://www.asktheheadhunter.com/basics4.htm

How to avoid a "bait and switch" job offer.
http://www.asktheheadhunter.com/crocodile.htm

Don't get fired on day #1.
http://www.asktheheadhunter.com/crocs24dontgetfire d.htm

Beware The Cause Clause.
http://www.asktheheadhunter.com/crocs57causeclause .htm

Due Diligence: Don't take a job without it
http://www.asktheheadhunter.com/hadiligence.htm

Signing non-compete agreements for fun and profit.
http://www.asktheheadhunter.com/crocs66nca.htm

This layoff news is giving you incredible leverage in this negotiation. Don't be afraid to use it. So once you've done your research, you should talk (not email) to your hiring manager, share your concerns, and ask him what kind of (written) guarantees he can offer you to reduce the risk of impending layoffs. Any promise made over a phone line won't do if the person is being laid off, or if there is a general hiring freeze. And make it clear that you won't accept an offer until you have a signed copy of it in your hands with all the concessions they've made to you.

Here are a couple of links that may be of use:
"In many cases, the same companies that are firing people out one door are hiring people... Don't waste time fretting over the news..."
http://www.asktheheadhunter.com/basics4.htm

How to avoid a "bait and switch" job offer.
http://www.asktheheadhunter.com/crocodile.htm

Don't get fired on day #1.
http://www.asktheheadhunter.com/crocs24dontgetfire d.htm

Beware The Cause Clause.
http://www.asktheheadhunter.com/crocs57causeclause .htm

Due Diligence: Don't take a job without it
http://www.asktheheadhunter.com/hadiligence.htm

Signing non-compete agreements for fun and profit.
http://www.asktheheadhunter.com/crocs66nca.htm

This is completely untrue. You convince the interviewer you can do the job by actually doing the job.

Run, do not walk, to your local bookstore and pick up a copy of Nick Corcodilos' stellar Ask The Headhunter. Also be sure to visit his website at asktheheadhunter.com.

Change your way of thinking about the interview. Control it by showing the interviewer who you are. This doesn't mean the aforementioned thoughtful "mmmm" and "yeah" to BS the interviwer into thinking you're listening.

Get Nick's book. You will not be sorry.

Then I realized that:

A) I know who Gene Simmons is and used to own the first several KISS albums (gasp);

B) My sig is a quote from Marvin the Martian; and

C) I have been reading Ask The Headhunter for several months and find Nick Corcodilos insightful and refreshingly honest (e.g., he says that most people do not get jobs through headhunters and that one should not focus all their efforts through them). I think that reading Nick, who also has engineering-specific columns at EE Times is time well-spent.

So, given the above, my conclusion is that your insight is brilliant ;-}

First off, nobody should look for a job without reading Nick Corcodilos' excellent Ask The Headhunter.

Second, think like a hiring manager. Remember that the hiring manager has 50 resumes in a folder that HR has dumped in his lap, or worse, 50 emails that have been forwarded from HR.

Tell me, as a manager, exactly what you can do for me. This might mean some extra work on your part customizing a copy of your resume, and of course writing a job-specific cover letter. DO IT. Don't skimp here.

I want to know exactly what the applicant can do to help me out. Make a thumbnail sketch of what you are. The top of my resume looks like this:

16 years professional software development, most recently specializing in Perl, PHP and ColdFusion, including

• Project leader and senior software engineer for TITLEWAVE online library collection and e-commerce site (1 year)
• Developing object-oriented Perl and PHP, including interfacing with Oracle and MySQL (8 years)
• Creating intranet database applications with Cold Fusion, Access & VBA and SQL (5 years)
• Creating flagship software products in C/C++ (5 years)

Other little notes from my resume sins file:

• Do not discuss money. If the ad asks for a salary range, then specify it, but then leave it alone.
• Put your name and contact info on every document, probably on every page. Stuff gets mixed up once it comes out on paper.
• Don't try to hide your small amount of experience by omitting dates. I won't be fooled.
• Tell me why you are better then the other 90% of the resumes I'm getting.
• I take filling this position very seriously. I expect you to do the same. Cookie-cutter cover letters get round-filed.

Ask The Headhunter makes the key point that managers WANT to hire you. They want to find someone that they can hire so that we can all get back to doing real work. Make it easy for me to see that you are the person for the job.

Sit them down and show them the work you want them to do. In particular, show them a problem you currently have open and ask how they would approach it... Get them doing the job in the interview.

It doesn't matter if they can answer riddles.
It doesn't matter if they have a shiny resume
It doesn't matter if they know exactly how language X's pre-parser works.
It doesn't even matter if they are a genius prodigy programmer. (seriously)

What matters is that they can (help) solve the kinds of problems your group faces regularly (or expect to face soon).

So try to get them doing that during your interview. If they can, they you have a potential winner and can start thinking about how they would integrate into your group's personality.
Then you have them casually meet their potential co-workers and you can get those people's impression of the candidate.

One website I really love is: AskTheHeadhunter
Particularly these articles:
asktheheadhunter.com/harespecting.htm
asktheheadhunter.com/hatenmistakes1.htm
asktheheadhunter.com/hahireright.htm

Sit them down and show them the work you want them to do. In particular, show them a problem you currently have open and ask how they would approach it... Get them doing the job in the interview.

It doesn't matter if they can answer riddles.
It doesn't matter if they have a shiny resume
It doesn't matter if they know exactly how language X's pre-parser works.
It doesn't even matter if they are a genius prodigy programmer. (seriously)

What matters is that they can (help) solve the kinds of problems your group faces regularly (or expect to face soon).

So try to get them doing that during your interview. If they can, they you have a potential winner and can start thinking about how they would integrate into your group's personality.
Then you have them casually meet their potential co-workers and you can get those people's impression of the candidate.

One website I really love is: AskTheHeadhunter
Particularly these articles:
asktheheadhunter.com/harespecting.htm
asktheheadhunter.com/hatenmistakes1.htm
asktheheadhunter.com/hahireright.htm

Sit them down and show them the work you want them to do. In particular, show them a problem you currently have open and ask how they would approach it... Get them doing the job in the interview.

It doesn't matter if they can answer riddles.
It doesn't matter if they have a shiny resume
It doesn't matter if they know exactly how language X's pre-parser works.
It doesn't even matter if they are a genius prodigy programmer. (seriously)

What matters is that they can (help) solve the kinds of problems your group faces regularly (or expect to face soon).

So try to get them doing that during your interview. If they can, they you have a potential winner and can start thinking about how they would integrate into your group's personality.
Then you have them casually meet their potential co-workers and you can get those people's impression of the candidate.

One website I really love is: AskTheHeadhunter
Particularly these articles:
asktheheadhunter.com/harespecting.htm
asktheheadhunter.com/hatenmistakes1.htm
asktheheadhunter.com/hahireright.htm

Sit them down and show them the work you want them to do. In particular, show them a problem you currently have open and ask how they would approach it... Get them doing the job in the interview.

It doesn't matter if they can answer riddles.
It doesn't matter if they have a shiny resume
It doesn't matter if they know exactly how language X's pre-parser works.
It doesn't even matter if they are a genius prodigy programmer. (seriously)

What matters is that they can (help) solve the kinds of problems your group faces regularly (or expect to face soon).

So try to get them doing that during your interview. If they can, they you have a potential winner and can start thinking about how they would integrate into your group's personality.
Then you have them casually meet their potential co-workers and you can get those people's impression of the candidate.

One website I really love is: AskTheHeadhunter
Particularly these articles:
asktheheadhunter.com/harespecting.htm
asktheheadhunter.com/hatenmistakes1.htm
asktheheadhunter.com/hahireright.htm

...not finding a job for you.

have a good long read at ask the headhunter and judge for yourself.

Get him to send out several versions of his resumes, each version with slightly different contact information, and each version should be using a wildly different strategy, or better yet have him try a strategy that is against using resumes(see http://asktheheadhunter.com/ ).

Stephan

...or something like that: www.asktheheadhunter.com

nick (the guy who made that site) says that putting your resume on sites like monster is as good as flushing them down the toilet. like someone said (approx.) in another post, you find jobs through people. go out and get to know some.

Contacting, or better yet visiting, the CoC also has the advantage of letting you talk to a human and get those all-important contacts.

While you're at it, run out and get copies of The Brand You 50 by Tom Peters, and Ask The Headhunter by Nick Corcodilos. They're all about selling yourself as more than just a bunch of accomplishments and skills.

Exactly!! Most interviews are stupid ("What job would you have if this were a circus?"), irrelevant ("How do you find out how to use 'man'?") or clichéd ("Where do you see yourself in five years?"). They offer nothing in the way of testing the candidates ability to do the job.

Good hiring managers know that the best way to insure someone can do the job is to let them do the job in the interview. That is a simple concept, but the most powerful way to weed out the losers.

What we do is fire up our little Sparc 5, give them the root password and tell them to get the box up on the network, add users, mount remote drive nn and set up printer xx. Oh and while you're at it, set up the korn shell with some specific characteristics (alias, PS1=, blah, blah).

Those who know their stuff will have no sweat. Those who are 'paper tigers' will quickly wash themselves out.

Other people here have already discussed how you shouldn't need to worry about catching up with technology. Essentially, if you're getting a strong background in tech at school, it should not be too hard to find out how the new trends fit with what you already know. Talk to some of your classmates when you get back, and then get some books, and then write small apps on your own to test what you've learned.

As for getting a job afterwards, your main problem there would be whether or not a machine is scanning your resume. If so, the machine is likely to look for recent buzzwords that you won't have, and you'll get dismissed very quickly.

If you get a human to look at your resume, you may be lucky in that that person could be very intrigued by your experiences in the Peace Corps. Since most companies prefer to hire referrals rather than outsiders, this is the best approach in any case. Read Ask the Headhunter for very different, very gutsy, and (IMO) very sensible approach to doing this. The author (a headhunter) tends to overstate his point a little, but it's still very useful.

If you stick to a more traditional job-seeking approach, try larger companies that are not strictly tech-focused. (e.g., banks, and not software companies.) Companies like these typically are more willing to spend money on training, so you can get some work experience and some on the job training, and then you're in a better position to move on.

After you've spent two years in the Peace Corps, I wonder if you'll even want to go into the IT field. You're embarking on a very big, and possibly life-altering experience, so keep in mind that who you are now, and what you want to do with your life now, may be very different from who will be then. This is neither a good thing nor a bad thing, but I'd advise you to simply keep that possibility in mind.