Are There Any Fun Tech Jobs Left?

er0ck asks: "My first job out of college was working for an Internet Startup. They gave me some books and told me to learn Perl. Our office was a refurbished factory, with lots of light and open space. Best of all, we could bring our nerf toys in to work (and use them!). Four months later, the company went under. Several dot bomb jobs later, I work for my state government. Is anyone still having fun at their tech job?" I think that with the economic downturn, more companies are concentrating on survival more than being "fun". Are there any "fun" tech jobs left, or have they all suffered from the Economic Darwinism of the early 21st century?

"[Government work is] steady work, but boring at times. (I don't think they'd approve of the Nerf guns). Without the pressure of staying in business, projects sometimes stagnate, leaving us with little to do. During these slow times, I help behind the scenes at NerfCenter.com; It's a fun site, and they are switching to Perl for their admin backend. It keeps my skills sharp, and wards off the boredom.

My questions to the Slashdot community are:

1. Can you have a fun tech job, without the worry of being suddenly unemployed?
2. If you are you forced (as I am) to get your fun on the side what are some good projects to get involved in?
3. What do you to unwind and have a bit of 'fun' in the workplace?"

Comments

Fun jobs???

[Crixus]

I think a better question is, are there ANY fun jobs left at all?

For the most part, all employers... corporations in particular, have declared war on their labor.

I'd list the reasons but the apologists would just deny them. :-)

Rich...

CV writing advice

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

Care to share some of your suggestions then?

Sure. I've written about this on /. before, but here are a few of the major points -- things that many (most?) people get wrong.

1. Your CV is an introduction, nothing more. It's not supposed to be your complete life history in graphic detail. So, provide a concise summary of your relevant skills and experience only, and customise your CV to match the job for which you're applying. Your CV should get you into an interview and preferably provide some interesting points for your interviewer to discuss with you in more detail. It doesn't need to do anything else.
2. Your CV should tell your prospective employer what you offer, not what you want. Frankly, most employers couldn't give an airborne copulation at the CV stage about your life ambition and the type of career you want to have. Good employers will consider this and perhaps discuss it with you at your interview, if you get one. If you're going to mention it at all, put a brief note in your covering letter about the kind of thing you're looking for. At least that way, if they're offering 10K less than you want and a 50 hour week, they'll know to say "no thank you" without wasting everyone's time any more. Don't use up valuable CV space with "personal objectives", "career directions" or other such rubbish.
3. Your CV must be well presented. That means both clear organisation and a readable layout. Most of the CVs that arrive at the office are not well presented. Common mistakes include...
   1. CVs that are needlessly long. If you're looking for something like summer work while studying at university, a page will probably be good enough. For a first or second job after that, two pages is probably appropriate, as you'll need a little space to list the work experience you've got now. If you genuinely need to write more than two pages, you don't need me to tell you how to write your CV. :-)
   2. CVs full of unsupported buzzwords. Agencies are great for sending these, usually on an ugly and hard-to-scan cover page that adds no value to the CV. Employers will not be impressed by your claiming to know 17 different langauges when you've only just graduated, or your gratuitous use of terms like "expert", "advanced" or (God forbid) "mission critical". By all means list your skills, but be honest, and provide objective information, such as the number of years you've been using a skill. You might include a fair assessment of your ability ("basics", "competent", "good"), which helps an employer to understand your focus if you're listing, say, three or four languages. Make sure the experience sections of your CV (work and education) show where these bits of experience happened.
   3. CVs with poor use of English. If you can't even write English, do you expect us to let you write C++ or Perl? Sloppy language is a sure sign of someone who doesn't pay attention to detail, and that is not the kind of person we want to employ. And of course, a professional programming job needs far more than coding skills; it also requires interpersonal and communications skills, for a start. The quality of your CV is the one way a company has to assess these skills until they meet you in person.
   4. CVs that use poor layout. Companies will not be impressed by pointless flash on a CV. Don't overuse things like fonts. Avoid snazzy graphics, strange formats such as 3-fold brochures, or other "distinctive" features. Stick to a clear layout that's easy on the eyes. Use bullet lists where appropriate, but don't overdo it so that your pages look "dotty". Leave plenty of whitespace; a cramped CV is hard to scan, and you've only got 30 seconds -- max -- to convince someone to keep reading.
   Some things, everyone should have. For example...
   1. Provide a summary of your skills. This comes at the top of your CV, right under the personal information. Think about what your potential employer is looking for. For example, if you're going for a programming job, you might list the languages most relevant to the job (maybe with an indication of your proficiency with them -- "Java, 3 years, competent"). You might also choose to list the major tools you've used (e.g., JDK v1.3, CVS).
   2. Provide your academic background in an easily-scannable chronological form. People will check this briefly, often as the first thing they read on your CV, to guage your general level of experience. Include dates and places, grades, and brief notes if, say, your degree course covered something particularly relevant to the job. If your academic career has been quite long (e.g., you've got your degree by now), consider condensing the earlier qualifications into a one liner (e.g., in the UK, 8 GCSEs: 3 As, 3 Bs, 2Cs).
   3. List your relevant work experience in an easily-scannable, chronological form. Give dates and places, job titles, and a brief summary of what you did, including anything that's relevant to the job for which you're applying.
   Finally, certain things will catch the eye of someone reading your CV, and if they're appropriate, you can use them to good effect. For example, consider providing your home page address. If you've got some personal programming projects under your belt, you might consider making the source/docs available on-line. If your CV is read by someone technical, they probably will visit your site and have a quick look, at least long enough to say "Hey, she can really code!" or "Nope, he can't code for toffee." If your home site is full of cutesy photos of your friends, I don't recommend providing a link... ;-)

Apologies for the lack of links in this post; the /. search engine doesn't seem to be working properly right now. However, one link that's definitely worth following is the one to Carnegie-Mellon's Susie the Screener page. This page may come as a rude awakening to many /.ers who think they're clever, but they'll have much, much better job prospects after reading it.

If you just follow the simple and common-sense advice above, I reckon you're already in the top 5-10% of CVs a company will receive. That alone will put your chances of getting an interview way up. Good luck.