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How To Get Hired As An Open Source Developer
An anonymous reader writes "Todd Cranston-Cuebas, tech recruiter for Ticketmaster, offers
insider tips and tricks for landing an open-source job -- or for recruiting new talent to your IT staff." Make yourself googleable.
This is almost psychic though. I was just talking to my flatmate (we both work for former ministry of defence research) whether it'd be possible to get a project code for my open source project and try and get a grant from the LinuxFund, the idea being that I could "bill" the Fund for my time working on the project. Often the fund gives out money and the projects don't really know what to do with it, I think the best use I can think of is to let me work on it fulltime.
Of course, as Dan rightly pointed out, there are all sorts of ugly issues with that plan, noteably the overhead my company would charge, and the fact that they have a tendancy to eat IP for breakfast. Even though the project doesn't do anything that hasn't been done before, they might try to "own" the code, which wouldn't do any good at all.
Still, I think I might talk to my boss about it tomorrow. I get paid jack all basically so I'd be able to make $1000 go a long way.....
From the article:
We create an index of all incoming resumes and search on keywords. That's why it's important for job-seekers to repeat the major skills multiple times in their resume.
WTF is this? It's bad enough having to compete for a job with people who flat-out lie. Now am I going to lose out just because some dickhead spammed more buzzwords around his resume?
Never approach a vast undertaking with a half-vast plan.
I was in college back in the early 80s. At the time, new grads were having a hell of a time landing jobs. I was really worried about graduating and finding nothing to do. By the mid 80's, things warmed up just a little. I was looking for a part-time job that would provide meaningful experience, because it looked like experience was the only way to get a "real" job later.
I applied for what I thought was a temporary, part-time, third shift operations job in a data center that ran a bunch of DEC VAX machines. The job they offered me was first shift, and 91% of full-time (state employee benefits included). I was a junior in college, who accidently landed a job that was no worse than what a new grad would get. I decided to take a break from school and go back when the job ended. Well, the job that wasn't third-shift or part-time wasn't temporary either. The original employee on leave never came back, so I became an accidental full-time permanent employee. I never went back to school, because I stayed 13 years, with five promotions, ending as the Director of Technical Services.
If I had stayed in school, I would have finished in 86 or 87, and the job market was really hopping by then (but who knew back in 85?) I was so happy to have found a job, I thought it would be stupid to finish school if that meant graduating into a down market. Having seen how many employers "required" degrees but "hired" experience, I determined that experience would win out over degrees most of the time, or at least often enough to keep me working. My cynical view of employment has served me well. After 17 years of uninterrupted employment, I'm having a hard time seeing the downside of quitting college early.
So, why do I post this mini-autobiography? To illustrate just how cyclical the IT has always been. When it's hot, anyone who can type can get a job. When it's cold, having a Ph.D. won't help. So, I think the strategy is to build credentials and manufacture your own experience in the "cold" years, as you wait for the "hot" years. If you live in a high-cost area, consider moving someplace cheap. There is no reason to tolerate a high cost of living unless you have a big paycheck to cover it. Go back for an MSCS or MBA degree if you can; work outside IT if you must. Either way, start your own little empire of computers, using open source (Linux) or free downloads from Oracle (free for non-commercial use, including home hacking). If you can pick up contract work of any type, then you'll be in a position to do something when the market heats up again. Timing is everything.
The fact that we have a down market combined with a glut of H1Bs makes me wonder if we are going to see a massive correction when the market heats up. I predict a shortage of IT people, because it makes no sense to invest 4 years of tuition just to compete with H1Bs. Then again, my prediction plus $1.10 gets you a medium coffee at Dunkin Donuts.