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What's the Worst Job Posting You've Seen?
Kickstart70 asks: "Recently myself and a number of friends of mine who work or worked in IT jobs have been remarking on absolutely horrible job postings for low-level IT jobs paying small change. It seems the headhunters and employers are still wanting knowledge in everything, at least one degree but preferably two, and want to keep employees on minimal wages (in the job listing linked, the wage is in Canadian dollars). Is this common everywhere? What's the worst job posting you have seen?"
The worst ones I've seen are ones that require you to have gone back in time in order to have enough experience with the software they want you to use:
"Requirements: 5 years experience with Windows 2000..."
Finding out you're unqualified.
Litigious bastards
Let's face it. IT salaries got way ahead of themselves in during the boom. Now the pendulum swings the other way
Have you looked at what a teacher makes or any other number of degree-requiring professions? CAD$40k might sound sucky to you, but I'm betting there's a lot of unemployed IT ppl out there right now who'd take it in a snap.
"I'd rather be a lightning rod than a seismometer." -Ken Kesey
Requirements: Creative, smart individual who finds delight in working with others and around others. Candidate should have an understanding of computational theory and application and be able to grasp new ideas quickly. Prospective employee should have skills in a couple programming languages as well as the ability to learn a new language or environment quickly. If you are right for this job you will be able to apply your knowledge, logic and intuition to the problems at hand. You enjoy solving problems and discovering new ways to do things. An engineering degree is preferred but not necessary. If you don't have an engineering degree you will be expected to demonstrate competency in math, logic and computer science theory. You will be paid accordingly to your abilities in the above listed requirements.
Instead we see:
Must have 10 years of programming in language A that has been around for 4 years. Most know X,Y,Z. We don't care if you can learn X,Y,Z or understand the theory behind X,Y,Z, you must know it because it is a nice buzz-word right now. Be prepared to unlearn X,Y,Z and learn G,H,J when they become the new buzzwords. We don't want you to think, we want you code!! code!! code!!
But I digress.
"If you are a dreamer, a wisher, a liar, A hope-er, a pray-er, a magic bean buyer
I saw a posting for mail room personnel at CNet that said "must have 2 years previous corporate mail room experience". And it wasn't for managing the thing, it was just a nomal clerk position.
Would you want to hire someone who was either a) so uncapable that working the mail room is the peak of their abilities or b) so ambition-free that they had multiple years of mailroom experience without advancing?
Yeah.. When I quit my first job in montreal after the place took a direction other than what was on the job description(they wanted to do porn and I didn't) They posted a job asking for my qualifications but expected to about $12 CDN an hour.
One day I'm overhearing the receptionist talking to a prospective sysadmin calling for my job "well sir.. before we process your resume.. do you have a problem with porn? how about animal porn? ohh well ok then. thanks anyways"
Glad I left? yep! That place and Ralsky deserved each other.
You have to take into consideration that 17-19$ canadian, for a level 1 tech support job, is actually a good offer.
17-19$ Goes a long way in Edmonton (I beleive thats where the job is) compared to lets say Vancouver or Toronto where you'd need at least 25$/hour.
You guys have to remember, you will have a better living standard with 17$/hour Canadian in Edmonton, than if your doing 30$/hour USD in Sillicon Valley.
It was real posting to a real job list, which I thought was very funny, but the poster got banned from the list for their sense of humor.
Professional Wild-Eyed Visionary
As soon as I see 'Administer Outlook/Exchange' and 'on-call 24/7', I don't care how much it pays.
Besides, I don't have 5 years experience with 2K/XP. I don't know if they do that to weed out liars or what, but it's a big red flag to me that the employer is reality-challenged.
I'm not even entirely sure whether they had a version of VS .NET which would compile(as in the program not stuff it created) in the spring of 1998. Ahh well, such is lunacy.
CmdrTaco does the worst job posting...
Benefits Package: none, contract basis, terminatable at any time without severance package
Pay: $14 Canadian/hour
Wait a minute... what am I doing? Is anyone looking for a developer (or hardware engineer for that matter)?
Hardware, software, and blinking lights!
I posted this a while back, and some people thought it was too true to be funny. Others saw the humor.
How to decode an Oracle DBA Want-Ad
Oracle and unix guy.
I remember looking for intern/co-op positions through my school's placement center.
One year, a major computer hardware company came to campus looking ONLY for Ph.D students willing to do 3 month intern positions at minimum wage. Uh.... Turns out their HR department was a bit overzealous.
Another firm was an IT contracting company. They came to campus looking for new grads with a bachelors in computer science or engineering, and 5 years IT experience... After the representative told the several people that they were wasting his time because they didn't have enough experience, he was escorted off campus and told never to return.
I also recall a major financial institution wanted to hire CS students with 3 years of programming experience for the summer to - and I'm not making this up - *STAND INSIDE THE WALLS TO MAKE SURE THE NETWORK CABLES DIDN"T COME LOOSE OR BREAK*. The job was located in New York City, paid $5/hr, no assisted living, and you were *required* to live within 10 miles of the office. Oh yes, and you were also required to wear a suit at all times (though I have no idea how you were supposed to keep it clean standing inside crawlspaces all day long...)
This company, too, was kicked off campus and told never to return.
How about dogs years?
As the Economist notes, executive compensation has gone up enormously while profits have not (see the graph at the bottom). This isn't to say that the average CEO doesn't work hard or have valuable skills. But there are lot of CEO's who are overpaid at the expense of both shareholders and workers.
Interesting that you assume as an executive I don't know much about the IT systems I oversee. Would it suprise you to learn that I have published papers, articles, and a book on the subjects of distributed and parallel computing as well as object-oriented design theory? I rose through the ranks with technical skills, not business skills. I learned my business skills on the job.
I have hired as many people since the "bubble-burst" in March 2000 in the US as in India (actually, probably a bit more in the US). Of course, that probably interfers with your world-view of my type. I have also spent no training money in India, but plenty in the US. I require my outsourcing company to provide trained people, but I hire "fresh" people and train them routinely. Of course, that probably interferes with your world-view of my type as well.
You are free to think I am overpaid, but I can point to plenty of my fellow executives (defined as Director level and above by most business-experts) that make well less that highly-skilled software engineers.
The spec error I missed was buried in hundreds of pages of specs, reviewed by teams of people. You may find this hard to believe, but I have never in my life seen a perfect spec. If you pick up great works of fine literature, you can easily find spelling and gramatical errors. The mistake that I missed was a single missing word.
But, you obviously have a view that no one can change. I feel sorry for people who are so convinced they know everything.
Sarcasm and hyperbole are the final refuges for weak minds
If you don't like the system.. work hard, take a few risks, and create a succesful company that YOU can run.
Few CEOs "created" the successful company that they're now pillaging. If they did, they seldom have huge compensation because they already have a massive investment in the company (see Bill Gates - I don't hear anyone complaining about Bill's compensation). Where they were a founder and they're now pillaging, that's usually a sign that it's going down the toilet.
So.. why not be the CEO then? If it's so easy to do, why isn't everyone doing it? Part of the skill isn't just in the work required to BE a CEO, but the fairly diverse skill set required to BECOME one in the first place.
If only the world were so ideal. Your commentary is largely as realistic as telling a peasant in feudalist England that if being a Lord is so easy, why don't they just go and be one. Most CEOs are the spawn of powerful families with powerful connections and tremendous wealth - I think you'll find very few biographies that start in a poor ghetto.
The reality is that most CEO's are truly good people. They work hard, and work to make their companies as good as possible.
No one said that they aren't good people, but there is an element to human greed that comes into play when people are given such unchecked power. Read the book Animal Farm (or re-read it) as it's quite insightful.
As far as CEOs working as hard as they can to make "their" company (sure it's their's...once their $10 million in "incentive" stock options vest so they can immediately divest them) successful, how about this: You, Mrs. CEO, have the right to put down as much of your family's hard earned money as you want, on the open market, to buy company shares. I know that you'll be so dedicated, so talented, so visionary, that this will be nothing less than an extraordinary investment as you steer the organization to success. We will all applaud you when you reap the rewards of good stewardship.
Oh, what's that? You don't want to risk a penny of your money on this dump? You insist that we give you ridiculously under-priced stock options with no time-limitations? You insist that we line your contract with departure bonuses so no matter how much you screw up you're guaranteed a wealthy future regardless? You insist that there is rampant inbreeding among boards that you and all of your friends sit on, basically putting the wolves in charge of the hen house?
Oooh, sounds like a deal to me.