Updates : Hate and rage

Hi, folks. It's been quiet from me for the last little while. This whole "chasing up a new job" thing has kept me busy, and, to be frank, rather uninspired. But I should keep you updated (so I shall do that at the very end of this post), but I also need to vent before I explode!

Recruiters.

That word I've just written up there? It's a synonym with "arsehole." (But wait, there's more! I could add 'incompetent' and 'nasty' without blinking!) Not because they will come right out and be arseholes; no, that would be terribly unprofessional of them and possibly lose them money. No, they are arseholes in a subtle but deviously efficient way.

I had a stint a few years ago dealing with recruiters when I wanted to quit working for the National Library of Australia. I sent out my CV, wrote letters, wrote emails, called and talked with them, on and on. Those experiences are mirrored by my experiences of late. But before I leap into a lament, let me ask you something, where "you" are people in companies and organisations across the globe who might be looking for good people to join their team :

Why the bloody hell do you use recruiters? What is it that you hope to gain from using them? Is it simply that you think that quality people are queuing outside their shop, waiting for those skilled recruiters to match the perfect candidate up with your perfect job description? Seriously? Is that what you think? Because if that's so, I feel the need to tell you that that is not what's happening.

Recruiters are evil. No, no, it's true ; they do not care about the people involved in the recruiting process, they care about their commission in doing so. They are evil, money-sucking bastards that don't give a rats ass about who they match with whom, and so in being arseholes they treat people like crap. Unless they feel there's a slight chance of a match they simple will not contact you, they will not answer your emails or calls. And what do they base their matchability on?

Shit skills. Every time and every single recruiter I've had the pleasure of "talking" with during this last month of riding the Boogeyman their complete lack of understand of what the hell I was talking about was shockingly clear. The client wants a senior developer with MySQL skills, and I say "No problem, I know mySql, in fact I've been doing Sizzle for the last year." You can hear the humming buzz on the line as the other side tries to process this. I say "It's a MySQL fork". More silence. "So, you haven't done any actual MySQL work, then? Ok, that's too bad ...", so I interrupt "What? No, I've done MySQL for years [I mean, for fuck sake, I've been a web developer since 1997!], I was just pointing out that I'm really into the matter of things and hack on forks and play around with unofficial features through MariaDB and ...". Recruiter breaks in with, "so, er, mariaDB, right, so no recent MySQL work, then?"

Or when asked about PHP I said I've done Zend Framework for years, which the job description mentioned as a bonus. "Right, but have you done any PHP work?" Or when asked if I know SCRUM, and I said sure, and that I've done a bit of MODENA of late as well. "So, no real SCRUM experience, then?" Or when asked about if I know XML well, and I say that, sure, I've even created a full Topic Maps engine in XSLT, written a canonical XML dataset serializer (for some obscure project), and get a "well, I meant if you have any core XML skills?" Obviously not. Or how about being asked

Look, people, you're putting these people in charge of finding you the best people? Please don't. Every company I get direct contact with I have a good open dialog with. Recruiters are fucking areholes who treat people like disposable napkins (fit for wiping their saliva from thinking about their commissions, I suppose), and you should not use their services. It's not good for your organisation, nor is it good for the progress of humanity.

Right.

Now, the update. It's very short; I had 6 good leads. I blew one (I aimed too high with that one), 2 were with recruiters (and obviously they don't get back to you unless someone has thrown money at them, so I'm counting them out as I cannot find out what the actual companies are), 2 are in Norway (and they're pretty good, in as much as if nothing else happens within days, we will decide to move back to Norway), and 1 up-in-the-air with a really funky company locally that has great potential (but might fail due to time).

So, all in all, we're in a pretty downy, unstable, crazy place. We're considering taking off for a couple of weeks in a camper-van and see the south coast, but we'll see. Frustrations are running high, and I think the family needs to chill for a little while.

Take care!

What friggin' IT people shortage?!

Hot in the news today is how Canberra are looking for outside help in getting skilled workers to the city:

The ACT Government has begun linking Canberra employers with job seekers in the United Kingdom and Ireland to ease the city's skills shortage. The move is part of the Live in Canberra campaign.

What friggin' skills shortage? I've been urgently looking for a job for over a month, and I've got absolutely nothing in this city so far. Zilch. Nada. And no, it's not that I haven't got skills (in fact, I've got two job offers from overseas [one of them finalised; we're currently working out figures to see if we can afford it], and a couple of prospects in Sydney), it's that I'm not one of those who's sold their soul to J2EE, best-practices, and PRINCE2 which plague the government sector, nor am I an Australian citizen which seems to be a prequisite there, although I'm pressed to understand how workers imported from UK and Ireland would go better in that regard.

Notice that this is part of the "Live in Canberra" campaign which I'm pretty sure doesn't include information about them closing 39 schools this and next year, so if you've got kids, living in Canberra is a bit of a challenge these days, to put it mildly. The ACT local government is really poorly run, nobody here likes them. heck, people are even looking to liberal government, because, if Labour can only measure things in dollars and cents, we might as well go with those who's got a good track record in that departement to do it. (In the past, Labour actually had values, but Jon Stanhopeless' government is prioritizing a 8 million dollar dragway and a 6 million dollar arboretum in a friggin' drought area over keeping local schools and communities. Go figure.)

Can you tell I'm upset?