Where Do Open Source Developers Hide Their Resumes? 41
Anthony Boyd asks: "I am a Web Manager in Silicon Valley, looking to hire full-time developers who know SQL, PHP, and Apache. With bonus points for knowing XHTML and Solaris. I am having a miserable time of it. It seems that supporting the Open Source community means limiting yourself to an incredibly small talent pool, or supporting people who are in such high demand that they are constantly off the market. What I am wondering is what /. readers do when they are looking for a new job. Do you just read the classifieds? Do you post your resume? Where? Are there forums you use? Tell me where to go to find you guys, because I would like to throw money and jobs your way."
Get yerself a recruiter (Score:1)
There's no way I could have found these people even if I did have the time, which of course, I dont. That's why I needed another developer...
Re:Not sure what the problem is here... (Score:2)
1) With newer technologies they get absurd real fast - How many people actually have 3 years of Java experience?? That makes you look idiotic real fast, and it makes applicants laugh. Some people may take it seriously and not apply, even if they're quite qualified.
2) In any case you're limiting your pool arbitrarily. Very arbitrarily - how do you know some with 2 years of experience won't work out, but someone with 3 years will? How do you know a young whipper-snapper who's eager to learn isn't the best person for the job? Again, if you're lucky, people with less than x years of experience in whatever will be undeterred but some bright people still won't want to deal with that crap...
Re:'Open Source' developers are scarce (Score:1)
Same here, I've been at two different start-ups and they've both pissed me off enough to go look elsewhere...and I'm not even out of college. Getting me that upset isn't the easiest thing to do, I typically put up with a good amount of abuse before I look elsewhere. Luckily though I learned enough technically to be able find better employment and now I know all the things you speak of and more. (Linux install and admin, firewall configuration, web server install and admin, etc.) Hopefully the company I just signed with won't dick me around like that.
Suprisingly I didn't get the response I expected from the online job sites. I only had one company that gave me an offer who found me via the Internet.
Where I look for jobs (Score:1)
Dice.com, monster.com, hotjobs.com. They all get a quick perusal, but I won't put my resume up or I get tons of email from companies that don't match at all. If I can't find a nice filter on the site to cut out the crap, I quit using that site.
Headhunters can be useful, but again they tend to hit you with as much stuff as they can, even if it isn't right for you, cause they get the commission. Many don't care, and just try to hustle you into a job. Ask for references from people they've placed before listing your jobs, or you might get a bad reputation from chosing a bad headhunter.
My number one resource has been networking with friends and people I've worked with before. If someone like working with you enough, and likes what they do enough to suggest you come work with them, you can be sure it's a good recommendation.
Re:Hiring tech people in the Valley is hard (Score:2)
But I've got to take some exception to your comment about "maybe you should re-evaluate the quality of your employees". I recruited a friend from a previous job. I'd worked with her on one small project, and I thought she'd done a pretty good job on it which is why I'd recruited her. But my boss doesn't like her much, and it muttering about firing her. The thing is, I knew she was a good person to work with, and I knew that she did well on that one small project we worked on, but I really couldn't tell you ahead of time how well she'd do on a huge project like this one. I'm inclined to believe she'll do really well once I get it through my boss's head this project isn't as easy to get up to speed on for us ordinary mortals who, unlike him, weren't around when it was first written. I know I'm 3 months ahead of her and I'm having a lot of trouble getting my head around the complexities of the server - fortunately my project has a further out due date.
I guess my point is that just because a friend you recruited isn't fitting in well is no reason to have your boss question your abilities!
(BTW: In spite of my misgivings about the company's growing pains, I have great confidence that it's getting worked out. It's really a great place to work, even if you have that slight possiblity that you might write a bug that could bring down western civilization hanging over your head.)
Re:Hiring tech people in the Valley is hard (Score:1)
Most bosses will question your abilities anyway, and a poor fit just makes them look harder (and make stuff up when it helps them reach their goals).
My condolences to your friend.
Key Point of Failure: Human Resources (Score:2)
I'm not going to claim any great experience in the job market (I've been working in IT as a sysadmin and programmer off and on while finishing my degree for about the last year and a half, for context; ~70% of my friends are in IT full time and cover the gamut in terms of experience). Still, it seems that the problems that keep good people from connecting with good employers and vice versa are always HR-related.
The primary symptom of this is what I call the Laundry List syndrome. It seems to happen when the HR person(s) go about asking all the dept. heads what skill sets they need. Then, not knowing the difference between, say JSP and IOS, they place an ad for ONE person, listing ALL of ths skills as REQUIRED. :-( I can't count the number of times I've searched for "perl and linux and java" only to have a third of the result set read like so: "Java, AWT, JSP, Servlets, JDBC, Unix (Solaris, Linux expert admin level), perl, SQL, XML, DHTML, and Photoshop". Predictably this position goes unfilled and nobody is happy in the end. HR people need to _understand_ how what they're looking for fits into the company's goals in order to do their job well.
HR depts. (and recruiters) all to frequently tend to use really, really rigid demarcations and heuristics to attempt to sift for qualified potential employees. "Oh, we're sorry, you have everything we need in skills 1 - 4, and seem like a really easy guy to work with, but you only have 3 years experience with Java instead of 4." I'm not going to say I'm as good with Unix (with ~1 1/2 years experience) as some 20+ year admin; that's just silly. But, let's be honest here, what substantive difference is there between 2 years exp. and 1.5? Yet time and again I've been hit with walls like that, and I've seen it happen many times to friends. If less Procrustean standards were applied, the companies would be able to get people who were at least close enough to learn and come up to speed (this requires good teamwork in the workplace, of course), enabling work to accelerate instead of stagnate or decelerate as the existing employee base gets burned out from having no coworkers to rely on to share the load...
And of course let's not forget the classic chestnuts of "You're taking classes/have a family and thus can't work 60 hours a week, so you're useless to us." Internet Time is bullshit, and is purely a symptom of organizational failure: failure in planning, failure in leadership, failure in marketing, etc. etc. If you can't get all your work done at a reasonably human pace in 40 hours a week, something is W*R*O*N*G with your company.
In short, my sympathy for employers who whine about not being able to find anyone with one breath and yet reject 9 out of 10 applicants with the next is extremely limited.
As a side tangent, I recently found a funny posting in 1997 to Usenet talking about Usenet job ads (and the sad-but-true-insert-bitter-pained-chuckle-here things therein). I still see the exact same things in usenet and web board ads today. The archived post is here [unicom.com].
--
Fuck Censorship.
I could tell you (Score:1)
In Conclusion (Score:2)
The messages seem to suggest that perhaps my requirements for the job were too high. In fact, my actual problem, I've determined, was that my requirements were too low. I was inundated with nearly 200 ASP developers who were so clearly pro-Microsoft that they would have undermined the entire architecture I am putting in place. Apparently, anyone can get "Microsoft Certified" -- including some very, very sloppy developers. I brought many non-PHP developers in for interviews, hoped to train one of them, and as one woman put it: "let's just use Frontpage, it's easy." When I asked how Frontpage would be able to meet coding goals of using XHTML, PHP, and browser-neutral DOM scripting, her response was again typical: "HTML, ASP, and JScript are close enough."
I just took in too much. What eventually worked for me was searching only for PHP on hotjobs.com, monster.com, alt.php, and Google's advanced search (well, on Google I had to add some search terms like "resume" to focus the search, but same idea). Thanks everyone for advice. I'll go answer all the emails now.
Re:Not sure what the problem is here... (Score:4)
I've been around this block more than once, and as a technical job seeker, this is an ad I'd ignore.
Why?
First off, even though the intent may have been to attract people who *aren't* language specific, the laundry-list of high-level languages is distracting at best, and intimidating at worst. For example, I am a good C++ coder, and a not a half-bad OO designer. I know a lot about OO theory, and I've probably read every classic book on OO design and development that you have. Nevertheless, I don't know Java, and I don't know XML as if I were working with it full-time. But when I read your ad, I find these skills listed up there in equal stature with C++ and "OO technologies." So what is it? Do you do C++ and OO design, or do you do Java programming, or do you do XML programming? Or do you do mostly Perl coding? Some combination of the three? What priority? From what I've just read, they're all equally important.
Second off--believe it or not--I'm shopping for you, not the other way around. You say that you want only the best. You say that you know this is a tough hiring market. But your ad doesn't do *anything* to discriminate itself from the thousands of other ads that look just like it. Furthermore, your list of "requirements" looks generic--I want to have some idea of what a company actually *does* on a day-to-day basis, before I go through the hassle-cycle of trying to contact you/submitting resume/calling for response on daily basis. So when I read your ad, I have to wonder: are you a Java house that does some Perl? Are you a hard-core C++ house? Do you develop primarily using an OO methodology, and if so, do you do it in a proper OO language, or do you try to bend other languages to your will? As a job seeker, I could try to deduce it from the subtle wording of your ad, or I could just jump one ad down the list to the company that has listed it's requirements as strong preferences, not just a laundry list of hip technologies.
Finally, even if I did decide to call you up for some reason (maybe a slow ad day in the paper), if you invited me for an interview and grilled me mercilessly (or even worse, started the grilling on the phone), I'd probably walk out (or hang up) on you. As a smart person, I am actually *less* likely to sit through a defense of my intelligence for a complete stranger. Life's too short--and there are far too many good jobs--to sit through an interview like that. I think other Smart People (tm) would agree with me here--the jobs that put you through the Microsoft-Patented-Intelligence-Test are usually a little too self-important to really bother with, unless you have some burning desire to work there to begin with (a.k.a "Rudy" syndrome: "I've always wanted to go to Notre Dame...").
So basically, if you did manage to get me to call you with your generic ad, you'd likely turn me off completely with your interview methodology. My advice to prospective employers is to place an ad like this (let's assume you're a C++-centric shop):
"Exciting software development firm seeks highly creative, independent thinkers to assist in the development of it's C++-based product line. Experience with C++ is preferred, but all candidates with relevant OO language experience will be considered. Experience with any of XML, Java or Perl a plus."
Obviously, fill in your own skills as needed, but I think the concept is clear--cast a wide net, and use the interview to filter down the candidate list to those you would like to work with. And as for trying to filter "intelligent" candidates out--well, you're going to have to rely on gut instinct here. DON'T attempt to grill a candidate on obscure principles, or language details, or even bizarre algorithms, whatever you do. Instead, talk to the candidate for a while, ask them pertinent, interested questions about their previous work...maybe even ask them to take part in a code review (your code or theirs). There are lots of different approaches to this problem that will give you an idea of their skill level, and won't require that you be a draconian interviewer.
Anyhoo...hope this helps someone. I couldn't let the above ad go "unanswered"...;)
www.geekfinder.com (Score:2)
Re:Not sure what the problem is here... (Score:2)
--
Re:Not sure what the problem is here... (Score:1)
At the risk of sounding like a lawyer, define "know." At various points in the past, I've sat down and "learned" the Java syntax, core philosophies, etc. But I don't use it. Ever. So I wouldn't want to go into a job interview that demanded that I "know" Java. Sure, I know the theory of Java, and I may even know some of the syntax, but I couldn't hold a candle on a day-to-day basis with someone who used Java professionally.
It's the difference between "knowing" a language and "thinking" in a language, I believe. I know a lot about OO design and development, but switching from C++ to Java would leave me stranded on an island of inefficiency for a while--because I don't think in that language.
A little grilling is good! (Score:2)
And more importantly, it lets you see how they think, and opens a dialog to find out about their personality. Many techies will be on edge if you just ask the "HR" types of questions. But if you open up some good tech questions, they open up and actually talk to you, so you can find out if they are a good fit personality-wise in addition to technology-wise.
But there is a point to the original quote: if it's a full press, nonstop grilling of obscure facts, you may alienate the interviewee. Especially if you focus on the things that aren't relavant to day-to-day coding, and you expect them to know it instead of knowing where to look it up. (When was the last time you had to sort out an obscure C precedence problem without a copy of K&R handy?)
Re:In Conclusion (Score:1)
Re:www.dice.com (Score:1)
Re:Get yerself a recruiter (Score:1)
Re:Hiring tech people in the Valley is hard (Score:1)
I took my last job through a headhunter a couple years ago, and even though they told me the max rate was $45/hr, I got $75/hr. I get a lot more now because I use my network of friends and former co-workers instead of relying on headhunters.
That was the long answer.... the short answer is much simpler: my clients are paying $150-$250/hour for contractors.
www.dice.com (Score:2)
Hotjobs.com, of course (Score:3)
reputation and contacts (Score:1)
Dice is the Key (Score:1)
Monster (Score:1)
A lot of people here have mentioned DICE as a place to stick job opportunities. As a job searcher 8-12 months ago, I was very disappointed with DICE, and the lack of regard for my interests there, and stopped bothering with them after about two weeks. Instead I went with monster.com, which landed me my current job (which on paper is not what I wanted, but in reality is damned close :).
I think it depends upon the employees you want -- if you're looking for contract work, DICE seemed like a good place to go, but more people might look for full-time employment at Monster.
It's about you also (Score:4)
If you don't fetter your code with obscene licenses or keep it secrete, then you will be an "open source" developer.
It's not like you need a sixth finger or something. "Open Source" development is behaviour, and anyone can adopt it. Importantly, it is a property of YOU as well as your employee. You have to not keep your code secrete, and let other people make use of it -- that's all.
One other thing -- I don't think Solaris counts as open source.
Finding people (Score:1)
strange.... (Score:1)
I cringe, I cringe. (Score:1)
This story title is just prime beef for Goatsex posters, now isn't it?
-- Eat your greens or I'll hit you!
Re:Not sure what the problem is here... (Score:1)
I don't know about this. If I don't get at least some grilling I'm likely to assume the place is too desparate for talent. Did they just loose the one guy/gal who was carrying the place? Do they not even know how to ask hard questions? Could be a bad sign....
Not sure what the problem is here... (Score:4)
I know my resume does *not* list everything I know... not by a far cry. I just don't believe in having a 4 page resume (it's already two pages, and that's sticking to the important stuff).
Of course, this *is* a tough market. I'm always looking for good Web or Java people -- they exist, but most of them have jobs they already are quite comfortable with. The dot-com blowout probably displaced some folks, but if they were any good, someone else probably snapped them up.
In any case, stick with it, and be prepared to do a fair amount of legwork... you can't just search a job board for "PHP and Perl and MySQL" and expect candidates to drop in your lap. Actually, the best results I've ever gotten have come from ads placed in local papers that were very specific, like:
"Exciting Web development firm seeks creative, driven programmers with experience in Perl, C/C++, Java, XML and OO technologies. Extreme programming and OO design skills a plus."
So in that ad (not a real ad!) I made sure to mention a few good programming languages, figuring I wouldn't hire someone who didn't know *one* of those. I also mentioned some programming disciplines of interest, to let the really good candidates know I'm not a PHB, but might actually know something about the art of programming.
Then I interview the hell out of them. If they can even answer 20% of what is thrown at them, they are at least trainable to be the sort of person I want. If they answer 100% of the questions, they are either godlike or trying to BS me. Those who BS never get the job... those who say "Damn, I don't know that one" might get the job. If they actually *want* to know the answer, they are almost 100% likely to get the job.
Oh... obviously this hiring strategy requires a lead programmer who is really good. Get a headhunter to find this person if you must, but *get them*. Pay them well. Give them options. Whatever it takes, that is the cornerstone of the technical portion of the company, he will train those raw recruits into talented professionals.
Hiring tech people in the Valley is hard (Score:1)
Whether you're trying to find a Solaris C++ threads developer or a Linux/PHP developer, it's just hard. The good ones are all working already, probably contracting for $150-250/hr, and you're going to have a hard time getting those people to give up that life and take a *job*.
Ask your best people to recruit their friends. If they won't, they don't believe in your business. If they do and their friends are losers, maybe you should re-evaluate the quality of your employees.
One of the questions I ask prospective employers is the ratio of 'A' people to B's and C's. Good people want to work with good people.
MODERATORS: fix this...this is a valid comment (Score:2)
Just because a message does not agree with yours does not make it flamebait.
Kinda off-topic... (Score:1)
I promise to release something as Open Source if you hire me and help me move to California. Hell, I'll pay for my own move!
--
Well I don't post my Resume (Score:2)
Why from time to time I like to work with head hunters, and they all tell you that they need to know who has and has not seen your resume.
If a company has seen your resume and it is sent to them by a head hunter they have a conflict, which did they get first? Can they prove that etc. So they usualy respond by skipping the problem and both go into the bin. If I post my resume somewhere it becomes very hard to work with a head hunter.
The cure of the ills of Democracy is more Democracy.
Re:Not sure what the problem is here... (Score:2)
It depends what you mean by know. I'm a business/system analyst, and I can architect you an application that you can implement in C++ or Java (for example), and I know enough about the characteristic strengths and weaknesses of each language that, if you express a preference, my design will be better suited for that language. So, from that perspective, I know them both.
But a real Java programmer will know the API well enough to spend most of their time writing code, and not much time paging through reference books, they will know the pitfalls of their preferred JVM, they will know all the tips and tricks that you can only get through experience. A real C++ programmer will be happy with the STL, with a major class library such as Rogue Wave, and so forth.
Learning OO and learning a language are different things, and neither is trivial even if you have lots of relevant experience. There's a lot more to learning a language that memorizing the syntax and main keywords. It takes at least 6 months solid coding in any language to advance to the stage where you could reasonably say to a professional "I know this language" and not risk being laughed at.
Narrow Recruiting Criteria? (Score:2)
A good programmer, someone who knows his salt, who has a good understanding of programming, will have absolutly no problem learning the new skills you require, in a relativly short ammount of time. In fact, your company would probably be better off with a seasoned veteran who does not know the specific skills you desire, than some fool who can put those on his resume but really doesn't know anything.
Putting such narrow criteria in the advert will just cause many talented programmers to not apply, b/c they don't match all you are looking for and fear their resume will not be looked at. This is especially a problem in larger firms, where H/R screens all the resumes first, and will 'circular file' all those that don't match what is desired, never allowing the techies to take a look.
Companies should realize that skill, competence, and general knowledge are far more important that buzzwords. The time spend for a pro to learn the new technologies will quickly pale in comparison to the increased efficiency, reduced bugs, etc., in his work.
It's happening again... (Score:1)
"Its" means "of or pertaining to it".
techies.com (Score:2)
Re:Hiring tech people in the Valley is hard (Score:1)
I am curious, who is paying $150-250/hour for those developers? That pay rate is easily 4 times anything I have seen advertised, even for Silicon Valley.
OpenSourcerers [opensourcerers.com]
Re:Not sure what the problem is here... (Score:2)
I agree completely that laundry lists of requirements are red flag! My response here is not meant to be argumentative. I hope to provide some insight.
My perception of ads that contain long lists of requirements is that any of the following may be true:
The other major problem with ads is failing to mention the salary. As I have moved up during my career I have observed that salaries are mentioned more often in the ad. See for yourself, you won't find nearly as many executive positions advertised as "DOE" or "competitive".
Finally, as someone in the southeast who is currently job hunting (sales engineer, 11 years of open source experience, obligatory resume [opensourcerers.com]), I have to say that the cost of living in Silicon Valley makes moving there nearly impossible to consider.
A developer in Atlanta can easily make $75K and a nice enough house only costs about $150K. A sales engineer typically makes a base of $90K with incentives to $150K or more. From my research, I would have to be paid something like $375K to move to Silicon Valley and maintain my life style.
OpenSourcerers [opensourcerers.com]
'Open Source' developers are scarce (Score:2)
I was very lucky to get work at a web development company way back in the day (1994 i think), and from there went on to work at ISPs, which were the only places that i was able to really figure out the web programming/internet server systems that i now rely on.
For the lone developer, becoming proficient in *NIX-based web development means doing everything from installing linux for the first time, to getiing web servers up and going, to figuring out
IP addressing, firewalls, DNS issues, web servers, HTML, Javascript, page layout tools, image editing tools, HTTP, web programming languages, *NIX sys admin, and many other incidental skills you need along the way to tie it all together.
Its really not the easiest thing to do, and not many people i know have got the broad understanding of the internet and its systems that are required to do this job properly.
For most of the time i have spent working in the industry, I was underpaid, overworked and generally dicked around, and I'm not keen to repeat those experiences.
So if youre finding web developers scarce its probably because we're all too jaded from the crap we've had to deal with from 90% of the companies that have anything to do with the internet.
Open-Source web hackers, if you find a good job, stick with it, there are precious few out there.
Re:Not sure what the problem is here... (Score:2)
...and when I say I grill candidates, I mean I ask them a lot of questions, off the cuff for the most part. I want them to show me that they "think outside the box" and aren't afraid to say "gosh, I don't know that". Questions I would ask are:
- If their resume lists Java and C++:
- What do you think of the two languages?
- How do you think they compare?
- How "strictly" OO do you think they are?
- Is Java the total answer to C++?
- If they have any Web experience:
- What do you think the challenges are to
developing in the "Web world"?
- What's the "killer" technology in Web development (answer: none. There are no silver bullets)
- Tell me your favorite design pattern
- (Candidate doesn't know what patterns are, I give them the five-minute tutorial). *Now* tell me what you think.
I despise nit-picky tests of supposed intelligence and programming ability, but I do demand people show an ability to think and respond. I also want to see that they enjoy the craft of programming and will actually *want* to learn and will enjoy their work.