the "no good Perl jobs"/"no good Perl programmers" myth

[Uri Guttman]

>>>>> "HB" == Hildo Biersma <hpp at guest.lunatech.com> writes:

  HB> On Wed, Aug 09, 2006 at 03:58:32PM +0100, Jacqui Caren wrote:
  >> Hildo Biersma wrote:
  >> > Which is why folks like Uri are so important...
  >> 
  >> How does Uri help - does his applications still not have to go through
  >> the HR bin route?

  HB> We're currently not going through Uri, but thekey thing is there are two
  HB> routes two getting hired:

  HB> - You send your resume to HR, potentially for a specific
  HB>   job.  In that case, HR does the initial vetting of the resume for
  HB>   desirable (to them) buzzwords before forwarding the resume to the
  HB>   hiring manager.
  HB> - You contact the hiring manager/team directly, largely bypassing HR.

but even then, a manager will get resumes from many agents who are still
just buzzword matching. my goal would be to be known as someone who
actually will understand the real perl skills and smarts of an applicant
and so anyone i submit should (if i do my job well) get the attention of
a manager. this is what i did with that nyc firm. i only submitted 6
total people and 3 were hired. that is a pretty good success ratio. when
i submitted a name, the manager jumped on it and talked to the applicant
sometimes the same day. i can't guarantee that response but that manager
trusted my skills to send him only top quality leads. 

  HB> Either way, HR still does the legal / salary / health care issues, but
  HB> the second route avoids HR doing the initial screening of the resume.

oh, and i won't bypass hr for all that stuff too. for that firm i had to
use their web job application interface and submit the applicant's
resumes so i would have a proper claim that i submitted them and they
would be in the system. 

  HB> Mind you, for most jobs, the vetting HR does is probably a good
  HB> thing.  But for minority languages like perl, with sometimes
  HB> idiosyncratic personalities of the applicants, it doesn't always
  HB> work well.

i find the vetting they have done to be useless as most hr types just
don't know how to do any technical assessments themselves. hence the
popularity of those stupid cert programs that we all love so much. oh,
he must know redmond since he has a cert. and i agree with you even more
about perl as it doesn't have any certs and is considered a side
thing. the large or pure perl shops tend to have enough perl skills that
they can do a decent skills assessment during phone screens and such. it
is the corps which need some perl that are very bad about that.

uri

-- 
Uri Guttman  ------  uri at stemsystems.com  -------- http://www.stemsystems.com
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