Spam, life insurance, spam.

My resume hss been up on Careerbuilder and someone I don't like picked it up.

In the past week I've gotten job interview requests from Aflac, Metlife and ... I forget- Banker's perhaps? The body of the email is identical, which is odd since I thought these companies were competitors. I'd think it was a third-party but they seems to be official, with company logos and email addresses. Anyway, each of them starts like this:

I found your résumé on CareerBuilder, and I am very interested in your skills for our career opportunity. I know your past experience may not have been focused on sales or insurance and you may not have considered a career in insurance sales, but some of our most successful associates had résumés just like yours.

The second sentence actually got me wondering. Would a software engineer really switch over to selling insurance? I quickly dismissed that idea- my skillset is that of someone who has been working for a solid decade- far longer than the period ending with an "oh my god, the money is great but I really can't stand talking to a computer for the next thirty years." Further most software and anybody who understands Dilbert's frustrations has a very low opinion of salespeople. I was being asked to do one of the things I hate most about corporate America- the use of marketing to make a better product, which usually comes at the expense of good engineering.

Rereading the text confirmed it- no specifics, not even an "[insert resume title here]" to make it look tailored.

Which means that I just got spammed, not just by one asshole, but by a conglomerate of assholes. This, of course, puts me in a combative mood.

So I signed up. To each one of them, and to several interviews for each company. Least I could do- the company wastes some money, the hiring personnel get a little break from work, and maybe I'll get blacklisted and not bothered by these people in the future.

Unfortunately, they must be quite desperate. I was asked to reschedule an interview I missed. I wonder how many times it will take before someone notices my name sounds awfully familiar. My money is on someone from MetLife- Snoopy is way smarter than that Aflac duck.


In other news I got a piece of spam on 3/15/09 with the subject "Vote for Mccane on our site". The body was only a link with the following text: "This could seriously boost your love life. "

People, please! Put expiration dates on your spambots and tell them to phone home for new email subjects and corrections to improper spellings of presidential candidates' names.

Spam + Confidential = Very pissed off me

I've been off the job market for almost a year now. I've got a great job at a "Fortune Magazine's Best 100 Companies to Work for" (we like to flaunt it, as does Google, as if they need to).

I have also done everything I can think of to explain this to my recruiters, other employers and pesky third parties such as Kumar. I've hidden my profile on Monster, Dice, Hotjobs, and several other sites. I canceled all my automated searches. I even put a notice on my official resume page (which due to my lack of something less important to do is no longer available on its server. You can use the wayback machine, but I don't expect recruiters to do that, though it could yield interesting information).

I get quite annoyed when I get phone calls and emails from recruiters who have no last name. I think it's suspicious and has a lack of that personal touch I've come to expect from the ones I worked with (if you need a tech job in the New England or NYC area, I can give you the numbers of a few good ones). I also hate when people don't even bother to test their mass-mailing applications, so see that it at least puts my name in the message.

So you can probably tell what my mood is if you read the following:

Dear Mr. / Ms,

I am Kumar, from Javaji System Solutions Pvt. Ltd. striving to assist the IT professionals to meet the better opportunity available in today's IT world.


About Our Organization: -

Javaji System Solutions (JSS) is a 13-year-old Germany based company with operations spread over US, UK, Bulgaria, etc...,

Our core activities include Technical Staffing, Providing Business solutions to IT Companies, Product/Application Development etc..,

We are merged with top level clients spread around EUROPE and across the globe on various IT technologies. www.javaji.com

We do Contract, Permanent and Freelancing Openings with our clients spread around Europe.

If you’re looking for job change, please send your details and let me know the location in which you are searching for the job.

We need these details

Latest Photo, Expected Salary (In Euros), Availability date, Contact No’s (telephone/Mobile), willing to relocate (Y/N)

Wish to hear from you soon, which will enable us to assist you with better opportunities…

ALL THE BEST!!!



Thanks/Regards

Kumar

Re-source coordinator

Javaji System Solutions Pvt. Ltd.,

' +44-208-090 2178

* kumar@javaji.com

ü www.javaji.com

Note: The information contained in this electronic message and any attachments to this message are intended for the exclusive use of the addressee(s) and may contain proprietary, confidential or privileged information. If you are not the intended recipient, you should not disseminate, distribute or copy this e-mail. Please notify the sender immediately and destroy all copies of this message and any attachments.

That last part is the one that kills me. First, I didn't enter into agreement with them that I would not divulge what they consider "confidential." You're on just as much legal ground telling your 6 year-old niece a "really big secret" and expecting her to keep it.

Second, while "proprietary" may hold some weight, it only goes so far. I'd agree that there is a copyright on the email I got, but ignoring the problematic nature of international enforcement in this email, even US law allows me the right to provide a copy for commentary. But to say it is proprietary and claim that I am under obligation is just as bad as the confidential part. They're sending out these trade secret to complete strangers, via unencrypted email. How could a court take that seriously?

Finally, what's the deal with the requirement of a recent photograph? To me that just screams "discrimination."

As much as I'd love to move to Bulgaria (my Bulgarian is a tad rusty- to the point where I can't remember if I'd ever learned a single word in it), I think I'm going to have to decline to send my resume (and photo) to this Kumar fellow.

IT job searching? Here's a cheat sheet! A book skimview

IT Made E-Z: A Guide to the Information Technology Industry
by Patrick H. Bowman ISBN:9780978775308
Electronic & Database Publishing, Inc. © 2006 (114 pages)


This book title came to me in the "new titles" email I get through my corporate subscription to Books24x7. I love this subscription as well as the Safari one, which contains the most awesome of all technical publishers- O'Reilly.

The book is a guide to Human Resources personnel who are recruiting for IT positions. Naturally, it's all dumbed down, yet mostly accurate ("Assembler" isn't a programming language, "Assembly" is) and covers a wide range of issues from various areas of IT.

Why bother with the book?
* If you have trouble conveying your knowledge of IT to non-technical folks, grab this book and see how the author does.
* Use it to create bullet lists of subjects, so that you don't get points deducted for ignoring the obvious.
* Fight fire with fire. The person interviewing you may be using this book. Nobody technical today really cares what ISDN and DSL stand for. But an HR person holding this book might think it's important enough to demand a correct answer. Great for phone interviews where you can just flip to a marked page to rattle off a list of "common databases" ("IMS/DB"? I've never heard of that one! Access on the top of the list? And where the hell are MySQL and PostgreSQL?)

Don'ts:
* Don't use this as a study material. If you don't know better than the text, find a real book.
* Do not use this book with anyone knowledgeable- it's incorrect and being wrong is worse than not being right. They understand where you are coming from, and know you're nervous. Be yourself, be informative but be thorough. Also- try to sound like someone they'd want to work with.
* Don't bring this into a face-to-face interview (just in case someone needs to be told).



Postscript: "book skimview"?

I didn't read the book, I skimmed it. I checked out it's table of contents, read a few pages into a couple chapters. I don't have time for this book, since I'm not looking for a job, nor would I really want to use it.