[OT] How to apply for jobs

[Richmond]

On 01/20/2013 04:41 AM, Potts Jeff wrote:
> When I was looking for a job back in the mid 90's I was at an interview
> where they wanted 2 years java experience. THe problem was Java was just
> getting out of beta and due to be released in a couple of months. I was
> stupefied. . . it was like my C++ experience wasn't good enough. I would
> have had to have been on the Java development team to have the experience
> they were looking for let alone understand that Java is just a dummies
> version of C++.
>
> I learned from then on that HR people are asses,

And not only HR people . . .

When I wanted to hire a co-teacher-cum-secretary at my schoolette here 
in Bulgaria I wrote down what I wanted;
but, almost inevitably, the nature of what I required the teacher to do 
over the next 2 years changed, and she and
I have had some fairly colourful exchanges as a result.

As the current co-teacher-cum-secretary is due to leave in June this 
year (which is bad as she does a damn fine job),
I am faced with 2 possible ways to advertise:

1. A highly detailed job description (which will probably be valueless 
as the job, buy its very nature, seems to keep changing), or

2. "Needed, a general worker to do all sorts of unspecified stuff at the 
whim of a capricious employer; mindbogglingly
high and varied qualifications required."

And, guess what; I will be running around with a large pair of donkey's 
ears come-what-may!

The only possible difference is that I know I'll look like a prize 
what-d'ye-call-it fairly soon after get a new employee,
and will be prepared to sit down over a cup of coffee and thrash things 
out with that person.

> just as career managers
> are. The irony was that I was living in Toronto at the time and was at a
> career/job/recruiting fair some weeks later and the American companies were
> all like you played around with Java and have C++, we'll train you and
> you're hired. I went to the USA to work and found that HR, job requirements
> and experience are regarded much differently from country to country. In
> Canada they want you to have already done the job before they give it to
> you. In the USA they will train and work to make you a valuable employee.
> In Canada training costs money and therefor they shy away from any type of
> training promises or requirements.
>
> The story is different when you have worked in the USA and return to Canada
> though. They are all over you thinking you have attained some sort of mojo
> or magic. I spent 8 years working abroad and don't regret it at all. I look
> for international opportunities whenever possible.
>
> Don't get me wrong,

Ha, ha, ha: half the problem is that almost everybody - employers and 
employees alike -
are constantly getting each other wrong.

>   not all job openings and opportunities are like what I
> experienced. My only recommendation is remember that outlandish job
> requirements means people will have to forge experience just to get in for
> a an interview. This behaviour ust makes it worse for everyone, not to
> mention false information can kill your career if you get caught.

Many years ago . . . I went for a job interview in a hotel in London for 
a teaching job out in the desert
in the United Arab Emirates. They asked me if I had any teaching 
qualifications (I had none),
they asked me if I had any teaching experience (I had none), and, 
eventually asked me why I was applying,
to which I replied "I need the job and you need a teacher, and not many 
people are going to be
prepared to teach in a load of wooden huts in the middle of the desert."

I got the job.

Subsequently I got all sorts of fancy qualifications; whether they make 
me a better teacher or not,
I just cannot decide.

Richmond.