Don't be anonymous on Dice

Turning off anonymity on dice, got two e-mails by end of day. This seems dumb, since I included my real name and e-mail address on my resume. I vaguely remember a similar effect the first time I used dice, although not so severe. What the hell?

I'm also fairly annoyed at one recruiter. He chose the earliest possible time I gave to talk on the phone (which was not my preferred time), then called 20 minutes late. When I refused the call, he did not leave a message, but called back an hour later. I picked up but rescheduled for- wait for it- the preferred time I gave in the original e-mail.

The economy sucks and dice is selling out

My current contract doesn't end for a month (assuming they stick with this end date- it's changed three times already), but the economy sucks so I put my resume on dice this morning (around 10 AM). It's gotten four views in the intervening 16 hours, and no one has offered me a job at all. I'm really glad I held off making fun of all those people who couldn't find work.

Of course, the economy isn't the only explanation. I put my resume up anonymously because there's no way to share your name but not your phone number, and I'd like to avoid taking 400 calls while I'm working in a conference room with a dozen other employees. I suppose I could use a 555 number, the way certain job posters do, but that seemed cheap, so I just put my real name and e-mail address in the resume.

Or it could be Dice's new policies, which I am not at all happy about. You can pay a fee to get more information about whose searching for you, and to get bumped to the top of searches. I don't see how it could possibly be worth it- eyeballs are abundant compared to resumes in the tech industry. But beyond that, there's no way this could possibly be ethical, since they take money from corporations to search resumes as well. I'm beginning to look for alternatives, but monster does the same thing, plus has terrible database security, and hotjobs hs never impressed me. If anyone has other alternatives, please post and let me know.

The hell is wrong with you people

Got one phone call today, from the same company that e-mailed me, but apparently it was an independent incident, working from an entry in their private database. Given that, I don't think he had a right to get angry at me for not being available on his timetable. And no, rephrasing the question does not change the fact that I have a pre-existing commitment going well past the day you want me to start your job.

Found a job I'd be perfect for while screwing around on dice. It requires one year less experience than I have, and I tend to try for jobs requiring 1-2 years more, but I'm well suited for it, it would further some goals, and it looks high level enough that I'm considering applying. It's listed by an agency though, so I'm going to give them some time to see if they contact me first.

Note to recruiters: if you're going to copy and paste a text message, rather than translate it into a real requirements list, at least cut out the gender specific pronouns.

The economy sitll sucks

Resume has been up for slightly less than 24 hours, has been viewed 7 times, and I have one e-mail. Under the circumstances, I'm not going to get super haughty about the fact that they're asking for information they already have.

On the plus side, the economic collapse has done wonders for my traffic numbers

I usually post on a substantially delayed schedule, to preserve anonymity. Of course, there's some topical things that simply doesn't work for, and the economy is one of them. Of course, I haven't had much to say on it for the past three months, but shhh.

So here's my impression of the job market I'm facing: SDET contractors are still okay. According to my inside source, the number of contracts coming in is normal for the year, although more people are coming to my relatively well off metro area to compete for these jobs. I'm still getting harassed by agencies desperate for a good SDET. So my hypothesis that contractors are

The employees that have jobs aren't doing much better. Benefits have taken a massive cut, and payroll deductions are on the table. My salary has stayed exactly the same.

As for developers, I just don't know. My best source is a co-worker who loudly proclaims that there are no jobs to be had, one just has to sit in the mud and wait for the economy to recover. She's a nice person, but I get the feeling she has higher self esteem than her performance warrants. She's been laid off four times, the longest of those lasted a year (after the tech bubble popped). So we'll call that "no information." If anyone has a story to share, feel free.

Lies my recruiter told me: really, actually lies

Long ago I wrote that it was best not to indicate one had a long term career goal during an interview, because employers don't want to be your stepping stone. This is bullshit. Or rather, it may be true that they don't want to be a stepping stone, but they really don't want to hire an idiot with no ability to plan for their own future. I have heard this from multiple people with hiring influence at multiple companies. My new advice is as follows:

1. Indicate that you have a plan, if not a goal. It's okay if that plan is "learn more about industry X and discipline Y and reevaluate in 3 years."
2. Your plan should not be set in stone.
   
3. Goals are okay too, with the same caveat that they should not be set in stone.
4. The plan you give should have a space for the job you're applying for.
   

Job prospects in a bad economy

I have a long standing hypothesis that opportunities for contractors actually go up during recessions, because contractors are an inferior good in the economic sense of the word. For those who aren't up on econ theory: when times are bad, the price of a used car goes up and the price of a new car goes down, even though people prefer new cars to old, because fewer people are buying new cars and more people choose to buy used over new. Likewise, if the price is the same most businesses would rather have a permanent employee than a contractor, because of the benefits of continuity and the reduced cost, but in an uncertain financial environment prefer contractors because getting rid of them is free. Recently, my recruiter confirmed this.

What I did not anticipate was how this would affect recruiting companies. Last week I got eight calls and e-mails (three of which were the same company with the same offer. I sense some inter-department competition). Of those that actually gave positions, rather than instructing me to send them my resume or asking me to do their job for them, they were either for a stable company that has the reserves to ignore the recession, or a company that just got a second round of venture capital that (I assume) is run by idiots. So there are still jobs to be had, and the recruiters are hungry.