Category: Things

Build a network so you become the inside candidate

The conventional wisdom is that most companies don’t post job listings on their websites or on job boards to find candidates. They do it to pretend they’ve looked beyond the inside candidate they plan to hire anyway. An announcement that the job exists fulfills EEOC and INS requirements, and it’s nearly impossible to figure out who’s cheating and who’s not.

Of course, nobody admits that they do it intentionally– that would be both wrong and illegal. And of course many companies actually do mean it when they post job ads. Many of them get so many submissions they can’t possibly respond to or review them all, and just review as many as they can until they find someone acceptable. Others do have inside candidates but check them sincerely against blind submissions. Anyway, the point is that at least some job listings are just for show, but that it’s nearly impossible to tell how many, and which.

One way to identify an insincere job posting is that it lists required skills that are irrelevant to the job description, or which an impossibly small small number of people have– say, experience with an in-house software program.

Another indicator is that the contact information on the jobs page is an invalid email address that returns a bounce/failure message.

That’s what I got today, although I suppose it’s also plausible that their email system is broken, or that they recently fired their HR person. Like I said, it’s hard to tell.

I find it easier to assume that all of my job applications are merely cries in the wilderness. That way, my life becomes an absurd comedy, rather than a series of pathetic please to people whose carefully reasoned opinion of my resume and writing samples is that they should just hire the VP’s idiot cousin instead.

Mustache Dreams

Yesterday I went to the land of retrograde masculinity, Leavitt and Pearce in Harvard Square. I bought some mustache wax and a hand-operated nickel-plated nose-hair trimmer.

Then, last night, I dreamed I accidentally shaved off the middle of my mustache. I was heartbroken.

Coming of Age

This has been an entertainment-intensive holiday. I was kind of vague as to which day it was, and when people tell me, happily, that they have Monday off, they seem unsurprised when I say, “Hey! I don’t have to go to work Monday either!” But even though I never go to work, and even though I eat whatever I want all day long on regular days, this has been a period of chocolates, wine, cookies, and entertainment media products.

First I saw Kiki’s Delivery Service, which is a story of a young witch coming of age. It’s almost as sweet and cute as Cute Overload.

Then I read The Golden Compass, which is about a young non-witch coming of age.

Then I watched Sin City, in which Bruce Willis, Mickey Rourke, and Clive Owen kick a lot of ass, and nobody learns any heartwarming lessons.

Next, wine, pasta, and of course, cookies.

Five Cool Things

1) I Am Caltrain, a Google Map crossed with a map of the Caltrain (SF-bay area commuter rail) schedule and maps.

2) GMap Pedometer, which lets you see how far you’ve walked by clicking points in a Google Map– then counts calories for you too.

3) Three cool shirts at Threadless: a funny, nearly sold-out shirt printed with Blue-footed boobies, a funny and seasonally-appropriate shirt featuring a Batmobile which has lost a wheel, and one nifty artsy one of a woman bathing in a wheelbarrow.

Spam is Good

Spam is useful, because it tells me I’m not cut off from the world. It’s like a little ping sent out from the universe. When I check my mail and there’s nothing in the Inbox, I know that my system is still working because there’s a message or two in the junk-mail filter. Thank goodness for that, or I’d feel cut adrift.