Monday, December 12, 2011

A Spam Honeypot...

g1mmem0respam@yahoo.com

Wednesday, December 7, 2011

Automatic Carpet-Bombing of M0nster address from Spamm^HRecruiter

Merely one hour after I've updated my Monster/US profile [had to fix an e-mail address] I got carpet-bombed from this scumbag from a "genesis10" outfit [excerpt below, I have preserved the text colours for flavour]. The e-mail address I registered with M0nster is unique and differs from the one listed (sligthly obfuscated) in the Resume.

The prick even admits upfront that he's spamming and tells me "need not apply if not qualified".

I can safely assume that there's a cottage-industry of scrapping names of updated profiles from M0nster and selling the info to bottom-of-the-barrel recruiters who do not even bother to read a Resume.

I have blacklisted their domain in my mail server. Also JobDiva are re-affirming their status of confirmed spammers. Have to blacklist this scum as well.
Hello MyName...your resume has been auto-matched in our database as a qualified candidate for an Application Support Analyst permanent position in New York, NY.

This DOES NOT necessarily mean that you are an exact match….

Your resume probably had some key-words which our system picked up on and automatically sent an Email to you for this position. If you are not the right fit, please disregard this message or feel free to share it with someone you may know whom is qualified.


If you feel like you have the right background and technical skills, please respond back with your resume in MSWord format.
-ulianov

A Job Ad From a Spammer!!

I got the ad below indirectly from a buddy. I looked at the company and they call themselves "permission-based e-mail marketing" aka. effing spammers. The copy is well-written tho.

-ulianov
Position: Consultant Software Engineer

About the Opportunity

Our client is looking for talented and creative individuals to join its engineering team and help realize its marketing vision of the future. Successful candidate will work on development of ε e-mail platform, including new features development and extensions and enhancements of existing product. The Consultant Engineer is expected to assume technical leadership responsibilities on assigned projects with minimal guidance from the manager or team lead. The Consultant Engineer will be required to understand and analyze business and product requirements, properly interpret and translate them into technical software requirements, design, implement, document, maintain and support software modules following company software development practices and provide leadership to other engineers. Tremendous opportunity for career growth and personal development in a fast-paced, rewarding environment.

Key Responsibilities/Job Functions:
* Qualified individuals will be able to demonstrate past contribution in all stages of SDLC from conception and design through to delivery.
* Expert technical knowledge and proven software engineering skills in advanced technical languages and tools are a must.
* Candidate must be capable and comfortable operating in a team environment and as an individual. Candidate should be a self-starter and motivated individual who is able to work with minimal guidance and is able to provide guidance to and lead others.
* Must have the ability to serve as a technology consultant and team leader and provide consultation on critical organizational and corporate objectives.
* Must have the ability to provide supporting documentation for implemented solutions and provide necessary support with a sense of urgency for implemented and deployed solutions are required.
* Must have the ability to interact with internal and external customers or represent organization as primary customer contact.
* Ability and desire to learn new technologies and concepts are a must. Strong verbal and written communication skills with a varying degree of technical content are required.
* Must enjoy what you do and have fun while contributing to your team and organization's success!

Required Skills:
* Understanding and experience in engineering activities for all aspects of the Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC)
* Advanced understanding and experience with software engineering concepts and best practices
* Expert knowledge and experience in object oriented design and C++ development
* Advanced level experience writing and debugging complex scripts in Perl or other scripting language
* Experience analyzing application resource contention: memory, synchronization, and I/O bounds.
* Experience analyzing end-to-end system performance: finding efficiencies, estimating volume capacities, and extrapolating processing rates.
* Understanding and experience in service oriented architecture designs (SOA)
* Solid knowledge of internet technologies, network protocol, TCP/IP, SMTP
* Ability to perform software engineering tasks for applications in Linux, UNIX, and Windows environments
* Demonstrated expert analytical/problem-solving skills on unusually complex problems
* Ability to provide technical expertise by determining and developing approaches to solutions for a wide range of complex software engineering problems
* Demonstrated good judgment, creativity, and ingenuity in proposed technical solutions
* Ability to anticipate issues and address proactively
* Ability to create and have responsibility for project plans, budgets, and schedules
* Ability to work with minimal guidance/competing priorities
* Ability to complete work, and lead others in, following engineering standards and best practices
* Provide highly innovative, creative solutions to tasks/problems
* Ability to develops new software engineering methods or processes, and re-evaluate existing processes
* Proactively expands breadth of knowledge by developing proficiency outside immediate area of technical expertise.
* Proactively helps develop others by mentoring junior engineers and championing knowledge sharing initiatives
* Excellent interpersonal skills, both written and verbal
* Ability to work collaboratively across functional groups and effectively lead or influence others
* Ability to provide high quality technical documentation
* Strong understanding of overall business environment

Required Qualifications and Experience:
* Bachelor's or Master's Degree in IT or Computer Science/Engineering, or equivalent level of demonstrated knowledge
* 8+ years experience in software engineering, or equivalent level of demonstrated knowledge
* 7+ years of demonstrated working experience with C/C++.
* 7+ years developing sever applications integrated with databases.
* Team leadership experience

Nice-to-Have Skills:
* Experience with agile development methodology
* Experience with Tibco technologies
* Understanding of software and internet security
* Understanding of SMTP and e-mail applications
* Experience in large scale, 24x7, service oriented environment

Wednesday, October 5, 2011

Workopolis Ended Up as the SH*TTIEST Job Board

Here I was thinking that C*reerbuilder was the worst job board ever, but no! Workopolis outdid themselves.

It used to be that I could upload my Resume as a Word file and have it decently-formatted on-screen. They introduced an "upgraded" Resume feature which instantly fucks up an existing Resume by "converting" it to their template format.

Uploading Word Resumes nowadays "parses" them into the new format in an aggravating borked manner.

Anyways here's what I've just written to these cretins:
Folks the new and the 'upgraded' Resume stuff is BEEPING braindead. I can no longer upload my Word resume correctly. You have a SEVERELY BROKEN Resume parser which scraps only junk stuff of the Resume.

I am considering DELETING my Workopolis account as Workopolis is now CRAP. Moreover it seems that only bottomfeeder recruiters post job ads on Workopolis nowadays.
-ulianov

Thursday, September 8, 2011

The Most Idiotic Question Asked by Recruiters

To me (a contractor) the most irritating thing that can be asked of me is
"Why don't you want to take a f/t (perm) job?"
It's not like I don't spell out clearly at the top of my Resume posted on the job boards:
Please CALL/EMAIL ONLY FOR CONTRACTS.
and I expect moronsrecruiters to be able to read and parse a six-word sentence.

Well, here are some of the reasons I have for not wanting a f/t job:
  • In my field of work there's positively no career advancement prospects.
  • Seniority amounts to squat nowadays in a company being that DB pension plans have been replaced by fixed RRSP contributions and I can do the latter myself with equal or better skill than my employer.
  • The gov't grabs their dues immediately and almost no expenses can be deducted. If you do (C)CRA (or IRSthey-who-must-not-be-named) will get you audited.
  • I highly dislike paying UI/EU which is a huge government rip-off/scam: you can pay premiums for 3 years and get the same duration of benefits (or waay shorter) as a seasonal labourer who only paid for 6 months -- the rest of the money is palmed by the gov't.
  • Vacation time in N America is laughable, needs to be "accrued" and most companies require that one discloses his vacation plans 6 (six) months in advance. Unpaid vacation can only be requested on "special" grounds and seems to be a 4-letter word.
  • If one stays for too long in one place one gets caught in intra-company politics which can stink.
  • If one stays for too long in one place one gets to do the same over and over and over again (think release cycles) on the same subject area. It gets boring after doing roughly the same thing three times.
  • If one stays for too long in one place and gets good at doing a certain unpleasant/difficult task one gets stuck with it forever.
  • If one stays for too long in one place one may wish and petition the powers-that-be to be reassigned to a more challenging/interesting task. It never happens. No exceptions.
  • If one stays for too long in one place one sees his managers being replaced as often as socks. And all managers needs to have you "prove your worth" to them. It gets tiring after a while.
  • Some managers can be technically challenged, not being able to comprehend the work they are managing and positively dumb. Alas these stick around for the longest.
  • Some managers allocate "resources" (aka. meself) based on a round-robin algorithm regardless on capabilities/skills just to fill in a project plan.
  • Dealing with Human Resources can be exceedingly frustrating when they are outsourced and off-shored and only taking tickets for, well, human issues.
  • Company employee policies can be downright insulting and horrendously dumb. And they always span on 100 page minimum.
  • Apprehension of layoffs can ruin a perfectly good f/t job.
  • EP's update: If one stays for too long in one place and uses mostly proprietary technologies and toolkits one's marketable skills go down the drains.
If you see here elements of the contracting lifestyle and bitter traces of Murphy's laws you are not wrong but contacting pays about 50% better than perm which could be a good proposition if one can stomach the intrinsic uncertainty and the in-between contracts gap.

-ulianov

P.S. My parents' notion of a "career" went off the window: one cannot advance in an organisation or get a significant pay rise in time (at best one will have a flat salary, or rather negative wrt. to the inflation). Hard work and persistence do not pay (professional advancement dividends). The best option for a perm staffer is to hop jobs every few years. Sad.

Tuesday, July 26, 2011

R*M Job Turns Survivor Island

I got this contract in mid-May when I was just about to go to Sunnyvale, CA on another contract. Not quite in my line of work but not bad, solid work.

Six weeks ago they had a round of lay-offs just for show to pump up the share price. This Monday they have started in earnest. To me this looks like peristalsis.

However the top bicephalous job has not been cut and IMNSHO many of the failings come from there (lack of direction, uninspiring locked-in products, overinflated head count).

The unpleasant part is that my boss quit (apparently he was made an offer made-for-refusal) and with him went the business reason(s) I am here as he stormed out the door and did not do perform an orderly handover of tasks.

So this is turning into Survivor Island... I've been thru this kind or crap in 2001 and I definitely think I need to set sail to a calmer island.

-ulianov

Jan 23, 2012 update: The dynamic duo of clowns at the top is gone but they installed as CEO Mr.Herr More of the Same, former COO, aka henchman.

One of the clowns now heads an Innovation Committee which is worse than useless as lately innovation around here was done ostrich style: plunge head in the sand and hope Android and iPhone implode. Ditto for the bladeless knife which lacks the handle, aka. Playbook.

Monday, July 25, 2011

No Go for f/t Job in San Francisco

I got approached by a recruiter from R*verbed on Friday; he had an old copy of my Resume. I've interviewed with these folks about 5 years ago and somehow we did not click.

He was very skilled at selling the company, the work environment and job perspectives. He even assuaged my desire for a job that's not a dead-end (which is hard to get for a hands-on grunt like meself).

Anyways I would only take a f/t job in the US if and only if it came with a green card and I made it clear to the recruiter.

The technical interview was brief, general things about L2 (Ethernet)-L7 and UDP/IP. Another question was how an ELF binary gets loaded/executed in Linux. Nice stuff, made my cogs turn.

Near its end I started asking questions about the nature of the work and apparently it was a support/extend type of gig [i.e. a mid-stream product].

Alas this is not what I am looking for. R&D with new development and hardware, hardware, hardware is much more interesting tho after two years of that I cannot say I am better off.

-ulianov

Monday, May 30, 2011

The Newest Dumbest Recruiter Spam - Twïttēr

The latest spam sent to my Monster-only e-mail address by a dumb recruiter I've never talked to:
Nick - IT Recruiter wants to keep up with you on Twitter
No "How are you?", no "I have reviewed your resume and I have an exciting opportunity"?

And I thought that the drive-by LinkedIn requests were dumb. The funny thing is that I don't have a Twïttēr account as I have no use for it.

-ulianov

Wednesday, May 18, 2011

A Weird Hook & Bait

This one fished my Resume from Monster and sent his hook. The weird part is the "seriously searching". The fact that the note is devoid of details and purposely vague is just in the nature of hook & bait.

The way this uses English in the 1st paragraph is vaguely weird... reminds me of classic 419 scam e-mails. The referral part may or may not stink of a scam not unlike Bernārd Haldāne.
Attention Mr. Myself

During some recent applicant screening for interviews here we were impressed with your resume.

Your qualifications and experience do not match our specific current requirements. However, we could offer to refer you to a company we know who do focus on working with select individuals like yourself.

We would, of course, need your permission to pass along your information. Simply reply to this email and re-attach your resume if you are seriously searching at this time. Otherwise we wish you the best in your career.

Thank you.

Sincerely,
XXX YYY,
YYY Consultants
-ulianov

Wednesday, May 4, 2011

The Road Not Taken

(Professional) dreams have a perverse way of coming true.

I had it so close I could smell it: a great contract (Embedded Linux, early hardware bringup) at a SAN maker in Silicοn Vålley, great people and interesting work. Pleasant weather and knowledgeable colleagues.

I signed the contract, I bought the plane ticket and got my work visa and after a week I learned I have another little one on the way, due in Dec. Blood is thicker than ink. Taking care of my offspring and spouse preempts dreams and my given word.

I feared I would get here one day.
They told me that the road I took would lead me to the Sea of Death; and from midway I turned back.
And ever since, all paths I have roamed were entangled, and crooked, and forsaken.
(free translation by A. Strugåtsky after Yosanø Akikø)

On the other hand after having a dream job twice and learning how it ended it makes me less gloomy. Must be the age showing in my being almost blasé.

-ulianov

Monday, March 21, 2011

A 'New and Improved' Torture Implement for Recruiters

Years ago I wrote a weeding system for recruiters who carpet-bomb me with emails. Now the time has come to do it for my gvoice numbers.

This was sparked by me wasting one minute on my cell phone [which I pay by the minute] while driving in traffic to respond to a query by a recruiter who want me to work in San Jose, CA for $45/h and who asked whether I am 'sure' about my rate.

Mind you I have SPELLED CLEARLY and in red what my rates are and for what US IT hubs at the top of my Resume as published on Monster and Dice.

Now that I refreshed my Resume on these job boards I expect more dumbarse calls.

So I put in place a little 'screening' (aka. 'torture implement') to weed out some of these types. The crux of the yes/no questions is:

I have a database of people who have cleared the screening or need not to.

-ulianov

P.S. I block all calls from overseas, period. Offshoring has its limits: I strongly object to an overseas agency taking a $20 cut on top of my rate.

Monday, March 14, 2011

The LinkedIn Question

Many recruiters (many of which I've never even talked to) and their brothers wish & demand to connect with yours humbly on LinkedIn.

I use LinkedIn to keep in touch with former colleagues (work-only). It's a convenient tool to do the thing known in the past as networking.

Yet recruiters don't work for me and there are very few I've worked for. So there is no point to stuff my LinkedIn account with people whose modus operandi is basically "don't call us, we'll call you [when we have a need]".

-ulianov

P.S. Lately I took to purging my account of recruiters I've allowed in in the past. So went off the names I did not have a face for.

Wednesday, March 9, 2011

On Skills that I am Not Very Fond of

Sometimes one has to do professional things (shameful things) and then deny doing them to no end. Paul Venezia enumerates such a trait:
Veteran Unix admin trait No. 8: We know more about Windows than we'll ever let on
For me things that I know but would never list on my Resume lest swarms of recruiting drones would fall upon me [their cognitive abilities/reading proficiency extend only as far as looking up buzzwords by hitting Ctrl+F in Word] are:
  • Perl scripting on Win32
  • Java, Swing and servlets
  • LAMP webapps (P is Perl in this case)
  • PHP
  • GUI apps in general.
In a pinch when I want to secure a job (maybe it's 5 minutes from home) I may elect to flog such skills and sweeten the deal for my clients.

-ulianov

Friday, February 11, 2011

A Quick and Easy Interview

I was contacted by a local recruiter about a 3-month contract in downtown Toronto. The requirements were almost absurd:
• C / C++
• Windows 2000/XP/CE, Linux, Apple Macintosh OS, as well as embedded operating systems (QNX, VxWorks, Integrity)
• Strong knowledge in 3D graphics technology (OpenGL, D3D)
• Knowledge of embedded graphics such as LCD interfaces or bus configurations
• Experience developing device drivers
• Experience in performance analysis of graphics pipeline
• Experience in 2D / 3D graphics, DirectX, OpenGL, Audio, Video, or Game Software Development is an asset
• Experience in networking, data communications, wireless is an asset
• 10 to 15 years experience in professional software development
I tend to call this everything under the sun.

Never mind the job ad. The recruiter was professional, listened to my objections to the job ad and paid attention to my preference for 6+ month contracts.

He agreed to pre-screening call. Have done it after lunch. Apparently these guys make in-flight entertainment systems and are having problems with the OpenGL on a custom graphics board based on an ATI/AMD chip. They need troubleshooting. Unfortunately this is not within my experience and me having said that put an agreeable end to the phone interview.

This is the kind of recruiting that I like: expedient, no time wasting & useless face to face interview with the recruiter and putting the client's needs above the ego and "methods" of the recruiter.

-ulianov

Thursday, February 10, 2011

A Very Pushy "Keen" Recruiter

GH of a keen agency called me about a contract at a remote control/PC peripherals maker in Mississauga. He did not give me the name but the job ad made it abundantly clear that is was the RC company and that they are gearing up for G00gle TV product.

I replied to his ad and said I know their director of eng. who had contacted me on LinkedIn one year ago. GH became interested and peppered me with calls in the night (9 pm) and then at work asking all sorts of questions he should have asked in one session.

Then he insisted to see me downtown Toronto for a face-to-face interview. As the traffic and parking to his premises are onerous for me and I am on a work schedule I refused and I proposed to meet him close to home. He agreed and we met at a Go [suburban train] station.

The interview was short and unsatisfactory: he did not actually read my Resume tho according to him he's been recruiting for 10 years, asked questions with answers found in the Resume [this may be a valid tactic to check that one actually wrote his/her own Resume but I doubt that].

Also he requested that I come for an interview with the RC company at his premises downtown. The contract was for 3 months and I made it clear to GH that I only take 6+ month contracts. He then sold it as "3 but will be extended to 6".

Now I have interviewed with the RC company in 2006, I know my way to their location and it's weird that they chose the recruiter's premises. I agreed to meet with them downtown but I requested that I have a pre-screening phone call so I can assess them and see whether I am interested.

That did not sit well with GH who recommended his client not to see me. This is dangerous as it may be mis-representing me and I have no control as to what's been said about me. In many ways GH reminds me of a used car salesman from Upstate NY. One thing I am sure of is that I added GH and his outfit to my "avoid" list of recruiters.

I could go direct but having not clicked in 2006 I doubt I would click now.

-ulianov

Tuesday, February 1, 2011

A New Title, an Old Posting

Got a call from a local recruiter which referred to my skills as "tenured". He was buttering me up for a job in Burlington, ON at a company which I know would not pay my rate as I have been submitted there two months ago.

On the other hand the position is still unfilled so they are either very pick or very stingy and I am inclined to consider the latter.

The guy even had the gumption to ask me to "come at a more competitive rate".

-ulianov

Friday, January 21, 2011

Attack of the IdhaSoft Clones!

Yesterday I got swarmed by no less than three recruiters from IdhaSoft who were fishing for the exact same position in Burlington, ON.

The drone with whom I talked first asked about salary expectations and quoted the lowest figure Workopolis permits (side-note: Workopolis does not allow to specify a number on the profile, just a range, i.e. 75K to 100K) and was very surprised that I was not willing to work for that.

Told her my hourly rate. Then I e-mailed her and the other two stooges asking them to talk among themselves and have only one contact me.

Today she called me to say that my Resume is "not being considered because of the hourly rate" and whether I would like to downbid myself. I told her I cannot help her client and hung up.

This is annoying. Maybe I should have a phone filter the way I implemented my e-mail filter.

-ulianov

Thursday, January 20, 2011

Financial Company Contract

Like never before I had an interview yesterday w/ a financial company, got an offer thereafter and today I signed the contract.

There are is a gotcha: it pays 23% less than what I make for Embedded Linux contracts.

However it's a 10-minute commute from home and requires no straining of neurons. And it's darn close to my marina ;)

-ulianov

Monday, January 17, 2011

Interview with VB Equipment Maker in Toronto

Went to an interview with a video broadcast equipment maker in Toronto/North York.

This company had all their ducks in a row:
1. were prepared to discuss salary from the get-go so I do not waste time;
2. did a phone pre-screening where they asked the right questions;
3. were nice and paid attention to my hourly preferences [traffic in Toronto can be hell at certain times of the day];
4. in the panel interview they asked technical questions and made it quite interesting; also they discussed what they were doing at the company.

Their only faux-pas was an interview with a fairly green HR person who asked me 'behavioural' questions from a sheet of paper and then [creepily] was jotting down my answers.

Now I tried to restrain my answers as not to spook her -- if she has experience only from reading books it could be easy for me to trip a dumb no-go checklist.

In my not so humble opinion and experience a seasoned HR person will discuss freely, assess the person in front of her and take notes after the end of the interview.

-ulianov