GeekLimit

Tip 3: Finding the right job

Lets imagine the scenario. You are looking at a job site online and you see a role that you want to apply for. You click the Apply Now! button, send off your CV and a quick covering note if they ask for it and you sit back and wait for them to call you.

Listen up! It’s not going to happen!

Out of 30 roles that I applied for over a 10 week period, only a handful of agencies called me back. In fact, I got more calls from agencies that had seen my CV on a website than I did for roles I applied for.

Someone from an agency once gave me some advice on searching for a job online.

If you don’t feel like you are working hard at it, then you are probably doing it wrong!

There is a tendency to click the “Apply Now!” button and then do nothing. All you are really doing is adding rubbish to someone’s inbox. Just think of how many people are doing the same thing as you. The mail servers used by recruitment agencies must be bursting at the seams!

I found these tips work the best:

• When you find a role online, do not click the “Apply Now!” button.
• Email the agency direct with a proper email explaining your suitability for the role.
• Even better, call them up!
• If you do apply online, call them the next day if you have not heard anything back from them.
• I know it will annoy them, but it is worth getting your name into their heads. I expect that they don’t even read half of the CVs that come in for job applications.

I know its quite an old cliche, but “getting your foot in the door” is a good thing. Pester them and they will know who you are! Thats half the battle done.

This post is part of the How to get a job online series by Taoski.
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5

Tip 2: Curriculm Vitae (CV).

Getting the right CV is important. But you knew that already.

Concentrate on a simple layout that is easy to read with bold heading titles. No snazzy fonts or colors. Keep it simple.

It should broken down into areas such as the following:

• Name and address including contact details.
• A quick paragraph about you so you can sell yourself in a few sentences.
• Your list of technical skills.
• Your work history (leave nothing out!).
• Your technical and personal qualifications.
• Professional achievements.
• Date of birth and marital status.
• Personal and professional interests.

The last two items are not so important but it is quite funny how often people leave off their date of birth. I’m sure an employer is more keen to know that you are skilled in SQL Server and can lead a team of 20 people rather than knowing that in your spare time you like to help out at the local church. It is worth putting a few items in your list of interests as it will give them an idea of what kind of person you might be. A base jumper might be a little less reliable than a part time church minister for example.

I won’t go into detail about constructing your CV as there are plenty of websites and services that will assist you with this.

Skill Set

One important thing you have to remember is that when you apply for a job online or submit yourself to an agency or website your CV will be uploaded into a database. When an agency is searching for staff for a particular role the CV database will be searched for matching candidates based on location and skill set.

Therefore, make your list of skills as good as possible. Sure, not many people use Windows 95 any more, but my current role still requires me to support it. I was even asked about it in the interview, so it was definitely something they were looking for. I’m sure that some people who can support Windows 95 didn’t bother to put in on their CV as they thought it was redundant.

If, like me, you have skills that you might score only 2 out of 10 on technically, then put them on the CV. You might get a few more enquiries about roles you may not be able to perform but at least it will get your name into the heads of the agency staff.

Multiple Personalities

Creating a few CVs highlighting different skills can also be important. I had only two as I was looking for a specific type of role. One CV concentrated on my technical skills and the other on my managerial and lead experience.

Doing this will allow you to target your audience more effectively.

Sell Yourself!

I have a tendency to undervalue what I do in my technical roles. Us geeks don’t like to make too much noise. We are all quiet and shy insular types, you know!

Don’t be afraid to “big yourself up” and shout your achievements on the CV. As long as you can back them up in an interview then put them on there.

If you looked after a set of servers that were in use 24*7 then surely you would have been “supporting mission critical application servers”. If you regularly pulled paper jams out of the MDs printer then surely you would have been “supporting and assisting users up to director level”.

One golden rule though. Don’t lie. It will get you caught out and might loose you the job.

This post is part of the How to get a job online series by Taoski.
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5

One of the most popular posts here on Geeklimit is the excellent “Viewing hidden comments on MySpace” by Atariboy and therefore I thought it deserved a re-visit.
The process detailled in the previous post involve disabling the CSS stylesheet via the browser menus, but I have found an easier method!

It basically does the same thing, but is actioned from a shortcut which can be placed on the “links bar” in either Internet Explorer or Firefox. I have tested it in Safari but it does not function and would be interested to hear if it works on other browsers too.
Drag the following link to the Links bar in your browser and just click it to disable the CSS stylesheet of the Myspace page you are viewing!

Clear

To get the proper Myspace page back, all you will need to do is a refresh. Press F5 on your keyboard or press the relevant “refresh” icon on the browser toolbar.

Getting a job online – a quick series

I recently quit my job of 13 years in the search for learning something new.

Things have changed since I last applied for a job. Back in the 1990s it was all done by visiting local agencies and speaking to the nice ladies behind the desks who asked me to do typing tests and things like that. In the end I got a role washing up for £2.50 per hour – which was bad – even in those days.

I kind of expected to have to do the same when I started applying for new roles only to find that it is almost exclusively done over the internet.

I was out of work for three weeks before I started my first contract position at a local company. During those three weeks I learn alot about applying for jobs from agencies, friends and colleagues and have decided to make a list of my top tips.

Alot of what I am going to talk about relates to getting a job in an Information Technology company but I am sure a lot of it will apply to getting any job.

Tip 1: Websites

During the time I was looking for a role, which was just under 3 months in total, I was only asked to meet an employee of an Employment Agency once. That was also just because he had lined me up and interview and wanted to meet me so that when the client gave him feedback he would “know what they were talking about”.

In the past I used to go round to my local agencies getting my face noticed until I got a job. But now, it’s all done via websites and email.

Here are the top four websites I used to find a job.

• Jobserve
• CWJobs
• PlanetRecruit
• Monster

Out of them all, in my opinion, Jobserve was the best. With most of them you can create accounts, upload your CV and create and save searches for jobs that match your criteria for skills or location. Some sites such as PlanetRecruit emailled me through new roles as they were advertised and with Jobserve I was able to subscribe to the RSS feed of new roles. I had mine plugged into my Bloglines feeds, which I check every day (several times!).

Sometimes getting the information about new roles quickly can give you the edge. Apply quick – get to the front of the queue and get your name noticed.

All of the sites allow you to “apply online”, almost with the click of a button! Some require you to supply a covering letter to the application, so it is worth spending time writing something simple that gives an overall impression of your skills and experience. You can go into detail too, but as they have your CV attached, the information will be in there.

This post is part of the How to get a job online series by Taoski.
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5

Packt Publishing is taking nominations for the best open-source CMS, with the winner receiving $5000.00. I’ve nominated Joomla for its ease of use and simplicity to manage. This ease of use allows me to make websites for people, and have them manage the site themselves. In addition, the huge and helpful user community + massive amount of plugins and modules have made it easy for me to never have to write any php more than a few dozen lines, a definite plus when the client is on a budget and I’m on a timeline. The quality of the plugin modules is great as well, from stuff like simple weather widgets to entire eCommerce and user management systems.
What CMS did you nominate, and why? Make your case, maybe you can unseat my favorite…?
Nominate an Open CMS

A post by the Register led me to a thread over at the Google Earth community detailing strange constructions in the Chinese desert. Among the weird facilities? A 700×900 meter (!) scale model of disputed territory between China and India, a runway complex that looks like a tiddlywinks game, and what appears to be a “munitions effectiveness” firing range.

If you’ve got Google Earth, these are a must-see:

The scale model

The scale model overlayed on the actual landscape

‘Probability of Kill’ blast site

This is very cool, and a great example of low-level generation of information and discovery.

You’ve probably seen technology websites where specific words are double-underlined and hyperlinked. These are Text Link Ads, and seen to be the “next big thing” in context-based advertising. I’ve signed GeekLimit up for a Text Link Ad account, and will be reporting on its effectiveness vs. Adsense after 30 days of trying it out.
If you’d like to try out Text Link Ads yourself, check out this article to learn more, or just sign up now and get $100 of free ads on popular sites with the coupon code ‘NEW CLIENT‘ (no quotes). Be sure to post and let us know how it goes.

Got a great idea, but not the time/money/skills to get it done? Check out the Cambrian House crowdsourcing website. I’ve just submitted the ‘GeekLimit and the music biz‘ idea, let’s see how it does. The site’s members have some good ideas, and a lot of crappy ones, but it’s worth checking out! (Be sure to check out the NVA while you’re at it…what the…)
They’re still in Beta, but they have a new ‘groups’ functionality coming. (think Flickr Groups). I’ll make a GeekLimit group when it is available.

edit: my idea was approved! Here’s a link to the project, hopefully it will get picked up: link

Hardware and software, it’s what us geeks eat for breakfast. The older the hardware, the more geeky it is for us to collect and horde in case one day the internet is destroyed and online life will once again exist only over a 9600bps modem.

Picking up and old Sinclair ZX Spectrum for a low price at a local car boot sale is really something to blog about, but getting this stuff for free is even better!

Enter Freecycle.org. This network of Yahoo Groups based forums exist for people to make postings to get rid of their stuff – but it has to be for free! No money is allowed to change hands and items have to be picked up personally. Most of the items on there consist of people offering up old furniture, clothing and knick-nacks but there can also be lots of geeky items on there up for grabs. And the best bit is that there is usually a Freecycle group just for your area/city so you don’t need to travel far on your Segway to pick it up!

I have seen many geeky items on my local Freecycle list and I choose to subscribe to the messages by email, so I often get 30 messages a day from the group that are rubbish but you will often strike gold and get a real geeky special! I have seen the following “Geeks Gold” items advertised on my local list:

• 21″ CRT Monitors
• Whole PCs
• Colour and Laser Printers
• Consoles and games
• Synthesizers
• Cables/leads
• Networking equipment
• Computing Magazines/manuals/books

I personally have used the service to get rid of an old cooker that had been sitting in my back yard for nearly a year but last week I picked up an old purple iMac for my son! It came complete with OS X installed to a 6gb hard disk and was missing the USB mouse, keyboard and AirPort card – but it works and it’s in perfect condition too.
And the best bit….it was totally 100% free!

Go forth… Freecycle and geek!

It looks like Amanda Congdon and Rocketboom are no more. Amanda’s partner owns a majority of Rocketboom, and “doesn’t feel like doing it any more”. For Amanda’s Rocketboom farewell/Unboomed intro, check out her personal blog on Blogger.

First Scoble, and now Rocketboom. Is pro blogging not all its cracked up to be? Anyone out there successfully doing it? (FYI, I have a real job, blogging doesn’t bring home my bacon). I can’t imagine it’s unbearable for someone that high up in the blog ranks. Any insight from any pro bloggers?

Well, I’ll shoot a message out to Amanda that she’s always welcome as a guest writer at GL.