State of the Market

[WTFH]

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He also gave feedback that I had not participated in open source or forums.

You've got 391 posts on here, how many posts does he expect you to make before he gives you a participation award?

[Peoplesoft bloke]

It's a test of your initiative

I once got a gig after it was on Linkedin, but any attempt to contact the recruiter was unsuccessful. So because I'd worked out where the gig was I posted on Linkedin saying who the client was and wishing people good fortune in getting hold of the agency.
Weirdly this meant the recruiter was able to contact me almost immediately with all sorts of threats about what he would do if I didn't remove my posting.
I referred him to Arkel Vs Pressdram and eventually he calmed down, and I got the gig.
I suspect this only works for very niche gigs - I knew 100% that he wasn't likely to find anyone else for it which was why is so fecking annoying he wouldn't return my calls or emails. We both got paid in the end I suppose, but I had to work hard to do him a favour.

[SchumiStars]

I once got a gig after it was on Linkedin, but any attempt to contact the recruiter was unsuccessful. So because I'd worked out where the gig was I posted on Linkedin saying who the client was and wishing people good fortune in getting hold of the agency.
Weirdly this meant the recruiter was able to contact me almost immediately with all sorts of threats about what he would do if I didn't remove my posting.
I referred him to Arkel Vs Pressdram and eventually he calmed down, and I got the gig.
I suspect this only works for very niche gigs - I knew 100% that he wasn't likely to find anyone else for it which was why is so fecking annoying he wouldn't return my calls or emails. We both got paid in the end I suppose, but I had to work hard to do him a favour.

Brilliant.

[oliverson]

It's generally people who are overweight, got no friends and play dungeons and dragons all night. And then wonder they can't get a girl and have no cash.

I answered every question perfectly. He even said, that he could not ask me any Java questions because he has no knowledge of half the technologies on my CV. And the Microsoft ones were not in question.

Gosh, I hate tech nerds sometimes.

Ha ha, bang on.

I use Github for my own stuff but every repo is Private.

I have no time for this portfolio of projects on Github or open source contributions. I'm a contractor, I believe in CLOSED SOURCE, the kind that somebody has to pay money for! Though I don't mind using open source code that other's have written. Bunch of ******* mugs!

[SchumiStars]

You've got 391 posts on here, how many posts does he expect you to make before he gives you a participation award?

It was mainly to do with episerver. The community is quite small and it's a niche product. It's not something that can be learned easily or quickly without doing the courses and certs.

There is also not much tech help for it. The people who have episerver development knowledge, are not forthcoming to teach it or give away anything to quickly. Very often the technical posts will get you to 80% of what you need and then have to work out the rest or engage in the 'community'

I disagree with this approach. I believe, it should be ready and available for everyone to learn and build..However I seem to be in a minority.

The episerver market also sits on top of tech stack. You have to know C#, MVC, SQL very well to do it. It's not impossible but it is difficult. Also very well paid, when there is a market.

It's also not very interesting. You can create great CMS websites but not much more than that. There are so integrations which are interesting but again, not rocket science.

Take a look. It's called optimizely now. If you want to gain some new skills that will pay well, it's probably one of the easiest ways TBH.

[GJABS]

I knew 100% that he wasn't likely to find anyone else for it which was why is so fecking annoying he wouldn't return my calls or emails.

I wonder why he wouldn't return your calls then?

[Peoplesoft bloke]

I wonder why he wouldn't return your calls then?

To this day, I have no clue. It seemed to be a blanket policy of ignoring any incoming calls and emails - maybe they just think it's worth it because 99% are from people in other countries wanting sponsorship etc. As I had not worked with that pimp before I had no personal contact details.

[hobnob]

He also gave feedback that I had not participated in open source or forums.

If you don't have any recent experience (because you've been on the bench for a while), it might be worth spending some time on that rather than cycling all day. At the very least, you can see whether it makes any difference to your future interviews.

In general, I don't think it's fair to expect that of people. I think it's ok for people to say that after they've been coding at work all day, they don't want to spend their evenings and weekends doing more of it. However, it can be a way to break the cycle of "can't get (recent) experience without a job and can't get a job without experience".

[SussexSeagull]

Had an interview for a permanent role which I didn't get. Can't really moan as they found someone they preferred and I wouldn't have changed the presentation or interview if I did it again tomorrow.

My alternative career to get a few quid in might become my actual career.

[Protagoras]

He also gave feedback that I had not participated in open source or forums.

This tendency of employers to look at one's internet footprint simply intrusive - not everyone wants a personally identifiable internet profile.

Even where one does contribute to open source or forums, many people will use a separate identify for various reasons.