More job musings

Well, that last post was kinda dismal, but I got some stuff out of my system, I suppose.

For some reason the job market seems a bit slower the past month. Maybe it is just slow for me, but I am definitely seeing a dearth of new job postings. Two more of my Cisco colleagues landed safely this past week, though. Java skills are definitely in demand. Colleague 'J' had five or six interviews and actually got Nuance to boost their offer to him. Colleague 'G' went a different route and is doing lab support at Netezza, at least as I understand it. More IT than software, at any rate.

I got a little irritated with the recent Cisco announcements about 3,000 new jobs in the next two quarters. Have a look at the Cisco careers page (if you can find the link on the website...). Then read the Mass High Tech article that says that they expect 50 requisitions in Massachusetts, but only 15 - 20 of those will be filled by new hires. More double-speak about what is good for the company vs the executives vs the country while they send the jobs and money overseas and collect their bonuses.

Disclosure for anyone who doesn't know me - I was a victim of the 2009 "limited reductions" at Cisco. That's right, it wasn't a layoff.

Had a depressing conversation with a recruiter today - he was clearly trying to tell me that I have no chance of getting a job through him, without telling me outright to get lost. I am too much of a generalist for this market. I need to "know" at least 30 or 40 technical frameworks and chip sets to even get an interview at most of the recent postings.

I liked the recent stories about Google Buzz - I view this as yet another failure of the "google methodology". Just because you hire the so-called smartest people doesn't mean you write good software or develop good products. Screwing up the privacy settings multiple times points to a group-think mentality that they teach you about in MBA case studies about spectacular failures. You only get a couple of chances to win people's attention and trust in the consumer business. Of course, here I am using the blog service, so I suppose they do get some things right - probably mostly by acquisitions, not unlike Cisco the last 20 years.

I continue to get interviews, one way or another. A large technology company here in Massachusetts still seems to be interested in talking to me. A business process company emailed me to call HR department this week for a phone screen. A friend of a former co-worker is supposedly close to landing seed funding and would like to talk with me in the next two weeks.

I think I will be able to find a niche somewhere supporting or developing a product line that is too critical to be offshored or outsourced. I ran across a posting on AppleInsider for an editor position. I suspect they are looking for someone who has coded a few iPhone applications and founded the next FourSquare social networking website though.