O/T : Looking for an entry level LAMP developer for contract work.

[Steve Litt]

On Thu, 23 Jul 2015 07:23:13 -0700
Keith Smith <techlists at phpcoderusa.com> wrote:

> 
> der.hans, is there a solution to this and if so what is it? Great
> piece by the way.

By "this", I assume you mean the ridiculous job requirements
discussed by der.hans and David Schwartz. And I'd like to point out one
very telling item in David Schwartz' post:

=======================================================
My question: How in the hell does anybody get hired ANYWHERE without
flat out LYING about stuff on their resume?
=======================================================

David's question gets right to the meat of the matter, and I think
every job seeker needs to consider how "honest" s/he wants to be, and
the cost of his/her honesty. Because I'm as sure as I can be without
conducting a statistically valid study that in most cases, the
successful candidate stretched the truth quite hard, or else s/he did
an end run around HR by knowing or meeting someone.

If you are totally truthful in a situation with unfulfillable
requirements, who gains? The employer? Probably not: Likely as not the
successful candidate is not as productive as you (assuming the job
is something you can really do, and you usually know).

So, as a prospective employee, one way to "solve" this is to make the
truth a little maleable.

Sometimes you can add some truth to your resume with Rapid Learning. I
sell books on the subject.

Another way is to be a freelance hired gun. That's what I used to do.
I'd walk in, get some requirements, agree on an hourly rate, and deliver
something that worked plausibly in a day or two. Then I'd keep
improving it according to the client's needs. HR doesn't deal with
vendors, and if you're a freelance hired gun, you're a vendor who gets
to talk to the project's principals.

Speaking of principals, working for small businesses often gets you
right in to see the person who signs the check and the person
supervising you, and it's often the same person. Now that preexisting
conditions in health insurance are a thing of the past, working for
small companies is doable even if you or someone in the family has
diabetes etc.

If you're an employer, you need to evaluate the true cost of "hit the
ground running", because you're likely to pay top dollar for a
disppointing employee who likely will hit the ground crawling, or
perhaps pay a little less for a slave-labor H1-B whose main value is
cost. If you want a budding rock star who's happy to give his all for
$22/hr, frequent community colleges, user groups, and the like. Find
the right candidate, test the heck out of him/her, then when you've
decided, tell HR to make the hire. Does it take work? You'd better
believe it. Does it pay off? You bet it does: I once hired a dirt cheap
guy who was very productive, I mentored him, and he blossemed quickly.
And there were more where he came from, although I would have had to go
up a smidge in salary (but still cheap).

There are ways to solve it, but they all depend on the technologically
supervisor guiding the search, and HR rubber stamping it. And sometimes
HR just doesn't like that.

SteveT

Steve Litt 
July 2015 featured book: Rapid Learning for the 21st Century
http://www.troubleshooters.com/rl21