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Friday, February 26, 2010

Job Postings requiring minimum experience-Part 2

What is the job market coming to?  Look at one of the duties, below, I found in a job posting.

Prepares mechanical detail drawings by developing applications and calculations of castings, forgings, stampings, machined components, gears, cams, bearings, belt and drive chains, splines, linkages, dies, jogs, hydraulics, and pneumatics; producing fit specifications and geometric dimensioning and tolerancing (GD&T); analyzing force systems in equilibrium, involving loaded beams, columns, trusses, and riveted and welded joints, and internal stresses of loaded members; resolving conflicts between options.

This posting states that the applicant should have 1 to 2 years experience.  When this part of the 'duties' list is taken as a whole, there is no possible way a person with 1 to 2 years experience can know these things to the degree the position would require.  Actually knowing and applying GD&T principles alone takes more than two years.  Analyzing force systems in equilibrium involving...?  How can 2 years of experience give you that knowledge. 

I have no doubt that there is a definite disconnect between hiring managers and HR.  Or, the other possibility is that company's are now trying to get the most they can for as little money as possible, and I point to the experience required factor in that regard. 

I am at a loss to understand how these companies work.  The adage that "you get what you pay for" seems to so true here.

Tuesday, February 23, 2010

Is Social Media Making Us Anti-Social? | TalentZoo.com#comment_anchor#comment_anchor

Is Social Media Making Us Anti-Social? TalentZoo.com#comment_anchor#comment_anchor

This article brings out some good points about how some people become so involved with social media that they forget about actual face-to-face connections. What do you think?

Monday, February 22, 2010

Job postings requiring minimum experience yet be an expert in the software.

I am having difficulty understanding some of the job board ads/company ads that state qualifications as shown:

"Entry-level position (zero to two years of professional drafting experience). Strong analytical and problem solving skills. Excellent written & verbal communication skills. Previous internship and/or related consulting experience preferred. Mastered basic commands of at least one type of CAD system (ability to occasionally use higher-level commands, timesaving programs and routines). Must be expert in Microstation and AutoCad..."

As a Manager/Drafter with almost 20 years experience, my question is how, with zero to 2 years experience, can a person be an "expert" in any software? In these ads, they state "must have High School diploma and a design/drafting degree desirable" yet you must have strong skills that only come with a great amount of time in the profession. If you look at the statement, there seems to be a big disconnect between each of the qualifications asked for.

Am I wrong in that this type of ad is misleading or at best very poorly thought out?

Friday, February 19, 2010

FACEBOOK TROJAN

Yesterday I clicked on a link that a trusted friend had sent, or at least I thought he sent, to a video on YouTube.  Turns out it was a false link and put 2 trojans on my computer.  Bare in mind that I use System Mechanic Pro for my virus and system protection.

They were Koobface and freddy101.  In the process it also put the oko6.dll and oko6.sys trojans in.  What happened was out of no where these pages would start popping up on my desktop and it was hard to get rid of them.  Secondly, it infected all my search engines so when I would pick on a link from a search query, it would redirect all over the place.  It took me most of the day to find these but I couldn't get rid of them.  Eventually I downloaded two programs, Prevx 3.0 (free version) and Malwarebytes (free at malwarebytes.org).  Malwarebytes did a better job of finding all the trojans and got rid of all of them.  After running the program, everything was back to normal.

So...be vewy vewy careful about links showing up in Facebook.

Wednesday, February 17, 2010

NO RETURN

Here's something that is getting under my skin. Companies that don't get back to you about your result as a candidate. I spent time communicating with a certain company about their position. The President of that group actually took the time to call me two or three times to do a phone interview. Finally had the phone interview and was asked to send references and work examples. I did as requested. A little over a week later I sent an email asking as to my standing in the process and was told that I was being considered along with a few others. Well, that's fine and I expected that. Two weeks later I sent an email thanking him for taking the time to interview me and asked what the status was of my application. A week and a half later, I still don't have a reply. Can someone tell me why these large companies will play these games? I just don't understand. I think it is rude beyond measure. At least give me the courtesy of a "thanks but no thanks" so I know where I stand.

How many others have had this happen to them?
Ok, just started this blog so just want to check out how it works. Just beginning to really get the hang of social media and the more articles I read, the more it is becoming obvious that it is a very viable communication process.