Jobs for Geeks

Boss’ frequent mistakes. Illusions about ideal staff.

Posted by admin under Job Effectiveness, Labour relations, Seniors and Juniors

Geeks are working in the team all the time with the only difference that some of them can work for an end customer (and Project Manager all in one) or in the office in the Product Developing Team (among other Project Managers, other Developers and Leads). And they will be always under someone’s control; there will always be someone who could be accused of incompetence in administrative functions etc.

So let’s continue discussing the facts why our managers can be ineffective or just bad.

The top manager has always an idea about you and about how wonderful it would be if you were more initiative, more effective etc. Let’s try to compose a broad picture of an ideal subordinate from the top manager’s point of view:

• an ideal team member is always ready for the overtime work and even is glad to help because he wants to be like the supervisor;
• is always full of different ideas that can be switched in use;
• is self-motivated, initiative and hot-eyed, he’s always full of goodwill to work well;
• has a mind to learn something new, he’s getting more professional and more experienced in his work and fringe areas as well;
• if he doesn’t have certain tasks he understands the company and department needs and sets tasks himself, accomplishes them and provides excellent results that can help others;
• doesn’t asks silly questions and tries to find everything independently;
• makes right decisions without help;
• doesn’t require salary hike and bonuses for additional work;
• is always loyal to the top manager;
• it’s a person who can cope with difficult tasks and is reliable.

This list can be enlarged according to the lead’s expectations about the ideal staff. The most important thing is that these features describe a global team member’s characteristics – effectiveness. Though people are getting more effective under the condition of good management only. And effective top manager shouldn’t indulge in illusions about (in)ideality of the staff – he should train the members of the department to let them get more ideal. After all thinking of ideality and facing the reality the top manager can just stop trusting co-workers and do tasks for others.

Getting a job at career fairs

Posted by admin under career fair, job search

Today I would like to talk about career fairs. Career fairs are held very often, where initially job seekers would find their employers and employers would acquire new staff. Does it always happen? Can a job seeker really take a job offer for granted?

The employer is a preconceived person as he/she is looking for an employee for the company and he will be responsible for his or her mistakes. When there is only one person waiting for an interview he can pay more attention to the person and there are more chances to get a job. There are much more candidates on job fair than job offers that’s why the employer is getting more critical in candidates selecting and relies on first look. Therefore to catch employer’s fancy you should be 100% prepared. Well we can understand employer: if you have 50 time management applications (or any other) to choose the best ones from I think you would decide between them according to the external features without paying attention to the essential functionality. The error rate is for sure high, for that reason you should at least provide valuable information about you or kindle employer’s interest. At a pinch you can just provide your resume or portfolio to remind about yourself later maybe.

From employer’s point of view it’s also not so easy to choose the best candidate. Though it’s a great opportunity to spend one day only and hold many mini interviews to hire new staff. It’s not free of charge though it’s a good way to prove your worth as a serious company. Easy riders usually don’t pay, they ask for money. Not every person seeming suitable will answer the criteria. Conduct a mini test to check if the person suits the position. And anyway take a resume to read it through later and make sure you were right or recognize you made a mistake.

Anyway job expo is a good opportunity to establish partnerships to sew up companies / candidates list for future employment or placement. Most people consider job fairs to be for blue collars only and not for geeks as there are too many jobs in Internet. Though if you know there will be a famous company there you should be there for sure.

And what do you think about job expos? Have you ever attended them? Have you gotten a job after a career fair? Vote in our opinion poll.