Observations from the job hunt

I post­ed my résumé to a pop­u­lar local com­mu­ni­ty web­site two days ago. It was a big step to get a ver­sion of my résumé enough com­plet­ed to put it out for pub­lic con­sump­tion. I’m sure it will get more pol­ish­ing as I go, but I’m glad to get the ball real­ly rolling.

It does­n’t sur­prise me too much that folks are out there look­ing for peo­ple to work for cheap and fast and to start imme­di­ate­ly. One respon­dent actu­al­ly apol­o­gized that he could only offer $2000 for two to three weeks work, which isn’t so bad con­sid­er­ing that a lot of post­ings are look­ing for peo­ple to do tech­ni­cal work at min­i­mum wage. It isn’t so good, either.

The best (worst) so far though is the one that looks for a «genius» to «part­ner with.» Yes, an appli­cant with con­sid­er­able tech­ni­cal qual­i­fi­ca­tions and intel­li­gence is going to be inter­est­ed in work­ing «as a part­ner for equi­ty.» Come on. I mean, that’s just insult­ing. Are you going to tell me that your busi­ness plan does­n’t include sup­port­ing your­self while this busi­ness gets off the ground? If the prime mover isn’t will­ing to invest in the con­cept, why should any­one else?

I sup­pose we can’t blame some­one for try­ing to get some­thing for nothing.

In the mean­time, I’m respond­ing to each per­son that’s writ­ten or called to say no, just to show that lack of response is not because we’re all flakes or because we don’t have com­mon cour­tesy, but because those of us who are worth hir­ing are worth bait­ing the hook. I’m not being cru­el, I’m polite­ly thank­ing them for their inter­est and inform­ing them that their offer does not meet my needs.

Thank you for respond­ing to my resume post­ing. I am seek­ing full-time employ­ment and am con­sid­er­ing only com­pa­nies that have either the rev­enue or the back­ing to hire employ­ees. Your descrip­tion indi­cates that you are seek­ing some­one in a posi­tion to invest time and ener­gy with­out com­pen­sa­tion for an indef­i­nite peri­od. I would have con­sid­ered such an oppor­tu­ni­ty in my younger days when I had few­er respon­si­bil­i­ties, but at present I must decline.

I appre­ci­ate your inter­est and wish you luck with your venture. 

I’m tempt­ed to add some specifics to the «objec­tive» sec­tion of the résumé, to make it clear that I’m seek­ing a full-time posi­tion and that I expect a poten­tial employ­er to have their shit togeth­er enough to put togeth­er a busi­ness plan com­pelling enough to attract a rev­enue stream, ven­ture cap­i­tal, or at least a line of cred­it suf­fi­cient to pay employees.