[Cialug] Job posting pet peeves (WAS: Job Opening - Red Hat)

[Josh More]

I was going to post a rant about this last night, but got tired and didn't.  I had forgotten, but (un)lucky for all of you, Ken just reminded me.

(Warning, this gets unusually ranty.)

Here's the thing.  When a company posts something like "10 years experience with 64bit Linux", we all KNOW that they mean something like: 

"We need someone with 10 years experience in general IT, with what is hopefully a focus on Linux.  The job is in 64bit Linux, and we don't know how it's different, but our technical people gave us a bunch of babble that we don't understand, so we're putting this in.  Since we're advertising the job, we have a need, so if you apply and have the skills, you have a good shot at it.  Moreover, if you can manage to communicate with us better than our existing technical people, you'll not only be heads over your competition, but you'll also be heads over our existing people, and the job is almost guaranteed."

But here's the thing.  Instead of reading this and seeing the social issue that resulted in the somewhat humorous job posting, we ridicule it.  Some of us even go into the interview and make fun of the company in the interview!  (It's happened, trust me.)  No wonder so many people think of Linux folks as arrogant elitist techno-snobs.  It's not fair to anyone to complain about the general lack of open source opportunities in business while we simultaneously draw a polarizing distinction between us them, as that is precisely what creates the lack.

It's distressing to work in an industry when the number one rule for success is "don't be a dick", and so many people refuse to follow it.  It's to the point where there are some clients that I can't pitch a Linux/Open Source solution to because they have had such a bad experience working with people like us in the past.  They know that Windows is both more expensive and technically inferior, but their Windows admins don't treat them like idiots, so that's who they hire.

Moreover, this sort of talk within our community polarizes us.  Some of us were lucky, and got a professional Linux start early on.  We talk about requirements like this as if they were stupid, instead of talking about the needs behind them.  This makes the unlucky ones who are stuck in Windows-only/closed source environments feel like they don't have what it takes to apply for these jobs.  This just adds to the perception that the right people aren't out there... which results in fewer Linux jobs.  Why do we keep doing this to ourselves?  It's self-sabotage at every level.

I'm going to stop now, before I get any angrier at the (generalized) lot of you.  Instead of compounding the issue, let's address it.

We have a meeting tomorrow.  If you want an eventual job in Linux please make it a point to come.  I don't care what the scheduled topic was, I'm throwing it out.  The new topic is how to stop screwing ourselves over and get the jobs we want.

-Josh More, CISSP, GIAC-GSLC, GIAC-GCIH, RHCE, NCLP
morej at alliancetechnologies.net
515-245-7701

________________________________________
From: cialug-bounces at cialug.org [cialug-bounces at cialug.org] on behalf of kristau [kristau at gmail.com]
Sent: Tuesday, February 16, 2010 12:30
To: Central Iowa Linux Users Group
Subject: [Cialug] Job posting pet peeves (WAS: Job Opening - Red Hat)

I always get a chuckle out of job requirements which are temporally
impossible. Who has 15+ years of Ruby 1.9 experience or 10 years
experience with XML 2.0?

--
Tired programmer
Coding late into the night
The core dump follows
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