[SWLUG] Very strange!

[Gareth Bowker]

On Maw, 2003-06-03 at 20:33, Rhys Sage wrote:

> Telsa, I can't think of any better way to distribute my CV to agencies etc
> than by using spamming techniques. I draw the line at agencies. They send me
> their spam so I send them mine. I even put Javascript in occasionally
> although I'm leaning more toward Perl script these days.

Have you tried phoning them? Tell them you'd like to come in for a chat
to discuss your CV. That way you get to meet the people trying to find
you jobs, get feedback on your CV - and you'll know who to phone every
week or two to see how they're doing in finding you a job ;)

> I can see that my statement of "familiar with the concepts behind ISO 2000"
> is probably about as far as I dare go. I just don't get why people have to
> make things so complicated. Personally I'd burn all the ISO documents and
> make them rewrite them on half a side of A4 and no more. There's way too
> much hot air in the world and way too many civil servants pumping it out!

You've obviously never worked on anything safety-critical.

Frankly if you don't understand the need for all the documentation
that's inherent in things like ISO9000, then don't put that you're
"familiar with the concepts" in your CV. If people ask you about ISO9000
and you can't answer you'll almost certainly do worse than if you didn't
include it in the first place.

To give an example, someone who is now (perhaps surprisingly) rather
high up in one of the Nominet boards, once had a mock interview at
University. In his CV he said he was an expert in TCP/IP. He was asked
about the TCP/IP sliding window, which he knew nothing about, but rather
than admit he didn't know about it, he blustered on and was then cut
down to size by the interviewer. It was also videoed, and now stands as
testament of what not to do in an interview.

Gareth
-- 
| Gareth Bowker           | <bowkerg at teccon.co.uk> |
| Software Engineer       | http://www.thetcl.com/ |
| Technology Concepts Ltd | +44 870 870 5088       |