James Andrews

Tonight I opened up my Craigslist job tabs. A nightly ritual it has become. I am working now, but its a contract and in a few weeks that contract will be gone, and I will be back to searching.

Today’s topic is based on one of the ads placed today titled “Wordpress Guru Needed”. Now I’ve got one Wordpress plugin under my belt, and another one in the works. I also have re-coded a template that I found (the HTML was overly complicated). I figured I’d click on the ad and check it out. The contents are below.

Must have Bachelor’s degree, but Master’s is preferred
Harvard and MIT students preferred
Must send hourly rate
Must be available on evenings and weekends
Must send resume
No offshore companies allowed
If you do not meet this criteria, your message will be deleted

Let’s break this down. No offshore companies. That’s reasonable. Wants a resume, also reasonable request. Wants an hourly rate, and must be able to work nights and weekends. Pretty standard stuff. It’s the first 2 lines that seem a little off the wall.

First off Wordpress is not rocket science. Any php developer who is any good can figure it out. What truly baffles me is why does this guy need a person with a Masters Degree from MIT in order to modify his blog? There is absolutely no reason for it. If he’s creating anything that is so complex that he needs that kind of skill set he really should not be using Wordpress for it.

Now let’s look at the reality of this. I’m not saying that having a college degree is bad, quite the contrary, but to think that because someone has one of these degrees makes them smarter and more able to do the job than the next person is ridiculous. There are many successful men and women who have never stepped foot in a college who could probably do what this person is asking. There are many college drop outs who have gone on to make billions of dollars in the computer programming industry (Queue in Bill Gates). I personally get frustrated by these people who seem to think that a college degree means you’ll get a better grade of person.

Through out my career I have worked with many a college graduate who have felt that my opinion in programming and web development was quality enough to ask for my opinion on approaches on how to solve problems they were working on. Do people really think you’re better off with a degree?

It is my opinion that it is not the degree that matters, but the passion that person has. I would not have made it as far as I have if I did not have the passion and desire to learn this on my own. The desire to spend my me time learning an growing. Why does a person have to have a white board and a professor in front of them to get a quality education with something?

If this sounds like I am taking it personally, I have to admit I am. For someone to throw out perfectly acceptable candidates over a ivy league piece of paper is just stupid. Yes sir who wrote that craigslist posting. I called you stupid.

In retrospect to my last post. What are some things that might get one excited about a position at a company.

Uniqueness. There are a lot of companies out there. Many of them in the same professional market. There’s a reason some fail, some become “godly” in comparison, and some just barely make by. It all has to do with the uniqueness of the company in what they are doing.

Ground Level Entry. For some people this is something they get excited about. The chance to help mold a company and help direct it into what it can become is something to be excited about. Especially since getting in at the ground level usual also means giving you a piece of the pie when it comes to the sale or public offering of the company.

Location. Look at the job offered in Austrailia, to live on the tropical island for a year. Getting sent somewhere that seems like paradise, or working somewhere that you feel is “your” paradise. I was offered work in west Michigan. I turned it down. Not my idea of paradise.

People. Some people just want to work with certain people. There are lots of great minds out there, an the chance to feed off someone who is known for being top notch in their field is a great learning opportunity.

Challenge. For me I feel the most important thing is the challenge. Being able to overcome and deliver what is needed. Feeding the mind with knowledge as you triumph over adversity.

Before I start, Harikiri is not pronounced “Harry Carry” It’s “Hah-ree Kee-ree”, so learn it live it love it!

Anyway, this morning I was contacted by a recruiter I have been working with. Last Tuesday he sent me to a company (for the purpose of this post) will remain nameless. Friday I received news that I was not going to be hired. In my eternal wisdom I sent out a couple tweets. I didn’t use any curse words, I didn’t badmouth any person in particular. I responded to information handed back to me about why I wasn’t hired. Those tweets got back to the company, and I was on the phone with the recruiter feeling like I was in high school again.

Let’s stop here for a moment. First off if you are a company working with a recruiter to fill a position, to expect that a recruiter isn’t going to give the candidate information about why they didn’t get hired is foolish. ALL the recruiters I have worked with in the past have done it. When someone does not get a job the first question asked is “Did they say why I didn’t get the position?” Every recruiter is going to give the candidate the information.

The main piece of information that this recruiter highlighted was that I wasn’t excited or energized enough. He had some other comments, but the thing that I felt he emphasized was the “lack of excitement”. I will admit, I was not generally excited about the position. The website in my mind is not something to write home about. The technology, which I have experience with is something that I stopped being excited about months ago after a year of working with the same technology at Givvy after dealing with the community and finding the direction it moving in as something I disagree with fundamentally. There was no great innovation here at any level, and while I can see it being profitable. It’s never going to be google profitable, not even ebay, or amazon profitable. Why would someone get excited over that?

The recruiter had called to convey that the company had found my 2 tweets; which doesn’t surprise me, and he was taken the flack from it. While I am genuinely sorry that he took flack from it, I am not sorry about what I said. I meant it. One of my biggest assets is also one of my biggest flaws. I am brutally honest. I am extremely opinionated. If you say something I disagree with, I am going to let you know. If you criticize me in any way shape or form, I am going to defend myself. I guess this time I may have gone a little too far…