People begging for jobs.

[markjrubin]

Just a quick story that seems to be happening to me more frequently:

I was shooting pool with farbio last night when I started chatting up a girl on the opposite table (she was in her 30's and I'm 23). It turns out that she's going back to school and when she found out that I'm the webmaster for a medical continuing education site, she practically offered to... well... you know. She ended up begging for a job with the company and offered to do it for free. It just feels weird for me being so young having people literally beg me for a job. When I hired my last intern, I had about 40 people apply, most with no qualifications ("I sent you this email, isn't that enough?&quot who also begged me to work for free if I would train them.

1. Does this thing happen to other people, or am I just on candid camera or something?
2. Since we can't afford to bring people on and train them, where would you recommend that I send them to get some self-paced training (book, online, etc.)?

Mark

P.S. Now that I'm a senior member, does my sh*t still stink?

 

[catseye]

Tell them they had better have a url of thier own homepage, and that page better be somewhat sophisiticated and use standard design principles, and they better be prepared to justify thier decisions on a line by line basis. If they don't know where to go to learn html, they are already in trouble. There's a million tutorials on all aspects of web tech out there. Part of the job is knowing where to go to learn new technology. Cmon, do a google search for

html faq
html tutorial
html guide
web design
cgi faq

etc. You'll have more info than you know what to do with.

 

[Ulfwald]

There aare a lot of sites out there for self paced learning, As well as pleanty of books. Tell these people to go develop at least some semblance of knowledge and then come talk to you.

 

[RSI]

If there are lots of people that want to work for you, I would say that's a good sign.

If they aren't certified/qualified or whatever, don't just let them "in", because you'll end up nowhere real quick. But if you want to be nice and still be able to offer them a position, just tell them to pick up a specific book or go to a specific place to learn more about what they would be doing, and keep in touch with them..

 

[convex]

I've noticed that alot of people out there that are looking for technical jobs don't know near as much as they think they do and don't have the motivation to learn on their own. I've also seen alot of people that simply can't figure out the obvious on their own. I guess that's why farming is such a big field now days, most people have trouble learning on their own. I personally have never taken a class or course on what I do, I'm just really interested in my field and have taught myself much of what I know. Most people getting into the technical field now are doing so because they heard "it's the way to go" and "it's where all jobs are going"....I've heard that so many times by people with no clue on what they're getting into. Do mechanics get into their jobs because they heard the money was good or because they have an interest in cars? Also, I'm learning right now why alot of jobs are getting so difficult to get, most of the larger companies have already gone through the "hire anyone who says they know about computers" phase, which makes it that much more difficult for someone with actual knowledge and skill to get placement...I dunno, this is getting way too long and It's turned into a bad rant....

 

[Chucky]

That is the hell of an idea, RSI.
I am second to that.

 

[markjrubin]

Thank you for your replies.