If the database experience requires intimate knowledge of esoteric bits of vendor-specific fluff, then they usually won't give you a look-see. Additionally, if Human Resources is filtering the cv/resume, then they might exclude it before anyone with technical knowledge gets the chance to see that you have the equivalent experience in other database technologies.

The big thing about Sybase is the use of Recordsets, so quick read up on it will help. Another thing you can do is to show the word Sybase in your papers if you have tried to set up ODBC using the sybase libs. That'll at least make it past the censors.

Obtaining a job seems to be no different from dating:

• All in all, you're judged on "appearances" first. You know, your cv/resume, the buzzwords, and the key terms.

• If you can make it past the pickup lines, and the free drinks, it's on to trying to technically "woo" the interviewers.

• Should you make it to "meeting the parents," they'll simply want to know that you're good enough for their child, and whom you've dated in the past.

• Assuming you receive their blessing, you may begin your new relationship in earnest.

Dating? Getting a job? You have to know how to market yourself, and use what God gave you to the best of your ability to attract...a mate.

If obtaining jobs was like dating most of us here would spend most time jobless. Thankfully most companies have saner requirements and at least try to tell you what the requirements are.

Jenda
Always code as if the guy who ends up maintaining your code will be a violent psychopath who knows where you live.
   -- Rick Osborne

Depends on how broke you are, and how you like your dates. If you're not too picky, you can date for 50 USD (I wouldn't go lower than that unless you have an acid proof condom)

<HUMOR>Isn't this a techie site? What is this "date" of which you speak?</HUMOR>

I like the analogy, however.

--MidLifeXis

Ultimately, though, if they think you need Sybase to be effective, and you don't have it, then you probably won't be effective, and what kind of job experience is that going to be?

(Of course, this is assuming that you get to the interview stage. If it's a big firm with HR drones set to filter resumes, you might not get that far. In that case, find someway to include Sybase in your resume, without making any false claims. Perhaps an entry like "Software currently studying: Sybase". And then be studying it.)

If I wanted this job I'd buy a Sybase book and read it. If afterward I'm confident that Sybase won't be a problem I'd put Sybase in the "Skills" section of my resume. I'd make sure the employer doesn't think he's getting a DBA, but if you've worked with a few different SQL engines learning a new one is generally pretty easy.

On the other hand, getting a job with just a resume is a hell of a way to go about it. It's much easier if you can network your way in. Call some friends and if that doesn't work, make some new ones!

-sam

Big ++ on this one.
I know that if I am interviewing someone for a job and they don't have the skill per se but they have the temerity to have gone and looked it up enough to make cogent comparisons to their other skills, I will be at least impressed with their initiative.
Besides, one *rarely* gets a perfect candidate, so if no other candidate has Sybase experience, I would put the person who prepared ahead of the others.
Go for it! :-)

First of all, as explained here, job boards (at least the big ones) are not an effective way to get jobs. Connections are. Furthermore when you're showing up to a job prospect through connections, issues like the one above about resume filtering become much smaller - the connection can point those facts out.

Secondly you'll have to accept that there are a lot of dysfunctional organizations out there. Stories like Anne Learns to Recruit are not far from what actually happens. So you can't be hired at some places. That's life.

Thirdly you have to become OK with this problem. You can fail 100 times without grief, so long as you succeed once. There are far more jobs that you're not qualified for than you are qualified for. As long as you can find one that you're a fit for, this isn't a problem. And you're more likely to find that fit if you can retain an upbeat opinion through it all.

Your first referenced article is an interesting read, but doesn't match my experience. Between 1996 and 2001 I found 6 different contracts; of those, the first and last were found by personal referral (and served to get me respectively into and out of the contracting game), while each of the other 4 I found on a job board (JobSearch (UK)).

Maybe I was just lucky, or maybe the figures are misleading - I'm sure that there are many sectors in which vanishingly few positions are filled via Internet listings, and I'd guess therefore that in the IT sector a much higher percentage than the average are filled that way.

Hugo

Having once written a job spec., that the good monk DrHyde applied for and was offered, I can support his comments totally. I had a constant battle with my manager and HR over the job description. I wanted a hacker with good skills in Perl/Linux and an adaptable nature. They wanted a graduate (unspecified type), team player, with a good sense of humour, with a keen eye for detail and good cummunication skills.

Even the so called recruitment consultant didn't get it, and was quite happy to pick up on only buzz words, and provided mostly inappropiate CVs for the role. Thankfully the good monks spotted an edited version of the job description on jobs.perl.org and applied directly, avoiding the recruitment expert, and thefore easily getting to interview.


--
ajt

This might not be to the point of your meditation but if you wanted to spin-up a little on sybase to see how similar it is to other DBMS's you have used. I think that MS's SQLServer is based on Sybase. Well anyways sybase does have free (promo) linux based version http://www.sybase.com/linuxpromo.

As I recall, MS SQL Server was basically a "fork" of either Sybase 4.9.1 or 4.9.2. I would imagine it is still SQL Server under the hood and still uses Transact SQL as it's procedural language for triggers and such as well as retaining the basic concept of databases/schemas, etc. of Sybase.

Does MS SQL Server have a GUI administration tool? I had thought the main add of MS SQL Server was a GUI tool set and under the hood, it was still much the same.

Since they are looking (presumably) for a programmer not a DBA and assuming your experience with MS SQL Server is programming in Transact SQL, then you might add Transact SQL T/SQL) to your resume and include in a cover letter that you are "..familiar with MS SQL Server Transact SQL which is similar to Sybase Transact SQL..."

MS SQL Server and Sybase are from the same code base. MS bought the code from Sybase (silly silly move on Sybase's part). Version 6.5 of MS SQL Server was basically Sybase with a GUI, 7 is slighly different and 2000 is even more so. However that said MS has maintained pretty much all the previous interfaces for backward compatibility and to make it easy to migrate from Sybase. :-) If you can get on hands a early version of MS SQL Server you basicall can train yourself on Sybase. :-)

I had thought the main add of MS SQL Server was a GUI tool set and under the hood, it was still much the same.

Many years ago I used MS SQL Server. It was so similar to Sybase that I was actually *trained* on Sybase. I didn't use a Sybase GUI, but that doesn't mean that there wasn't one, it could have been taken away so we could learn how to do things properly.

These days, Sybase does indeed have GUI admin tools, at least on Mac OS X, which look almost identical to the ones I was using on NT those many years ago.

There are free developer licences available for Sybase. Download and play.

Personally I think Sybase is junk

Care to elaborate on that? (maybe in a /msg rather than here, as it's not really relevant, but I'm interested in your opinion)

Michael

• DB dump files are not useable between different implemenations of Sybase. And there no tool to fix that problem (AFAIK).
• The installation documentation was all wrong and (IMHO) kludgy.

  Both of these problem where enough to make me use free RDBMS instead of slapping down $2,000 bucks.

  
  

  Plankton: 1% Evil, 99% Hot Gas.

An intelligent hiring manager should recognize that presence of a particular DB brand name on a resume is of secondary importance, compared to clear evidence of breadth and depth of DB experience, regardless of server brand. So try to give a brief summary of the things you handled in your DB exploits. That is, without being too verbose, give the resume reader a sense of the roles you're comfortable with (schema design? integration with external processes? UI development? DBA?).

Practically - I'll buy a book

Philosophically - I'll visit a night club

Humourously - Ill prepare for rejection at the night club and get back to my book.

Thanks again.

I just spent almost two years in the UK. One thing I noticed is that the recruiters tend to be very specific about the candidate having **every** skill listed in the requirements. Many of my collegues joked how they lied on their CVs about one or two skills just to get their foot in the door. Couldn't bring myself to try that one...

I returned to New Zealand earlier in the year and found a Perl contract using Sybase for the first time. The fact is, with the exception of a few gotchas, very little is different from using Oracle or MySQL - unless of course, you're calling Stored Procs, or using advanced vendor-specific functionality to eek out the last bit of performance. I think the difference this time round is that the company I contract to advertised directly, so I didn't need to get past the recruitment sentries. Sadly, knowing the syntax of a particular flavour of SQL is more important to some people than actually being able to design queries, or normalise data relationships