Re: Job Market

Amazingly, I found my previous and current jobs through networking; don't just sit at home trolling through the job boards.

At the least, you should be going out to your local Perlmongers meetings, perhaps the local Linux User's Group, and take the opportunity to hang out with folks over a $beverage. You can find out a lot of useful stuff that way, like who's hiring, and which are the good companies to work for.

And from a hiring point of view, it's great when someone comes in the door for an interview, and they have some minor connection to someone within the company. The people doing the interview want to find out about your technical abilities, but they also want to get to know you a little as a person to see if your personality will fit in with all the other personalities.

Alex / talexb / Toronto

Team website: Forex Chart Monkey, Forex Technical Analysis and Pickpocket Prevention

"Groklaw is the open-source mentality applied to legal research" ~ Linus Torvalds

Comment on Re: Job Market

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Re^2: Job Market by Herkum (Parson) on Dec 02, 2009 at 16:02 UTC
I have moved around a lot because Perl jobs tend to show up in pockets. I took my last Perl position in Tucson because they had a hard time finding anyone willing to move to the area and they offered an fairly high salary. After the company closed up, a Perl position would show up state-wide at a rate of 1 every 3 weeks or so. 1 position, for the whole state of Arizona! When looking for another position, I found there were clusters of positions in certain cities and given a chance to go back I would have gone back to one of the cluster spots. A few cities to consider are, Los Angeles(lot of Perl startups, pay is OK vs Cost of living) San Fransico(lot of Perl startups, pay is OK vs Cost of living) New York(Pay is poor vs Cost of Living) Washington DC Nashville (make sure you want to live there first, else you will be miserable) London, England Amsterdam, Netherlands Austin, TX Seattle, WA Those are a few off the top of my head, but I am sure that there are more if I looked more carefully.	[reply]
Re^2: Job Market by Anonymous Monk on Dec 02, 2009 at 15:49 UTC
Although I've never gone to a perlmongers meeting, I've been to a G/LUG meeting or two. My impression is that no one wants to hear that you're looking for work -- they don't want to think you're just using the group to network and find a job. Not sure why that is, or if my perception was just skewed.	[reply]
Re^3: Job Market by talexb (Chancellor) on Dec 02, 2009 at 16:01 UTC
Certainly, if you walk in, sit down and immediately start hitting up your neighbors to see if their companies are hiring, that's going to be a poor experience. This isn't something that you get done in an hour. It's more about building a relationship with the community, and taking part in contributing and sharing knowledge. But you can ask about what kind of work the folks around you are doing, which may prompt the question "And how about you?", at which point you can mention you're in a job but you're looking for new opportunities .. or that you're available, and looking for Perl development work. Going to the meetings is only part of it -- you should be on the mailing lists of these two organizations and see if you can contribute occasionally (beyond the obvious, "Me, too!"). Perhaps put a pet project of yours on CPAN (something I'd love to do if I had the spare time), and solicit help on it from the community. Alex / talexb / Toronto Team website: Forex Chart Monkey, Forex Technical Analysis and Pickpocket Prevention "Groklaw is the open-source mentality applied to legal research" ~ Linus Torvalds	[reply]