5 ms·

This is a nice idea, with one big BUT. Not to rain on the parade here, but you've been unemployed for two years and all you have to show for it is a funny rever

This is a nice idea, with one big BUT. Not to rain on the parade here, but you've been unemployed for two years and all you have to show for it is a funny reverse job application. Sadly, it doesn't show what your actual skills are, nor whether you have ever produced something of value for anyone. These are more or less prerequisites to getting a good job. Go look at http://jacquesmattheij.com/My+list+of+ideas+for+when+you+are+looking+for+inspiration http://jacquesmattheij.com/My+list+of+ideas+for+when+you+are... and pick one. Or come up with another idea. Then build a website that does it. Find some freelance work on the back of that. Something small that can show off your talents. Rinse, repeat. Either you'll start applying to jobs again and get accepted on the basis of your demonstratable skill, someone will give you a job (which you'll have earned,) or you'll be one of the cool consultant-entrpreneur-successes. As you know, rejection sucks, but the worst thing is the social proof it is against you. I'm thinking to myself "there must be something wrong with this guy, so many people didn't hire him, there must be a reason." Do some things that prove you are a success and people will hire you. You've been unlucky, but sometimes you gotta make your own luck. This is an admirable attempt, but if you want me to believe you are the kind of creative achiever you say you are, you need to do more than say it. You can do it! EDIT: Damm. As halaric points out, his personal web page does list these things. It still needs at least a direct link and preferably a mention on the application page though.

halaric 16y ago
There's a link to his personal site which includes resumes at the bottom. I guess he's hoping that the uninterested employers will self-select.
- brosephius 16y ago
  wait, it's the employer's job to dig for your resume? this "reverse job app" gives me no substantive data on what this guy's skills are, so why would I even bother? if you want a job, it's your responsibility to make the case for why you're worth hiring.
  - v21 16y ago
    Hey, I see a job ad, I have to look for their website and try to figure out what they do, and where they fit in the industry. Why should a reverse job ad be any different?
    - brosephius 16y ago
      a good job ad will tell you at least some basics about what the company does and what the job entails. this reverse job app doesn't tell me anything about what I can expect from this candidate, except for some empty job-seeker cliches about how he's creative and a quick learner. no links to a portfolio, no examples of previous work, no recommendations from peers.
  - Eugene3v 16y ago
    You are right. You don't have to. You're (or is it your) probably don't have the time for it, cause u have a pile of resumes that u need to go through and filter out the keywords... If I came across this link and I was hiring, I would be interested to know more.. Why? Cause I am intrigued.. Cause the person stood out for me... The approach is creative, unique and definitely ballsy... Should all of that suggest that the candidate is worth the position.. of course not.. but he proved that he can be unique and exercise creativity, I would want to know more, while leaving the task of filtering out the keywords from the resumes to recruiters who don't know sh... (shtuff is a word) :)
  - stealthdude 16y ago
    Likewise most job ads provide very little actual information about the job, use vague descriptions for everything, do not explain what company or project the job is really for, cannot explain what actual skills are required to do the job, do not give any idea what pay-scale is being offered.
    - andreyf 16y ago
      Bingo. If job positions advertised themselves with clear examples of projects I'd be expected to tackle within my first year on the job, I'd be a lot more likely to consider switching.
- sleepdev 16y ago
  After having you point out that fact, I had to do a search on the document source for "<a" to find the 6 point font footer at the bottom! I hardly expect anyone to do this much work looking through my job applications...
middlegeek 16y ago
Thanks but I should have been more clear--this is not me. I submitted this because it seemed like an idea HM would like and be inspired by.
- physcab 16y ago
  I didn't assume it was a self-post. No worries.
jstraszheim 16y ago
I dunno. I was out of work for a year once and then settled for a few years of staggering underemployment. I even came to believe that I would never again be hired as a developer, that no company would look at me, that my resume was too weak and I'd never get past human resources. It got really depressing. Then I met a guy who knew a guy, and they got me back on track. Now I have a very nice job with a very nice company where I do amazing work (if I may say so). So anyhow, there are eight million stories in the naked city. This guy's story sounds like my story. I wish him luck.
- versus 16y ago
  I applaud this guy. Instead of berating his shortcomings in execution I think smart people should ponder the bigger question he posits, ie, why are smart people not capable of bypassing the eternal "ooh! ooh! pick me!" game of the HR folks? Seriously, HR reminds me of Morgana's forrest of the damned in Excalibur, ie, "No Knights shall pass this morass". Here are 2 true stories from personal experience: (1) Me and girlfriend are out to dinner with her friend when her friend's friend/associate/something phoned to say she was nearby and wanted to join us. She worked in HR. Fast forward past the wine and stuff to the end of the night where she was recounting a story about how she and her colleagues spent most of the time "printing out resumes for review" only to wind up throwing them all in the shredder because of the dauntingly massive volume and lack of coherent approach to dealing with it, deleting the responses to the original job postings and going to their supervisors and telling them they need they needed to "post more ads" and "call more recruiters" because they "couldn't find qualified candidates". (2) Another HR person (I presumed) I overheard in a barnes and noble talking on the phone to somebody about how she found someone to "channel the job posting responses to a database" ... several moments later (I could only guess the other side of the cell conversation): "I don't know, I guess somebody somewhere looks at the resumes, whatever, they don't pay me enough to give a sh@#". (3) Applicant side: A pretty damn talented guy I knew couldn't find work for about a year and a quarter. Social proof effects started kicking in until I realized that for all practical reasons he SHOULD be getting a job quite easily. A mutual friend suggested he try to "hire himself" from a HR standpoint to see if things looked different from the other side. After a very long attempt to figure out why, he hired a detective/consultant who found out the type of companies that he applied to in his area started using a particular firm for background checks, and that firm in turn used a service that searched for "probability" quotients that job applicant names were on various lists. Not ACTUAL matches, mind you, but relative "probabilities" based on letters and letter combinations in name that his name would be on, say, federal databases of felons. In his case, the match returned with a "moderate to high probability" that, in essence, names like his MAY be on federal lists of felons and people who had to register as sex offenders. And people who had restraining orders against them. None of this applied to him, but his name "configuration" had, based on I don't know what criteria, a "probability" of being on such list. Along with, I don't know, thousands of other people who had short, basic anglo-saxon names. And, of course, there's that infamous YouTube video from 2007 with that law firm advising HR managers at some hotel conference about how to "setup a fax machine near a shredder" to comply with federal hiring laws and then complain to government that they couldn't find qualified candidates in order to score government handouts, tax-breaks and make the case for more temporary visas to take advantage of foreigners who don't realize just how expensive it can be to work in the U.S. and think $30-40k is like hitting the jackpot based on relative buying power back home.
steveaz98 16y ago
I'd add another BUT... The real reverse application should show how you will bring value to the company. Why should they hire you, how will you make the company better, what do you bring to the table? You have to understand that it has to pay to hire you, you are just not entitled to a job because you have a degree.
- mathgladiator 16y ago
  While I think the reverse application shows a lack of dev prowess, it screams marketing prowess.

halaric 16y ago

There's a link to his personal site which includes resumes at the bottom. I guess he's hoping that the uninterested employers will self-select.

brosephius 16y ago
wait, it's the employer's job to dig for your resume? this "reverse job app" gives me no substantive data on what this guy's skills are, so why would I even bother? if you want a job, it's your responsibility to make the case for why you're worth hiring.
- v21 16y ago
  Hey, I see a job ad, I have to look for their website and try to figure out what they do, and where they fit in the industry. Why should a reverse job ad be any different?
  - brosephius 16y ago
    a good job ad will tell you at least some basics about what the company does and what the job entails. this reverse job app doesn't tell me anything about what I can expect from this candidate, except for some empty job-seeker cliches about how he's creative and a quick learner. no links to a portfolio, no examples of previous work, no recommendations from peers.
- Eugene3v 16y ago
  You are right. You don't have to. You're (or is it your) probably don't have the time for it, cause u have a pile of resumes that u need to go through and filter out the keywords... If I came across this link and I was hiring, I would be interested to know more.. Why? Cause I am intrigued.. Cause the person stood out for me... The approach is creative, unique and definitely ballsy... Should all of that suggest that the candidate is worth the position.. of course not.. but he proved that he can be unique and exercise creativity, I would want to know more, while leaving the task of filtering out the keywords from the resumes to recruiters who don't know sh... (shtuff is a word) :)
- stealthdude 16y ago
  Likewise most job ads provide very little actual information about the job, use vague descriptions for everything, do not explain what company or project the job is really for, cannot explain what actual skills are required to do the job, do not give any idea what pay-scale is being offered.
  - andreyf 16y ago
    Bingo. If job positions advertised themselves with clear examples of projects I'd be expected to tackle within my first year on the job, I'd be a lot more likely to consider switching.
sleepdev 16y ago
After having you point out that fact, I had to do a search on the document source for "<a" to find the 6 point font footer at the bottom! I hardly expect anyone to do this much work looking through my job applications...

middlegeek 16y ago

Thanks but I should have been more clear--this is not me. I submitted this because it seemed like an idea HM would like and be inspired by.

physcab 16y ago
I didn't assume it was a self-post. No worries.

jstraszheim 16y ago

I dunno. I was out of work for a year once and then settled for a few years of staggering underemployment. I even came to believe that I would never again be hired as a developer, that no company would look at me, that my resume was too weak and I'd never get past human resources. It got really depressing. Then I met a guy who knew a guy, and they got me back on track. Now I have a very nice job with a very nice company where I do amazing work (if I may say so). So anyhow, there are eight million stories in the naked city. This guy's story sounds like my story. I wish him luck.

versus 16y ago
I applaud this guy. Instead of berating his shortcomings in execution I think smart people should ponder the bigger question he posits, ie, why are smart people not capable of bypassing the eternal "ooh! ooh! pick me!" game of the HR folks? Seriously, HR reminds me of Morgana's forrest of the damned in Excalibur, ie, "No Knights shall pass this morass". Here are 2 true stories from personal experience: (1) Me and girlfriend are out to dinner with her friend when her friend's friend/associate/something phoned to say she was nearby and wanted to join us. She worked in HR. Fast forward past the wine and stuff to the end of the night where she was recounting a story about how she and her colleagues spent most of the time "printing out resumes for review" only to wind up throwing them all in the shredder because of the dauntingly massive volume and lack of coherent approach to dealing with it, deleting the responses to the original job postings and going to their supervisors and telling them they need they needed to "post more ads" and "call more recruiters" because they "couldn't find qualified candidates". (2) Another HR person (I presumed) I overheard in a barnes and noble talking on the phone to somebody about how she found someone to "channel the job posting responses to a database" ... several moments later (I could only guess the other side of the cell conversation): "I don't know, I guess somebody somewhere looks at the resumes, whatever, they don't pay me enough to give a sh@#". (3) Applicant side: A pretty damn talented guy I knew couldn't find work for about a year and a quarter. Social proof effects started kicking in until I realized that for all practical reasons he SHOULD be getting a job quite easily. A mutual friend suggested he try to "hire himself" from a HR standpoint to see if things looked different from the other side. After a very long attempt to figure out why, he hired a detective/consultant who found out the type of companies that he applied to in his area started using a particular firm for background checks, and that firm in turn used a service that searched for "probability" quotients that job applicant names were on various lists. Not ACTUAL matches, mind you, but relative "probabilities" based on letters and letter combinations in name that his name would be on, say, federal databases of felons. In his case, the match returned with a "moderate to high probability" that, in essence, names like his MAY be on federal lists of felons and people who had to register as sex offenders. And people who had restraining orders against them. None of this applied to him, but his name "configuration" had, based on I don't know what criteria, a "probability" of being on such list. Along with, I don't know, thousands of other people who had short, basic anglo-saxon names. And, of course, there's that infamous YouTube video from 2007 with that law firm advising HR managers at some hotel conference about how to "setup a fax machine near a shredder" to comply with federal hiring laws and then complain to government that they couldn't find qualified candidates in order to score government handouts, tax-breaks and make the case for more temporary visas to take advantage of foreigners who don't realize just how expensive it can be to work in the U.S. and think $30-40k is like hitting the jackpot based on relative buying power back home.

steveaz98 16y ago

I'd add another BUT... The real reverse application should show how you will bring value to the company. Why should they hire you, how will you make the company better, what do you bring to the table? You have to understand that it has to pay to hire you, you are just not entitled to a job because you have a degree.

mathgladiator 16y ago
While I think the reverse application shows a lack of dev prowess, it screams marketing prowess.