#urdoinitrong

I anonymize the employers I pick on here, because it's good long-term policy. Sometimes I really wish I could tell you who it was, though, because they should know how offputting their process is.

So, dear extremely large local retailer --

Your "create an account" design is terrible. So terrible that I am only applying for the position because it is far from the screw up that is your job-seeker web presence.

1) I have to enter my username, password, contact information, cover letter, and resume all in one page. It's three pages long.

2) ALL FIVE of the optional address entry zones are required. This meant that I entered my one address five times, because the form would not let me proceed without it. I had to intuit that, though, because it didn't have one of those big nice red arrows for "missing input here".

3) In each of the address entries, I put in my zip code (not postal code). Then I had to choose my country. Then I had to choose my "state" from every single option on the list. And the list was broken, so paging through W got me Warwickshire, but never Washington. If you have my zip code, you know what state I'm in, thanks. And if you know what country I'm in, you can remove the provinces, shires, and prefectures from the list of "states".

4) You asked how I heard about you, and I chose "Job Site". The next field was "* If other, please specify". The asterisk meant that I had to specify, no matter what, even though I had chosen a valid option.

5) By this time, I've submitted the form five times, trying to fix "required" fields that should not be required. The only thing that would be more irritating is if the field information didn't persist.

6) I finally appease all the required fields only to find out that surprise, I'd had a profile all along. You guys could have saved me 20 minutes of my life if you matched the account handle against existing handles. The Jennifer Smiths of the world would thank you.

Sr. Storage Engineer

This position is a part of a solutions planning & engineering team that works closely with [department] teams to develop comprehensive infrastructure solutions.  This position requires an extensive background in storage technologies, with a demonstrated ability to execute well thought Proof of Concepts (POCs) to develop and implement solutions in a dynamic, global environment. A background in enterprise class SAN & storage array technologies will also be a key in this position.   Candidate Requirements and Responsibilities: ·         Gather complex requirements to be used in creating highly reliable and scalable infrastructure designs of enterprise storage solutions. ·         Produce detailed level design documents such as Visio diagrams, architecture definition documents, IP allocations, device descriptions and narratives describing the function of the design.  ·         Help assess the IT Infrastructure, identify strengths and problem areas, define target environment, and implement tactical and strategic upgrades as required.  ·         Must possess the ability to comprehend and deploy new advanced technologies under time constrained conditions. ·         Act as project leader for projects with varying budgets and duration. ·         Must be competent to work alone at the highest level of systems analysis, design, and implementation while providing direction and guidance to less experienced staff. ·         Support technical design, implementation and troubleshooting brocade based SAN.

Qualifications

  Required Skills/Experience: ·         Minimum of 10 years of professional experience working as Storage Administrator/Engineer ·         Strong knowledge of SAN, storage virtualization and other storage technologies, including experience with multiple vendors    ·         Extensive hands-on experience administering EMC Clariion, NetApp, HP and other enterprise storage solutions ·         IT Project management experience with a variety of enterprise technologies ·         Fibre channel switch management experience ·         Experience in an Oracle ERP environment a plus ·         Experience with Windows Server 2003/2008 and UNIX/Linux Server Operating Systems

I am qualified for this job if you squint the right way. But I’m not applying for it because:

In January 2001, the title of “Storage Enginner” was only in common usage in the largest of environments. So they’re looking for someone who has been doing the Storage gig since about the time Fibre Channel started being resold by the likes of Dell.

“Must possess the ability to comprehend and deploy new advanced technologies under time constrained conditions,” means direction comes from On High that a new thing needs to be integrated and it needs to be integrated NOW. This bodes ill for the health of management give-and-take with staff.

“Must be competent to work alone at the highest level of systems analysis, design, and implementation while providing direction and guidance to less experienced staff,” means I would be the ultimate Storage Engineer, possibly actually supervising lesser Storage Engineers. Or worse, we’re all under the same matrix-management and I’m expected to mentor the young’uns.

Technical Wrtier II

Companies across Washington have sought out [redacted] to deliver skilled, dedicated IT professionals. We always seek to deliver competitive and sought-after career opportunities to our potential consultants and employees. ***PRINCIPLES AND W2 CANDIDATES ONLY PLEASE, NO VENDORS*** ***LOCAL TO THE [redacted] AREA**** *** Apply to: [a recruiter] *** -3+ month contract- Pay DOE- Technical Writer that can work in a dynamic environment creating user-centric documentation. The candidate must be technical enough to converse with developers to understand technical and programming requirements for documenting Web Services. A successful candidate will be fluent with multiple tools including page design, layout and web design. Basic Qualifications: Basic understanding of programming languages Experience documenting Web Services Experience creating end user documentation Experience using HTML/CSS style sheets Preferred Qualifications: Experience with programming Java and using Web Services

That's the job as it was posted. I am technically qualified for that job, but I'm not going to apply for it. Here's why:

I understand that typos happen. They will happen in this blog. But really, you should double-check the listing title.

You haven't told me what kind of "Web Services". I understand that you're the recruiter, but there are actually a lot of different types.

There are two core skill groups in this ad: a web services programmer (Experience with programming Java, understanding of programming languages, web service documentation experience) and a layout monkey (HTML/CSS, page design and layout). It is not impossible to find them together, but what they would pay someone who can write sample web services, and what they would pay someone to create end-user web pages are not the same, and usually when there is that kind of divergence, they look offended when you try to charge for the more expensive skill.