[color="#1C2837"]

I'm not sure I would say that... Is that really the criteria you have for "the best job"?

[color="#1c2837"]Yes, it is. I don't know your reason for not saying that- it would be nice to know the reason as well- but my reason for saying that is to let a potential employer know I want to stay for the long haul. They'd feel better about me knowing I am not just gonna up and leave in a couple of months. plus having too many jobs that only lasted a few months (that are non-contract) doesn't look very well on your resume.[/quote]
Your verbiage could probably be better. Saying that makes it sound like if they don't keep you moving you'll leave. As true as that may be, they aren't going to want to waste money on someone who has pretty much said, "I will leave you if you don't keep promoting me."

[quote name='JustChris' timestamp='1310490770' post='4834391']
[color="#1C2837"]

I'm not sure I would say that... Is that really the criteria you have for "the best job"?

[color="#1c2837"]Yes, it is. I don't know your reason for not saying that- it would be nice to know the reason as well- but my reason for saying that is to let a potential employer know I want to stay for the long haul. They'd feel better about me knowing I am not just gonna up and leave in a couple of months. plus having too many jobs that only lasted a few months (that are non-contract) doesn't look very well on your resume.[/quote]
Your verbiage could probably be better. Saying that makes it sound like if they don't keep you moving you'll leave. As true as that may be, they aren't going to want to waste money on someone who has pretty much said, "I will leave you if you don't keep promoting me."
[/quote]

That's true, I could state my preferences better. There's probably to be a better way to keep certain companies off my radar and let them know what I'm looking for.

I'm not too picky, but the types of companies that I won't want to be a part of are those that just want to contract people for a few months at a time, or show little concern in wanting a meaningful way to organize their developers. I don't like directly reporting to someone who knows nothing or little about how websites are actually built. I had one supervisor who just surfed YouTube or read celebrity articles to find relevant content for the writers (we ran a small entertainment site for college students). Even though his computer was literally next to mine's, he had no idea what I was doing behind the scenes. He only knew when something was broken, or when it wasn't. I was the only "techie" at that office.

Overall he was a nice person, but working for someone like him (and also the lack of fellow developers) meant we had zero time to step back for a breather and look at the "big picture" to set up a defined system to produce and finish products, for myself and future developers at the workplace. Sure, I was able to become self-sufficient at a place like this, but at work, I would also like to hear the perspectives of much more experienced developers and see how they did things. That's something that cannot be duplicated from learning frameworks and tools from online tutorials.

I don't like directly reporting to someone who knows nothing or little about how websites are actually built

I had one supervisor who just surfed YouTube or read celebrity articles to find relevant content for the writers (we ran a small entertainment site for college students).[/quote]

He knew nothing about your job.
And you knew nothing about his.

Every day, he had to surf the same tedious trash sites in search of celebrity drama, so that he could fill the content on the servers. If stories jived with target audience, pages would get many clicks, which would get many ad impressions, which would result in good CTR which would generate revenue which would pay your salary. And if a site didn't work, if a link was broken that lead to decreased impressions, decreased CTR, to less money, to no salary and people losing their jobs. So both of you worked on the same issue. Your job was to produce a site which was always working, his was to fill the content.

What if you, being probably younger, were more in touch with the gossip and what the upcoming trends are? What if you were to use that and suggest a few stories on your own? What if he started using them and finding you useful in making his job easier? What if at some point he found you more valuable at doing what he actually understood and sharing his experience with you?

And let's say he promotes you and gets someone else to do the PHP stuff. Now you know how server works and how the content is produced. And you see the big picture. So you sign up with a few sites where webmasters working in content farming exchange ideas and you tell the programmers to implement some such systems. And you introduce a few automated systems to tweak the CTR and other metrics. Maybe the company gets more revenue, maybe your former supervisor starts hating you. But you are now the man, since you know more about the company that he does. So you ask for a raise. Maybe you get it and he gets fired. Maybe you don't - but hey, you've been running the place, so you just go on your own, set up some minimal copy of the site, run your own content, hire someone to do the administration.

And then, being now more at home on management side, you start talking business with similar people you've met on forums. And slowly you also notice the SEO and related trends. Maybe you start advertising your domain + impressions and maybe someone offers you a few $10k for it. And maybe you sell it. Then maybe you spend this money on school Or a trip to Barbados. Or a sports car.


Or maybe you don't and none of that happens and Google blocks content farms and reduces ad revenue and company goes under and you along with everyone else is left without a job.



But this is, as they say, as good as it gets. The rest will always be up to you. There just is no checklist to follow.

That hypothetical wouldn't have come close to happening since I have little interest in Hollywood and pop culture outside of watching movies I'd rather talk shop with people in my job that are in the same field that I'm interested in, and learn directly from the seniors before I grow on my own. In short, I want a more collaborative role with programming geeks.

However, we are getting off track from your initial post. I'm more interested to get feedback about my response to your first response, and how to make myself stand out when applying for the next job, when I have few "stand out" qualities. And attract shops that have make work challenging and interesting, not just allow me to stay conformed to doing the same work. You were more interested in knowing what work I've produced versus what I know, and I answered that and other questions in one of my last posts.

Reading that again, it's likely a roundabout way of saying:

1. The path to a better job/promotion won't be obvious and clearly laid out.

2. One should break out of his comfort zone of experience for advancement opportunities, and not simply just do "what's you" better.

Did I get this right?

I guess Antheus isn't checking this topic anymore. But everyone, feel free to give some input.

Do you ever ask for feedback on your interviews? Not only does it look good to a potential employer (they may have some other job they might offfer you later), it also gives you some idea of where your going wrong.

What have you done to pad your portfolio in those eight months? Where are all the Ruby and .NET applications that you've been working on while you've been out of work? Why is it after eight months of looking you're not able to answer their technical questions? Maybe I'm missing something, but if you've just been looking for work for eight months and doing nothing to sharpen your skills or pick up new skills, I wouldn't hire you either.

I guess Antheus isn't checking this topic anymore. But everyone, feel free to give some input.

I have nothing else to add, everything was said already.

The biggest issue I see, if this is how you approach interviewing is the following:
"What do did you do" - "I operated a hammer". "Um..." Weird.
"What do you do" - "I build skyscrapers". "Cool, what was the highest you worked on?" ".......

Yes, both guys wielded a hammer.

And attract shops that have make work challenging and interesting, not just allow me to stay conformed to doing the same work[/quote]
Interview ends with remark: "lazy, no ambition"

Paid work is about doing what you know. If you are challenged by such work it's called struggling due to lack of training or skill. You come to employer offering your skills in exchange for money.

The key to career growth is becoming so good at your specialty that it becomes automation. Then you delegate to others while you work on other parts. That is the career challenge. Finding a way of making yourself increasingly useful - that is the challenge. It's not something that is given, but something you do. There are companies which are more or less open towards such activities and some may put a load of red tape in the way, but that is just one part of "the challenge". Writing more code or knowing more languages will not grow a programmer.

You didn't, for example, say that you want to build the biggest PHP site in the world. If you had, it would instantly eliminate all employers except Facebook. But even that would be a start, since it would show you the direction to work at. It would also mean that programming is the wrong direction, but a very good entry level position.

Want to be a DBA? No problem. Look at requirements, go meet them. All DBAs started as interns during college. Go do that. Then they worked for 2 years as juniors while they got certified in IBM or Oracle technologies (there you go). Then they got promoted to Seniors (again, look for company that has openings for juniors with Oracle certification and 2 years experience). After working there for 5 years, people got promoted to DBA (and again, look for openings, etc...). Congrats, you are now a DBA. It's hard and tedious work, 7 years of something unrelated to DBA, but you got there. At least you're not in engineering, where juniors work for 10 years before they are even allowed near a blueprint on their own and where they wait for 25 years before they are eligible for any kind of project on their own.

That is one way to get where you want. But you might not get there, since you might find out you're better at something else. Or an opportunity might arise where unexpected. Or, if you insist, stick to the path relentlessly.

[quote name='JustChris' timestamp='1311257625' post='4838452']
I guess Antheus isn't checking this topic anymore. But everyone, feel free to give some input.

I have nothing else to add, everything was said already.

The biggest issue I see, if this is how you approach interviewing is the following:
"What do did you do" - "I operated a hammer". "Um..." Weird.
"What do you do" - "I build skyscrapers". "Cool, what was the highest you worked on?" ".......

Yes, both guys wielded a hammer.[/quote]

Good analogy, I'm starting to get it now. I've been getting too focused on technology buzzwords in my resumes (recruiters have told me make my resumes more buzzword happy so HR people don't quickly reject it) that I've drawn it out more than I needed to in interviews. More time would be better spent what talking on what websites I worked on and what they did.

To follow up on that question, 90% of the websites I worked on were for sub-$5,000 clients/projects. The biggest project I worked on was a marketing website for cleaning services to manage campaigns and customers. I added search features, sales metrics, and calendar functions. I usually advertise this one in my resume. Ironically I cannot report how well this sales website did. I was removed from this project when the client ran out of funds, and it stayed in limbo as long as I can remember.

Other than that, my completef projects were for many small businesses like hardware shops, a seafood restaurant, a dog grooming salon, etc. 2 out of 3 were about adding new features or content tweaks, the rest were built from scratch. These were projects selected for me since I was the only developer in-house, and most of the heavy lifting was done by an off-shore team.

And attract shops that have make work challenging and interesting, not just allow me to stay conformed to doing the same work[/quote]
Interview ends with remark: "lazy, no ambition"[/quote]

I'm not sure if I follow. I said that I want to attract shops that make work challenging. This should not translate to having "no ambition". It's the opposite, right?