[ale] Linux Administrator opportunity

[hbbs at comcast.net]

 -------------- Original message ----------------------
From: "James Sumners" <james.sumners at gmail.com>

> Thus my question. Do these vague descriptions really work? Is there
> actually something interesting behind them? Am I passing up golden
> opportunities? Or are they a mask for the most depressing job you
> could ever find?

My best answer:  yes!  However, there is an issue where troves of recruiters are all pestering the hiring managers of the same companies and they wind up working their contacts (to include mailing lists like ALE's) for the exact same positions.  What is good to find, however, are recruiters who are on *exclusive retainer* to fill a given position.  That means that not only is the recruiter the only one filling the job, the employer itself is not acting on their own behalf to fill it either.  The first kind of recruiter tends to work in a "pit" environment and are younger (think 20s...used to be it was magazine subscription sales; now, it's IT recruiting).  They can get you an interview and for that reason they're worth talking to if you're easy to pigeonhole (e.g., Java coder; Oracle DBA).  The second kind tends to be older, are ex-IT themselves (that is to say, they know that there's no "C+" between "C" and "C++"), and have chummy relationships (do lunch, play golf) with real hiri
ng managers.  They're worth their weight in gold, so buy them lunch every once in a while - a big one.  There are in-betweeners that are worth talking to on a regular basis.  

The "class" of the recruiter wouldn't necessarily have any bearing on what kind of a goat-rope any given job is going to be - you won't find that out until you're on the job anyway!