HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: ara@zurich.ai.mit.edu (Allan Adler)
Subject: Re: What is essence of SUCCESS
Organization: M.I.T. Artificial Intelligence Lab.
Date: Wed, 30 Dec 1992 02:23:56 GMT

In article <EfEDuOC00WBNM2ZpMM@andrew.cmu.edu> zh00+@andrew.cmu.edu (Zhengguo Hu) writes:

     I was recently interviewed by a consulting company. The interviewer
   ask me the question:
     "How would you describe the essence of success?"

     This question surprised me. What are your answers?



You have the right to know the purpose of every question that is asked
of you. So ask. For questions about your experience, the purpose might
be self-evident. On the other hand, questions about your sex life would be 
inappropriate in most professions. You don't have to assume that every question
put to you is legitimate and the one they asked you sounds to me to be
way out of line. If you are not satisfied that they have the right to ask you 
something like that, then don't answer it.

It's bad enough that they ask stuff like that on college applications.

Allan Adler
ara@altdorf.ai.mit.edu

Newsgroups: misc.jobs.misc
From: randy@halcyon.com (C. Brandon Gresham)
Subject: Re: Help needed. I've been asked strange things by the contracting company.
Keywords: help, contract, programming
Organization: Northwest Nexus Inc. (206) 455-3505
Date: Sat, 26 Dec 1992 05:19:13 GMT

t is hard to give an absolute rule in this.

Many companies and government activities request specific information in
international tenderjs concerning:

On going projects - to know what level of activity the potential company
is committed to ( Can they absorb the new work if we award this contract
to them?)

Completed contracts - what types of projects have they done before. Were
they successful in delivering the goods or services in accordance with
the Specification and Statement of Work? Did they do it within the time
schedule? Did they do it for the agreed price?
( To verify the information provided by the bidder it is normal to ask
for information about a previous client such as the name of the client,
a contact person with the client who is familiar with the project and
postal address, fax and phone numbers to contact the client.)

Having said all this -

There are also unscrupulous people who may just be looking for 
names and contacts so they can go after business with them

OR

Putting together a business directory

So you will ultimately have to determine for yourself if you feel they
are people who really have business you are willing to enter into with
them - if so, fill out the questionnaire - after fullfilling any
obligations you have to former clients about releasing information about
them.

To ease this process, it is not uncommon in Europe and the Middle East
to receive a Certificate of Completion which describes the project in
general terms, gives the clients name and the company's name, gives the
value of the project and the time of execution of the project.

Hope this background helps you with your decision.

randy@halcyon.com
Newsgroups: misc.jobs.misc
From: blowfish@carina.unm.edu (rON.)
Subject: Interesting statistic about resumes...
Date: Wed, 23 Dec 92 06:45:54 GMT
Organization: University of New Mexico, Albuquerque


Read this in yesterdays paper, unfourtunately lost the attribution.
There was a survey done of hiring managers (in all fields) concerning
the length of time they take to review a resume before deciding on granting
an interview. The average time? 
20 seconds.

Now do you believe that a clean clear resume is more important than one that
details your life history? :)
r.
From: schenn@mars.lerc.nasa.gov (Lisa Henn)
Subject: Re: transform a resume
News-Software: VAX/VMS VNEWS 1.41    
Organization: NASA Lewis Research Center
Distribution: misc
Date: 29 Dec 1992 13:26 EDT  

In article <ARA.92Dec29121021@camelot.ai.mit.edu>, ara@zurich.ai.mit.edu (Allan Adler) writes...

>I will gladly send copies of these files to anyone who thinks they can
>translate the contents into something that the capitalist imperialist
>devils and their craven lackeys can understand.

HAHAHAHAHAH!!!  All right!  Way to win friends and influence potential
employers!  (I'm amused)

On a serious note, I can understand your frustration, especially in the
light of your previous post about working conditions.  This remark just
amused me, that's all.

L
Lisa Henn
Analex Corporation
schenn@mars.lerc.nasa.gov
-------------------------
Disclaimer:  My employer doesn't speak for me, etc etc.
From: briscoe@cco.caltech.edu (Duke P. Briscoe)
Newsgroups: misc.jobs.misc
Subject: Re: Northerners moving south - questions
Date: 2 Jan 1993 06:08:47 GMT
Organization: California Institute of Technology, Pasadena
NNTP-Posting-Host: alumni.caltech.edu

masticol@cadenza.rutgers.edu (Steve Masticola) writes:

>I'm investigating a couple of job leads in the South - too many places
>to mention meaningfully - and would like to hear from any Northerners
>who've made such a move

>Specifically, have you had trouble with the, ah, insularity of the
>natives? Was it possible to adjust after a period of time, or is one
>always pegged as a damyankee? It seems like a serious quality-of-life
>issue. 

What about the inverse move; e.g from Athens, GA to Boston, as I am
about to do?  Is one always pegged as a dumsuthener?  I was mildly
irritated while doing job interviews in Boston when someone made some
remark about Southerners, not realizing I was from the South.

Actually, for me this is a rhetorical question.  I know the answer is
that I'm probably not that interested in the opinions of people who
are prejudiced, at least not in social contacts as opposed to business
contacts.  In any case, after having lived for prolonged periods in
Athens, Los Angeles, San Francisco, DC, and New Haven, I think you can
find good people to interact with socially all over the US, and why
worry about the rest (unless you have a major accent and plan to be a
salesperson in some small Southern town).
From: masticol@cadenza.rutgers.edu (Steve Masticola)
Newsgroups: misc.jobs.misc
Subject: Re: Northerners moving south - questions
Date: 1 Jan 93 16:29:36 GMT
Organization: Rutgers Univ., New Brunswick, N.J.

primeaux@carlsberg.cs.utk.edu (David Primeaux) writes:

>*natives*?  Give me a break!  What are southerners, anyway, some different 
>species?

From Webster's New Collegiate Dictionary:

na-tive (n) 1: one born in a particular place; 2a: an original or
indigenous inhabitant; 2b: something indigenous to a particular
locality; 3: a local resident _esp_ a person who has lived all his
life in a place as distinguished from a visitor or a temporary
resident.

I see no mention of species here, sir.

- Steve (masticol@cs.rutgers.edu).
Newsgroups: misc.jobs.misc
From: joet@dcatlas.dot.gov (Joe Trott)
Subject: Re: Companies ack of receipt of resume...
Organization: U.S Dept. of Transportation
Date: Wed, 30 Dec 1992 17:26:27 GMT

shoroff@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu (Srihari Shoroff) writes:

>In article <C00193.BMq@ulowell.ulowell.edu> djohnson@cs.ulowell.edu (Daniel T. Johnson) writes:
>>
>>In article <246@cnmhnet.UUCP>, keithg@cnmhnet.UUCP (keith garrard) writes:
>>|> goes something like "...although your qualifications were excellent,
>>|> we have found someone else who more closely fit our needs...  However,
>>|> we will keep your resume on file and if a position develops that fits
>>|> your qualifications, we will contact you..."  I HATE THESE LETTERS!
>>|> I would almost rather NOT hear anything than to get one of these letters!
>>|> --Keith

>Donno how widespread the use is, but some of us here at UT call them 
>ESD ('Eat Shit and Die') letters. Seems very appropriate. Even the best
>get 'em, and sometimes get a job with the same company later!

At Georgia Tech, we called them Flush letters.  The words are so much
hypocrisy and could easily be lies, however personally I'd rather get *some*
kind of response.  It seems that professional courtesy requires it.
I realize that companies probably get hundreds of resumes per day, but
a) a simple post card of acknowledgement, not necesssarily positive or
negative, is not time consuming or grossly expensive to send; though b) I
think it would not be unreasonable not to respond to woefully inappropriate
resumes, as the sender wasn't too concerned about professional courtesy in
the first place.

-JTT
Newsgroups: misc.jobs.misc
From: jimbo@socrates.umd.edu (Jim Bogard)
Subject: Re: Inappropriate responses to job posting
Organization: University of Maryland University College
Date: Wed, 30 Dec 1992 00:55:50 GMT

Just throwing a monkey wrench in the works...

While I think it is inexcusable to submit a resume which is completely
misaligned with the job description, I would like to remind folks that
there is a lot of stupidity on both sides of the hiring fence.

Case in point:

Recently, at a major University with which I was involved, a position
became available. (Don't ask, it's been filled.)  The position was for a
person to supervise the lab aides for the U's student labs.  This was
not a highly technical position, primarily requiring supervisory skills
with a strong DOS applications & Unix background to facilitate aide
training.  Salary had been approved for low 20s.
Anyway, Universities being what they are, by the time the
position actually got in the paper it had been approved and modified by
230 levels of red tape.  To boot, as I recall, the ad was actually 
submitted by someone in another department (personnel, procurement, or
something).  As we all know, technical things in the hands of non-
technical people tend to get a little out of whack.  So, ultimately, 
the ad runs.  Person hiring for the position opens the paper.  Well,
poor grammar, yeh, yeh, typical, ok.  No salary listed.  What?  Turns
out salary printing isn't permitted.  Great.  Remember I said the 
salary was for low $20K?  heh.  We wound up getting resumes from 
public sector folks making $40K+.  We got resumes from PhD EEs, who
were certainly qualified, but... you get the picture.

This is getting long, but the point I'm trying to make is not that
we were receiving inappropriate resumes, we actually did pretty well
in that respect, but that by not printing a salary, the U wasted
the time/effort/money of a lot of respondents and the person reviewing
the resumes. 
   I realize that most of the employers posting _on the net_ are 
probably doing it themselves, so they are immune to this effect.

However, I'm sure you see the point.

J-. (jimbo@socrates.umd.edu)
-- 
Jim Bogard  (jimbo@socrates.umd.edu)
                                            "Implement now, tweak later."
Tech at large / gigging daemon

Newsgroups: misc.jobs.misc
From: ara@zurich.ai.mit.edu (Allan Adler)
Subject: working conditions
Organization: M.I.T. Artificial Intelligence Lab.
Distribution: misc
Date: Tue, 29 Dec 1992 16:58:18 GMT


It seems to me that when one writes a resume, it is best to have a particular
job in mind or a particular type of job and to tailor the resume to the
goal of getting that job. A job, from this point of view, is normally
conceived of as the work that one will be doing and perhaps what
one expects to be paid for doing it.

From my point of view, it is more pertinent to consider what the working
conditions of a job are. I don't see why it should not be possible to write
a resume that is oriented to the working conditions one would like to
have rather than to the work one would like to do.

In order for this approach to succeed, it would be necessary for employers
to be willing to discuss working conditions rather than dictating
them on a take-it-or-leave-it basis. Apart from salary, it seems that
this simply is not done.

May I conclude that the current standards for writing resumes reflect the
fact that the concept of negotiation for improved working conditions is
essentially dead?

Allan Adler
ara@altdorf.ai.mit.edu
Newsgroups: misc.jobs.misc
From: kmb@controls.ccd.harris.com (Kurt Brunton)
Subject: Geological Enginerring jobs
Originator: kmb@rs2
Organization: Harris Controls
Date: Tue, 22 Dec 1992 13:32:08 GMT


My brother recently graduated with a masters in geological engineering and is
looking for a job, but given the current economic situation is having a little
trouble in securing one. So, if anyone has information about jobs in this field,
please email.

Kurt Brunton
kmb@ccd.harris.com
From: dunn@hpcc01.corp.hp.com (Steve Dunn)
Date: Tue, 22 Dec 1992 23:01:43 GMT
Subject: Travel Sales
Organization: the HP Corporate notes server
Newsgroups: misc.jobs.misc

Wanted: Sales person for travel products.  Must have proven track record but
not necessarily in travel industry.  High energy and creativity are required.
Salary + incentive to start, progressing to full-incentive (no cap).
Palo Alto, Calif. is home base.  Telephone Susan at 415 857-1095 to arrange
interviews.
Newsgroups: misc.jobs.misc
From: ara@zurich.ai.mit.edu (Allan Adler)
Subject: Re: transform a resume
Organization: M.I.T. Artificial Intelligence Lab.
	<ARA.92Dec30001314@camelot.ai.mit.edu> <C03H10.C19@news.cso.uiuc.edu>
Distribution: usa
Date: Thu, 31 Dec 1992 02:31:42 GMT


Jean Ezell writes:

   ara@zurich.ai.mit.edu (Allan Adler) writes:

   >teaching. I could become less alienated if some university were prepared
   >to sit down with me and negotiate substantive issues of working conditions.

   Allan, you keep writing about how no company is willing to provide you
   with the working conditions you need.  But I don't recall you ever
   explaining what those conditions would be.  Would you care to elaborate?

I'm a little puzzled. You quote a sentence from me in which I talk about
working conditions at universities. Then you ask me about working
conditions I require from companies.

My purpose in posting to this group is to explore the concept of working
for one month each year to earn $6000 net to cover the costs of my food
and shelter. I rave about working conditions in universities on a different
news group (sci.math). I also post articles about mathematics, education, 
history and other topics. If you are interested, I can send you some of my
postings on these topics separately.

As for working conditions at companies, it would not be consistent with my 
purposes in posting to this news group to get bogged down in controversy over 
specific working conditions with people who really are not authorized to
negotiate on behalf of any company.

Jean also writes:

   I've been reading your posts with some interest, because you very much
   remind me of my best friend from my undergraduate days.  He's employed
   now at a regular job, complete with security clearance, because he
   finally decided that the conditions of extreme poverty were worse than
   being employed.  He didn't enjoy it too much at first, but I think that
   he is much happier now than he ever was unemployed.

I have a friend in India who says I remind him of his friend Ramanujam
who committed suicide. I can't be responsible for the people I remind
other people of. I think I am very different from your friend. No job
ever made me as happy as poverty and unemployment have. To me the basic
question is: why are these the choices? 

Allan Adler
ara@altdorf.ai.mit.edu
From: plutchak@pilsner.geo.brown.edu (Joel Plutchak)
Newsgroups: misc.jobs.misc
Subject: Re: Advice from a hiring manager on resume
Date: 31 Dec 1992 14:42:06 GMT
Organization: Brown University Planetary Geology
NNTP-Posting-Host: pilsner.geo.brown.edu

In article <263@cnmhnet.UUCP> keithg@cnmhnet.UUCP (keith garrard) writes:
>Yeah, now this, I like.  That always disgusted me in the past.  I 
>send my resume in application for a position, and from reviewing my
>resume, oone could see that I would certainly command a salary at more
>than minimum wage level, and yet, the company will call, set up
>an interview, and after you get there and talk with them for a half
>hour, they tell you the salary, which is about $20,000 less than
>you would even consider.  Then you've wasted your time and theirs.
>Yeah, I hate that a lot.

   But apparently not enough to inquire about the salary range for the
position when they call to set up an interview.

--
Joel Plutchak, Research Programmer/Analyst
Disclaimer: Involuntary vocalization may occur.
From: ara@zurich.ai.mit.edu (Allan Adler)
Newsgroups: misc.jobs.misc
Subject: back to work
Date: 1 Jan 93 07:13:35 GMT
Article-I.D.: camelot.ARA.93Jan1021335
Distribution: misc
Organization: M.I.T. Artificial Intelligence Lab.


I think I have gotten as much useful information as I am going to get out of 
the discussion of "$6000/yr for one month's work" and related topics. So I
am going to leave this group and get back to work on a book I am writing.
The book has been accepted by Springer-Verlag and will appear in their Lecture
Notes in Mathematics series.

No, this won't make any difference in whether I can pay my rent or buy food.
I don't get paid for this because Springer-Verlag regards this kind of
publishing as a public service to authors and to the mathematical community
in general. I do lots of unremunerated work like that. For example, it came
to my attention that the mathematics department at the University of Rhode
Island has never, within memory, administered the William Lowell Putnam
exam. This is an exam of 12 questions which undergraduates are given 6
hours to do, if I remember correctly, and if they do well on it, graduate
schools will write to them inviting them to apply. I feel that students 
graduating from URI need every break they can get, so I told the department
that there needs to be a seminar to coach the students by going over old
Putnam exams. In order to emphasize the importance I attach to doing this,
I said I would teach the thing myself if no one else is willing to do it.
The reaction was positive, since my labor wouldn't cost anything, but I
did find it necessary to insist, for the same reason, that some effort be
made to determine whether any of the salaried professors was in fact willing
to teach it. That effort will be made and if no one will teach it, I will teach
it for free. The department is nearly broke and it was all it could do to
pay me $50 for giving a colloquium last year. The money it has is mandated
for keeping the place the way it is, not for changing it. Money tends to be
that way in a society that exalts mere money grubbers to the highest form
of existence and recognizes their willingness to part with it as the only
acceptable rule of inference.

In short, I am your average unskilled hard core unemployable, truculent bum,
living off the generosity of others while officially contributing nothing 
to the society I live in and it is only right that there is no
mechanism for me to be rewarded for my attempts at reform and innovation
and for the efforts I expend on informal education (which are considerably
more extensive than I have indicated: I teach in invisible colleges.).

Why the very idea, like the bums who wipe your windshield when you're waiting 
for the light to change....

Allan Adler
ara@altdorf.ai.mit.edu
From: jbm@hal.com (Brad Might)
Newsgroups: misc.jobs.misc
Subject: Re: Inappropriate responses to job posting
Date: 23 Dec 92 07:35:56 GMT
	<1992Dec21.122828@ardor.enet.dec.com>
	<1992Dec22.140205@ardor.enet.dec.com>
Organization: HaL Computer Systems
NNTP-Posting-Host: infinity.hal.com
In-reply-to: kannan@ardor.enet.dec.com's message of 22 Dec 92 21:02:05 GMT

>>>>> In article <1992Dec22.140205@ardor.enet.dec.com>,
kannan@ardor.enet.dec.com (Nari Kannan) writes: 

> In addition, I think users of the newsgroups should realize that
> using a free common newsgroup like this has its own
> disadvantages. If you want a technical writer and if you 
> advertise in a magazine or journal targeted specifically for
> technical writers, you will not have this problem. Using a 
> very common newsgroup to advertise for all kinds of
> jobs and that too for free, you will have to be ready to
> put up with more inappropriate responses. It's just a fact of
> life.  Many people do not even access this "discussion"
> newsgroup, misc.jobs.misc. I bet they look only at
> the actual job postings newsgroup.  Writing here
> exhorting people to apply only if they fit every requirement is
> a waste of time, IMHO.

> You cannot use a free open common forum and still expect to
> get extremely specific applications.  If you want to achieve
> that level of specificity, then advertise in places targeted
> towards that particular audience. You can't have the cake
> and eat it too.

> Nari


In a job market like this, I think the last thing that people should do is
to post a message like this, discouraging job postings. Let's face it, the
job market is poor, the last thing to do is chase away opportunity.

Why ruin things for others ? This goes for inappropriate responses to job
postings as well. 

Scenario:

Job is posted to misc.jobs.offerred. Several hundren replies are received.
At least 50% of them are inappropriate/should never have replied. (Yes, I
think 50% is an accurate number). Now the job poster decides not to post
the OTHER 5 JOBS that he would have (or tells someone in another department
that it is not worth it) because it has become too much trouble.

I am really surprised at the crap dished out on in this forum at employers
by people looking for work. Face it, who has the advantage right now ?

--
-- standard disclaimers apply --
jbm@hal.com (Brad Might)      
HAL Computer Systems - (512)794-2855
8920 Business Park Drive Suite 300 Austin, Tx 78759
Newsgroups: misc.jobs.misc
From: dblack@seas.gwu.edu (David K. Black)
Subject: Automated packages for creating SF-171's - where?
Organization: George Washington University
Distribution: us
Date: Tue, 29 Dec 1992 21:33:19 GMT

I'm told that there are packages for Macs and IBM clones that will
assist in the preparation of SF-171's.  (Which is the government
version of a resume).  Can anyone point me toward sources (ie ftp
sites) for same?  Many thanks..   email would be best.
From: carole@rembrandt.Sun.COM (Carole Parker)
Newsgroups: misc.jobs.misc
Subject: Re: Advice from a hiring manager on resume
Date: 29 Dec 1992 07:02:45 GMT
Organization: Sun
NNTP-Posting-Host: rembrandt

In article <1992Dec11.081858.15001@fzi.de> fweber@.fzi.de writes:
>
>Question:
>
>In article lidth1INN3fh@exodus.Eng.Sun.COM, carole@rembrandt.Sun.COM (Carole Parker) writes:
>> In article <1992Nov20.224949.7360@netcom.com> afisher@netcom.com (Alan Fisher) writes:
>...
>> 
>>     Don't put anything non-essential or that can be discriminatory on your
>>     resume.  This includes:
>> 
>>         Your picture which gets cut out by corporations.
>> 
>>         *Any* indication of race, age, marital status, or the fact that
>>         you have children.
>> 
>Is this common sense in the USA? Do other hiring manager agree with that?
>
>Is including a picture a disadvantage or even a reason for the exclusion
>of an application?
>
U.S. employment law doesn't allow discrimination due to race, etc.  A picture
will indicate race, and some employers will cut the picture out just to avoid
any possible law suits.  Unless you're trying to be a model or actor, don't
include your picture.

>I certainly do agree, that race should not be mentioned in a resume. But
>what is about age!
>
Another source for discrimination.
>
>Background:
>
>I am German and try to apply in the USA. Habits of writing cover letters and
>resumes differ from country to country. A modern German book about applications
>_recommends_ including a picture and mentioning the age in the resume!
>
Not in the U.S.

I found myself. See? I'm right here! Until later--

Carole Parker
Newsgroups: misc.jobs.misc