I greatly enjoyed Graham Lee’s series of posts about specialisation versus generalisation in software engineering¹, quite possibly because it’s me.

My background is a little different from Lee’s, though, so I thought it was worth sharing.

I have a two tier experience². With a few minor blips, Unix has been a constant technology underpinning since my first year at university. I started using Linux around the time 1.0 was released. I got a Mac when — or possibly before — OS X was ready for mainstream use because it was Unix with a nice UI. At work I’ve seen the change from big Solaris and HP-UX machines, to Linux, to containerised applications (which are normally based on minimal Linux distributions). Sure, the different Unix variants are not exactly the same, but most of them have something bash-like and ls does the same thing everywhere, even if the more esoteric options vary.

There are many ways that recruitment is broken for both candidates and potential employers, but this time I want to focus on one aspect that I experienced recently as a candidate: how companies and recruiters don’t treat prospective hires with respect. I’ve changed jobs a few times over the years and some of the ways that I’ve been (mis)treated in the last year surprised even me.

Let’s start with something that I’m sure we’ve all experienced: not getting a response back from an initial application.

Over the years I’ve been asked to do a lot of programming aptitude tests. I’ve had to do some in the last couple of months and I’m deliberately writing this now before I get the results back of the most recent one so you won’t think that this post is just sour grapes…

I’m not going to get into the details of the tests because it doesn’t really matter what they are or who administered them for the purposes of this post.

• The League of Moveable Type – Most free or open source fonts I’ve seen have been pretty poor but these guys seem to have the right idea.
• Government plans travel database – “When your travel plans, who you are travelling with, where you are going to and when are being recorded you have to ask yourself just how free is this country?”
• Learning and Working in the Collaborative Age: A New Model for the Workplace – Fascinating ten minute video on what Pixar look for in candidates, summarised as Depth, Breadth, Communication and Collaboration. Given those criteria I’m guessing they’re very selective!

• Ars Book Review: “Patent Failure” – Interesting book review about the effect of patents on an industry. Apparently cost more money than they make in anything but chemical and pharmaceuticals.
• Lucky to be a Programmer – I don’t program as much as I used to but this explains why I love to when I get the chance.
• WordPress 2.6 – Usual drill. I’ve upgraded to the latest version of WordPress, the underlying software of ZX81.org.uk. If you see anything wrong please let me know!
• 20 Amazing Facts About Voting in the USA – Still in any doubt that computerised voting machines are a bad idea for free and fair elections?

• Apple introduces new Apple TV software, lowers hardware pricing – Now potentially more useful with the movie rentals. But where is the price drop in the UK?!
• Dell tells customer ‘Mac is good option’ – “Now, it’s possible that the techie was referring to a 1970s rock band, or to an item of waterproof clothing. But we can’t help concluding that he was indeed talking about Apple’s operating system.”
• Steve Jobs gets cohesive – Some cool stuff from Apple at the MacExpo. I think the Time Capsule is going to be on my shopping list when it ships next month. The movie rentals (when they get to the UK) look interesting but they really need to build their catalogue!
• How to recognise a good programmer – Great discussion on recognising great developers. The problem would seem to be finding them! Most recruiters just pattern match on CVs which tends to favour the “career” developer.