Re: Job Hunting

[Jim Grey <jwg -at- ACD4 -dot- ACD -dot- COM>]

Nancy Shankle laments her colleague's plight:
>Twice she has been well suited for a job, but learned that someone inside
>the company received the position.

>IBM calls it a Box Job; that is, a person in the company needs a new
>position and a description is made around that person.  After a wide job
>search, only one candidate is found to match the description--the original
>employee.

My company does this too, but as long as I've been here it's only been for
upper-level positions.  You can spot those job postings a mile away, and
can usually figure out who they have in mind.  Sometimes, these postings
are internal-only, and if ya gots ta do it, that's the way.

My company has a really annoying habit of liking to fill positions internally.
The last writer we hired (who has since left the company) had worked here
for seven years, but first as a trainer, then as a project manager.  She
had never written a manual.  She did a decent job, mostly because she was
very familiar with our product and did have a knack for explanation from her
training days, but she had a great deal to learn about writing and document
design.  I enjoyed working with her, but I did push for us to hire an
experienced writer externally.  I'm the most experienced writer here, and
I really want a more experienced co-worker to learn from.  I had one for
a couple years, and while he was a real passive-agressive pain to work with,
I learned a lot just be seeing his work.

Peace,
jim grey
--
jim grey          |beebeebumbleandthestingersmottthehoopleraycharlessingers
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