[SGVLUG] Linux job posting -- any interest?

[Emerson, Tom]

> -----Original Message-----
> Behalf Of Dustin
> 
> On Thu, 26 Jan 2006, Emerson, Tom wrote:
> 
> > servicing multiple locations] He apparently found my e-mail "from a
> > Linux user group discussion thread" [...]
> 
> Uh, do we really want to aid and abet mailing list scraping 
> like that?  

yes and no -- you'll notice I'm acting as a "check valve" here -- I didn't post the [gory] details of the job, just enough that if someone is serious about seeking employment, this may be a good lead for them.  At the same time, it (hopefully) wasn't so much that it would annoy the crap out of the regular readers of this list.  (that's what this side discussion is for :) )

> It was mass-mailed to an enormous number of people of whom few are
> qualified.

I cannot verify how many "enormous" is -- I did indeed ask if he had sent it to "everyone he found on our list" or not, and he admitted "I have sent this to a few others in your area as well", so it gets down to the semantics of "few" vs. "enormous" (for instance, "everyone in southern California" would be "few" in relation to, oh, say "the entire population of China" -- it's all relative ;) )  Of course, I do kind of expect that no matter the actual number, a recruiter will usually say "a few" because it is so conveniently "non-specific"

>  How is this different from other kinds of spam?

not insanely different, I'll admit, but...

> This seems like a good reason to re-visit whether we really want our
> archives public ...

...if the recruiter took the time he spent replying to my questions to "sign up" for the SGVLUG list, he could have then "spammed" our list with the job offer directly, so whether or not the list was "archived" would be a moot point [then again, without it being in an archive, would he have found the list to begin with?  who knows?]

In any case, he is (apparently) savvy enough to realize a cold-call to a list is usually considered "bad form" [or knows it just has a lousy ROI] so I'll give him the benefit of doubt to start with.

Now, with all that said, I wonder if it might be worthwhile to organize a "classified" section of our website to allow people to post job offers?  True, anytime you let the "public" post to a website, even in moderation, you'll likely get trash, but at least there would be an avenue for people to post or pursue without "annoying" the majority...
 
> > me know (off list, please) and I'll forward the full details.
> 
> One of the details is that the resume is requested in .doc format. :-)

heh heh heh -- yup, and when I pointed that out to him, here was his response:

     "Thank you for the tip about requesting a WORD doc from people that are mostly in the Open Source world.  I will take note of that for sure.

so I'll give him a second point for paying attention... ;)

Tom

p.s. I just checked my server logs (since I told him where I keep my resume online), and it appears he is using firefox 1.0.4, so he can't be all that bad, right? ;)