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Web freelancer conference

July 21st, 2010

indieconf – the conference for independent web professionals – is now open for registation.

What is indieconf? It’s a conference that brings together the topics that affect freelance web people with experts who’ve been there and done that.  I’ve attended a number of tech/web conferences over the past 12 years or so, and while they’ve all been ‘good’, there’s usually very little in the way of information that helps me in the business side of my work.  As an independent, there’s questions about bookkeeping, outsourcing, legal issues, time management, billing, sales and marketing, and more that don’t typically get addressed at the typical tech conference.  And at ‘small business’ events (conferences, networking meetings, etc), there tend to be very few ‘web geeks’ who speak my own language and understand the particular challenges that I face.

So, from that quandary, indieconf was born.

I’ve been contemplating this for a while, focused the idea some, and have been working for the past 6 weeks organizing a core set of speakers/sessions, location, paperwork, and more ‘stuff’ that goes on with a conference.  I’m not even half done, but have been having a great time so far.  I think we’ve got a pretty solid line up of speakers and sessions so far, although we’ve got room for a few more (planning between 15 and 18, and we’ve got about 9 or 10 nailed down).

One of the things I’ve tried to do with this is to get speakers from outside the Raleigh area.  Right now we’ve got speakers from California, Texas and Pennsylvania as well as the Raleigh area and the Carolina coast.  Even people who’ve been to many local or regional events in the NC area likely won’t have crossed paths with all of these speakers, which I hope is seen as a good thing (I think it is!).

So whether you’re a PHP guru just starting out freelancing, a PSD master who’s been at it for years, or someone just considering getting in to the world of freelance web work, I think indieconf will have something for you.  With that said, what are some other types of sessions/info you’d like to get out of a conference like this?  I’ve got some more topics planned based on early feedback from people, and would like to take on a bit more before making more decisions.

I look forward to seeing you in Raleigh this November at indieconf!

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Posted in Business, Conferences, Design, Job, PHP, Web

Web Development Job Hunter classes (raleigh)

September 10th, 2009

I’ve been working with a couple local people on developing a short term plan for them to get in to or move around in the web development job space, and I was wondering if there’s a need for something perhaps sightly more formal in the Raleigh area.  Here’s my initial sketch…

Weekly classes (probably Saturday morning) 2 hours per class for 6-8 weeks

Class would consist of

  • reviewing web development options (technologies, focus – front end or back end, etc)
  • deciding on a particular technology to focus on
  • developing a short term game plan for achieving certain tasks – small projects to connect to a database, do flash animation, handle user authentication, etc.
  • work with participants to keep them on schedule, answering questions that may come up
  • have in speakers from local hiring companies to do presentations about their work environments and what they’re looking for in entry-level positions
  • have in guest presenters from the area who specialize in one tech (.net, ruby, flash, etc) to answer specific questions
  • general support and motivation when learning the new technology.

For some people getting in to new tech can be rather overwhelming because there’s so many choices, and often conflicting advice about what’s “best” to get in to.  What I’ve found is that there’s isn’t one “best” that’s right for everyone.  Learning PHP just because that’s where the jobs are, but you hate it – that’s just pointless.

Is there a need for something like this in the Raleigh area?  Would you be interested in participating?

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Posted in Business, Development, Job, Society, Software, Web

How not to apply for a job

July 30th, 2008

My brother’s girlfriend is reviewing applicant resumes to schedule interviews to fill a recent job opening where she works.  She just found this cover letter and sent it over:

I am a [Current Job Title] with extensive experience [highlight a skill or area where you achieved measurable benefits] for [employer names]. I have [number of years] years of experience [provide high-level description of responsibilities in this role]. In this role, I [describe key responsibilities].

Not sure there’s much more to say about this, but I wanted to share it with y’all.

3 comments »

Posted in Job

Upcoming series – job boards for PHP developers

June 9th, 2008

I’m starting a new series today over at http://phpjobbook.com which will cover a number of job boards that are useful to PHP developers (in other words, they have listings for PHP jobs).  If you’ve got a favorite job board you’ve used with good results, let me know!

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Posted in Job, PHP

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Web development job board update

May 6th, 2008

I put up a job board for web developers which I’m going to promote in a webdevradio podcast shortly (likely tomorrow) which I hope will get the word out a bit more. I’ve got a couple ideas on promoting it, and also for a couple variations on the idea as opposed to the open-ended ‘any type of web job’ board it aspires to right now. From your perspective, are there any promotional ideas that you can suggest to help get the word out? Are there are features in a job board you’d like to see, either from the employer’s point of view of the job hunter’s view? Let me know!

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Posted in Blogging, Job, Web

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WebDevRadio podcast series – Interview with Brian Moon on scaling LAMP

May 3rd, 2008

This is the last in my MySQL conference series.  Brian Moon, author of Phorum and Sr Developer at Dealnews.com, sat down and gave a recap of his two presentations.  We have here nearly a full hour of his insights in to PHP/MySQL scalability, both with an app like Phorum and a more complex environment like Dealnews.  The sound was pretty good, although there was a hum in the background I tried to get rid of via ‘noise removal’.  I think this still sounds decent.  Let me know if the sound is too awkward and I’ll give it another pass if need be.

Thanks to Brian for going over things in such detail!  I hardly asked any questions, as I was trying to soak up as much as possible for myself, and I picked up more than a few useful nuggets.  He also touched on the future of the PHP//MySQL combination with the MyQSLnd (“next driver”?  I forget now!) driver being developed.  There’s some great info in here – listen up!

Also, as a reminder, if you have any job postings for your company, please help build up the WebDevRadio Jobs board at http://jobs.webdevradio.com, and thanks to the first few posters who’ve helped get things rolling.  :)

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Posted in Conferences, Database, Design, Development, Job, MySQL, PHP, Podcasts, Software, Web

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New jobs board at jobs.webdevradio.com

April 29th, 2008

I’ve been meaning to do this some time, and finally found the time to do it – jobs.webdevradio.com is up and functional (though quite empty at this point!) One of the things I mentioned on my podcast (webdevradio.com) one more than one occasion is that I tend to attract recruiters. Rather than just politely decline, I thought offering a web board focused on web development jobs would be more useful. Yes, there are many other boards that have come up in the past couple of years, but I might be able to do something different.

Pricing

I plan on keeping the postings and main system free for use, though I reserve the right to remove spam/mass posting.

Future plans

I have a somewhat unique opportunity to also promote jobs via the podcast. I’d planned a webdevjob podcast some time ago, but have too many projects on my plate as it is. If this new jobs.webdevradio.com web development job board becomes useful for enough people, I will revisit the jobs podcast idea again.

Category specificity

I’ve got categories for PHP, .NET, Java, etc.  I’m wondering if this is the best way to go, considering that many positions do require multiple tech.  Is this too narrow of a focus?  Or do you still think of jobs as primarily a Java job, even if some Python may be involved, for example?

Please post any open positions

If your company has any openings, please consider posting (or reposting) them at jobs.webdevradio.com.  I’m looking to have a few base jobs in many of the categories before I announce it on the webdevradio.com podcast.  As I said before, this may turn in to more of a hybrid job service, with a podcast series to go with it as well.

Thanks!

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Posted in Business, Database, Development, Job, PHP, Software, Web

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New PHP job resource

March 31st, 2008

I just chatted with Manuel Lemos of phpclasses.org fame.  He’s recently launched a new PHP professionals center aimed at matching up PHP developers with people looking for specific skills.  The premise is simple – sign up, add your skill history (easier to do than I’ve seen with other systems) and you’re done.  The idea is that employers will search for, say, PHP developers with at least 2 years with Symfony and 4 years of Javascript.  This is still a new service and Manuel is looking for feedback to improve the service.  My only real suggestion for the service right now is to add more non-PHP technologies in the list to give employers a way to search for, for example, people with 3 years of PHP and at least 2 years of .NET, or ColdFusion, or whatever.  Already sent that feedback to Manuel directly, but maybe that’ll give you some ideas as well.

Check out the service at http://phpclasses.org/professionals

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Posted in Job, PHP

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Recruiting companies focused on web software

February 13th, 2008

snoopyjob.jpgAre there recruiting companies that focus specifically on web technology professionals? Some headhunters will focus on certain verticals – financial, biotech, etc. Many recruiters tend to focus on particular geographic niches – cities, regions, etc. And when talking with some recruiting companies, I get the sense that certain recruiters in a company tend to handle certain types of jobs – some people will handle more tech/web stuff than others. But I’ve not yet seen an agency that specifically focuses on web technology.

I was discussing this with a friend today and his initial reaction was that it sounded too narrow. Focusing on just .Net or PHP, in my view, would be too narrow, but web technology in general feels broad enough to warrant its own niche job placement services. I guess sites like elancer.com might serve this purpose, but they also seem to be too little. Some of the recruiting companies I’ve worked with over the years do not have a good grasp of the technologies involved, and this hurts both parties. Without that grasp, the recruiter can’t help a company accurately describe their needs in words that webdevs will grok, and the webdevs will tune out poorly written postings or apply for things that are really not a match, wasting time.

For example, looking at job descriptions that require 10 years of .Net, for example, are just a waste of time. Likewise descriptions that ask for someone with expert knowledge of .Net, Java, Linux, NT, Solaris, XML, SQL Server, Postgresql, Excel and Notes scream out that the company likely doesn’t really know what they want. It’s not that it’s completely impossible to have strong knowledge in all of those techs, but to require ‘expert’ status in all of those technologies makes it seem like the company may just be fishing for resumes.

Are there agencies or services that focus specifically on webdevs?

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Posted in Business, Job, Web

Raleigh web job market

October 25th, 2007

If you’re in the Raleigh area and are looking for a job in the web development market, give me a holler – I’ve had recruiters calling night and day.  AND they’re not all calling with the same position.  That used to happen once in a while – I’d have calls from three recruiters that were all trying to fill the same position.  You could tell – easily – by the wording of the position description.

“Night and day” is a slight exaggeration, but I’ve had more contacts in the past 3 months than the previous 6 before that.  Talking with both recruiters and employers directly, there seems to be at least an overall *slight* shortage of good qualified workers in the area.  There may be a bigger shortage of people in certain areas, and less in others, but on the whole it seems there’s more work than workers right now.  I have info on people who need LAMP/PHP, Java and .Net people for either full time, contract or part time work.

I don’t know if there’s just an issue with fiscal years rolling over and new budgets happening, or if there’s some other explanation, but I’ve noticed a very large amount of activity going on here.  I just hope the positions get filled, because long term, if not, that would mean employers would look elsewhere to set up shop, expand and hire.

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Posted in Business, Job, Microsoft, MySQL, PHP, Ruby, Web