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Jobhunting, continued.
Jul. 21st, 2006 05:18 pmI got an email this afternoon from one of the headhunters I've occasionally dealt with for the following position:
Mainframe Contractor A
It's not a complete match for my skills (I don't even know what DOC1 is, and I don't have AS400 or professional UNIX experience), but it's close.
The position itself is with an international bank which has recently taken over administration of the Sears credit card. I told the headhunter that although I don't include it on my resume, I spent a year working at Sears as a credit authorizer, taking phone requests for higher credit limits and authorizing or declining over-limit purchases. He said that would be an excellent experience to discuss in the interview.
The headhunter apparently read my email on his Blackberry and called me while he was stuck in traffic to discuss it. So I guess that's a good sign, if he didn't want to wait until Monday to call me. Or at least until he got home.
He suggested that I lower my hourly rate slightly to make myself more competitive given that I haven't worked in nearly two years. He said that might still be a problem, but that taking a year to deal with the issues surrounding my grandmother's estate was understandable. He also suggested that I incorporate myself so that his company wouldn't have to take income taxes, Canada Pension, etc. off my paycheques.
The funny thing was that he didn't know what PL1 was - he asked if that stood for "performance layer". I told him no, it stands for "Programming Language," and that the language was actually invented about 40 years ago (1965, I think?). He thought that was amusing for some reason.
Of course, this comes up at the end of the week in which I went to Ryerson to investigate enrolling in one of their software developer certificate programmes... though they seem to be mostly night classes, so I could conceivably go to work during the day and school in the evenings. (Though can someone explain to me why two of the three required classes for the certificate programme are both on Wednesday nights?)
Mainframe Contractor A
- 5-10 years of progressive experience in Information Technology related to an IBM Mainframe
- minimum10 years of experience with large mainframe based applications built with Cobol, PL1, DB2, VSAM, JCL and MQ Series
- Strong technical Skills (required): TSO, JCL, PLI, VSAM, DB2 and MS Word
- Technical Skills (Beneficial): Changeman, Easytrieve Plus, DOC1
- Familiar with File Transfer Tools, e.g. Connect Direct, FTP
- Working experience in AS400 and UNIX environment is preferred
- Extensive experience with change management, implementation planning and release management
- Extensive experience in code management and versioning methodologies with experience with a leading code management tool. Knowledge of Changeman is an asset.
It's not a complete match for my skills (I don't even know what DOC1 is, and I don't have AS400 or professional UNIX experience), but it's close.
The position itself is with an international bank which has recently taken over administration of the Sears credit card. I told the headhunter that although I don't include it on my resume, I spent a year working at Sears as a credit authorizer, taking phone requests for higher credit limits and authorizing or declining over-limit purchases. He said that would be an excellent experience to discuss in the interview.
The headhunter apparently read my email on his Blackberry and called me while he was stuck in traffic to discuss it. So I guess that's a good sign, if he didn't want to wait until Monday to call me. Or at least until he got home.
He suggested that I lower my hourly rate slightly to make myself more competitive given that I haven't worked in nearly two years. He said that might still be a problem, but that taking a year to deal with the issues surrounding my grandmother's estate was understandable. He also suggested that I incorporate myself so that his company wouldn't have to take income taxes, Canada Pension, etc. off my paycheques.
The funny thing was that he didn't know what PL1 was - he asked if that stood for "performance layer". I told him no, it stands for "Programming Language," and that the language was actually invented about 40 years ago (1965, I think?). He thought that was amusing for some reason.
Of course, this comes up at the end of the week in which I went to Ryerson to investigate enrolling in one of their software developer certificate programmes... though they seem to be mostly night classes, so I could conceivably go to work during the day and school in the evenings. (Though can someone explain to me why two of the three required classes for the certificate programme are both on Wednesday nights?)
