We've got a network - let's use it!

More jobs, please! This is a request to everyone to surround the Jobs page with white light. Please post more jobs and more kinds of jobs. It would be nice to see the utility of this area grow.

My ulterior motive: I love jobs, and I'm often halfway in the job market, but I'm not a web designer or database administrator. It seems like at least 80% of the jobs that get posted here aim at that market. And yet the MetaFilter userbase is not made up exclusively of tech workers. Where are all the library jobs? Education jobs? Social service jobs? Small-business jobs? Media jobs? Postings for these are few and far between.

This is a great pool of people to fish in - many willing to relocate, experienced, and skilled. I try to pass on interesting jobs in my field, but I'll admit I'm nowhere near consistent about it and only tend to do it if it's already cut-and-pasteable. It would be great if there were more kinds of jobs posted here more often from more sectors. Even if that means everyone who has never posted a job posts one that becomes available in their workplace or field this year, that would increase the offerings. That's all - thanks.

posted by Miko to MetaFilter-related at 10:02 AM (67 comments total) 2 users marked this as a favorite

I posted a job once, and I didn't get one resume (as far as I know). So I can't say I'm inclined to feel the need to do it again.
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 10:22 AM on May 12 [1 favorite]

Agreed. And personally I'd love seeing some ESL jobs listed, a lot of people here have solid contacts in that area of education.
posted by dawson at 10:24 AM on May 12

My ad for ball-kicking technician, grade 4, seems unnecessary now.
posted by Mister_A at 10:26 AM on May 12

I wonder if it doesn't reflect the overall job market.
posted by tommasz at 10:31 AM on May 12

dipdipdipdipboomboomboomboom...
posted by jonmc at 10:34 AM on May 12

It's a neat feature, but other sites do job postings much better and with a wider audience.
posted by Burhanistan at 10:44 AM on May 12

I wonder if part of what we end up seeing vs. not seeing on Jobs is a matter of who has hiring discretion and also how different sectors go about hiring. Tech workers looking for tech people on a tech-friendly site is a pretty good set of circumstances, in other words.
posted by cortex at 10:47 AM on May 12

Replace the word "tech" with "nerd" in cortex's comment above.
posted by Mister_A at 10:52 AM on May 12 [1 favorite]

(Good set of circumstance for promoting job postings in that specific sector, I mean. The implication being that for what Jobs is, those are unusually well-served compared to the baseline, not that having-mostly-tech-jobs is an inherently good circumstance.)
posted by cortex at 10:59 AM on May 12

Man, if I knew of any damn jobs, I'd be applying for 'em. And I can't in good conscience recommend any of the openings here (PR, talent coordinator, personal assistant), because of the way all of the people filling those jobs left in the last week (wife of the boss-boss grabbing the PR lady's hair and yanking her off a red carpet while calling her a cunt).
posted by klangklangston at 11:26 AM on May 12

Miko, you do consistently post really cool museum/library jobs, which we mention pretty often on the podcast, but yeah, lately it's been nothing but tech jobs but I think cortex has it right -- if I personally was going to be listing something it'd be for a designer or programmer because that's what I have access to on hiring help.
posted by mathowie at 11:29 AM on May 12

I wonder if part of what we end up seeing vs. not seeing on Jobs is a matter of who has hiring discretion and also how different sectors go about hiring.

A little while ago, I was trying to find a replacement for myself, in the position I used to have, and HR flipped right the fuck out at the idea of posting it anywhere other than company-approved channels. So, yeah. Bascially, that's the deal there.

I guess if I need a fence whitewashed or something, mefi.jobs will come in useful, but I rarely need that. I do not own a fence.
posted by Greg Nog at 11:33 AM on May 12

dipdipdipdipboomboomboomboom...

*waits...*

SHALALALA! SHALALALALA!
posted by shmegegge at 11:38 AM on May 12

I got my current job through jobs.

But when I posted there later, looking to hire some co-workers, no one bit.
posted by grumblebee at 11:43 AM on May 12

Despite it being mentioned in a podcast, I didn't get a single e-mail in response to my job post for a babysitter. This is actually preferable than the stack of creepy responses I got from craigslist.

(We still need a sitter, if anyone's interested...)
posted by The corpse in the library at 11:45 AM on May 12

other sites do job postings much better and with a wider audience.

Yes, but this site stands a much better chance of having interesting jobs. I know of at least one other person who got their current job through MeFi jobs. Like all job ads, it won't work for most, but it might work for some. It's as good as people are willing to make it.

Also, I don't just post my own jobs to offer. I get a lot of ListServs which feature museum/cultural heritage job ads, and I just cut and paste them here, relaying them to another audience. Maybe other fields don't share job postings in that way, now that I think about it - in museums people relocate a lot so geography isn't a big factor, and everyone's always trying to move up.

Do people respond to the tech job ads, or no?

If it's not doing anything for anybody, is it a useful part of the site?
posted by Miko at 11:50 AM on May 12

I guess if I need a fence whitewashed or something, mefi.jobs will come in useful, but I rarely need that. I do not own a fence.

Besides, painting a fence is fun! Seriously it's the most fun I've ever had; you're probably pretty jealous that I get to paint the fence and you don't. I like to pretend I'm Daniel Larusso -- "Paint the fence! Paint the fence!". What's that? You want to try painting? Well, I dunno, I only have this one brush. I mean, I guess you can take a turn. Ok, let me know when you're done!

-Tom Sawyer
posted by inigo2 at 11:57 AM on May 12

I like the concept of the jobs section, even though it has been of limited usefulness to me. Okay, none usefulness. Still, it's nice to know that it's there.
posted by Mister_A at 12:14 PM on May 12

For all that Portland, Ore. is supposed to be a Mefite-heavy techie town, we sure don't see many Jobs listings. (Props to Skwirl for posting his annual AmeriCorps volunteer opportunities.) Of course, we had openings for people where I was last employed and I didn't post them, so mea culpa as well... mathowie, have you ever run internal promotions for the Jobs subsite? Because really, I tend to forget that is Jobs there, assume that others do also, and agree that it would be awesome if there were more of a culture of "hey, we've got an opening, I should see about posting that to metafilter!" Would it suck to run a sidebarred graphical ad for logged-in users that promotes the idea of using Jobs? When the Dice ads aren't running, I suppose.
posted by mumkin at 12:29 PM on May 12

Motivated Sales Staff Needed for High-Pressure, High-Reward Positions in Financial Industry
Los Angeles, CA

Urgent need for all skill sets in rapidly growing Los Angeles-area financial services team. Immediate need for positions relating to upcoming divestiture of assets from regional branch of national bank.

Our team has been closing deals throughout the Los Angeles Area for over ten years. Do you have what it takes to find a prospect, move in, and close the deal in under massive time pressure? Are you focused and ruthlessly dedicated? Do you stay sharp, on the edge, where you gotta be? Do you do have what it takes to walk out on your life in 30 seconds flat if you spot the heat around the corner? If so, we have positions open now for:

- Management - Evaluate skill sets, organize staff, acquire a prospect and provided training to sales staff for approaching and closing the prospect.

- Technical support - Interface, rebooting, and monitoring three independent computerized "alert" systems, specifically two telco and one cellular.

- Sales staff - Motivated salesmen needed to close banking deals on the sales floor in a high pressure environment. Must be able to persuade a buyer to part with their money in under 92 seconds, by current estimates (actual time may vary). Experience with MP5 and AR-15 "filings" a must. Jujitsu preferred.

- Drivers - Experienced drivers familiar with layout and traffic conditions in downtown L.A. during, say, 2:14pm-2:17pm on the second payroll Friday of the month before a long weekend. In May. Ability to drive while operating a scanner/Glock a must.

Send resumes/jackets to hannamissed@mccauley.com
posted by Pastabagel at 12:38 PM on May 12

Okay I just posted a job (just for Miko!).

... it's tech-ish though.

... and in the Netherlands.

Still! Come join us!
posted by Skyanth at 12:38 PM on May 12

Oh hey, I actually see a job I'd apply for. Too bad I don't have anything resembling a resume at the moment.
posted by jmd82 at 12:59 PM on May 12

I've often thought about posting openings from my company to Jobs, but I just can't bring myself to do it. I mean, I would love to provide gainful employment to a mefite out there, but I can't in good conscience suggest that someone come and work for me (I'm a jerk) or my business (it has some stupid policies that make people unhappy.)

Better no one else suffers the same fate as I.
posted by quin at 1:03 PM on May 12

Do people respond to the tech job ads, or no? If it's not doing anything for anybody, is it a useful part of the site?

Since there are no comments on the Jobs section, it's tough to gauge whether anything is working or not, but I get an occasional email (maybe one a month?) from people with great stories of finding jobs that saved them at the right time or from people employing other mefites saying they got such great applicants that they felt they already knew. I've long wondering how best to incorporate those back into the site as a feedback loop and considered maybe doing a testimonials section that applicants and employers could both post to and I'd approve the best ones on a page everyone could see (call them "success stories" or something like that).
posted by mathowie at 1:27 PM on May 12 [1 favorite]

quin, I'd be interested in knowing when you have an opening.
posted by drezdn at 1:35 PM on May 12

I think that would be a great idea and might encourage more postings. That's cool to hear.
posted by Miko at 1:35 PM on May 12

Yes, right now, it's a bit of a black hole, the jobs section. A little feedback would be nice!
posted by Mister_A at 1:52 PM on May 12

Do people respond to the tech job ads, or no?

Yes. I got a gig from Jobs awhile back. I have just scored two awesome mefites to help me out via Jobs, too. I also continually send people from my broader network to particular postings I think they might like, and I know two of them have been hired.
posted by DarlingBri at 1:57 PM on May 12

I've posted 3 good library jobs, no direct applicants that I know of, even with a really cool mention in the podcast including an assertion from Jessamyn that my library is full of awesome people. I'm in the middle of Kansas and assumed that was part of the problem, but I was kind of surprised to get nothing, given the dense population of librarians on Metafilter.
posted by donnagirl at 2:08 PM on May 12

Wait, so Jobs.Metafilter.com ISN'T A STEVE JOBS FAN SITE?
posted by blue_beetle at 2:43 PM on May 12

I posted a job there once, but got no applicants from MeFi. I wasn't surprised, because there are apparently only a very few MeFites in this area and, once you break that down to those who read the jobs site and consider that the job has a very narrow skill-set, I wasn't surprised. We just advertised three more of the same and I thought about putting it on jobs.mefi, but never got around to it.
posted by dg at 2:52 PM on May 12

I used to look at Jobs all the time, but I grew discouraged because almost every single job title has acronyms in it that I don't even recognize.
posted by [NOT HERMITOSIS-IST] at 3:00 PM on May 12

I used to look at Jobs all the time, but I grew discouraged because almost every single job title has acronyms in it that I don't even recognize.

That's kinda' how I feel about your username.
posted by jmd82 at 3:04 PM on May 12

More library and tobacco control/public health consulting opportunities, please! Poor poets need to make a living somehow.
posted by Riverine at 3:05 PM on May 12

Can we post jobs that we're not actually in charge of? Like, if I know of an opening right now in my industry, but not at my organizaiton (um, and I don't want it), can/should I post the link here?
posted by nax at 3:23 PM on May 12

Can we post jobs that we're not actually in charge of? Like, if I know of an opening right now in my industry, but not at my organizaiton (um, and I don't want it), can/should I post the link here?

I think that would be a great use of the jobs section. To keep the poster from being bombarded with questions about the position, it would probably be helpful to have some sort flag indicating that the poster was passing along info, rather than posting an opportunity within their organization.
posted by necessitas at 3:39 PM on May 12

Do people respond to the tech job ads, or no?

i recommended mefi jobs to a friend looking for a php dev a year back, and they eventually hired a great candidate from mefi when craigslist was turning up nothing. thus the anecdata suggests the system works!

i'm probably looking for a tech job in june* and i definitely find the jobs on communities I am a member of (like mefi or local user groups) to be a consistently higher quality ('interest'-wise and than those you'd find on craigslist, so I expect to be responding to some of those jobs (although, uh, maybe with a sockpuppet).

* you're hiring? are you my dream job?: bikeable office location in the bay area using the following: as3, python/django, php/zend framework, mysql or postgre, yui or jquery; with employees that use source control and do code review, and doing one (or preferably all) of the following: boutique design/dev, corp design/dev, web 2.0 portal/application, mapping, casual gaming.
posted by fishfucker at 3:40 PM on May 12

Heh. I tend to give Jobs a glance every now and then to see if there's some sort of one-off contract thing I can do from the distance, because the chances of a job being posted in my area are pretty low. I kind of think of Jobs as a more sophisticated and less money-grubbing Rent-A-Coder, I suppose, even if one with less traffic. Ah well :P
posted by Phire at 4:02 PM on May 12

Can we post jobs that we're not actually in charge of?

I don't see why not! Like I said, I pull a bunch of mine off listservs and discussion boards for museum stuff. As I see they it, they are publicizing the job ad - they want me to post and share it. So why not? I always assumed it was for posting jobs you know of as well as ones you're offering. I've taken care not to post every rather generic ad I get, but only the unusually good ones.

Think of all the aggregator websites out there, like Monster, that troll employment and classified pages to grab and replicate job ads. At least these might find a more targeted audience.
posted by Miko at 4:19 PM on May 12

I think it'd be cool if there were more jobs posted that weren't full jobs but just tasks that you'd like done by someone and were willing to pay for (which I realize is pretty much the definition of a job but hopefully my meaning is reasonably clear).

Metafilter seems to have lots of researchers, programmers and web developers - all jobs that can be done remotely - I think it'd be cool if there were jobs posted that people could do as extra income rather than as first jobs. I'd keep an eye out on there more if there were more of those kinds of short jobs.

It'd useful because you'd be able to decide on whether you wanted to employ someone based on their posting history - if your task was one that the person had shown themselves to be pretty knowledgeable on in previous postings (or if the person just seemed smart from their history) then you'd be more likely to decide they were the one for you.

I don't know how a move to using the site like that would really get started though as it'd suffer from a vicious circle of needing people to post tasks to attract people to look there for tasks and you'd need people to be doing tasks for people before anyone would post their tasks.

There'd also be some overlap with AskMe that would be tricky - would people be less likely to answer slightly tougher questions because they weren't getting paid for it? Or would people be more likely to in order to be more likely to get tasks?

I guess I'm probably imagining something like guru.com only attached to metafilter. I just think that the community part of Mefi would make for a better system than Guru.com - I know that I'd rather give some work to someone that I felt I had a bit of a connection to via their postings rather than an otherwise anonymous name on a job board.
posted by koshmar at 4:30 PM on May 12 [3 favorites]

I hope this brings more attention to jobs.mefi. I've got it in my RSS reader but there's only been one I've replied to and that person never acknowledged my email. But I still have hope!
posted by loiseau at 5:19 PM on May 12

Since there aren't enough success stories posted in this thread: I've posted to MeFi and had tons of GREAT responses, quickly (and repeatedly) hiring a bunch of talented MeFites for non-tech-type writing gigs. MeFi is now my go-to place when I need excellent, snarky, savvy people. So hang in there, there's hope for Jobs yet!
posted by nkknkk at 6:07 PM on May 12

i like koshmar's idea. that's kinda what i thought it would be when it first launched.
posted by misanthropicsarah at 6:30 PM on May 12

Twice in recent memory, I've seen people write to Ask with questions that were pretty much obviously jobs, but it hadn't occurred to them to post to the jobs area. Why is that?

One obvious reason, they were people who didn't know exactly how much they should pay and their question was more like "how much would a web developer charge to do X?". But they had a job for someone and they had money to pay them.
posted by AmbroseChapel at 7:01 PM on May 12

I've posted twice to jobs, with no success.

On the other hand, I've hired two people I've met through MeFi Meetups.

So karmically I think I'm doing OK.
posted by mkultra at 7:11 PM on May 12

Can we post jobs that we're not actually in charge of?

That seems weird to me. If the motivation is just "hey, there's a job available for some sort of person somewhere," the list could get mighty long mighty fast.
posted by The corpse in the library at 7:46 PM on May 12

nkknkk said "Since there aren't enough success stories posted in this thread: I've posted to MeFi and had tons of GREAT responses, quickly (and repeatedly) hiring a bunch of talented MeFites for non-tech-type writing gigs. MeFi is now my go-to place when I need excellent, snarky, savvy people. So hang in there, there's hope for Jobs yet!"

Hey! It was you who didn't reply to me when I applied!

I'm always looking, if you find yourself in need again.
posted by loiseau at 8:10 PM on May 12

That seems weird to me.

It would be if you were just pulling job listings out of the paper just to have something to post. But if you are finding job announcements as part of your daily working life, selecting the best or most interesting jobs that get advertised in your field, know something about the type of work, company hiring, working conditions, etc, and still think it's a good opportunity for some kind of MeFite...then I think that's perfectly appropriate.

MeFites are already pretty good at employing the mental editorial function from making FPPs and even comments. I'm sure that even if people posted twice or three times the number of jobs, that function would still be used.
posted by Miko at 8:13 PM on May 12

Matchmaker, matchmaker, please, somebody post a job for me!

Seriously, I need a real job.
posted by orthogonality at 4:29 AM on May 13

Could this go both ways? Could Mefites also post "Gigs Wanted"? List their availability, skills, experience, etc.

Just a thought.
posted by jeanmari at 6:10 AM on May 13

I've posted a number of jobs with very little response, although I recognize that the geography/specialization of the roles I've posted may not be a great match for the MeFi demographic overall.

As I participate more in the site, I've also become a little uncomfortable linking my professional life so closely to my other activity here. However, I've just posted a new job... I don't know if there are any preclinical research managers on MeFi, but I'd be happy to get referrals!
posted by sevenyearlurk at 6:49 AM on May 13

Like koshmar, I am all for the task/assignment-oriented job postings.
posted by Mister_A at 6:58 AM on May 13

jeanmari, that would be a nice feature too! I share sevenyearlurk's concern about linking professional life with this site; I would probably post jobs via sockpuppet.
posted by Mister_A at 7:07 AM on May 13

loiseau, I'm so sorry! I tried to at least reply to everyone but I got a ton of responses (I guess there's an indication that gig-type jobs are in demand) even after I'd filled the positions, and I must have missed you. My apologies!
posted by nkknkk at 7:26 AM on May 13

I posted a request for wedding musician and got some very strange, spam-like responses from non-mefites who had a lot of difficulty with english. You know, fwiw.
posted by odinsdream at 8:53 AM on May 13

Agreed. And personally I'd love seeing some ESL jobs listed, a lot of people here have solid contacts in that area of education.

It had never occurred to me to post jobs I wasn't actually hiring for, but just had the inside track on. I do know of a current ESL job and just posted it *fingers crossed*. Anyone want to move to Mexico?
posted by mosessis at 9:02 AM on May 13

We've got a network - let's use it! May 12, 2008 10:02 AM Subscribe

We've got a network - let's use it!
May 12, 2008 10:02 AM Subscribe