Thanks, MeFi Jobs! September 30, 2013 7:51 PM   Subscribe

There's been a lot of contention on MetaFilter lately (and MetaTalk, too), so I want to take a moment to thank Matt H. and the mods and The Programmer and all of the MetaFilter community because you guys got me my newest employee. I can't be alone in this, and I would love to hear from other people who have found the site of value to them professionally.

I needed to hire someone and there were no good local candidates. I posted on MeFi Jobs, and got a response from a MeFite quite quickly. Today was his first day, and he's awesome.

Hurray for new jobs! Hurray for MetaFilter! Hurray! Hurray!

Whew. Too much merriment. I gotta go lie down now.
posted by wenestvedt to MetaFilter-Related at 7:51 PM (25 comments total) 14 users marked this as a favorite

oooh, cool, I just noticed for the first time that there's also a gigseekers section on Jobs. Is that new?
posted by threeants at 7:59 PM on September 30, 2013


Gigseekers has been around for a pretty long while. wenestvedt, is your MeFite employee a local person or did you hire a telelcommuter? Happy to hear that worked out for you. I have had good luck getting people to do some little gigs for me and I have done some little gigs for people.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 8:49 PM on September 30, 2013


I just did my first little gig today and it went great! I'll talk about it on the next podcast.
posted by mathowie (staff) at 9:02 PM on September 30, 2013 [1 favorite]


I don't see the gigseeker thing. What should I be looking at?
posted by Joe in Australia at 1:28 AM on October 1, 2013


Joe: If you click on New Post in Jobs it gives you the option to Post a Job or Post Your Availability.
posted by carsonb at 5:09 AM on October 1, 2013


This is going to make for an exceedingly awkward "Dear Ask Metafilter, I hate my boss..."
posted by Lemurrhea at 5:13 AM on October 1, 2013 [6 favorites]


Amazingly, no. Plenty of waaay over-qualified people, though: two different folks described their current role and I had to say, "Actually, that's my job right now." :7( But I found someone at last, and he seems to be fitting in very well. (.edu IT isn't for everyone, nor is our speciality, so this looks like a great match.)

I can't wait to tell the next slavering recruiter who calls that it cost me five bucks to source my most recent hire. Can they match that? I didn't think so.
posted by wenestvedt at 5:34 AM on October 1, 2013 [3 favorites]


Entry level candidates willing to accept .edu wages are kinda rare - and squabbled over by G-Tech, Citizen's, Cox, CVS, Amica, the Navy labs and a number of other big IT shops in the area. My company has a sweetheart deal with CCRI and the Air National Guard, and even then, those hires are being poached pretty regularly. Boston, Hartford and New York are very close by as well, and hoover up all available IT talent.

So, you have the mid-career guys who don't want to move out of state, and, well, that's it. Even those guys usually can find a gig.
posted by Slap*Happy at 7:48 AM on October 1, 2013 [1 favorite]


Metafilter: For when everyone else is just too qualified.
posted by Think_Long at 7:51 AM on October 1, 2013 [7 favorites]


Thanks to this site I am an Award-Winning Canadian Science Fiction Flash Fiction Author.
posted by The Whelk at 8:12 AM on October 1, 2013


Is flash (or more accurately, ſlash) historical slash, a Simcoe/Armand sort of thing?
posted by scruss at 8:40 AM on October 1, 2013


I think George Macdonald Fraser was the guy who wrote historical Flash fiction.
posted by zamboni at 8:58 AM on October 1, 2013 [3 favorites]


Flash slash fiction would be like that Wilde /Whitman piston i made.
posted by The Whelk at 9:32 AM on October 1, 2013


Metafilter got me to start LinksToTheDamnPaper.org from the spate of science posts that were getting to detailed to really be metafilter posts, and it is now something I can totally put on my CV.

Hell, just a couple of days ago a mefite said hi with a professional question about phage knowing that I study them, and described a question about a weird hyperspecific intersection between two fields that I happen to be one of the three or four people in the world most qualified to answer - being one of the only people anywhere actually doing work on it. I ended up then having a very productive talk with their boss who was suddenly very interested to talk to me, and it all went pretty awesomely. Also last month a graduate economics mefite who happens to both live in Belgium and be interested in doing a commercial project with phage found me on here and we had a sort of miniature meetup where I was able to hook him up with more scientific context for what he is doing as well as more people who can help him do it.
posted by Blasdelb at 9:41 AM on October 1, 2013 [5 favorites]


Not really a job-related thing, but I'm happy that I've been able to help dozens of MeFites with "end of life" and funeral issues. Mostly for parents, but sometimes for spouses and kids. I have a very limited skill-set, but when I can use it to help friends, it really gives me a warm feeling.
posted by ColdChef at 10:16 AM on October 1, 2013 [14 favorites]


ColdChef, reading your posts has consistently made me think more about EoL with regard to the people you advise here, but also WRT my own loved ones. And for that I always think of you with warm regard.
posted by wenestvedt at 10:18 AM on October 1, 2013 [5 favorites]


Speaking of jobs, the wiki has a list of mefites that are available to give career advice, support and help with resume/CV review.
posted by arcticseal at 11:59 AM on October 1, 2013 [2 favorites]


Vaguely related to Blasdelb's comment, Mefi inspired me to actually read a damn paper the other day and while it wasn't directly useful for me professionally, it's been far too long since I read a damn paper, so it was definitely good for my professional health.
posted by maryr at 2:32 PM on October 1, 2013 [2 favorites]


Well, scrump hired me back in 2006. I'm still there. And, full circle, angling to hire scrump back.
posted by tangerine at 3:58 PM on October 1, 2013 [1 favorite]


i came to snark but jwu are the best, far above brown and risd....i have one of their lovely green tshirts in the house.
posted by sgt.serenity at 10:38 AM on October 2, 2013 [1 favorite]


"I would love to hear from other people who have found the site of value to them professionally."

I had never checked the Jobs section more than the one time I clicked it to see what it was about, but one day I got a MeMail from a user who had posted a job. She apparently heard back from two other users who each said, "The guy you want for that job is komara" and of course I found that incredibly flattering.

I did the work, the result was what she wanted. I didn't [ask to / expect to] get paid, but I got something more valuable: a new friend.
posted by komara at 11:49 AM on October 2, 2013 [1 favorite]


I found a MeFite to make me some merit badges for all the people who helped me pack and move house last summer. jvilter did an exceptional job.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 12:31 PM on October 2, 2013 [2 favorites]


Oh, man, I was going to say:

"I remember those badges! That's when I found out that the Odd Fellows were more widespread than I understood."

but then I scrolled down in your 'exceptional job' link and realized we actually had a conversation about it there on MLKSHK so ... uh ...

that thing we said already.
posted by komara at 12:36 PM on October 2, 2013 [1 favorite]


I skimmed the news about the English language version of Cookpad on Just Hungry when it popped up in my feed reader, and thought "Wow, I'll have to check that out." Then shortly afterwards, when I saw the corresponding Metafilter thread, the part about how the recipes were translated by humans made me think "Hmm... 1.5 million recipes... no machine translation... they probably need translators who know a lot about Japanese food..."

I started translating and reviewing translated recipes today! Thanks MetaFilter!
posted by shirobara at 5:42 PM on October 2, 2013


wenestvedt: " I can't be alone in this, and I would love to hear from other people who have found the site of value to them professionally. "

I got lots of great advice and (even more importantly) encouragement on chat during my job search. I start my new job on Monday.
posted by double block and bleed at 1:36 PM on October 3, 2013 [2 favorites]


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