JOBSEARCH: JL Kirk down the chute

Saturday, April 14, 2007

http://www.making-ripples.com/2007/04/clueless_law_fi.html

04/12/2007
Clueless law firm takes client JL Kirk down the chute

***Begin Quote***

JL Kirk is the kind of executive recruiting firm I would warn readers to avoid at any costs. Their operating procedure is to interview you and charge you thousands of dollars and help you write a resume and then hopefully place you. You pay first and then hope that they place you. Wow! Isn’t that a great business model?

***End Quote***

The reported 4.5k$ demanded for “placement assistance” is a joke. You probably could “buy” the best resume writer’s first born child at those prices. Heck, big old turkeys are available at one tenth the price. Hard to believe that after not making the “sale”, the bozos got lawyers involved.

My bet is that this will be like gasoline on a wildfire across the net.

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Posted by reinkefj

JOBSEARCH: Then write a book

Saturday, April 14, 2007

http://www.lewrockwell.com/north/north524.html

Misunderstanding Higher Education
by Gary North

***Begin Quote***

WRITE YOUR WAY IN

If you are not good enough to write your way into your calling, then you need to read more. Then you need to write more.

Start a blog. It’s free. Start here.

You can create a website after you have mastered blogging.

Begin with posting book reviews. Then, after a hundred or two hundred published book reviews, start writing annotated bibliographies.

Once you have put a large number of reviews on-line, start specializing in one topic. Create another blog site. Keep up to date with whatever is going on inside this field. Do handy summaries of the latest publications.

Save readers time. People want to save time. They want others to do their leg work for them. Word will get out if you’re any good.

Then write a book. It need not be creative. It can merely introduce newcomers to a field. Post it on your blog site for free in PDF format.

Make copies available in printed format by using Print on Demand technology. If you can get sales, a third-party publisher may pick it up.

The book becomes a calling card in your career plan.

Then write another. Write enough books in a field, and you will establish your reputation. Even self-published books are impressive to a prospective employer.

Add CD-ROMs, screencasts on YouTube, and DVDs.

This was how I made my reputation. I started writing for The Freeman magazine and a dozen other magazines to put myself through graduate school. My Freeman articles got me my first full-time job: at the Foundation for Economic Education, which published The Freeman.

My Ph.D. degree got me nothing. I never had a single job offer based on my degree. I even wrote my way into the one full-time academic job I ever had. It was in a different field from my degree.

***End Quote***

Here’s a road map that really makes sense. I’d recommend the strategy to all the complacent “paycheck drawers” out there. Use your “breathing room” to “become” a recognized expert. It can’t hurt.

As a side note: I still remember the one fellow who interviewed with me for a job and left me a copy of his book on the topic we were looking for help with. He didn’t take our offer; he took a much higher one. I have never forgotten the impact of that tactic. I’m planning to use it next time I am out. I hope to have 4 choices by the time the axe falls. AND, it always does.

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Posted by reinkefj

RANT:Taxation is really “voluntary”? Yeah right!

Saturday, April 14, 2007

http://www.lewrockwell.com/rothbard/rothbard148.html

 

Tax Day
by Murray N. Rothbard

This unsigned editorial, written by Murray N. Rothbard, appeared in the April 15, 1969 issue of The Libertarian (soon to become The Libertarian Forum).

*** begin quote ***

April 15, that dread Income Tax day, is around again, and gives us a chance to ruminate on the nature of taxes and of the government itself.

The first great lesson to learn about taxation is that taxation is simply robbery. No more and no less. For what is “robbery”? Robbery is the taking of a man’s property by the use of violence or the threat thereof, and therefore without the victim’s consent. And yet what else is taxation?

Those who claim that taxation is, in some mystical sense, really “voluntary” should then have no qualms about getting rid of that vital feature of the law which says that failure to pay one’s taxes is criminal and subject to appropriate penalty.

*** end quote ***

It’s humorous that the gang in the District of Corruption slide the due date to the 17th. Couldn’t have taxes due on Emancipation Day! Might as well as have it on Independence Day! Or, how about Election Day!! No secret why it’s 6 months away from election day. So people will forget. And, they do.

I’m crazed!

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Posted by reinkefj

RANT: Gooferment seems to get special status

Saturday, April 14, 2007

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page

WRITEN FROM POV OF THE STATIST SOCIALIST MEDIA

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Islamist insurgents and Somali clan militias in Mogadishu clash with government forces, Ethiopian troops and African Union peacekeepers as casualties continue to mount months after the defeat of the Islamic Courts Union.

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What is the “government” but yet another gang of thugs claiming the mantle of “authority” to rule over others? Who made them the anointed? The UN! Please don’t make me laugh. Another gang of bad folks claiming to be out betters.

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Posted by reinkefj

TECH SERVICE: An unnamed service has a bug

Saturday, April 14, 2007

FROM AN EXCHANGE OF EMAILS WITH A DEVELOPER

***Begin Quote***

From: A DEVELOPER
Sent: Thursday, April 12, 2007 10:49 PM
To: r @ reinke
Subject: RE: Where did my name go?

Try clearing your cache and cookies and then restarting your browser (I see “reinke” within the green badge and after “Profile:..”.

If that doesn’t work, please reply back.

*** and ***

vs: Still the same. Wanna try sacrificing some chickens next? ;-) Like I hadn’t tried that or seen at a different computer. Why does every PC support person insist on a cold reboot? BTW, since last night was my night to do “microsoft maintenance”, I was forced to do a cold restart. So, perhaps there’s some crud in a table somewhere on your side of the wire?

***End Quote***

If I have learned one thing in testing software (which I think is “fun”), it is don’t annoy users with obvious stuff that has no hope of solving the problem. Or, at least ask it, or propose it in a way that is “softer”. Remember I am unpaid help, or worse I’ve paid for this mistake. At least with “free software”, you haven’t paid to debug someone else’s code.

It’s like that nameless isp that always wants you to power cycle your setup when it’s obvious to the world that they have a dns problem.

About the only thing worse is having paid no support at all. Buying a product and getting no support like IBM, Nuance, Microsoft, and that ilk! (There’s special circle in hell for them.)

Sometimes it would be better to have no support than long phone queues, “dumb” people (Yeah, I know they are working from scripts!), or autobots that just fire back meaningless canned answers.

At least with the new web20s services, you can usually get to SOMEONE.

Argh!

The next round of email I included a screen shot where I MSPAINTed three big orange circles about the problem. (I’m getting pretty handy with that tactic!) That exchange ended with “we have a bug”! Yeah, DUH, you do! I think I said that. Double Argh.

I deliberately didn’t name the SERVICE since they are trying. Let’s give them some time to work before we award them a negative review. Fair is fair.

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Posted by reinkefj

JOBSEARCH: find your digital dirt first

Saturday, April 14, 2007

FROM AN EMAIL EXCHANGE WITH A FELLOW ALUM

*** begin quote ***

>I googled my name and your website came up.

It’s always a good idea to google yourself to find the “digital dirt” that’s out there. I counsel out of work execs to do it and get out in front anything there. Even if it’s not “you”, it has to be addressed.

*** end quote ***

I even have search strings saved that post to special mail accounts that watch for the use of “my name”. How paranoid is that?

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Posted by reinkefj