UK vacancy: Senior Embedded Software Engineer; STB, RTOS etc

snipped-for-privacy@dwightcav.com,

If I had a £ for every agent that spammed me....

From my experience, agents that use this type of technique are the ones to avoid. Generally they are the ones that send you untargeted CV's by the bucketload, send your CV to people you don't want it to go to, generally waste your time.

Believe it or not, there are some agents out there that take time to understand your requirements, select candidates carefully, and actually earn their fee.

In article , Ostereich writes

Dear Osterich

We have found your CV interesting. You mention have experience of General's, agents and targets. Would you being tested in a vacancy we have coming up at the White House (USA). :-)

Few and far between.

You obviously didn't read it.

It's a direct requirement

There's no connection between listening to the wants of the candidate and earning their fee. The candidate isn't paying them anything

tim

Thank you for pasting our office manager's email address into your Usenet posting Ostereich. I assume our spam filtering software will mean she won't see the results, but thanks for the thought.

A visit to our website will clarify that this is a genuine vacancy in a real UK company. A search of Usenet or the internet archive or even the patent office will show that our company has a 30 year history in video R&D - hardly a front for a job agency or a spammer!

Apologies if a job advert is considered spam in this group (or related ones) - I could find no specific mention of this.

We look forward to hearing from suitable candidates.

Cheers, David.

That has been bad, really.

Maybe next time, write a bit more about the vacancy, not just a link. Esp. today with all these phishing, a Visit

IHMO, direct job adverts aren't spamming, this has been habit since I'm reading newsgroups (for 10 years now).

As I said above, writing a bit more about the company and the vacancy is better.

Pity then that it is such a poor quality advert. Full of what *you* want but very little about what you offer in return. You need to remember that to recruit the best candidates you really need to sell yourselves.

Ian

I hope you're joking, Ian, because there's nothing wrong with anything this guy has done and there's nothing wrong with his ad.

Jeez... you guys. Breathe... one two three... out... one two three and relax.

Paul.

No I am definitely not joking. I spent over 20 years successfully recruiting high calibre engineers and IME this type of advert just does not cut it. There is absolutely nothing in it to differentiate this company from any other employer in the eyes of the prospective candidate. You may get away with that in a buyers market but when engineers are scarce they will have a lot of trouble attracting good candidates. Good engineers are a valuable resource so it is poor business management not pay proper attention to the means of attracting and retaining them.

Ian

Both arguments are valid.

When I first looked at it, it looked just like one of hundreds of adverts that seem to come from every agency on the planet, advertising the same 3 jobs at Pace in Bradford (Saltaire is a dump of a place in the arse end of beyond, poor salary, rubbish professional advancement and high staff turnover). I guess their employees are being targeted here.

There is an excess of vagueness and rather generic specifications in the Personal Attributes section. (e.g. " Ability to work to deadlines") and they seem to want a senior engineer with a lots of experience but someone who wants to build a career? (nothing unusual there, everyone wants something for nothing - senior engineers' careers should be pretty much built already) and to DCS's credit, there is more information than the usual job ad. However...

(quote from ad)

Sorry guys, this is probably *the* most important part. Attractive may be £16k or £160k depending on who you are. I know places who think 1 day over the legal minimum hoiday is "attractive" whereas many high level engineers may think anything under 30 days is decidedly unattractive.

If it really *is* attractive then you should say what it is, that way you will get the best people applying for the job. Putting "negotiable" is no better, and expect no sympathy if you say "well it all depends on the individual". If you were selling your house, you wouldn't put describe it as "Three bed semi, really good specification, attractive price" would you? If you really are trying to attract highly experienced and skilled people here (and not just someone who is "ok") possibly from the other end of the country, who would probably be heading for a family upheaval, moving house, change of lifestyle and a lot of stress then they need to know what is in it for them.

It's especially important to be aware that you are recruiting Engineers here, people who like good clear specifications, and to whom vague specifications are anathema. Your own job spec says "Ability to produce clear, concise documentation". Words like "attractive" may be concise, but are far from clear and convey no information whatsoever.

"Attractive" Mike

(Being a pro-active self-starter with a higher Degree, presenting a clear and concise work of reasoned argument within a critical document for internal and external consumption at all levels)