Anyone seen a Dodo?

[Steven Broadbent]

Anyone seen/heard of an interview for a real java job in London/SE recently?
For someone who dosen't have 5 years+ EJB...

[Steven Broadbent]

I guess that's a no then.....

[Christopher Brooks]

No, but I saw a dodo at the natural history museum the other day. If you have any luck let me know, I understand that the Thames Valley and the City are the best places to search.

[Steven Broadbent]

I got a call from an agent this morning about a London job. He was from a small agency that I hadn't heard of before.

[Tim Baker]

Last year I had an interview near the tower of london, I've also had intervies in Bracknell and somewhere near Reading so they do exist :/
Of course I didn't get any of them but I presume someone did

[Steven Broadbent]

They are a bit like the Surrey panther...we are pretty sure they are out there somewhere....

[John Summers]

MMmm.
I got emailed the other day by Michael Page agency about a J2EE job in London. 4 yrs> exp paying 40-50k.
Prior to me getting this job, I basically had a one year MSc conversion and 7 months experience, not even in J2EE but CORBA. I managed to get 3 interviews in London from about 6 weeks of looking. They were with Accenture, British Library and a small independent software house. They were in order: j2ee, j2ee/.net, java/jms technologies. I didnt actually get offered any of them but at least i got the interviews.
So, I don't think the job market can be THAT bad really, can it? At the same time I was using 4ish websites daily: planetrecruit, gojobsite, cwjobs, jobserve and was seeing mabye a dozen jobs a DAY that i could have applied to if i'd had 2 years j2ee.
Are you using job sites? They are the key really. No recruiter bothers with newspaper ads anymore. Registering with agencies is pointless unless you are a candidate with a lot of experience, otherwise they just forget you. And if they do get a job the first thing they do is put it on a jobsite.
good luck,
john

[Tim Baker]

I find the opposite. I very rarely hear about a job I applied for through the internet. Much more likely to hear about jobs you apply for through the jobcentre or ads in the Guartian Thursday or Computer Weekly.

[Steven Broadbent]

I have circa two years in J2EE - but coding for Silver stream app server - everything I did was oracle queries to XML - xml manip with sax/dom then out to html via xsl - no EJB as such. Maybe I should pitch for J2ee jobs generally, but seems most ads specify EJB.

[Frank Carver]

My tip is to get your CV out on as many job sites as possible. Even though I'm only available part time at the moment, I currently get a call every week or so from some recruiter with a job in the UK somewhere, mostly in and around London.

[John Summers]

Tim (no offence but!) I totally, utterly disagree. I cannot believe you see more jobs in the Guardian or the job centre than online. My god that's unbelievable! Can you honestly imagine a software firm putting an add in the Jobcentre? crazy. In my local jobcentre in newcastle i saw 2, yes TWO IT jobs in nine months. The guardian has very few IT jobs in it. most are low paid public sector ones.
seriously. try planetrecruit and gojobsite. they are the best ones. Monster is crap.
Stepehen. I am puzzled at your lack of success with 2 years j2ee. I think you are a victim of Recruitment Agency Monkeys. I.e. clueless people who 'filter' out a pile of CVs purely looking for keywords. If they have a person specification saying something like "2 years j2ee: ejb, servlet, websphere" then they will simply look through the cvs searching for those words. Hence some really really awful coder who happens to have done a few months ejb or servlet will get the interview, not you, because they had those things on their cv.
My advice? Get all teh keywords down on your CV. WRITE "J2EE" in huge letters. you would not believe how many recruitmet consultants i have spoken to who dont understand that "servlet, websphere" for example, is j2ee. Get all the keywords down on their. XML processing stuff is important but in my opinion is only gonna get you an interview for a pure java-xml job. Sure, mention it, but try and steer your experience away from sounding like mainly XML processing and really, really 'bring out the most' of the general J2EE stuff.
Oh, also buy "HeadFirst EJB" by Bert Bates and Kathy Sierra. Start studying really hard for EJB then start applying for EJB jobs. Just put on your CV that you had 'some involvement' with EJB and leave it vague.
john

[Bela Bardak]

Originally posted by Tim Baker:
I find the opposite. I very rarely hear about a job I applied for through the internet. Much more likely to hear about jobs you apply for through the jobcentre or ads in the Guartian Thursday or Computer Weekly.

Tim, you are probably not being proactive enough. Back when I was looking I'd respond to perhaps 6 to 12 ads a day and follow every one up with a phone call the next day. Half the time I'd have to resend, probably because the recruiter was deleting a bunch of responses without looking at them.
Waiting to hear isn't good strategy right now. When you call they almost have to pull your CV up on screen. And that raises your chances of getting submitted a helluva lot.

[Bela Bardak]

In response to the original question, yes they do exist. I landed a job in the City last summer with 3 years Java and 1-2 years J2EE. A helluva lot of other experience as well, but that isn't invariably a plus in my experience. Old fart syndrome.