President's Message by Don Rima

Well, KB and I just finished the final walkthrough of the conference facilities for the JAM 2005 iSeries technical conference on Friday. This is going to be a good conference. We've still got room left for late folks to get their registrations in, so checkout the WAM JAM agenda on the web at http://www.wash-midrange.org/cgi/jam.pl I suggest registering like they vote in Chicago, early and often.

I ran into someone interesting at this past COMMON in Orlando last September. For a while now we've all been lamenting the market status and persona of our favorite systems. The best around. Those running OS/400 (or i5/OS for you newcomers). Well, we in iSeries have a new General Manager, Mark Shearer. Now, to be sure, this isn't the first midrange product line GM that I've met, and with a little luck won't be the last, but there's something new about this guy that I like. He's a real down to earth, direct, people person.

You know how when you watch video of the US President working a crowd he has a phalanx of Secret Service Security around him. Well, a lot of the previous GM's for iSeries have also come with their own entourage of IBM'ers to help control the flow, run interference with the crowd, keep the users away from the boss, or so it would have appeared. Frankly, some of the people used by previous GM's made quiet an impression on the rest of us.

This guy didn't have all that baggage, or at least he didn't bring it with him to COMMON. He asked questions as well as answered them and he listened. He could be very direct in his reply while standing his ground, but you got the feeling that this was a guy that felt like he belonged in the trenches with the rest of us. It was really refreshing to watch this guy work the crowd not only at the expo, but in the halls and sessions. He actually did it without a crowd of people running interference for him. He was approachable and he'd approach you as well and he listened. Most of the time, he was doing it by himself. He was taking heat from the users as well as hearing the good stuff, but he was a normal Joe. This guy wanted to hear your ideas as well as your successes and problems. And, most of all, this guy wanted you to succeed.

Add to this that we're finally seeing things like iSeries adverts on prime time TV during things like football games, gives me added comfort in what this guy's doing. Maybe, just maybe, the word will finally get out about i5/iSeries.

Frankly, I think that if anyone can turn around the negativity we've all been inundated with of late, Mark Shearer may be that man. And no I'm not drinking the Big Blue Kool-Aid, but I'm willing to give this guy his shot at it.

One of the items that came up at COMMON during one of the CIO sessions was the lack of available entry level RPG programmers for iSeries, as well as other levels of talent. Well, as long as universities and community colleges continue to ignore this platform in their curriculum, that trend won't change (Mark, you've got your work cut out for you there!). But this also had Insider Weekly Editor, Heather Ellwood, and I curious. Both of us know that there's a lot of iSeries talent out there in the workplace that's looking for work and just not finding any. Some folks are actually changing career paths because of this. Frankly, for many other folks, just finding the jobs that are available has been a formidable and unsuccessful task. I know that we here in WAM (and other User Groups) get calls from folks that have been looking and I know Heather has also fielded calls from out of work iSeries folks. So, why is the task so hard and just where are all these jobs the we're being told are out there?

Well, I decided to take a page from Leonard Nimoy's playbook and go "in search of..." iSeries jobs. And with a little help from some of the folks on the midrange-l list (www.midrange.com), I think I may have been successful.

Now, I'm a regular reader of the local help wanted ads. It helps to give me an overall feel for how things are going in my region. And, I've wandered through some of the online job search engines, but I've not found that huge one place where everything can be found. Frankly, the one place venue idea just doesn't exist. With the availability of the internet and job search sites popping up like toasters, I found that if one is looking for a job around here, they're going to be looking in a lot more than the help wanteds in the Post.

Now, keep in mind that even though you put in "AS/400", you don't always get technical positions returned from your search. Lots of times companies request expertise in AS/400 for accounting, manufacturing and other line and management jobs that aren't IT related. So, just keep that in mind during your weeding out of jobs. And when I say a site returned 50 jobs, that means ALL jobs... not just IT technical ones.

So, here's my findings to date with some gratis commentary. I suggest you bookmark the copy of this newsletter in the WAM archives as when I'm made aware of new sites, I'll try to periodically PTF this newsletter with additional sites and info. So, here we go:

1. The most obvious are your local want ads in the newspaper. But don't expect to find everything there. It just won't be there.
2. www.careerpath.com Generally, this is a compilation of the want ads in not only your local paper but many others across the US. It has a decent front end search engine. But like many engines it has its quirks. Make sure you select correctly desired ANY or ALL when it comes to search arguments. Also, if you put in "AS/400" as a search argument, the search engine will return everything with a "400". It would appear to parse the "AS" and "400" into 2 different lookup arguments.
3. www.hotjobs.com Run by Yahoo, this site is very popular and has a good list of openings.
4. www.craigslist.com This site is a rather eclectic almost "anything wanted" type of site. It got a lot of press during Katrina as it quickly setup a few pages to help lost families find each other. It's offerings for jobs aren't as extensive as others on this list, but it's not a site to be ignored. By the way, with CL, make sure you select the metro area you want to be working with BEFORE selecting what you're searching for. It's just how it's designed.
5. www.dice.com One of the more established job search sites. A lot of contractors tell me they have luck finding gigs from this site.
6. www.monster.com Another of the older and well established job sites.
7. www.net-temps.com This was one of many new sites to me in my search. I didn't find a lot of iSeries jobs there, but there were some.
8. www.computerjobs.com Another new one to me, but it had about 120 job openings.
9. www.jobcircle.com These folks had about 50 jobs.
10. www.vault.com These folks had a small handful of job openings.
11. newsgroups: alt.jobs.as400 Google Groups archives
12. www.cybercoders.com Another page with a small handful of job openings.
13. midrange-jobs list at www.midrange.com/lists.htm This is a list server that send out posted job announcements periodically. Good to be on, but don't expect a lot of traffic from it. Perhaps something you should look at posting to when covering all your bases.
14. www.iseriesnetwork.com has a iSeries Jobs forum where, similar to midrange-jobs, job openings can be posted for those looking.
15. www.as400search.com - This is a site that is a recruiting firm that touts they specialize in AS/400 jobs. I've not had any dealing with this firm and this is not an endorsement.
16. www.as400.computerjobs.com - This is also an agency with a AS/400 emphasis.
17. www.justas400jobs.com - Just like it says, this is a site for AS/400 jobs. I would also presume that means i5 and iSeries as well.
18. www.phnxres.com/as400.asp - The Phoenix Resources Groups (recruiters) AS/400 job web page.

I'm not doing this to provide contention and political problems in anyone's IT shoppe. I'm doing this because people and companies are looking and not finding. And that's not good for business for any of us.

Thanks,

Don Rima, President
WAM