Playing the job search game

I want a new job. And I want one that doesn’t suck. So doing the regular browse-the-job-boards-and-ring-recruiters dance didn’t appeal.

Instead, I sent this letter (lightly personalised) to a small number of the less sucky recruiters I know:

Dear [Recruiter],

I’d like to ask for your help in my search for the “perfect” development job.

As you can see from my resume at http://www.mojain.com/michael/resume, I’m currently employed as a Java developer (on a rolling contract), but am I looking for something better.

By better, I mean some fairly specific things:

I will be working at a product company. That is, a company that produces software as (one of) its primary activities. I am not interested in jobs in corporate IT shops or consulting companies.

I will be working with other enthusiastic developers who have a similar attention to detail and a commitment to doing things the right way. The organisation’s management will realise that a tightly constrained development environment is not usually the way to get the best out of skilled developers. And they’ll care about doing things the right way too.

I would prefer to work on back-end, infrastructure or framework software, but I have experience in front end web development too.

My perfect job would offer flexible work arrangements, ideally including the option of working at home at least some of the time. I’m not interested in a company that thinks the most important thing is that I’m sitting at a desk looking busy during “office hours”.

I know I haven’t said much about myself and what I offer here. I want to narrow down my search to jobs I’d actually consider taking before wasting everyone’s time talking about myself.

Thanks for listening, and I look forward to working with you on my search!

I’ll let you know what happens next… :)