Rory Cullen, Kaizen Software Developer

This is the second post inspired by a networking training I attended last week.  An attendee pulled the instructor aside pre-class and said that she hated networking, and was only in attendance due to her career consultant’s insistence.  It was a classic:  “I hate you, you hate me, stay out of my face.”  I found this immediately gripping and engaging.  Who isn’t interested in watching someone take on one of her greatest fears? (see reality tv…Fear Factor, Biggest Loser, etc.)

As the session moved along, the instructor asked this attendee if she was using LinkedIn.  She said she was not.  Why not?  She had reason to believe that a former co-worker was using it for gossip.  She mentioned this as if it made sense.  I don’t know where to start here, except to say that this is CRAZY!  Unless you are retired, a fetus, or otherwise not in the job pool, you should be on LinkedIn.  In fact, I would argue that retirees should also be out there “just in case” they wish to get back into part-time work, not unheard of these days as retirement account balances plummet.  Nearly everyone I know signed up for LinkedIn very soon after being laid off, if not before.  I encourage everyone I know to get out there regardless, job seeking or not, and to continually expand their networks!  I have been out there for a while, since pre-layoff, and it has certainly helped me in my search.  More importantly, it will help me in my next search.

Back to this person in my training session:  I am a big believer in “live and let live.”  How you chose to live is none of my business if it doesn’t impact me personally.  However, even I could not hold my tongue on this one.  I believe I let slip, “I’d rather be gossiped about, than be unemployed for the next two years.”  I felt bad for pointing out what should be obvious, but this was really necessary.  Clearly, her career consultant has been unable to effectively communicate the dire job market of today.  She needs to understand that we are all doing things that are not in our comfort zone.  During break, I did speak with her about personal privacy, and this reminded me that I wanted to comment about my own privacy concerns.

I am an incredibly private person.  My former co-workers likely know little about my personal life.  They may not know what town I live in, nor where I went to school, etc.  They certainly don’t know details about my medical history, relationships, or basically anything that is considered my beeswax.  I generally like to keep my personal life personal, so I can relate to this person’s concerns over privacy.  As you can imagine, writing a very public blog about a sensitive topic (job loss, and job search), is not always easy for me.  I also have my resume online, my LinkedIn profile entirely public, and generally my life wide open across many sites.  It’s weird to be so open about my needs, and it’s hard to ask for help.  And yes, it is possible that someone will read this and gossip about it.  In fact, I’m counting on that.  Gossip away, tell your friends, tell your cats.  Just remember to forward them my resume, ok?  If it gets me closer to landing the perfect job, then gossip as much as you want.

On the practical side, privacy settings exist for a reason in most social media sites.  I set them appropriately, and so should you.  If you don’t want to be open to the world, you don’t have to be.  Be smart about it, protect your contact information when you can.  But don’t hide from the world, this is not going to help you land a job.

Hey, Joe Rogan, I signed up on LinkedIn, did I win the $50k?  Fear was not a factor…

That’s right, crime is up, and I’m trying to do my part.  In fact, I think I am running an Internet scam right now!  That’s right, I need you to help me get my millions of dollars out of Massachusetts.  All you need to do is pay a small bribe to the government to release the money to your account, and I will reimburse you from my father’s funds ten times over.  Oh, did I mention my father is the King of Massachusetts?  Feel free to post your bank info in the comments and we’ll be in touch.  I look forward to hearing from you.

Ok, I’m not actually running a scam, but I may be an accomplice to illegal activity.  Of course, I would not be breaking the law by working for free, but a company who hires me just might be.  I had heard that this was a possibility prior to starting this effort, but I didn’t let that stop me!

I caught a re-tweet today from @careerdiva, who said that working for free is a labor law no-no (her words, not mine).  This is something I was afraid of.  She also wrote a post recently about this new trend here.  This is very disturbing news, but good to know.  In fact, she actually contacted the Department of Labor, and got the facts.  Read her post for more, but generally, it does not bode well for me.  In general, if you have an “employment relationship”, you must be paid minimum wage.

So, how do we define this?  I’ll focus on how we avoid this relationship through the world of internships.

Regarding internships:  If you meet these six factors, then you don’t have to be paid.  I’m addressing them each in blue:

• The training is similar to what would be given in a vocational school or academic educational instruction;
  • My thoughts:  If you are sitting me at a desk and saying “get to work”, then I’m an employee.  If you are sitting me down with a co-worker who is showing me how to do something, maybe I’m an intern?
• The training is for the benefit of the trainees or students;
  • Ok, this is tougher, but I am clearly stating this is for my benefit!  Yes, I believe I can add value, but I’m going to learn a lot too.
• The trainees or students do not displace regular employees, but work under their close observation;
  • Unequivocal yes!  I am not looking to steal a position, I’m looking for a part-time opportunity to learn and grow while I continue my job search, preferably under mentorship.
• The employer that provides the training derives no immediate advantage from the activities of the trainees or students, and on occasion the employer’s operations may actually be impeded;
  • Really?  All companies that hire interns do it out of the goodness of their hearts?  Maybe so, but I figure they get some free labor out of it too, and maybe find a person they want full-time.  I’m going to admit that I do not think I will be selling my ability to “impede your operations”,  at least not on my resume…Ok, maybe I’ll add that to my cover letter.
• The trainees or students are not necessarily entitled to a job at the conclusion of the training period;
  • Easy enough, not expected.  Might be hoping for this (what intern isn’t hoping for this?)
• The employer and the trainees or students understand that the trainees or students are not entitled to wages for the time spent in training.
  • Yep, I can definitely sign something about this, no problem.

Hooray, I have defeated the DOL rules!!!!  Oh, there’s more?

@careerdiva goes on to quote the DOL representative as follows;

‘For example, a person cannot “volunteer” his or her services to a private employer to perform the same type service performed as an employee.’

Dang, isn’t that just what I’m trying to do?  Yes and no.  I don’t want to displace, or “under bid” a regular employee.  I want to prove that I can perform the same tasks as a regular employee.  All employees want to learn on the job, I’m just being more transparent about this goal.  This should not be punished.  I do understand that the DOL is trying to protect me from myself, but it’s not helping me right now.

I guess the big issue here is, who is going to go to HR and ask them to risk a DOL violation to hire me for free?  This is going to take the HR equivalent of an adrenaline junkie.  Know any?  Calling Dan Cortez, are you in HR now?

Share and comment!  How can I impede you today???

I started this blog because I don’t want to become a professional job seeker. I found that I was striving to become perfect at the job seeking game, and then remembered that was not my goal! You can read books about interviewing (I did!), and prepare to no end, but the goal is the job, not the journey. In the end, I decided I would prefer to work for free in my chosen profession, than become an expert in something that was not.

That said, I had a very interesting day on Tuesday, and further conversations last night made me rethink the intrinsic value the job search. On Tuesday, I attended a three-hour session about “how to network”. It was ok, but a little basic for me. In fact, the main thing I hoped to learn more about, I did not. More on that in a later post. (And yes, that may be where you come in!)

Back on topic: Our main focus was on the 30 second commercial, known in career circles as the “elevator speech”. Origin of the name being; if you only had the length of an elevator ride to relay your message, what would you say to show your value? I wrote my first speech about two months ago, and again more recently, and again the night before. I have had a lot of experience with this topic, but I don’t think it’s one of my strongest tools as of yet, hence the constant rewriting. Also, coincidentally, I was booked to record my 30 second commercial for the New England Job show on cable access in Chelmsford that afternoon. This had driven me to rewrite the speech the previous night, and to spend the evening, and morning car ride, saying it over and over again. Most people in the room were rewriting their speeches on the spot.

I volunteered to do my speech first, because I knew that I would not be able to concentrate on anyone’s speech until mine was behind me. I delivered my speech, and have to admit that I nailed it. Or everyone else was too worried about his or her own speech to analyze mine. Either way, not much criticism. Then, I was released to be fully engaged in the next speech, and so on. I was taking notes, and giving constructive feedback, based on all of the research I had done for my own speech. It was fantastic, and felt great to be actively helping my fellow job seekers. Not only that, but people perceived the genuineness of my help, and some have since become connections for me in LinkedIn. In general, this was one of the best days I have had in the last few weeks, and that was because helping others made me feel better about myself.

Ok, so what did I learn from that session? First, that I really just love helping people whenever I can. In this case, I was able to use my own experiences to help others through a new, and intimidating, experience. Second, if you are genuine, people respond in kind. This is not news to anyone, but it is a key to networking! It is much easier to make a connection in casual conversation, then in a forced environment. Third, there is no harm in becoming better and better at the job search. Some of the skills I build now will be transferable to my next job. Being able to talk to people, and connect, has never hurt one’s career. Being able to relay your value-add qualities effectively is always going to help you along. Forcing yourself outside your comfort zone is certainly going to make you stronger! In the end, getting better at the job hunt is allowing me to make genuine connections with other job seekers, which is important in its own right.

So, should I add, “I like to help” to my elevator speech?  Nah, I think I’ll just ask what floor, and push the button.

It was actually a pretty successful week for the WillWorkForFree movement.

By the numbers:

• Twitter followers up to 8 (and not just people I know!)
• Hit the 200 views mark with the blog on Friday
• Topped out at 48 views on Monday, which was a pleasant surprise
• Had 3 comments on the blog this week

Since I am hoping to get the site out to an even broader audience, I also had new business cards made this week specifically for this cause. I hope they’ll arrive prior to my networking meetings this week, as I plan to spread them around fairly heavily.

Work-wise, I have spread myself a little thin, having volunteered to help two job search groups, plus offered to revamp the website of my town’s cable access station. On top of that, I am planning on working about 20-30 hours per week on my new WWFF role for the gaming company. I will need to scale back my volunteer efforts unfortunately, but will do whatever I can for those guys, as it is all about giving back for what they’ve done for a lot of people.  Even worse, I will lose a day this week, spending most of tomorrow fixing one of the showers in my house!

I did start work over the past two days, downloading version control software, and setting up my Eclipse project. I also submitted my first work to the company, which was the proposed directory folder setup for the application I am writing. I am a little nervous, but mostly excited about getting started on something useful!

Thanks again for the support, and keep forwarding this to anyone you know.  You never know who can help!

Although not directly from my writings in this blog, I think I can report the first success stemming from its existence. The announcement of the blog during a networking lunch last week in Littleton MA led to a phone call and subsequent dinner with the CEO and VP of an independent computer game company yesterday. This dinner has led me to my first WWFF opportunity working on a web application related to their main game. I probably can’t be any more specific about the opportunity at this time due to my non-disclosure agreement, but it will build upon, and expand, my current knowledge, which was the whole goal of this process!

The founders did point out the irony that I get to work on a game site, despite the fact that I do not actually play computer games myself. Of course, the reason I don’t play them is because I am too busy in the job hunt, right? And I spend enough time on my computer as it is. Either way, it seems unlikely that I’ll go into marketing for them then. Anyway, apparently your average gamer would kill for this opportunity. Hmm, that sounds familiar doesn’t it? Guess free is the more effective path toward opportunity in this case.

So, does this mean the blog is done? Not really. First, let me say I am very excited about this opportunity. I feel a great rapport with the people I’ve met, and I feel like this is a supportive environment where I’ll be able to give as much as I’ll get. This is the ideal for both sides. The downside is that there is no real hope that this company can hire me in the near future. While I will get real experience that will show on my résumé, I do not get a chance to be hired into a full time role. In addition, I have no idea how long this opportunity will remain active. It is possible that my work will wrap up quickly, or they will decide not to move forward with the current effort. I guess it’s like any paying job: Just because you are currently employed, doesn’t mean you shouldn’t keep your eyes open for the next opportunity.

In this light, I plan to continue the blog. Needless to say, my eventual goal is to land a paid position in my chosen field, and I think this blog remains vital to that cause. If nothing more, I should be able to blog about my WWFF experiences.

Thank you to everyone who has come here so far, you are really helping me out. Time to get to work!

Side Note: I want to note a unique and important thing that my new free-ployer did for me. Instead of just viewing my résumé, he went to my online portfolio and actually played with each Java application out there. As a developer himself, he was really able to see what I had done, and in fact was pointing out features and details that I hadn’t realized were a big deal. I know that I can’t expect many potential employers to do this, but it was great to get the feedback from an experienced developer. Because he took the extra time, he was able to basically market me to me, which made me realize I need to do a better job in that department! That said, my portfolio did its job by showing “proof of concept” applications to the potential employer.

Before I started this blog, I was aware of one major obstacle:  Regardless of the cost of employing me, I still needed to prove my worth.  In other words, people are still only going to hire you if you add value, even at an hourly rate of zero bucks!  Not to mention there are certain costs involved, even when you remove salary.  I still need a good resume, and interview skills, and real skills!

So what is my value proposition?  What do I bring to the table? Why hire me?

First off, I am a process improvement specialist with a proven history of going from technology learner to leader at an accelerated pace.  In every company, I have followed the same pattern, and I will do the same in my next role.  The reason I am willing to restart my career at the bottom is that I know it will be a temporary scenario for both of us.  I am not afraid of the grunt work at the bottom, because I know that is the best way to learn the ropes and climb to the top.  This will benefit both my employer and myself.  Trust me, I will not spend my time looking up, I know that the right company will be looking to do that for me instead.

I have a passion for improving anything I work on.  My website, my projects, everything can get a little better, and I remain focused on doing so.  I email webmasters about broken links, I email authors about typos, I even went so far as to edit an entire book for one author after making some suggestions for his website (Cameron McKenzie, SCJA Certification Study Guide, 3rd Edition, release date currently unknown).  This is just the way I do business, and I can bring this attention to detail and drive to your company.

I have eight years experience in software development as a lead SAS programmer at Fidelity Investments.  I have managed all aspects of the software development lifecycle there.  In addition, I was the technical mentor for the team, including 16 associates in our Bangalore office.  I have the techie skills, and the leadership you may need.

I can talk to people.  I am an experienced manager, trainer, and, as often as not, jack of all trades.  I have trained clients on software use on-site and over the phone.  I have trained new developers on process and coding techniques, including a three week stint in Bangalore in 2006.  I have run a help desk and helped clients with software issues.  I can speak in technical and in layperson’s terms.  People skills do matter in the technical realm nowadays; the programming hermit is no longer acceptable!

Do you know someone who works in Java and might be willing to talk to me?  They don’t have to be hiring, but every conversation will bring me one step closer to the right fit.  Share this post on twitter, or forward the link to friends.  Subscribe to get updates automatically, basically help spread the word!  The more people who read this, the better!

Are you out of work and interested in doing some free work for experience?  Share your story below and maybe we can help each other!

Share and comment below!

Sunday seems like a good time to report on how the WillWorkForFree movement is going so far. Some good news: It does seem like quite a few people are checking out the blog. I went to a social event with a lot of friends yesterday, and a few did come up to me and let me know they have been following the blog, which is great. I have also had some feedback via Facebook as well, one of my main distribution channels. I appreciate the support guys!

Aside from the online distribution, I did announce the blog and twitter addresses to several networking groups last week, including over 120 people. I’m not sure how effective this method was, although a few people did offer to share some suggestions for non-profits that might need help. Actually, a few others did approach me to talk about my approach, which was great. To help spread the word, I will be making new business cards specifically for this campaign, hopefully to be ready in the next few days. This way, I can really get it out to a broad audience, and they can go home and actually check out the blog.

It does appear that, although Twitter is hyped up in the news media constantly, regular folks do not have Twitter accounts. This may not be true, but I have not added many followers there at all. That said, I would be using Twitter only to bring people to my blog anyway, so maybe it will prove unnecessary. I don’t really want to report on my number of followers yet, but it’s low.

So far, most people have approved of the concept of free work. I have only had one person suggest that this lowers my overall value. Although I understand that, I don’t think it is true. I truly believe in the “total compensation” provided by an employer. To me, the benefits of new knowledge are the “compensation” for my services. Trading salary for growth seems reasonable at this time.

Now to some good news:
I have talked with two non-profits about doing some web/tech support for them. I’m not sure where this will go in each case, but I am hoping to be able to help out. Although I don’t know if I will get to do Java-related work, I am going to help regardless. Both are organizations dedicated to helping people in their job searches, so I certainly feel an affinity to their causes.

In addition, my announcement of my willingness to work for free during a networking meeting on Thursday led to a phone interview with a potential “free-ployer” on Saturday. It went well, and we are meeting later this week to find out if I can contribute to his project.

Feel free to comment below, and thanks for visiting! If you know someone who might want to help, please share this with them!

Note: I debated between “freemployer” and “free-ployer”. This is my new word for someone who employs me for free, if that isn’t obvious. I hope I chose the best option. Maybe I’ll run a poll this week.

Ok, so hopefully I got you in here once and peaked your interest in my idea. Well, you may be wondering why I would be willing to work for free, and what type of work I would like to do.

So why would I do this??? Because I am a career shifter. I want to be a Java Developer. I’ve been interested in it for a long time, and have been building my skills on my own time (Sun Certified Java Associate, June 2008). Although I have eight years of development experience and was a Consultant Software Engineer in my last development role, I have not had any professional Java experience. The Java work I most enjoy is writing web applications, primarily using MVC with Struts, JSP and Servlets. I have worked with Eclipse, Apache Tomcat and MySQL, along with other technologies. I would like an opportunity to work with some of these technologies on a day-to-day basis, aside from my own projects. Needless to say, I want to keep learning other technologies as well, but assume you might want to start me off in technologies I am familiar with! My preference is to work on a team as I ramp up my knowledge on the job.

I am interested in Saas (software as a service) and cloud computing, and my preference would be working in a software company, but I’m open.

I am located in Central Massachusetts, and since I would be working for free, would prefer to stick to the Worcester/495/Metro West regions. However, I would be willing to speak to anyone who was interested.

Needless to say, I can’t work for free forever, so grab this bargain while available. Take a chance and we’ll see what happens!

Do you know someone who might know someone who might want to try this out? If so, please link us up!

Have you ever thought, “I’d kill for that job”?

I think that all the time.

“Man, I would kill for that position, it’s exactly what I want to do.”

But this isn’t true of course.  I wouldn’t kill for it.  Maybe it’s time for a more reasonable expression.  How about, “I’d do that job for free.”  Yeah, I know.  It seems almost as absurd for an experienced person to say, right?  But why?  I’m unemployed right now, and keep wondering what I can do during the downtime to make myself more valuable.  Yes, I’m doing some job-related activities to keep my skills up, but it is not the same as working.  People often say you should volunteer to do something related to your industry.  I have been doing that as well.  Then it hit me.

Volunteer + Kill for that job = Volunteer for that job

So, that is what I want to do.  I’ll work….for free!

More details tomorrow.