Subj : Re: How much should I charge for fixed-price software contract? To : comp.programming,comp.lang.java.programmer,comp.lang.lisp From : Tim X Date : Sun Aug 14 2005 06:39 pm rem642b@Yahoo.Com (Robert Maas, see http://tinyurl.com/uh3t) writes: > > From: "Phlip" > > I think Robert has successfully pissed off every head-hunter in town. > > Are you talking about after I patiently waited more than ten years for > even one of them to find me an interview, and finally after more than > ten years of their total incompetance, finally I start speaking out in > public and they don't like me telling the world how incompetant they > are? Frankly I don't care if I piss them off at this point. Robert, the mere fact these people didn't get you a single interview during a period which most would have considered a boom time for programmers should be tellng you something. These agencies get paid for filling positions - they don't really care about you as an individual - your just another commodity to them - if they can fit you in somewhere, they will. Now, if you were dealing with them for 10 years, you cannot claim they were incompetent because incompetent agencies of this type simply do not survive for 10 years. So, what we have is a situation where you provided some details and a resume to job agencies during a boom period in which they undoubtably found positions for thousands of other programmers, but did not find you a single interview - hmmm, lets think about that and possibly consider that maybe its you who is not doing something right. Maybe its a simple as you not putting your resume into an acceptable format? Having seen some of the staff you have on the web and only just a while ago following one of the links you posted to your "resume", I would say this is almost certainly a contributing factor. Your resume is completely incorrect - its too long, its badly formatted and lots of it is totally irrelevent in the current market. You need to do a well formatted CV, clearly labelled in sections with brief but informative text. Something like (but properly formatted) Name: Address: Phone Key Skill (dot points only!) e.g. * Strong written and verbal communications skill * Self-motivated and able to work independently or within a team * Proven ability to multi-task and prioritise effectively in an environment involving rapid change and conflicting priorities * Familiar with xxxxx project management methodologies * etc Employment Histor (from most recent to oldest) Period Position Employer Key Duties ..... Education/Training (from most recent to oldest) Date Qualification Institution (Optional Details - such as thesis topic or research project) Programming Lnaguages (Usually, you would only include languages you have used commercially) Language | Period Used | Last Used | Publications (List of any publications you have, where they were published and an indication if, for journals etc, they were refereed) Hobbies/Interest/Private Projects (very brief) References/Referees Name Position company contact details > Or are you saying that somehow I pissed them off way back in 1991 when > I first started the current sequence of asking them if they can find me > a job because I have just recently (1991.Sep.01) become unemployed > after being steadily employed for ten years? If you're making that > claim, please present evidence of something I said or did way back in > 1991 to piss off all appx. hundred of them such that that's the reason > they haven't gotten me even one interview in all the time from 1991.Sep > until the more recent time when my patience was exhausted and I started > my public complaining about their incompetance. You may not have pissed them off - but its obvious you either didn't present yourself well or failed to provide the right sort of information. > > If Robert's interactions with this newsgroup are similar to his > > interactions with them... > > My interactions with them during the first several years since I became > unemployed was totally different. I was totally polite and patient. I > never contacted them unless there was a job ad that I wanted to respond > to, except for some cases where I used the Yellow Pages to call them at > random to ask whether they knew of any openings in my area and might be > able to help me find a job. Never a complaint about them for quite a > number of years. I was the total nice guy who is ignored by everyone in > favor of the squeeky wheel that is irritating enough gets noticed. Its not about being irritating enough to be noticed - its about presenting yourself in such a way that they immediately think of you when an appropriate position comes up. For example, if you only listed all your experience with assembler on PDPs etc, then its unlikely you would be considered except in the very unlikely case where some company had an old PDP-10 and just happened to need an assembly programmer. However, if on the other hand you presented yourself as someone with a proven track record of workinig in assembler, someone with a good grasp of low level hardware programming and someone capable oflearning, then possibly you would be thought of when that job comes up workinig on developing software for that new chip xxxxxx. > Even now my interactions with them are non-complaining, merely sending > my tailored resume in response to their job ad, and waiting patiently > for them to respond, and occasionally when I have a new general resume > I FAX it to a whole bunch of them to alert them that I'm still looking > for employment and to get back onto their "hot list" of resumes at the > top of their attention spam, and only one responded in any way, to > complain that they're accepting resumes *only* via MicroSoft word > attachment to e-mail, which I have no way to send from my Unix shell > account, so it took several months before I could find a way to get a > resume to that agency, and then it just went into a black hole. > (Does anybody want the name of that MS-Word-only agency?) I'm sorry, but this is just more pathetic moaning and not at all a good advertisment for your abilities or even your problem solvinig skills. Technically, there is no reason you can't sent an MS Word document as an attachment from a Unix shell account - I've been doing this since MS Word first existed. There are plenty of Unix utilities to help do this. If your argument is that you couldn't get your MS Word file to your unix shell account because you only have a dumb terminal connect, thats rubbish as well - there are utilites to allow this - kermit, rz/sz etc. You could probably even do it from your library. Where there is a will there is a way! > > I have started charging per line-item in the feature request list. > > That means if I estimate X to take 30 minutes, and it does, I win. > > I would really like to bill that way, but I've never found anyone > willing to contract or otherwise pay for my services on that basis. > By the way, how much money (US$ please) would you charge for a feature > that took you only a half hour to implement and debug and test and > integrate with the overall program and fully document as addendum to > the regular program documentation? > > I especially like that idea during the initial stages of working with a > given client/employer, when I am not sure I'll ever get paid, and they > aren't sure I can really do the work, so we incrementally build trust > by my delivering and their paying for a little bit at a time. > > But nobody has any money to pay for any custom software, only packaged > software from the big vendors. I can't even find somebody to let me > implement something for free as a demo of my ability to do the > particular kind of software work. For example, there's a guy with > offices near here who has written a desktop C++ application that he > would like to interface to CGI. I explained how I like to write CGI > applications, and it'd be easy for me to write a CGI front-end to his > C++ application if he just tells me which two or three use cases to > start with as my demo and then after I get a toy version of the > interface running he tells me the actual C++ function/method calls into > his program so I can convert my toy interface into a real interface > into his real program. But he hasn't been able to get any new buyers > for his program, CGI or otherwise, and he's spending all his time > looking for buyers, so he doesn't even have time to spend ten minutes > writing me an e-mail listing the use cases he'd like to see in my first > free demo, and as far as I know he hasn't even had time to try the > CGI/C++ demo I already have online as part of my how-to-HelloPlus > tutorial project, wherein my demo calls a routine to decode the > URL-encoded.form contents, then fetches the various fields by name to > demonstrate that it really does have them decoded individually. That > guy is the closest I've come to finding anyone interested in > contracting/hiring my services in the past several years. Firstly, I would be extremely skeptical about how well a CGI wrapper to provide a web interface to an already written program would work. I've seen this attempted before and its never very robust or reliable unless the underlying program itself is extremely basic. Secondly, forget all about that stuff regarding decoding URI elements etc - thats just trivial stuff, a real no brainer for which you can usually find pre-existing libraries/modules to do all the work anyway. You need to come up with really original and inovative stuff if you want to impress anyone with your abilites - decoding URI strings is a student exercise. > > And it shows my confidence in my estimates. > > Actually I interpret it oppositely to you: If I bill on the basis of > half-hour tasks, then it means I need at the end of a half hour to get > feedback whether my estimate was correct or not before I proceed to the > next half hour, that I don't trust my own estimates longer than a half > hour into the future. This is great for me just starting at contract > work like this, where if I make a horrible mistake in estimation, it > takes me five hours instead of the half hour I estimated, off by a full > order of magnitude, still it's only 4.5 hours of unpaid work for my > mistake, no big deal, less time than I spend responding to newsgroup > posts in the average day. It's not like if I contract for a job on the > basis it'll take me a half year and it actually takes me five years of > which I get paid only for the first half year, and I don't get paid one > penny until after the product is finally delivered 4.5 years after > promised, if the buyer hasn't found a way to back out of the contract > already by then. Forget about consulting - you are almost guaranteed never to get any ral work consulting because you have no recent proven track record and no track record in current technologies. Most people who move into consulting do so after working commercially for some time and usually have customers (at least one decent one) lined up before they even begin. Robert, I hate to say it, but I don't think you will get a programming job. Apart from the problem of not having working for 14 years, your age is going to work against you. Assuming you were 18 when you started your degree in 1963, you must be now in your late 50s. Your technical commercial experience is outdated and if your lucky, you probably only have around 10 more years of productive work left in you (I'm being devils advocate here and looking at it from the orientation of a prospective employer). Why would we employ you at this stage when there are both plenty of experienced younger programmers around and even the recent graduates have more experience with current technologies than you? Unless you can convince an employer that you have something which the others don't and its something the employer considers valuable, you have no hope. I have to wonder why you haven't been trying to get more specific programming jobs that relate to what seems to have been one of your strength areas. If you have a strong and sound math background, why not look for jobs with companies doing software which has a strong mathematical basis - modelling, communications, signal processing etc. Why are you even bothering trying to compete in an area which is flooded with programmers (Java/Web) when thre are companies out therer who are constantly frustrated at not being able to find enough skilled programmers who also have skills in mathemtaics? Play to your strengths! Tim -- Tim Cross The e-mail address on this message is FALSE (obviously!). My real e-mail is to a company in Australia called rapttech and my login is tcross - if you really need to send mail, you should be able to work it out! .