Dennis Gorelik

Several months ago Arthur asked me if we have any remote AS400 Cobol job listings.
I had set up a job search alert for him:
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(AS400 or AS-400 or iSeries) cobol (remote or remotely or telecommute or "from home") in United States
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Sereral days ago, PostJobFree emailed one of job alert matches to Arthur:
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Cobol Developers w/zOS. 3+ Months. Telecommute Contract
COBOL development in a Mainframe Z/OS environment,
.....
Our direct client is in the process of migrating a large line of business systems from mainframe Z/OS to an iSeries platform and they require supplemental staffing to meet required deadlines.
This request is for developers experienced in COBOL running on a Z/OS platform.
.....
* QA/testing background with a mainframe and/or iSeries
==========

Arthur's reply:

And this fits an AS400 programmer how? Mainframe is NOT AS400.

Dennis:

Cobol + Mainframe -- are you saying that is not relevant to what you are looking for at all?

Arthur:

Yes. I never set up COBOL and mainframe. The AS400 is not now not ever has been a mainframe.

Dennis:

You may consider applying for this job anyway.
It is possible that they misswrote that job description or that they actually do mean "AS400" when they write "mainframe".

Arthur:

No, They specifically state z/OS which is the mainframe OS. AS400 OS is i/OS. It is why I specify AS400 or iSeries and COBOL to NOT get mainframe job listings.

Dennis:

This job description contains word "iSeries".
Does it mean that it is a possible match?

Arthur:

Where does it contain 'iSeries'? I don't see it now not did I see it before which is why I sent the et stating I should not see mainframe jobs. And this is clearly a mainframe position.

Dennis:

See in that job description below:
"QA/testing background with a mainframe and/or iSeries"

Arthur:

The bottom line is it is not a match because it needs an experienced mainframe developer “This request is for developers experienced in COBOL running on a Z/OS platform “ but I see where the search algorithm picked it up. Not sure how you could code the algorithm to recognize the mnain thing the job opening is looking for.

Dennis:

Are you getting many mismatches from PostJobFree?
If not - it may be easier to just ignore jobs that you consider not a good match (even if these jobs contain all important keywords).

Arthur:

The problem is I can’t ignore the job until I click the link to find out IF it actually meets my criteria. I would expect that the jobs would actually match my criteria but they don’t seem to. What bothers me more if the assumption that when I click on the link someone gets paid so it benefits the sender not necessarily me.

Dennis:

1) You do not have to click the link in order to evaluate job.
In the email below PostJobFree listed full job description for you. That should be enough to evaluate.
2) Why would you care if somebody else got paid for your click?
You do not have to pay for that click anyway.

Arthur:

Mu concern about who gets paid is it is an incentive to the supplier of the listing to send me junk that they would get paid if I click it whether or not it is of value to me. What I get from PostJobFree is sometimes enough to evaluate and usually it is of something that does not match my search criteria.

Dennis:

Job advertisers are smart about it, and usually pay based not on clicks, but on number of completed job applications.
In addition to that, advertisers evaluate how many candidates were, actually, successfully hired.