Alan01252

Thanks Xioma,

It's interesting really as to when you start classifying yourself as senior? I didn't really think too much about it when I started applying for roles as I had gained that confidence in my own ability.

That being said, I was almost put off working for one company because I thought at the time I might not be experienced enough. This turned out not to be the case at all and I'm so thankful I rode it out rather than letting my own self doubt influence my decision.

There are going to be companies out there with people in "senior" positions with less experience/skills and talent than you. In some cases considerably less. Don't sell yourself short because of a label you've given yourself.

Thanks Thomas, really appreciate your feedback on this and the rest of the advice you've given in the comments too.

patio11, I'd like to say much of my stance on negotiating rates with people has come directly from reading comments you've made on hacker news in the past. Thank you!

If anything I still think I'm too lenient but this I'm sure will grow as my confidence dealing with clients grows.

My response is something like this.

" I feel that my standard rate is justified due to my knowledge, the quality of the code I produce, my flexibility and my ability to learn and pick up new skills and technologies quickly. I have other clients who are paying my full daily rate and they very satisfied with the work I produce.

I completely understand if this is non negotiable. And I realise asking for an increase on the rate you offered may mean I may miss this opportunity to work with some exciting new projects, technologies and people which would be a great shame. "

Any feedback on the above would be greatly appreciated.

I have signed up ;)

Thanks for this alinajaf.

Pricing is tricky. I've already been turned down by a few companies at my current rate because I was too expensive. This put me off raising it higher. I'm still unsure as to whether having pricing on the website is a good thing or not, it's always tricky to know what to sell yourself for.

Hi garagemc2. Where specifically were you looking so I can improve?

http://alanhollis.com/ has an overview of my skills. http://alanhollis.com/cv/ has more details of my experience.

A bit more than than that, unfortunately I haven't got exactly £250 from every client so far. And finding work, is work ;). I have had to negotiate as it's early days, and work for a reduced rate is better than no work. I haven't yet taken the first offer any company has offered me though, hence my advice in the post to negotiate.

I entered a competition ran by a company supporting http://siliconmilkroundabout.com/, purely because the competition appealed to me, I had some free time, and I thought it would be a good way of promoting myself before the event. Unfortunately the competition wasn't as successful as I hoped it would be (very few entries). I came second overall, it's another example of work on my github profile, and I got to play with Python for the fist time, so it was a positive experience.

Thanks benholmen. I'll put this under the 'things to learn banner'. I don't use rss so didn't even think about it. I'll be getting it sorted asap.

edit: Subtle button now under the post :)

Absolutely everything was started from April 21'st. Which is the date I returned from 8 months travelling. It took me a few weeks to get into a routine again and see friends, family etc. The first blog post was published on 2012/05/03 which is when I started really hunting for work, so it has been just over a month in total.

Thanks for the bug reports. I'll investigate as soon as the site calms down a bit. :)

It's going well so far, I've had some really down days, just sending out emails and getting no responses. Or getting close to a project starting and it not happening. Fortunately it's all worked itself out in the end. I've been lucky!

The C script is returning vulnerable on both my local machine (precise) and my vps (Ubuntu 11.10).

However tests of trying to brute force the root password using the mysql one liners in this thread have failed every time.

Both machines allow local access only so I assume I'm safe.

Same, I should have ordered faster!

I was one of the few guys who missed out. :( If you do ever get round to it, it would be greatly appreciated still.

I also appreciate this follow up post, I looked a couple of times at the previous user name and realised you'd stopped commenting. It did make me think at the time maybe it was a (rather elaborate)scam to harvest C.V's after all. I'm glad to know I was well and truly wrong.

This was a much more interesting video than I thought it would be. I'd never thought the payment models he uses in the game would have brought the revenues they have for him. $50 for a smiley face just seems ridiculous and yet people were happy to pay for it.

This site. http://efreedom.com is winding me up at the moment. It's scraping from stackoverflow and Google has it ahead in the serps for a fair number of search queries I've run.

I wouldn't mind so much, but a) the site isn't as user friendly as stackoverflow and b) obviously isn't updated with answers as fast as stackoverflow is.

Obviously I should just be searching stackoverflow directly, but I'm afraid that habit of going to google first is a difficult one to break.

My work colleague also had this exact idea, and told me about it in the hopes I could code something to do the job. There was just no way I had the time/resources/skill to make something like this.

Thank you very much for taking the time to write a response, it's very much appreciated. I've recently started playing with node.js and it's capturing my imagination. That coupled with what you've written makes me think it's time for me to find an open source module to help contribute to.

Thanks again.

Alan

I'm currently working as a programmer in London, and I'd love to know how do you go about finding them, and what I could do to be easily found. I realise it's a little off topic but I'd appreciate any response you may have.

I definitely agree. Especially when I'm passing my code to designers who are scared of code.

Giving them a template file with something like {$CustomerFirstName}. Which they can then move around without fear of breaking the page makes sense.

And let's be honest there aren't that many websites in the world which have to really worry about the performance implications of using smarty.

The way I see it if you're thinking it, others looking at my C.V will too. I agree with every point you make and will make the changes accordingly.

Thanks very much for your feedback!

Thanks very much, never really thought that people would be interested in the "what and the why". I have a feeling I'll be making a lot of changes to my C.V tonight.

It's fantastic thank you :) I must think of ways to pay back the community now.

Thanks very much for this. I've never had much luck with recruiters and my C.V so any feedback you have would be greatly appreciated.

I've also decided to upload it here. http://www.alanhollis.com/Alan_Hollis.pdf

Please note I'm not actively seeking employment at the moment but might as well take advantage of the opportunity to get some constructive criticism whilst it's here.

I ran a wiki once where I changed the search box to a google search box. Made some good money even with very little traffic. Of course you're taking people away from your site but my website was pretty rubbish so wasn't too worried about that personally.

Just an idea anyway :)