VMD-L Mailing List

From: Vlad Cojocaru (vlad.cojocaru_at_mpi-muenster.mpg.de)
Date: Sun May 15 2011 - 13:47:01 CDT

Dear Axel, Dear Olaf, Dear VMD users,

After all, with the posting it seems I opened a discussion that is far
more interesting than the job postings themselves.
All I can say at the moment, is that since I posted the position on the
lists (some days ago), I got more qualified applications than more than
a month before. However, I agree that many qualified MSc students are
probably not subscribed. On the oither hand, posting the job on
job-specialized sites results is a mountain of irrelevant applications.
So, the question is how do we reach the good candidates, especially
those of us who at the beginning of our academic careers ?

I can also say that there are many posts on the list(s) that are at
least as annoying as potential job opening posts. ...
Though, maybe those with new software versions I would not classify all
as "irrelevant". It depends on the software ...

To conclude, I think that it is not necessarily bad to have posts with
opening positions from time to time .. However, I would be the first to
support a ban on such posts if they become spam.

Regards,
Vlad

On 15.05.2011 18:51, Axel Kohlmeyer wrote:
> hi olaf,
>
> On Sun, May 15, 2011 at 11:34 AM, Olaf Lenz<olenz_at_icp.uni-stuttgart.de> wrote:
>> Hi!
>>
>> I am not sure whether I really agree, as I am afraid that it can easily
>> get out of hand. Who decides which job offers are relevant for the VMD
> i wouldn't worry too much about that. there are so few relevant (whatever
> that may be) positions to be offered anyway and i doubt that posting to
> the list will be very efficient. to the best of my knowledge, the vast majority
> of people that would be qualified for that kind of position are not subscribed.
>
>> mailing list? I do not want the mailing list to become a job offering
>> list, I get enough spam already.
> based on my experience on other mailing lists, those postings will be
> less frequent than the annoying (to me) posts from people that are unable
> to unsubscribe from the list. also, if job postings should be discouraged,
> then this should be enforced also for new software version postings
> for software that is not related to VMD. ;)
>
> there is one rather interesting aspect to the whole thing: the justification.
> apparently, all the "usual" ways to match people with positions are not
> effective. but i suspect the reason for that is far deeper: there are not enough
> qualified candidates, since we don't educate students for
> computational research.
> we just require them to know "data" and produce "results" from
> (optimized to work)
> exercises and don't give them the room to make mistakes and learn from them.
>
> moreover, there is no alternate way to get these skills. 10-15 years ago, where
> a deeper understanding for what happens in a computer was essential to
> make it work _at all_, a sufficient amount of people got interested.
> but now things "just work" and thus there is less pressure to acquire
> the required computational skills _and_ there are increasingly more
> positions for computational work. but then again the emphasis is on "work"
> and "results", not so much developmental work (which can even be poison
> for a career). one can easily see this from the type of questions on the list.
>
> cheers,
> axel.
>
>> Olaf
>> --
>> Dr. rer. nat. Olaf Lenz
>> Institut für Computerphysik, Pfaffenwaldring 27, D-70569 Stuttgart
>> Phone: +49-711-685-63607
>>
>
> 

-- 
Dr. Vlad Cojocaru
Max Planck Institute for Molecular Biomedicine
Department of Cellular and Developmental Biology
Roentgenstrasse 20
48149 Muenster, Germany
tel: +49-251-70365-324
fax: +49-251-70365-399
email: vlad.cojocaru[at]mpi-muenster.mpg.de