Starting the job hunt...?

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Sindarin
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Starting the job hunt...?

Post by Sindarin »

I posted a while back that my whole web development department was fired due to budget cuts. I had not much to show as a portfolio but I managed to gather a somewhat decent amount of work.
I am about to send out my CV to numerous companies and advertising agencies in order for the job hunt to begin. There is only a little problem. A couple days ago, I couldn't access my websites.

After a while I noticed I couldn't access any of the websites hosted on servers provided by awardspace.com nor the awardspace website itself! I contacted the company to learn more about this issue and they told me it is a nameserver problem that my ISP currently has and that I should use a proxy or Google public DNS to verify this. So I did and now everything works like before.

But here is the real issue. My ISP (otenet) is the biggest internet provider here in Greece. That means, if I can't access my websites, other people using the same ISP won't be either. So if I send out my CV right now and people look for samples of my work, they will see nothing! I've thought to move my websites over to a new host, that'll take up to 48 hours for the domains to be updated but it's still better than to be unsure or wait for the ISP nameserver issue to be resolved. I could add some of the websites in my CV instead, but that'll take away the opportunity to try my content management systems or see other samples of work I have in there.

What would be the best move?
JakeJ
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Re: Starting the job hunt...?

Post by JakeJ »

In my opinion, it's always best to maintain a portfolio on a separate host. That way you can highlight the design aspects you want and categorize them for your target audience.
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califdon
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Re: Starting the job hunt...?

Post by califdon »

I can see that you are quite upset about this host performance (and you are certainly right to be). So my advice would be to transfer all your operations to a more reliable host as soon as possible. Then you won't have to make excuses if you want to refer someone to your work, and worry about whether the URLs will be active or not, creating the impression of an unreliable person! A couple of days to get your files transferred and new DNS propagated is probably a very small time compared with your job search, unfortunately. Here in the USA, even well qualified people are finding that it takes them months to find a new job, and I don't think your country is doing any better these days, right? I would think it would be worth the peace of mind to know that your hosting service is solid would be worth more than a couple of days. At least, that's how I would look at it.

Good luck!
jarofgreen
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Re: Starting the job hunt...?

Post by jarofgreen »

Your ISP has nameserver problems? Does it refuse to fix them or something? Have you tried talking to them about it before moving host? They may be glad of an alert and fix them soon. I know someone here who has talked to O2 personally about the details of their mobile network and they are a giant company, so it's worth a try.
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Sindarin
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Re: Starting the job hunt...?

Post by Sindarin »

I can see that you are quite upset about this host performance (and you are certainly right to be). So my advice would be to transfer all your operations to a more reliable host as soon as possible.
Maybe I should have done that sooner. My idea was to get a job first so I can pay the hosting costs and the transfer of domain names as well. My current host has also a free $0 hosting plan and I believe many people misuse it and they cause other people's domains to be blocked at times, they do a lot of unscheduled maintenance and their mySQL server crashes a lot.
Then you won't have to make excuses if you want to refer someone to your work, and worry about whether the URLs will be active or not, creating the impression of an unreliable person!
That's what I am talking about! People around me are all "just go for it even if your portfolio doesn't work", but in the classified it says "rich portfolio required"? :/
Your ISP has nameserver problems? Does it refuse to fix them or something? Have you tried talking to them about it before moving host? They may be glad of an alert and fix them soon. I know someone here who has talked to O2 personally about the details of their mobile network and they are a giant company, so it's worth a try.
My host tried numerous times to contact my ISP, so did I. They finally fixed it this morning. I just can't accept it that things work so slow here in my country...
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