Training for Geeky Career/Job
August 21, 2011 4:23 PM   Subscribe

What formal training exists to meet the requirements for this geeky job offer? "XML/XQuery; Content Management Systems (CMS)"
posted by five fresh fish to Education (9 answers total) 1 user marked this as a favorite
 
For jobs like that, with crazy demands, like 10 yrs of XML experience, you just need to show you've been doing something XML related and can work with XML files.

Personally, I'd stay away from it as it seems like they have a super specific candidate in mind and will probably pass on everyone until a co-worker's cousin who works in "IT" needs a job and seems to grasp what XML is and then lands it.

Go ahead and apply, but don't be surprised if you never hear back.
posted by geoff. at 4:51 PM on August 21, 2011


Or you could bypass the recruiter and go straight to the company.
posted by flabdablet at 4:58 PM on August 21, 2011 [1 favorite]


At a guess, it looks like it might be building/managing knowledge management systems, dealing with the metadata at the backend, and using XSLT to render some search/browse tools at the front end. They want to do this with legal docs, but don't mention any specific legal metadata encoding schemas.

But I may be wrong ;)

Formal training I don't know, but if you have worked on similar types of systems, that would be a plus. Anyway if you have experience with XML as used in metadata and web apps, and/or building tools for knowledge management, then they might be interested, as getting someone else up to speed with metadata and domain modeling would be a PITA otherwise. It's easier to learn legal stuff if you have KM/metadata experience, rather than the other way around.
posted by carter at 5:20 PM on August 21, 2011


btw it could possibly be a complete PITA anyway, it looks like they might have promised to build a web-based KM system for a legal firm which currently has everything in (a) filing cabinets (b) email servers (c) people's desks (d) peoples's heads. This stuff is not easy, you may have people yelling at you a lot when it doesn't work.

Let us know what you find out ;)
posted by carter at 5:26 PM on August 21, 2011


Experience in XML-based content management systems including MarkLogic Server, Ixiasoft Server, eXist DB, XyEnterprise XPP, SharePoint Server, etc.

This is a printing firm. Probably a firm that specializes in legal printing. XPP is commercial typesetting software and MarkLogic is an XML based CMS that is frequently used in publishing and printing.

I would bet money the job involves writing importing software for "unstructured" data such as old ass word documents and writing XSLT styles for XPP and export styles for MarkLogic.

If you have ever wanted to see a 300 mb schema this might be a job for you.
posted by Ad hominem at 5:44 PM on August 21, 2011 [2 favorites]


Every single answer so far is unbelievably wrong. For example, MarkLogic is a CMS in the same way that Oracle or MongoDB is a CMS. In other words, none of those things are. You could use them that way - but that's not the only thing they do.

five fresh fish - I not only know the company that ad is for, I probably know the product and/or hiring managers involved. MeMail me.

To answer your question more generally - like most job ads, that one is a wish list. The only bullet that really matters to them is this one:

Development experience should span custom publishing, search-based applications, content analytics, content enrichment, and metadata catalogs.

You're likely to get serious interest if you can hit 2 of those 5. If you have all 5, you're not interested in that job because you're already working somewhere else.
posted by NoRelationToLea at 6:49 PM on August 21, 2011 [3 favorites]


I stand corrected last year I had 2 salesmen trying to sell me MarkLogic as a datastore for Arbortext.
posted by Ad hominem at 7:00 PM on August 21, 2011


Job descriptions like this are unicorns-and-fairies wishlists. There's no formal training or apprenticeship for jobs like these; they're just a grab bag of what the person doing the hiring might want to magically appear on their doorstep.

As an example: Ten years of XQuery experience, really? Because XQuery became a W3C standard in January of 2007.
posted by mhoye at 7:30 PM on August 21, 2011 [4 favorites]


Response by poster: Ah. My guess was some sort of web software. It was the analytics/enrichment that most intrigued me. I do Docbook XML and the potentialities for automation, content collection, assistive search—things I want to do, but don't have time to figure out independently, quickly. Coursework would have been a nice shortcut.

I'm not sure the work linked by flabdablet could pay enough. It sounds dreary. I like creating, not grinding.
posted by five fresh fish at 9:30 PM on August 22, 2011


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