Forum:My Friend Anthony Made This Cool Mini-Site To Find A Freelance Bioinformatics Job. Can You Help Him Out?

Question

[Jeroen Van Goey]

http://anthonyneedsajob.com/

What happened?

Anthony (Biostar user page) will soon start on an adventure in an exciting startup, but starting 1st of October 2013, he has no real source of income.

Since Anthony can not sit on his hands, he is now looking for partners to tackle exciting technical problems together, for a few days, a few weeks or longer.

Who is Anthony?

Anthony Liekens aspires to be a scientist and entrepreneur at work and a dad at home, while being an eclectic hacker at both places.

If you are genuinely interested in Anthony, you may want to read his curriculum vitae or personality sketch.

How you can help

Do you have an exciting challenge and want Anthony to dive in and help you fix the problem? Hire him now by suggesting your project!

You may also want to share Anthony's story to help him find a job!

[Dan D]

Anthony will probably have better luck at a site like elance or somewhere similar.

[Giovanni M Dall'Olio]

in any case, good luck to Anthony!

Answer 1

[Istvan Albert]

There are several problems with Anthony's site.

It is not clear if this is a serious site - even after reading it several times I can't make up my mind if this is a joke or a really a serious attempt to get a job

Assuming that the site is serious, the wording and the way it addresses the audience is fundamentally wrong - it continuously emphasizes how Anthony (and what's with the talking in third person anyhow) wants to do his own thing, a startup that he is actually interested in pursuing, yet in the meantime he will entertain working on my problem as long he gets paid quite a bit of money

I understand that the site wants to be tongue-in-cheek and attempts to bridge the gap with humor but it is unlikely to be successful - what people need to hear is that someone else is genuinely interested in solving their problem and not that they are a pit-stop along the way

[Irsan]

Wow, exactly how I felt about it. Amazing how you clearly you can put things in writing. Sure, Anthony needs to earn some money, so are many

Answer 2

[Manu Prestat]

I understand Istvan's point of view (and I have to believe him about the wording), but sensitive or not to his humor, his presentation (and links to linkedIn, resumé, etc.) makes me pretty confident he has good coding skills and experience in his field, which I guess is essential to its purpose. The Tumblr-ish design is also fine by me, I kinda like it. It's true (and at least it's clear) that his dream is not to make one's project a success story starting from scratch to the Nature paper or whatever because he's about to start his own adventure. However he's just seeking a couple of months job, and the efforts he made only for that through his website show that his motivations are a priori as trustable as someone who just answer to a job offer. +1 for Anthony!

[Istvan Albert]

I'd be very curious to hear some stats on this job seeking style - how many people even submit a 'challenge'. I do agree that the writing is amusing and could grab someone's attention - but I suspect that the people that like the site are those similar to you and me and not those that actually have both the needs and the means to pay for contract work.

At the same time I would love to be proven wrong - that's how one learns the most about the world - finding out something that changes a core belief.

[Manu Prestat]

I was asking myself the same question.

[Damian Kao]

He is trying to apply the tech start-up culture/humor into this website. While I think that is really cool, I am not sure if the academic audience will get it. He is essentially trying to get hired as a freelance bioinformatician. I really like that idea. I would love to freelance on different projects. But I wonder if the publishing/authorship culture of academia will accept freelance positions. I am graduating soon and I would love to know if he finds any success.

Answer 3

[always_learning]

Like it or dislike it but can't ignore Anthony any more !! :) :)