OT: finding a job (was Re: searching string url)

[Peter Hansen]

googlinggoogler at hotmail.com wrote:
> Anyway to the orginally replier - I wish it was homework ;-), that
> would mean I wouldnt be trying to find myself a job as a recent
> graduate... I decided to crawl something similar to the yellow pages

Sounds like a useful task, and a good way to learn more about Python 
while you're job-hunting, as well as helping you with the hunt.

 > for my select area and then find all
> pages corresponding to my ideal field of work, and grab their details
> into a txt file.
> 
> Trouble is I keep thinking of cool new bits to add, python truely is a
> beautifal language. Ideally would like to somehow write all the
> information into a word mail merge - but I think that requires more
> research!

This sounds suspiciously like you are thinking some kind of "shotgun" 
approach to sending out your resume might be a good idea.  If that's so, 
as an employer, I strongly recommend against it.  Instead, spend the 
time you would otherwise have spent building this tool (or at least the 
word mail merge part) and dig deeper into those companies you do find, 
filtering out the ones you wouldn't want to work at.  From the 
remainders, adapt your cover letter to *custom-fit* each opportunity.

Mass-mailed resumes with generic cover letters are a good way to kill 
trees but not a particular effective way to get noticed by an employer, 
at least not noticed in a good way...

-Peter