The MicroTrain Blog

When I was looking for a job recently, I knew that I needed to get my resume into tip-top shape. So I did everything you're supposed to do: I sent it to some friends, one of which was a professional copy-editor, to make sure I didn't say anything  (or spell anything) stupid. I sent it to a co-worker asking if they had thoughts on how I worded some sections. I sent it to my dad to look it. I took all their notes and digested them and polished my resume to a shine. I even spent a little money on a professional headhunter (I found one who was donating an hour of her time to an alumni auction, and I got it at a steal) who made some very excellent suggestions about the direction and tone of the piece.

When I thought it was as perfect as I thought it could be, I started in on the usual haunts like careerbuilder.com and monster.com. As someone looking to stay within the management world, I even spent a few bucks on an "elite" job board (it rhymes with TheMadders.com) who gave me a resume review that had some valid things to say, which I considered.

Then, I came across a site that said it would give me a free resume review if I signed up. I won't name the site, but the review they sent me sent chills down my spine. They made it sound like my resume was written by a 10-year-old who had never held a job. They found spelling mistakes and told me I didn't do anything to show the outcomes my work had on my employee's bottom line. 

I couldn't believe it. Could I have messed up so badly that I had to start from scratch?

Well, I couldn't find any spelling mistakes, and neither could a copy-editor. And there were plenty of places that I showed how my work positively affected the bottom line. 

Surprisingly, this company wanted me to feel bad about my resume. Why? So I would spend $250 to have them fix it. Yes, it was a scam. Had they even read my resume? I had a friend of mine submit her very different resume, and she got almost the same response. This place was looking to bilk me out of cash, which is bad enough, but targeting people who are potentially unemployed is doubly bad.

So keep this in mind. Know who you trust and who's just looking to make a fast buck off your desire to find a new job.

Several years back, the only technology Microsoft developers use to work with database is ADO. Microsoft has a new baby that comes with their Visual Studio called LINQ.

LINQ stands for Language Integrated Query. The idea of LINQ is to address database development in the context of Object Oriented Programming development model. LINQ has a great power of querying relational, object and XML data. Microsoft categorizes it into three parts.

1.LINQ to Object (those that are in-memory cache)
2.LINQ to ADO .NET (relational)
3.LINQ to XML (xml source)

If you know SQL querying, LINQ will be easy to learn. Below are the nicest things with LINQ:

1.No more CRUD development since you are guided as you type your code thru the Visual Studio intellisense
2.No more grueling hunt for object name change like table name references by the LINQ code
since build errors can be easily followed and corrected thru debugging

LINQ as a whole is exciting and an entirely new technology which I truly believe has good potential and will be around for a long time just like the ADO. Both of these technologies will be the platform for database development in the .NET platform.

LINQ is included in the Visual Studio 2008 with codename ORCAS.  There are virtual images that have ORCAS in it to sample your first LINQ programming. Check out the Microsoft website for more details where to download it.  It should be “Visual Studio Orcas”!