Why zTalent?

Hello and welcome to the zTalent (http://www.ztalent.com/) blog. I hope you are reading this because you found the zTalent site and are finding it useful or at least an interesting idea.

My name is Mike Silverstein and I'm a 28 year software engineer who's been an employer, employee, contractor and everything in between.

I wrote zTalent for several reasons:

• I wanted a test bed to try out and learn new software development tools and technology.
• I wanted a way for technical people to showcase their skills so they could establish technical credibility in the job market, as well as in technical venues such as blogs and discussions.
• I wanted a way for people with similar skills to be able to find each other.
• I found that during times when I was an employer, one of my biggest challenges was to separate job candidate's actual from manufactured qualifications, so I wanted a way to make it easier for employers to pre-screen prospective job candidates.

zTalent as it sits right now is the result of several years of off and on nights and weekends developing Java, jsp (and soon Flash) code. It represents a small fraction of what I want to do with it but the time has come to let it loose on the world and see where actual users want it to go.

In subsequent entries I expect to explain more fully how to get the most from the site and solicit feedback on new features and directions.