Landing a "Regular Job"?

sfe_software asks: "I'm an out-of-work programmer and systems administrator. I've reached a point where I have to find a job - any job - and I am finding this quite difficult. I'm apparently 'over-qualified' for everything from flipping burgers to fixing PCs at the local CompUSA. Noone wants to hire you at $6-$12/hour when you were making $45-$75/hour on previous jobs, yet, I'm not finding the high-paying work any more and need *something*. As a contractor, I've always kept a savings, but at this point that river is quickly running dry. What are other out-of-work techies doing? How do you convince a hiring manager that you aren't simply using them as a temporary stepping stone (even if this is true)?"

Comments

Lie

[seigniory]

If you really *want* a lower-class job...

Instead of over-stating your resume, understate it. Problem solved.

Cool!

[jayed_99]

Another techie running out of $$! It's great to know that I'm not alone, bud. My advice is to lie on your resume.

When you put in that application to WalMart, *don't* tell them that you made $68 an hour. Tell them you made $7.15 an hour.

That way they'll think that you might stay if they pay you $8.00 an hour.

Good luck!

Apply at colleges...

[hackwrench]

or other educational facilities. Also look into tutoring for classes. Also government jobs. Also, many colleges have job listings for other places in the community. Mentioning that you saw their ad in the college listings may make a difference.

Lie....

[jsimon12]

I know this has been said before, but just lie. Just tone down your resume a bit, say you were a field tech for a small and now defunct company and only made 15 bucks an hour. If you want send me your resume and I will help you curtail it for a retail job (before I was an engineer I managed a retail software store (damn that sucked).

Oh my wealthyness

[Anonymous Coward]

No offense, but I think that if you were raking in an amount near 75$/hour (150k a year) you could have certainly put away enough savings or other investments to wait out an economic downturn.

Isn't it a rule of thumb that the more you make, the longer it will take you to find a similar job in a competitive labor market?

If you are really hard up why don't you just lie or refuse to disclose your previous salaries? You do have this option, no matter how hard HR leans on you- I say this from experience. You can also say that you're retiring early and need something to do, or say that you're staying home to help with a toddler or going back to school for a couple years and want a part-time job. There's lots of reasonable excuses for looking for a "not great but puts money on the table" job.

You could also try doing some freelance consulting to pass the time. There's always people who will need your help if you take the time to find them and negotiate a price they can afford.

And then there's the time-honored tradition of hitting up all your ex-coworkers for possible opportunities. Hopefully you weren't a BOFH!

Unemployment will get you at least a 6 months buffer in any humane US state as well.

Re:Oh my wealthyness

[Tackhead]

> I'm curious: does that mean I didn't pay into the unemployment system, since I had no hope of getting anything out?

No, it means you did pay into the unemployment system, even though you have no hope of getting anything out. UI, as presently structured, is glorified welfare, but it doesn't have to be.

While welfare can't be privatized (there's no money to be made), genuine, risk-based, unemployment "insurance" can, and IMHO, should be privatized.

At present - and as you've found out - UI isn't insurance, it's merely a tax. Most people pay more premiums, but are ineligible to collect. (And guess how much of the UI "premiums" collected actually get paid out to the few workers poor enough to collect, as opposed to skimmed off into the sinkhole of general tax revenue?)

But UI could be privatized. The cyclical conditions that precipitate payouts (high unemployment) coincide with cyclical conditions in the economy (recession) that coincide with cyclical movements in interest rates (Greenspan :-)

This means that a private insurer could anticipate periods when payouts are likely to be high or low, and adjust an investment portfolio to take advantage of anticipated interest rate movements.

The portfolio would be funded from premiums. Just as medical insurance costs more for smokers, unemployment insurance would be more expensive for seasonal workers like fishermen (who, on the East Coast, are likely to be unemployed in winter), and less expensive for workers in fields in high demand.

The beauty is that (unlike the current system, based on coercion - everyone pays a tax, by force of law, but not everyone can claim) participation in a genuine unemployment insurance plan would be optional.

Are you a really good fisherman? Skip UI, and use the money to improve your gear, allowing you to catch more fish, to tide you over during the winter freeze.

Are you a really lazy fisherman? Pay for the deluxe UI package. Work 10 weeks a year, get paid 52. (The cost of this package would probably exceed what you can catch in your 10 weeks. That's your problem, though.)

Are you a really lazy programmer? In a hot industry, but think the good times might end? Worried about them H-1Bs takin' your job away? Buy a fat UI policy - just in case. Pay 5% of your salary in premiums, and in the 1-in-10 chance that your employer shows up on FuckedCompany next week, collect 50% of your salary until you find another employer with a foosball table and Aeron chairs at every cube.

Are you a really good programmer? Think you'll never be out of work? Skip UI altogether. Save the money for a rainy day, just in case you're wrong, or go buy a Ti4600 and hope you're right.

A privatized UI company would be incredibly motivated to get its out-of-work insurance claimants back into the job market, because it would drastically cut its expenses. It would want you to get a good job, because having a good job reduces the probability that you'll need to claim against your UI policy in the future. You could get your MCSE or other industry-recognized certifications as part of UI. Your insurance company would gladly give you placement assistance.

Contrast this with Government, who has zero motivation to get you back on the job (it's not their money), and every motivation to use their "back-to-work training" programs as ways to reward friends and campaign donors. ("You have my campaign $10000 last year. Here's a $1.5M contract to build a computer literacy center for UI recipients in our district. Sure, 386s running Win3.1 are fine. They're 'computers', aren't they? It's not it's any money out of either of our pockets if they ever work again.")

Pizza?

[bscott]

I've been essentially unemployed for the past year - until last week, to be exact - and I got by on a combination of odd jobs (websites mostly), selling stuff on eBay, and credit fraud... but one thing I happened onto was pizza delivery. Perhaps I found an unusual place, but they were - and are to this day - pretty good for me. Not only are they the first non-computer job to hire me since I first began working (yes, I too have been turned down by gas stations, grocery stores and limo-driving jobs), but they are extremely flexible when it comes to hours. Plus, during peak times my income averages around $15/hr... not consulting-bucks, but a living wage if you're at least near to fulltime.

Assuming you don't have a friendly pizza place hiring nearby, my other efforts - selling stuff on eBay, and networking your gluteus off to get website or consulting work (even if it's just upgrading an old P-120 for someone's Mom...) is a good way to bring in a few bucks while passing time in a quasi-productive way. You can also take time to learn new skills, from books or classes, that you never got around to while employed.

The most important lesson I've learned is to keep my income sources diverse. I still deliver pizza one or two evenings a week, I still scan eBay for poorly-advertised stuff I can buy and resell at a profit, and I still do websites and upgrades for people whenever I get a chance. No one person, company or even industry can determine whether or not I earn money.

It's been said here...

[Lumpy]

If you are shooting low, the people hiring for those positions are not smart enough to understand what you even put on your resume.. target it for the bottom-feeder IT jobs like compusa techs. HIDE advanded information, do not put down salaries from your last job, and even if you did they cant verify them it's illegal to release that information without your written consent and only for income verification ... employment is not eligeble for income verification.

you need to downgrade your resume alot, and dumb down when you talk to compusa, remember these IT people at compusa barely operate let alone understand IT.

Re:oops...

[erasmus_]

Not to be stereotypical, but I don't think the hiring managers of the type of places where he is applying are huge Slashdot followers. On the other hand, perhaps he's hoping that many techie hiring persons are indeed such followers, and perhaps is using this "Ask Slashdot" as a great way to post his resume. In which case, more power to him, a man's gotta work :)

My Advice: Relocate

[afabbro]

If you are a programmer/sysadmin, then you can find work if you move. Network and job-board-scrounge like mad, search company web sites, use headhunters, etc., and at every turn say "yes, I'll relocate anywhere".

Yes, relocation is a pain - just did it last year myself. This makes the 2nd time I've moved to places other than my first choice of living areas...been happy both times. When I was laid off last year, I looked in my large metropolitan home first...after three weeks, looked nationwide. I considered Nebraska, Mississippi, all sorts of places most people wouldn't pick as their first choice. Personally, I'd rather be working than unemployed or flipping burgers. And I'm too young (and so are you if you're under 50) to lock yourself down to one geography. If you want steady upward mobility, you have to RELOCATE SEVERAL TIMES IN YOUR CAREER.

If you cast your net wide - the whole US, go anywhere, do anything - you will find work if your skills are in demand. If you don't find work, then your skills are not in demand or your experience isn't sufficient and you have to lower your sights or improve your skills or both.

It's simple market mechanics. Brutal if you want to call it that, but simple nonetheless. If you're not finding work in your home market, then you need to look in other markets. You might end up in some place you don't like, have never heard of, or not your dream, but you'd be working.

PS...I've never met anyone who was both a senior sysadmin AND a senior programmer. I've also never seen a truly senior admin/programmer who was out of work for long. I'd pick which one you like better and go gonzo on it.

Unemployment and Entrepreneurship!

[BitGeek]

My answer to this was to file for unemployment. If you haven't, you should. Its good money, and you *earned* it because whats being returned is money that was taken from you before. Unemployment is not welfare.

Secondly, start a company. Anyone who's an unemployed geek in the Seattle area, drop me a line. I started a small business (runnable only by me so I can work during the day if I need to). I've found that I'm getting turned down for jobs in part because I put the business I started on the resume-- people think I'm not going to work for them full time.

But that business returns positive cash flow, allowing me to spend money building another, bigger, business. (Which is why I'm looking for fellow entrepreneurial geeks) I've some ideas that will be really big, there isn't the competition there once was for staking out space in the industry-- most companies are shrinking or retreating. Now is the time to boldy go forward and start a .com. (Just don't take VC on bad terms and don't be stupid about your business plan.)

Now is the perfect time to start a company- resources are cheap, from office space to engineers and the competition is not getting off of the ground because most of your would be competitors are going the VC route and finding VC funding hard to come by. (There's a simple solution to this if you need investment- some businesses inherently need investment- but I'm not going to reveal it here.)

Anyway, its a good time to start a company and you should use unemployment to smooth things over.

Plus you won't have a difficult to explain gap on your resume in a couple years.