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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)?"
I totally understand the difficult situation that you are in. In fact, I ended up giving up the IT career that I had and went into the retail market.
.com bubble has burst. Don't afraid to be honest with them, but you have to be honest with yourself.
I think that employers want to know how long you want to work for them. When you go in and hand in your resume, do you explain to them that the IT market is not good right now? If you just go in and ask for a job, how will anybody know that you will still be around 3 months from now? How do *you* know that you will stay with the company 3 months from now?
Anyways, my story is that I moved to another city and planned on finding a simple retail job to get me settled in for a year. After that, I intended to find computer work. The reason that I wanted to wait a year, was because finding computer work is hard.
I would ask to speak to the manager, and when I saw him, I would say, "Hi. My name is Eugene, and I am new in town. I'm just looking for some work right now to help me get settled in for about a year. After that, I'd like to get some computer work. Have you got anything available?". This got a me a job the first day that I tried it. In fact, I got 3 interviews and 2 job offers. One was with Grand & Toy [stationary company] and the other was with McDonald's as an assistant manager.
People understand that the
If a job offer for an IT job comes your way at $50K/year, are you honestly going to stay around flipping burgers or running a cash register? If not, then you can't make promises to them.
testing out my trending skills
Myself, I always had an interest in submarines, action, and travel so I joined the military as a Fire Control Technician. Awesome job, I couldnt be happier...Im a computer junkie and was all self taught but they surprised me with 3 schools known as ISA, NSVT, and ANA. The first is fairly high level computer training, second is Network System Vulnerability Tech.(hacker school! sweet!!) and the third is Advanced Network Admin, which is godly. My self taught level covered me up to the last, and that one surprised me most, it covers EVERYTHING and then some. The guys that run that are extremely well paid in the civilian world(after the service) and work for almost every big tech firm in the country, except Micro$oft ;) I've been having a blast since day one. You probably have the option of being an officer, and on a submarine, my my thats nice pay.
If you find the right district (or private school gig) and you have the skills, they'll help you work around the certification thing while you work.
it might also help to be flexible about location.
One of the secrets of getting hired is to write a custom resume for each job. A resume is supposed to show a selection of your qualifications, not be all encompassing. List your credentials for the particular job. Write a custom statement about what you want in a job, etc.
The nature of the resume is a sample. You are under no obligation to list all of your experience nor do hiring managers want to see it all. So when applying for a programming job, you show programming experience, etc. Don't show exhaustive system administration or internetworking experience. Also, so that you don't get hit with the dreaded overqualifation tag, don't show 20 years worth. The last 5 years is fine.
I suggest you get a copy of some of the books on job searching. Finding a (or the right) job is a full time job. "What Color is your Parachute" is a good example is a good example of this genre.
You got by on credit fraud? Are you sure you shouldn't post that one anonymously?
Seriously though, it is good to have a practical skill outside of computers. In my case blowing glass pipes is good for a solid $20-$40 an hour, and if world governments collapse leaving us in a post-apocalyptic Mad Max world I have someone to fall back on.
Ok What I did after losing my beautiful Motorola Contracting job was to kind of be depressed for about 2 weeks. I mean I didn't ahve it bad or anything, but I felt sorry for 2 of my co-workers who had pregnant wives. So yeah it sucked for them. And I just uh kinda slept.
But After that I had 3 glorious months of over competition for every job out there. So I took myself out of the running for a corporate job, and applied at some small local ISP's. I got hired by one as a tech support worker for $10 per hour. Not enough to survive on my own with, but enough to share a house with 4 others.
It's Loud, the Dialup support calls were hell, and the roommate were messy. But they bumped my a the secondary Unix admin after 3 months. (see as how that was my previous job) So may pay went up agood amount. And I still live with 4 loud roommates, and I save all of my money.
I kinda hope to return to the corporate world eventually, but that's just for the money. I love my Small ISP, and it's employees, and my free SDSL access.
http://thepoliticalgeek.com/blog/ Politics for Geeks.
Unemployment will get you at least a 6 months buffer in any humane US state as well.
I was making $65,000 / year at my previous job, and when my employment there ended, I applied for unemployment. I was denied unemployment because I made too much money. Apparently, if you gross over $600 / week in New York State, you are ineligible for unemployment. I listed my position as "programmer" and they denied me because "executive, administrative and professional employees earning over $600 a week are exempt from the wage payment provisions of the labor law." I'm curious: does that mean I didn't pay into the unemployment system, since I had no hope of getting anything out?
rooooar
Can you back this up? I've never heard of an employer getting back wages from someone who lied on an application. Can you get fired for it? Sure. Is it fraud? Maybe, but I've never heard of anyone having to give up past wages and I've certainly never heard of anyone going to jail for such a thing. If you can show some evidence of this claim, I'd really like to see it.
I found myself in the same situation about 8 months ago, so what did I do you ask? Simple, I applied myself to a totally different field of work (granted impossible for some, but I find that the computer types tend to be fairly smart and flexable) I went to work for a car dealership as a salesperson, and get this, I actually suffered from a pay RAISE, now hows that for a good solution to a bad problem?
Starting wages in SoCal for basic tech are in the $9 an hour range. One can barely afford an apartment with a roommate at that pay here.
for work in a nice office environment
This applies to half of the jobs. The other half put you in your car (with mileage pay if you're lucky) maneuvering through traffic to small businesses who keep their computers in grungy little rooms that collect dust, heat, and insects.
with coffee breaks whenever u want
My last job was as senior help desk/desktop technician/general problem solver at a Fortune 500 company. I was lucky to be able to get through lunch without being told to pick up the phone or having to answer a page. I'm now at a company with a lower stress level and not as much general work, but I still have to take a cordless phone with me when I leave the desk.
In order to teach in California, you have to find a school that will accept you and has the money to pay you. Unfortunately, I expect a huge series of cuts to the college system, meaning a decline in the number of IT-related side courses, especially in community colleges.
I'm in (well was) the same boat you were in. I used to do all the systems and application managment on one of the largest Windows 2000 datacenters int he country, over 2300 servers. I've written articles for Hewlett-Packard newsletters about OpenView, written a few articles for Windows 2000 magazine, even see me in a book or 2 here.
Six months ago recession hit me. I lost a 65k/year job (Not to bad for Illinois) and the reserves started to go.
What did I do? Well, after an exhaustive search I found and settled on (quite happily I must admit) Semi Truck driving cross country. The company I work for pays for all the training, gets me my CDL, and sends me out in a truck. Pay is low for the first year (no more then 36k or so) but within a few years you go up to 60-70k/year plus.
Thing I dig about it, I only work 2 weeks a month. 2 weeks in a row mind you, but I have 2 weeks off. And Im getting paid for it. It's not as abnormal as I thought either, normal job stuff. Drive 8 hours, etc. Only thing is sleeping on the road thats odd.
And on the upside I get to work on my OWN projects now. I'm working on a free game for fun, and talk about war driving. How about over 2000 sites on a trip from Illinois to Oregon and back. Hell, if anything it's sweet for geeks. A lot of toys I get to bring with me on runs. Plus I do IT stuff on the side.
I used to work 15 hours a day. 3 hour round trip commute, plus 12 hours in the shop. Now I'm not so stressed, the money is good and you meet a lot of cool people.
So give it a shot. I went through Schneider Trucking but I see ads for a lot of other companies that do the same thing.
And yes, they hire ANYONE. Literally anyone. During training I was with 5 other IT pro's, one with a MIS. There was a college professor, and a housewife too.
Looking for hardware (Currently need: Large Etch-a-Sketch) Have one? See my journal!
RE: overqualification
/. for some great examples of people vehemently arguing over completely trivial optimizations or techniques or tools. Fine for a discussion board; not something I want happening in my IT department between a sysadmin and a junior assistant underling phone monkey who used to be a sysadmin.
From my perspective, when hiring, it depends on the job. Am I going to find a programmer who is 'over-qualified' for a position? No, probably not--whatever experience they have that is over and above the requirements is cool, as long as they're willing to work the position for the pay that's offered.
But there are positions where I really want just a total drone, too--the ones where if the employee starts thinking too much, it just causes trouble. I don't need a junior level tech support guy trying to re-engineer my network. If he used to be a senior sysadmin, that's almost certainly what's going to happen. This is IT--there is no one right way to do anything. Watch
No relation to Happy Monkey
Using a resume to apply for blue colar work is like searching the Infoworld classifieds for cashier openings at Giant. If you want one of these jobs, go in and fill out an application and track it all the way back through your work history. Make sure to include low paying jobs, do not buzzword them to death. Don't translate salary to $/hour, simply list salaried. If you cannot get your head around the application, talk to a friend doing that kind of work.
Emphasize you are going back to school or strongly considering it and don't light up like a Xmas tree when computers come up. Almost anyone will hire you despite sky high figures if think you want to do something while educating yourself.
All you are doing is saying, "I want to do the work, I can do the work, and I need the work".
That said if you cannot find any techie work chances are you are not really looking hard enough. How many employers a day do you contact? Do you customize your resume for each one? I know it is hard, I had a three month lull lately. It was my issue for not writing a proper resume for the PEs. Try 'What Color is Your Parachute' and 'Break the Rules'; success seems to be somewhere in the middle.
Also, appeal that unemployment claim. You are getting screwed.
Good Luck.
~~ What's stopping you?
Funny thing... ;)
I did the same exact thing for the job I am at now.. I softened the resume and started getting calls. My last job paid below average for what I was doing and the one I have now pays above average so in the end I'm not really making that much less. Of course now I deal with end users which I thought I'd never have to do again. Bottom line, it pays the bills and I am not under any pressure. I want to eventually move around again and I hope this job will not be a negative in the future, I'm trying to stay in the loop. I actually have fun calling the system administrator and telling him that the mail/file/backup/etc server is all jacked up again. Then I add a "maybe you should just reboot it again"
Bad boys rape our young girls but Violet gives willingly.
I just got a job. Took me about 6 months. I am now, ahem, an application development team leader with Uncle Sam. Good money, too. Anyhoo, check out www.usajobs.gov. The CS and IT jobs are labled Computer Specialist (GS-334-xx), IT Specialist (GS-2210-xx), Computer Engineer (GS-854-xx), Computer Scientist (GS-1550-xx), Electronics Techs (GS-856-xx), Telecomm. Spec. (GS-391-xx), Electronics Engineers (GS-850-xx), . (The 'xx' is the grade 1-15. Grade 9 is college-degreed entry level.) The salary ranges from Entry level (GS-9 (34K-44K))through Branch or Division Manager, (GS-15 ($82K-107K)), with a little extra for high-rent areas (3%-10%). Please note that relevant experience in specific areas is the overriding criteria for getting an interview and getting hired. Most job announcements have requirements of either a degree or X years (usually 4-8 years) of relevant experience. The process, if a success, can take 2-5 months, assuming no security clearance is required. Many of the jobs have a "career ladder" that can take one from GS-9 (or higher) up to GS-13 & GS-14, my new grade. http://www.opm.gov/oca/02tables/indexGS.htm
The quality of federal employee is much higher than generally realized. (At least by me.) Surprisingly, most feds. are pretty serious about the idea of being a civil servant, probably because it's their taxes, too. I find it very interesting to be a part of something that can, on occasion, directly affect everyone in my (& your) neighborhood. (Ba-ha-ha!) Good luck!