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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)?"
If you really *want* a lower-class job...
Instead of over-stating your resume, understate it. Problem solved.
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!
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.
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).
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 $50K/year, are you honestly going to stay around flipping burgers or running a cash register? If not, then you can't make promises to them.
testing out my trending skills
No offense, but I think that if you were raking in an amount near 75$/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.
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.
How do you convince a hiring manager that you aren't simply using them as a temporary stepping stone (even if this is true)?
Certainly not by admitting it on slashdot, Justin.
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.
Perfectly Normal Industries
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.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
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.
TEACH! In Dallas, Texas there are plenty of community colleges/commercial training places that will hire someone who *knows* what they're talking about(*know, being the key term there). Some will pay up to $50/hr (of course, only 6-8 hrs a week, which still isn't all that bad). It all depends on what you wanna do. Dallas needs some good Unix/Linux classes to take foot and start running....there are a few, but nothing really "everyone take this class" kind of setup.
(1) Change your first name to something suitable. For example: "Billy-Bob", "Little Paul", etc.
(2) Start buying your clothes at K-Mart "end of season sales". Color co-ordination and size matching need not apply.
(3) Marry someone you suspect, but not necessarily know, might be in the same bloodline as you. She should change her name to something like "Sue-Ann" or "Peggy-Sue".
(4) Acquire a 1979 Ford F-150. Place two armchairs in the flatbed for when ma and pa need a ride.
(5) Apply for job at K-Mart, gas filling station, fast food restaurant of your choice.
And, et voila! You too will have no trouble living close to the poverty line.
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.
Advice: on VPS providers
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.
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
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.
Yeah, and you guys panned the ipod too: http://apple.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=01/10/23
The solution, of course, is to alter your resume when applying for certain jobs.
The simplest strategy is to simply offer no resume: for the burger flipping job, or many other minimum-wage positions, presenting a resume is probably a red flag all by itself.
On job applications (or on your resume), do just the opposite of what most folks do: understate and deflate your experience.
I suppose the worst problem is how to fill the blanks: if you were working at a dot-bomb company from 1997-2001, you can't just leave those years blank without raising concerns (though if you have young kids, you can report that "following the birth of my first child in 1996, I decided to spend more time at home" without actually lying (maybe you didn't ever manage to act on that decision, for example, until the company's Chapter 7 filing in 2001).
Or just make some minor changes in the way you describe that job: if your resume now says, "Chief Technology Officer supervising 65 programmers and maintenance of 200 web servers from 1997-2001," try changing the title to something that sounds a lot less grandiose (like "Computer Operator" or "Equipment Manager").
Let's face it, being "over-qualified" for a job you want right now, is a problem that most people only dream about.
-- http://www.MarkWelch.com/ Pleasanton California
You're sick and tired of IT and are ready to change careers... (Hey, you can always change your mind, right?)
This is a general rule for all job application situations. It's none of their business what you used to make. The only thing they need to know is what you're willing to do the work for *now*. You should be making the decisions about how much yout time costs, not some egotistical HR manager.
Also, apply at a temp agency... They won't turn you down.
I would say do NOT lie on your resume. Even if you lie by understatement it is still a lie. If you lie, you run the risk of being fired from the job at any time. Say you get hired at CompUSA and work there for a year. On your anniversery you get fired because some overacheiving assistant manager noticed a problem on your old application. Well then next month when you have to go and apply for a job how are you going to explain being fired? Or will you lie again? In that case, how will you explain not working for an entire year? Not to mention that lieing in any form shows poor character.
I believe omitting glorious details would be the way to go. Simply restructure your resume not to include information that may hinder your chances. For example, do not not salary information. CompUSA probably does not care about your salary history anyway. You are required to tell them either. Instead of talking up your previous job like you normally would, talk it down. For example:
"...where I was responsible for rebuilding the database from a Micorsoft Access db into 3rd normal form SQL based database. At that point I trained a team of programmers on 3NF and proceeded to become a certified Oracle Expert."
Let's change that to:
"...where I worked with an Access database to track our inventory."
You're not lieing, but you are showing you have some abilities above most others. Remember, lieing (even if to make yourself look worse) is wrong and could cost you a any job.
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?
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!
excpet in "right to work" states.
of course its really tough to unionize in those states which - BTW
HEY IT SHLUBS - UNIONIZE THIS TIME.
... hi bingo
2. "Battle shorts" require the permission of the Commanding Officer and one hell of a casualty.
3. I have served on a submarine and know that of which I speak.
4. Whoever modded my post as a troll is either an idiot or a lifer dig-it dog. And I have plenty of karma, so bring it on.
One CPU cycle wasted on digital restrictions management is ONE TOO MANY.
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?
Need honest person to infiltrate telemarketing lair and mark all potential customers as "do not call". Must be able to find your own way out of a 3,000 square foot cubicle maze.
It's not clear from your comment whether you want to be a regular full-time employee because you prefer it, or just because your savings is running dry.
If you prefer being a consultant, but you're not getting contracts, you need to up your marketing and sales. Some excellent advice is in the Contract Employees Handbook, especially the appendix on resources. Another good place to check is Janet Ruhl's site, Real Rates which tells what recent contracts have gone for by specialty.
(A great tip I heard is to bypass HR altogether and ask the switchboard for "procurement" or "vendor relations". You are, after all, a business offering a product, not a worker offering to become an employee.)
On the other hand, if you prefer to be an employee, dig out your trusty copy of What Color Is Your Parachute. Do the exercises, then go after companies who do what it is you want to do.
Either way, it has to start with what YOU want to do. You might take something else as an interim measure, but always keep your focus.
I started a business in college, and work it part-time. Upon graduation, I had no debt, but I also didn't have a job. The business helped keep my head above water until I could find stable employment where I could pay my bills and sink additional money into my business in the hope of being self-employed full-time. Among the other skills I've acquired: operation of manufacturing equipment, selling, washing dishes in a nursing home, and the most important of all...networking.
Like many of my posts (hee hee), submarine life can be overrated. I was young enough that often I didn't realize how cool what I was doing actually was. But there are plenty of drawbacks to submarine life (lack of sleep, boredom, drills, boredom, drills), particularly for an enlisted man, who typically stands 3-section watches at sea (6 out of every 18 hours) in addition to doing his job, running drills, etc. I would advise anyone with the ability who's interested in joining the military to do so as a commissioned officer.
I was on an SSBN (boomer) that didn't do exciting port calls, etc. (The motto was "hide with pride.") The technology was interesting, but, because of the nature of life-safety, weapons systems, and nuclear power certifications, was hardly cutting edge. The main computers in the area I worked had 32K of core memory. One of the computers used for navigation had a drum memory. Great if you're interested in classic computing :).
With the Trident system, the technology is now based firmly in the early 1980s--the navigation computers run 68000s.
One CPU cycle wasted on digital restrictions management is ONE TOO MANY.
5 knots to nowhere...
At least the reactor protection systems had 8080's
Bad boys rape our young girls but Violet gives willingly.
for non-management type grunt positions like IT and DB Programming, a Union is the only way to make sure that you dont get fscked.
So instead of getting screwed by the company, you get screwed by your union? No thanks, at least I can negotiate with a company. Inside a union I'd only be able to make what my union says I can make. I'd only be able to get promoted based on my seniority which really doesn't necessessarily say shit about my technical level or useful experience. And on top of that, My voice would be overruled by the lazy and stupid.
Unions? No thank you.
I am in the same boat.
My favorite rejection is...
You'll leave as soon as the economy gets better...
Meanwhile my resume shows me staying at least 3 years at every company.
And when is the economy going to get better...
I also like when the HH says, "You won't be fufilled in this position..."
Lady my fucking 2800USD mortgage is going to be fufilled if I don't get a job soon.Looks like
I'll be driving a Forklift again real soon!
This
They hire new people every week. And believe it or not, half the people they hire will be gone in less than a month. The turnover is horrible. And anyone with half a clue will have the opportunity to get promoted into management in a few months or less. They don't care very much if you're "over" qualified, as long as you can pick up a box and show up to work everyday. If you do have potential beyond the typical grunt worker, they have an almost endless supply of opportunities, even tech related jobs.
They go out of their way to find and keep competant workers. They won't hold too much experience against you. And if you're worried that they will, just tell them you're there to take advantage of the college refund program. Even if you're not, that will at least tell them you plan to stay several months. And in the summer months (especially in Texas), they simply cannot get enough people. Its not possible.
Although, I'm not sure what its like in other states. There are hubs in certain states that only hire new people when they lose someone, and the only time they lose people is when one someone retires after 25-30 years. Local economy
might make a difference.
Good luck in any event.
-Restil
-Rstil
Play with my webcams and lights here
why is it that americans fail to see the value of standing together?
Well I'm Canadian to start but I suspect it's a North American thing. I see unions screw companies every day. I see unions screw government (which means they're screwing us, including themselves) every day. I'm sick to the teeth of the whole notion of huge industry unions. They are a constant source of whining and agony, and they are corrupt beyond all measure.
The idea of small unions (let's say under 1000 members) does have some appeal but unions like the teacher's union, CAW/UAW, OPSEU and the like are absolutely useless to anyone who wants to make a run and stand on their own merit. Like I said, within a union you don't get promoted by merit or by usefulness, but by seniority. While that's fine for someone who's 40 and has been in a union since they got out of high school, it is absolutely useless for the young people or those who end up getting dragged down to the average. Believe me, nothing kills your spirit like not having any control over your future.
Anywhere there is a large mass of skill there will be a bell curve of "goodness" -- those to the right will be anti-union because they know it'll only drag them down, while those to the left will push for unionization because it will raise their quality-of-employment. The large bump in the middle represents those who really don't care one way or the other or who can't make up their minds. This is an oversimplification, yes, but I would definately call this the first approximation of a unionphobic/unionphilic metric.
For someone like myself -- someone who is further ahead at 26 than most union lifers because of the chances I've taken, dumb luck I've fallen into and experience I've gained from not towing the line, paying my dues and waiting for my promotion -- unions offer absolutely nothing to me.
Yes, I'm young. However I'm also damned well skilled and if I can play my cards right, I will have no need for unions even at 40 or 50 or 60. You only get put out to pasture if you lose your desire to keep pushing or can be replaced by a wet-behind-the-ears 23 year old fresh out of college since you didn't keep current or better yourself during your tenure. I fully plan on keeping my skills honed through honest to goodness practise and excercise and I plan on having union shops (and others) hire me as a consultant to figure out their problems. You can't do that in a union.
Unions have their place. When you have a mid-to-large size workplace in need of unskilled to semi-skilled workers to perform various duties more or less the do the same thing, unions are great. Nobody likes doing the same thing day in and day out but it's a paycheque and if you're that type of person or that's the only type of work you can get, unions have their place. If you want to punch the clock and do the same shit day in and day out and not give a shit what the company is doing or how to make it more profitable, then unions are definately for you. If your workplace is hostile toward its workers and, in general, the employees don't have the in-demand skills, the stomach for risk or the option of moving elsewhere, then unions have their place.
However for skilled to highly skilled workers who should have the brains and common sense to stand up for themselves because they could find another job or even relocate, unions perform absolutely no useful function.
It isn't about sticking together. I prefer to choose my loyalties myself, and I prefer to make my own mind up about whether I want to work or leave (or strike). I am very loyal and will fight tooth and nail for a cause or a company I believe in, but that is my choice to do so, not some union leader who's pockets are getting greased by every special interest group out there and who would rather push for an 18% wage increase over job stability. (Yeah, whose interests are being served there? The employee who will be out of work in a year or the union leader who gets a percentage of every union member's wage?!) I can name at least a few companies off the top of my head who have been priced right out of the marketplace by their unions. I've seen it happen and I will have none of it.