Hunting For a Tech Job In 2015

Nerval's Lobster writes It's a brand new year, and by at least some indications the economy's doing pretty well, which means that a lot of people will begin looking for a new, possibly better job. If you're looking to trade up, here are some tips, some of which are pretty standard-issue ("Update resume," etc.), and others that could actually stand you in good stead, including using the Bureau of Labor Statistics to judge the median salary for a position before negotiating with HR. According to Glassdoor, Dice, and other sources, the average salary for many kinds of tech workers will only rise over the next year, so it really could be a good time to see what's out there. Good luck.

Comments

Re:economy doing well?

[lgw]

Where do you live? Here in the Seattle area, the economy is booming. From fast food to construction right through to dev jobs, everyone is hiring like crazy. There are about 20 new buildings (mostly highrises) going up in downtown Seattle, and apartments are going up everywhere in the suburbs. No question things are doing well here. Where's the suck?

Painted into a corner

[jandersen]

I think the tech industry has painted itself into a corner. I had the misfortune to lose my job early in 2013 and spent almost the whole year looking before I found something; during that whole period I actually saw the same, relatively few jobs being readvertised over and over, with very little new showing up. The sector I was looking at was what you'd call 'devops', and it seemed like the companies were trying to get people with long experience in both development and system administration, but they weren't willing to pay more than what you'd pay for a middle ranking call-center operator. I can't quite imagine how anybody can imagine that being an attractive proposition to anybody with the qualifications.

So, it looks to me like a number of companies - almost all of them internet businesses - have painted themselves into a corner, where they deperately need highly qualified employees that they are never going to be able or willing to pay for.

The Truth about CV's from India

[Anonymous Coward]

Just because you worked on a project that used [insert product here] it does not make you an expert in that product OR even qualified to put it down on your CV

Over the past 3-4 years I have seen hundreds if not thousands of CV's coming out of India that contain huge amount of Bullshit if not downright lies.
Now we filter them out by asking them not overly difficult questions relating to the products they are supposed to be skilled in.
Even then some seem to slip through the net.
Many may be good on paper but totally lack initiative and problem solving skills.

Having spent 6 months this part year working in Jaipur/Mumbai and Chennai I have now a team of four recruiters working on supplying the CV's only of those who are up to the job AND (and this is really important) won't move on to another job as soon as they begin to get useful to the project.
They do this for CV Padding. Never mind the quality, feel the width.

Re:Dice = Contract Jobs

[antdude]

So, what are good web sites that are not like Dice.com these days then? I used to use it back in early 2000s.

Re:Dice = Contract Jobs

[Anonymous Coward]

To be honest, I don't think any really exist.

Employers who hire new grads tend to go straight to the universities. Past that, I suspect most decent jobs are found either through networking or by going to places and asking if they are hiring (this can be surprisingly effective, and a lot of places appreciate the initiative).

It has been awhile since I've heard about someone getting a good job by sending a resume in to some random job they saw posted somewhere. It's always "I have a friend who is working there" or "I heard they won contract X so I went down and talked to them".

Places like dice.com are, as said, shitty short term contract work. Most companies worth working for do their own HR and have enough contacts through their own employees to find good people.

Re:economy doing well?

[ranton]

Couldn't help but notice the distinct lack of industry in your raving about how wonderful things are for you. I mean, having lots of commerce and residential is great, but how is anybody supposed to pay for it? The money won't just appear out of thin air, you know?

Complaining about a lack of manufacturing jobs in today's economy is little different than complaining about the lack of agricultural jobs. Yes these have historically been sectors of the economy where the majority of people worked, but that is no longer the case. The lack of agricultural and manufacturing jobs are not a sign of a weak economy, they are the sign of a strong one.

Manufacturing and agricultural output are still good metrics for measuring an economy, and the United States is certainly strong there.

Re:Best advice I heard, and followed

[ranton]

Robots might replace pharmacy technicians someday, but we'll always need pharmacists, let alone PharmDs.

I worked as a software developer in the pharmaceutical industry, and I assure you that PharmDs are just as in danger of being automated as pharmacy techs. Perhaps even more so because of their higher pay. Every seminar I sat through where our customers talked about their successes with our software measured success in number of jobs reduced (usually through attrition, not firing, but the net result is the same). One key metric of success was being able to get the same amount of work done with more pharmacy techs instead of PharmDs, thus reducing overall wages.

PharmD jobs are almost the poster child for a high wage career that can be more easily replaced by automation than most low wage work. It is a career that requires very highly skilled workers because of the vast amount of knowledge they need to have. That is exactly the type of work that the new wave of AI is being designed to do. Like another poster already mentioned, Watson really is going to displace a good percentage of your industry's jobs.

Re:economy doing well?

[meustrus]

There's an important difference between the dot-com boom of the 90s and now. In the 90s you needed lots of capital and the smartest minds available to get online. Now you don't. Anybody with a little bit of programming skill can write an app in weeks and make it available to everyone. Anyone who needs a server can get an AWS instance and expect it to scale up when they need it to. Anyone who needs revenue can get a Google AdSense account. And anyone who actually needs substantial capital can point to Facebook's success. Not that Facebook or any other capital-driven businesses are immune. There may well be a bust. But the industry is more mature, the rewards are easier to define, and nobody wants to see their kids' faces when their investment decisions contribute to Facebook's demise.