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How to find a job in the current market ?
UncleChet
N00bLancaster, PARegistered User regular
N00bLancaster, PARegistered User regular
Background: i've been in IT in one form or another since 96. I'm a bootstraper, meaning I either taught myself or learned as I went, so, no fancy training or certs. I used to use sites like monster or dice but they're now just marketing information collectors. I've been in my position for just shy of 7 years and not gotten a pay increase in over 5, not even a cost of living increase. It takes an average of 45 minutes to drive the 13 mile comute one way. My coworkers frequently give bad or wrong information and ignore me when I try to help. More often than not, the users I support either talk over me or ignore me when I ask questions to try to help them. I live in Lancaster County pa, so not exactly an it hot spot. I'm really feeling pretty burned out. I enjoy tech support, and enjoy helping folks, but my job is the very definition of a dead end job.
So, tldr: I need help finding a new job.
So, tldr: I need help finding a new job.
I'm sometimes grumpy and random, feel free to overlook the strange man in the corner.
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Craigslist can get you a job, I was hired off of craigslist before for a project, but be careful, some job listings are scams.
http://www.dol.gov/dol/location.htm
edit: and get those fancy certifications. Seriously. An A+ certification makes you more marketable. People always dog it, but you are going to be competing with someone who has 5-10 years of experience and the cert, probably also a couple of others. It cost 183 bucks. MSCE is generally a good one to have as well. Are they the best? No, Will they let you move from 20k a year to 80k a year. No, but they will help you get in the door.
After you get more specialised experience get the certs that go along with it, it makes a huge difference. I know someone who got CISSP and they went up 15k a year in pay.
Sorry, I don't know of anything better.
Good luck!
GET PAID
You want a job in a particular location, so try marketing yourself directly to companies in the place you want to work. Go to their individual websites, phone their HR department. Since you have no qualifications, automated recruiting systems will be bad for you.
Also, ask for a pay-rise if you want it. Often companies don't give you one unless you ask.
How sure are you that you're a contractor?
Do you pay taxes more than once a year?
On the other side of things, look for public institutions for short term IT positions to boost your resume. Universities, small municipalities, public utility companies, and other services all require IT assistance and consulting and typically have excellent benefits (though below median pay unless you are military or federal). Universities and Community Colleges especially require these positions to support students and often throw in the added benefit of free coursework each semester should you wish to pursue an degree. IT positions in the public sector usually do not require formal degrees for entry level work, but you will likely need one to advance.
Also, are there any major educational institutions in your area? Colleges are frequently hiring inhouse IT and larger ones tend to have great benefits, including career development through extension school discounts.
Good luck!
Our first game is now available for free on Google Play: Frontier: Isle of the Seven Gods
In short:that area sticks for IT right now, but everywhere isn't like that. You may need to be open to a big move, because the mid-Atlantic region is super saturated with IT people right now for a variety of reasons.
I chuckled at this :P
You may want to look into certifications or education. It is hard enough in the job market to find a job as is, but sometimes it helps to have education behind it. My boyfriend got turned away from an IT job because he didn't have certain certifications and no degree for it. He is now about to take classes and get his associates. Something you may want to consider.
Also, like someone else said having connections is always good. Contact people you know and see if they know anything. Word of mouth is really powerful.
Do you still have a clearance, or eligible for one? Check clearance jobs, or check out Bradley-Morris (a veteran aimed agency). They may be able to help.
Also if you qualify for post 9 11 GI Bill, you can still do school part time and they will cover tuition. It isn't as awesome because you don't get the BAH bit, but at least you don't have to pay for each class.
I found my current job on Craigslist, so I'm adding another vote for keeping an eye out there.
A note though, probably 90% of the postings are recruiters or temp agencies. Third party companies who collect resumes and send the good ones to the actual places that don't want to read a thousand resumes a day to weed out a half dozen decent ones. So, when you call one of these up (or send a resume) make sure you find who the job is actually working for and keep track so you don't wind up with two companies sending the same resume to the hiring company. Every person in charge of hiring someone that I've talked to have said that if they get the same name from two different recruiters they don't even look at the resume, they just pitch it to avoid the nightmare of two different headhunters wanting their cut.
I know that sort of thing doesn't happen often but you can be surprised if you apply both widely and a bit outside your normal comfort zone.
Generally speaking though, I would also recommend craigslist - if nothing else you might be able to do small gigs for people here and there
Also follow up. Try and talk to the actual person you'll be working for. Pull some shit about having technical questions related to the announcement to get past HR if possible.
Hell, even calling HR and asking shows more initiative than most.
Like UncleChet, I tried all of the traditional sites, DICE, Monster, you know them. Either the positions were already filled, or they were fake postings made by consultant/contracting firms harvesting resumes.
Finally, I tried Careerbuilder, which is apparently what HR people use now. No luck in my area, but at least the postings were 1) new and 2) real. Somewhere buried in the Careerbuilder profile page I found a setting for "spam your resume to our national database". It had something to do with letting the Careerbuilder site auto-post your resume without you needing to manually search and apply.
Once I did that the interview offers came rolling in.
Something that I noticed right away was that jobs seemed very regional.
Places where IT people are needed now: DC, Pittsburgh, Boston metro area, and Las Vegas. I don't know why those areas are hot, but I do know that 1) Don't bother searching now, wait until the day after Christmas as many contract positions refresh in January, and 2) the total debacle of Wyeth/Pfizer (if you want to know, PM me) has crushed the Philadelphia metro area. Dozens of engineers with every background looking for work at the same time caused complete saturation.
EDIT: UncleChet, I'm re-reading the thread and I don't see your skillset(s) anywhere. If I knew more specifically what you are looking for I could ask my Philly contacts if there is anything in the western suburbs for you.