soon to be unemployeed

[mjendrejcak]

The parent company to my employer has decided to take all network administration back to home office in France rather than leave it in each local site. This means I'm out of work around May 2004. I would like to start looking now before they can me. I have posted my resume on monster, career builder and dice.



Anybody have job search tips? Anybody know of any stable jobs in IT? Or stable careers?

 

[DHayden]

If you can't find another job in IT your hurtin. IT is always in the top 4 jobs in the country. But... . if you can't find anything and depending how you wanna look at it, take a look at OPM.gov. This is a Federal Government Job site and lists plenty of IT positions across the nation. It may be a little lower pay then on the outside but the retirement and matching can't be beat, and once your into a job your in like an Alabama tick. Hope this helps, good luck.

 

[Rebel_Horseman]

I've been job hunting for about a month now. the market is pretty tight, but I"m in the construction industry and not IT so it's likely different. If you don't mind working for greedy Uncle Sam then definitely check out the opm website mentioned above. I'd also check out your local state and neighboring state's human resources website. A web search will turn up the correct address. i also put my resume on the same sites that you have, but I haven't heard anything yet form them. Keep your eye on the local newspapers and talk to people. If at all possible start networking with workers form other companies. Play golf with them, go drinking with them, or whatever, but networking is the key. I guarantee that if you know people you will find a job faster than if you don't. "It's not what you know, but WHO you know. " Again, I'm speaking from the construction industry point of view.



Luck with it all.



Brian [><]

 

[jwoelfle]

So ya'll think that IT guys can get a job in a heartbeat huh? Unless you wanna relocate to a remote area, the IT field sucks right now. All of us IT guys that are in the locations that used to be hot markets are all fighting for jobs. Stuff we used to get paid $35-40/hr for 2 years ago is paying around $15/hr now. I know network engineers that live and breath this stuff that have been out of work for over a year now. Personally, I've only been out 4 months. There are so many of us out of work, that we've taken all the Home Depot, Walmart, and various other $8-9/hr jobs that the local teenagers didn't have anywhere to work this summer.



Monster and Careerbuilder and the other big sites are saturated. Your best bet is find someone you know inside a company already or hit the US gov job sites. Prepare to get EXTREMELY frustrated at companies for not responding when you apply for a job. I have sent out a couple hundred resumes to for OPEN positions and have only received ONE response. Yep, the IT market sux right now.



Good luck.



Jim

 

[rmrc]

I'm in the same boat! Been out of work from my IT job since March and I'll probably be looking at Lowes, Home Depot, Bus Driver or what ever is available to bring some money in!

Originally posted by jwoelfle

So ya'll think that IT guys can get a job in a heartbeat huh? Unless you wanna relocate to a remote area, the IT field sucks right now. All of us IT guys that are in the locations that used to be hot markets are all fighting for jobs. Stuff we used to get paid $35-40/hr for 2 years ago is paying around $15/hr now. I know network engineers that live and breath this stuff that have been out of work for over a year now. Personally, I've only been out 4 months. There are so many of us out of work, that we've taken all the Home Depot, Walmart, and various other $8-9/hr jobs that the local teenagers didn't have anywhere to work this summer.

 

[Rman]

the govn't has a new list of atleast 40-50 positions a week posted, with your experience you should qualify easily. Unfortunatly odds are you'd have to relocate and odds are they won't pay for it.



Most of those jobs are only open internally though, but if you can get into contact with the people that need the position filled you can fill it externally.



Good luck!

 

[mjendrejcak]

Originally posted by jwoelfle

Prepare to get EXTREMELY frustrated at companies for not responding when you apply for a job. I have sent out a couple hundred resumes to for OPEN positions and have only received ONE response. Yep, the IT market sux right now.



Good luck.



Jim

Jim,



Thanks for the encouraging words



I thought that was the state of the market, I have been here for about 2. 5 years and thought it was stable. Thought wrong.



Time to go back to landscaping and remolding.

 

[machterhof]

The company I work for has a butt load of jobs available. The problem is that 99% of the jobs available require at least a Secret security clearance. Most require a TOP SECRET or better.



If you have at least a Secret and are willing to relocate, let me know (send me a PM) and I'll put you in touch with the right folks.



Currently we have almost 1600 job openings in VA. About 1/4 of these are IT related. Most are in the northern VA (near DC) area.



There are 3 openings for Network Engineers , 4-5 for network security folks, 5 systems administrators, 10 systems engineers and thats just in Mclean.



The jobs are there. You just have to have the clearance and quals and be in the right place.

 

[JHerrlich]

Just be careful about getting a civil service IT job with any of the branches of service. With the current trend of outsourcing IT you will likely be an impacted employee within a couple of years.

 

[jwoelfle]

The current trend of outsourcing IT functions is going to bite the companies that use it in the a$$ in the not-too-distant future. I know of several companies that have done it simply because they see the salary structures of the overseas folks and see an immediate cost savings. They don't see the hidden costs involved like paying someone local to do the job correctly after they've already paid offsite folks to do it and they do it horribly wrong, the costs involved in communicating between here and there, the increased overtime pay here to talk to someone over there(time difference ya know), CUSTOMER SATISFACTION is at an all time low right now. When people call for help, they want ENGLISH speaking folks to help them. Even though most overseas tech folks speak english(sort of), there is a HUGE communications gap simply by way of terminology. And IT support simply is NOT where you want terminology discrepencies.



I think once the bean counters actually get the REAL cost data of overseas outsourcing, the market is gonna turn back our way... it has to. There is no cost effective for it work successfully. It may not swing directly back to local admins on staff. There may be a trend to continue outsourcing but using local IT expertise(contractors), but look at the IT industry of 5-7 years ago. They tried it then and it failed miserably so it will evetually swing back to on-staff local admins. I've been doing IT support for 15 years... it's a cycle... we just gotta be strong enough to ride it out. Anybody in the real IT world KNOWS you can't do it all remote.



Jim