So... I got a call on a job I submitted a resume for today

[Ohio Joe]

It is a part time job doing some database design and maintenance, 20-30 hours a week @ $15 an hour. Talking with the woman who called, she said they had over 300 resumes and had narrowed it down to 25. She was calling all of us to ask some questions to narrow it down further before the hiring manager called for the first "in person" interview.

Sheesh... Being unemployed in this economy really and truly is a shit place to be. I really do hope President Obama is able to get it changed so that we stop giving incentives to those that outsource and instead give them to those that hire here.

[CaliforniaPeggy]

1. Best of luck, my dear Ohio Joe!

Those are truly long odds. I'm quite sure you will be among those called for the "in person" interview...

No kidding about it being a shit place to be. I just cannot wait for the economy to improve a whole lot more.

Hang in there!

[Ohio Joe]

2. Thanks Peggy

I always appreciate your support

[MedicalAdmin]

3. It sucks. That's for sure.

I didn't even advertise the last position we needed help with and got about 10 resumes and letters the day after I even talked about it.

On the other hand I used to be a conductor and pro musician before the car accidents and I routinely competed with about 10,000 applicants for every position I applied for.

Good luck. I hope you get it and it leads to many more, better jobs. Keep positive Joe. I'll keep my digits crossed.

[Ohio Joe]

7. Thanks

It is very important to stay positive, especially when talking to potential employers.

[bigwillq]

4. Good Luck!

[Ohio Joe]

9. Thanks!

[tridim]

5. American IT is dead IMO

I don't think it'll ever be revived.

I used to have people cold call me weekly with offers of $60k/yr for standard webdev/database work. Now those same jobs pay $10/hr if you're lucky enough to land one. I'm out.

As I'm sure you know $15/hr is still an insult, but people will still kill for it.

Just had a non-IT interview yesterday and was sent to drug PRE-screening immediately after. First drug test I've ever had, hope I pass. They are also running an extensive, detailed background check at a private investigation firm. I feel violated.. All for $13 fucking dollars an hour and half-assed benefits.

Good luck anyway.

[Ohio Joe]

11. Yeah, I've had a few of those

It's pretty weird. One was as a counter person at a car dealership, meet-n-greet and direct people but you need a drug test and background check... Made no sense.

[kurt_cagle]

19. Attrition and Skills

One of the biggest problems with IT is that the field tends to be self commoditizing - you get $60k/yr for web dev or database work because this work was sufficiently technical that you needed a specialist. Now, you can put together even a fairly complex website or database in a couple of weeks or less, because most of this work has been encoded in frameworks or even sites like tumblr, Sharepoint or Drupal, and these sites, once built, require much less maintenance.

There are a couple of ways that you can swim against the tide at least for a little while. Find out where the cutting edge is - mobile app development, Drupal, NoSQL systems, Hadoop, Eiffel, semantic web technology, even jQuery programming, spend some time putting together sample apps that you can distribute, and work towards gaining those skills. As an information architect, I'd kill for a solid jQuery developer so that I don't have to write the damn stuff myself. Move out of your comfort zone.

Also, don't rely upon the want ads and resumes to get work - post your resume online, trick it out in bells and whistles to make it interactive and show what you can do, then walk away from it for a while. Download toolkits in the area you want to learn, teach yourself if you have to (and you probably will - if it's being taught in community colleges, it's probably already out of date) and then market yourself by finding those places you want to work and show what you can do rather than try to meet what they're looking for. Blog - write about code, about the industry, about how you would solve problems. Prospective employers will google your name, and a long list of technical articles can be a real positive.

Final note: remember that by the time a job listing makes its way to the job boards, it will have been pored over perhaps hundreds of times, and likely will get thousands of resumes. I've found that the best course of strategy is to showcase what you can do - put together a portfolio full of both eye candy and substantial work, then send links to the CTOs of every company that you're interested in working with. I had to learn this lesson the hard way, but I make low six figures a year by doing it now.

[got root]

37. excellent advice

that has been my experience, too.

And there are companies that want to customize those systems you mentioned, or even write some apps themselves, in-house, so being well skilled in javascript today is huge (not to mention css3/html5).

I would also mention Dojo, as a JS library/framework/toolkit that allows you to build very complex (enterprise class) web applications, that are only growing in demand.

I just started using GitHub to host some of my personal projects. I highly recommend it.

gl OP

[tridim]

40. Agreed that is good advice..

I just feel so chewed up and spit out that it's very hard to get excited about it. I always feel like I'm going to pick the wrong technology and just waste more time. It also doesn't help that I never got paid for my last 10 month contract. Not one cent.

I've always been self-taught, so if I get the itch I'll probably dive back in. I did some JQuery in my last job. Meh. I can do photoshop and flash/AS work with my eyes closed, but my portfolio is dated at this point, since I spent the last 5 years programming 95% of the time.

[haele]

6. Good luck getting the job - but $15 an hour for database maintenance? Even at part time..

I'm old. I remember when database maintenance used to be a $18 - $20 an hour job - in 1992. And that's not considering you also are going to be doing some design. $12 to $15 an hour was going rate for just plain computer data entry back then.



Haele

[tridim]

12. All true. The H1B crap completely destroyed the industry.

We should have unionized in the mid-90's.

I was approaching a six-digit salary in 1999, now I rarely even get interviews for $10/hr IT work. I still have all the knowledge and it's just going to waste.

[Zalatix]

28. That's called "we told you so" moment.

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[Ohio Joe]

13. From 96-2000...

I was making over 100k as the DBA at a Y2K company... After, I was hired by Nationwide doing a lot of the same work (though the title changed) I did for them during the Y2K days for 80k+. I know those days are gone

[AsahinaKimi]

8. Ganbatte ne!!!

do your best!

[Ohio Joe]

14. Thank you!

[Botany]

10. U R Good enough

U R smart enough
and gosh darn it people like you and you will get the job.

[Ohio Joe]

15. You forgot...

How good looking I am... oh wait



Thanks, I do appreciate the support.

[vaberella]

16. I'm actually hoping the American people get a brain and vote in a working Congress.

They're the only ones who can do something worthwhile for us now. Obama is limited by his Congress.

[Ohio Joe]

17. Agreed

It is every bit as important as re-electing President Obama and I am not sure we (meaning D's in general) are putting enough focus on it.

[GoCubsGo]

18. Good luck!

It really is a shit place in which to be, as I know far too well. In a normal world, I would have had a job a long time ago. But, people with at least as much experience as I have are also getting laid off. Even with 20+ years of experience under my belt, I always lose out to someone with "more experience", and for a job that pays 40% less than what I was making in my old job, which paid less than many places did for the comparable job. I am to a point where I cannot bear to put in another application, and have to force myself to do so. I am so fucking sick of having to type in the same damn shit over and over and over again, day in and day out, I can't stand it. And, the thought of doing another interview nauseates me. Nothing like knowing halfway through the ordeal that you don't stand a chance at getting the job because you don't have any experience doing something people at your level are not expected to do.

I hope President Obama can get things changed, too. And, I am seeing more jobs opening up. But, unfortunately, in my field jobs don't get outsourced. They are mostly in government and academia, and there's no money to hire there.

[CaliforniaPeggy]

22. My dear GoCubsGo...

I'm so sorry...



I so wish I could fix it for you...

[GoCubsGo]

43. Thank you, Peggy.

It wouldn't be quite so bad I didn't have to hear how people like me are "lazy", "drug addicts", and that we should "blame ourselves" for this. The people who say this wouldn't last 5 minutes in the temp jobs I was forced to take. My state is about to start requiring drug tests for people collecting unemployment. It won't affect me, but I find it absolutely despicable. Kick 'em when they're up. Kick 'em when they're down...

[Ohio Joe]

24. I'm right there with you my friend

My last job was with the state of Ohio as a contractor, we were given a big speech about how they loved our work and they were renewing our contract for another three years. A week later we were all given the boot for lack of funds. I do seem to be getting more calls lately but it always seems there are a crapload of people vying for them.

[Patrick_Bateman]

47. Good luck to you! n/t

[Patrick_Bateman]

20. Good Luck Joe! n/t

[Ohio Joe]

25. Thanks!

I can definitly use the luck

[rurallib]

21. Good luck dude - pulling for you!

[Ohio Joe]

26. Appreciated

[ProSense]

23. Congratulations! n/t

[Ohio Joe]

27. Thanks!

I really do hope it comes through.

[barbtries]

29. good luck!

let us know when you get the job!

[Ohio Joe]

30. I will definitly be doing that

Thanks

[kurt_cagle]

31. IT is not dead, but ...

it's never going to party again like it's 1999.

I believe the outsourcing bandwagon has left town - it is increasingly easier logistically and economically to work with more local developers than it is to try to take advantage of fluctuating exchange rates from pulling in work from overseas. However, even if Obama signed legislation tomorrow that reversed the tax incentives, it will still take a few years for that to have any material effect on the job market. Part of that, as outline in my post above, is because the low hanging fruit of IT has been picked and usually encoded in a framework somewhere. This means that the problems that remain are generally hard, and often have to do with integration of disparate communication or data systems.

Ironically, this is good news for programmers locally, because this kind of work is also hardest to outsource and it is probably the least amenable to one size fits all solutions. Remember that the big guys - IBM, Microsoft, Google, Oracle, Accenture, etc. - are constantly looking for those sweet spots so that they can produce turnkey solutions as products along with associated professional services offerings, but in reality even they are struggling right now because the real problems are the ones that defy this componentization.

However, for programmers to take advantage of this, it's necessary to walk away from your comfort zone. I had to move at considerable expense to take the work I did, and may very well have to do that again. I consciously spent time researching where the hard problems were, and where the applications weren't, then I learned the skills to become proficient in those areas. This is going to be the case for most STEM related jobs; the days where a surgeon could rely upon what skills they learned in Medical School are LONG gone. Same for engineers, and certainly same for IT. Pining about the good days and being willing to settle for Craig's List wages will only result in finding your career over with.

I hate to say that, because it is for STEM professionals very much the same issue that is faced by anyone who's not in the uberclass, but the reality is that you have to work harder and harder just to stay even. The irony is that the need is still very much for good IT people, but the people who need these things don't have the money to match the skills that IT people have spent so much on.

[Ohio Joe]

32. This as well as your other post are great advice

I put applications out everywhere and anywhere I think I can convince them to hire me. I started in NJ, went to CT, then MA, then OH and since becoming unemployed, am now in Denver but always willing to move.

The constant upgrading of skills is another real key thing to do, not having expierence doing it in a job can make it a harder sell but it can be done.

Lots of good stuff you have put out here, thanks for adding it in

[malaise]

33. Good luck

[Ohio Joe]

34. Thanks!

Greatly appreciated

[tawadi]

35. Hope you get it

And I agree. It is past time to stop sending our jobs overseas.

[Ohio Joe]

36. Thanks tawadi

I don't know how this whole 'lets give companies tax breaks to ship jobs over seas' started.. I imagine there was some rational (even if it was bad) when it was done but it is many many years over due to put a stop to it.

[Fool Count]

38. $15 an hour designing databases? Damn, that is the minimum wage here in Australia.

No wonder it is so much cheaper to buy crap off American websites.

[Ohio Joe]

41. It does not seem that long ago that I would not have considered doing it for that

Long term unemployment changes that perspective.

[HockeyMom]

39. Sorry, but that is a HORRIBLE salary for what you do

My IT husband is a Programmer and made triple that 40 years ago. In fact, when my kids were in school TWENTY YEARS ago, I made $15/hour part time doing CLEANING.

Something is very, very wrong in this country when people with tech skills are making these kinds of salaries. No wonder the Middle Class is vanishing and the number of the Poor INCREASING.

FYI, my husband's jobs were offshored twice in the past 25 years and he is making the same salary now as he was 25 years ago. I suppose he should just be happy it's not $15/hour in today's world? No offense to you. Just that you deserve BETTER than that.

[Ohio Joe]

42. Agreed

off-shoring has made slim picking of IT jobs, they know they can low-ball you with impunity.

[NCTraveler]

44. Ohio Joe. Best of luck to you.

I recently put out an add for someone to run the front end of our office. I received over 400 applications. We are a small company in the Tampa Bay. Many of the applications were from persons who were over qualified. That is a sign of the times.

I was also a job seeker for 2 years, from 2008-Jan2011, so I know how hard it is. I had 4 interviews with one company before I got my current job. I can’t tell you how many positions I applied to. It actually became very depressing. I think that is one of the toughest things about being unemployed in an economy like this. It can truly make you feel like lesser of a person and put you in a depressive state. Somehow we have to keep our head up.

I truly wish you the best of luck.

[hootinholler]

45. What's the tech stack?

That's an astounding rate.

Which DB? How much data?

[Ilsa]

46. Good luck. I hope it works out and

Your salary doubles. I'm sure you and that job are worth more.
I'm very sad about the state of wages in the US.

[stevenleser]

48. Most of the decent paying IT jobs are here in NYC.

I realized that when I was layed off twice, first in 2001 from a good paying IT job at a big 4 firm and then in 2003. Both in Florida. I looked around and saw virtually nothing so I made the move to NYC.

There are plenty of good IT jobs here, but its the last bastion. I have no doubt that most of these will be outsourced in the next 10-20 years too.