SPUG: Giving up on computer jobs

Jonathan Gardner jgardner at jonathangardner.net
Wed Jul 23 09:35:24 CDT 2003


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On Tuesday 22 July 2003 19:04, Chris Turan wrote:
> Hi All,
>
> I've been searching for jobs for several months now.  I've given up on the
> computer market and began looking for retail and restaurant jobs.  I've
> found that many of those have been taken as well and the employers can
> cherry pick who to hire.  Those jobs that aren't taken don't seem to want
> to hire me because I've over-qualified and am afriad I'll just leave when
> a good job turns up.
>

I'm having the opposite experience from you. I've got a great job, and there 
are open positions all around me in other companies.

What are your skills/experience? Have you applied to Amazon? Have you tried 
the following companies:
 - CarDomain Networks (cardomain.net)
 - White Pages (now W3Data) (whitepages.com)

I know they are both looking for perl developers.

> Has anyone had similar problems?  Any recommendations?  I'm keeping my
> shoulder to the grindstone and am looking.  I was hoping someone might
> have something to suggest.  I live in Bellevue and am looking mostly on
> the Eastside.  I've been looking mostly in Bellevue so that if they
> economic situation doesn't change, I can sell my car and still be able to
> walk to work.
>

Yes. My view of the economy right now is that it is bouncing back. There are 
more jobs now than there were a month ago, and the quality is increasing. 
Hopefully, we'll be able to get past the equilibrium point soon and our 
salaries can skyrocket again.

Tips:

1) Cheer up. No one likes to talk to someone who has given up. I mean, if you 
were looking for developers to implement your projects, would you hire the 
defeatist or the bright smily guy? It'll take a lot of experience and skills 
to overcome a defeatist attitude.

2) Keep participating in the OS community. Write some perl modules, debug some 
others, and write docs for still more. When it comes to interview time, you 
can show them what you've done. Perl shops will respect your effort.

3) Get/Keep your skills up. When it comes interview time, you'd better be able 
to explain what a hashref is and why a blessed scalar doesn't make a very 
good base class object.

4) Keep in contact with your ex-co-workers or college buddies. They have more 
insight into the industry than you will, especially if they still have a job.

5) Work on your resume. Make sure that it gets a single point across (sniper 
approach) rather than a mess of unrelated topics (shotgun approach). For 
example, my resume reads "If you use apache and mod_perl, you need me on your 
team."

6) Call the recruiters at the companies that use perl, or whatever technology 
you are truly interested in. If they don't have a job yet, ask them when they 
will. If it's not soon, ask them who *IS* hiring. Bonus points if they like 
you. They will call YOU and tell YOU when a job is coming up.

7) Graduating from a university means that the university's reputation is at 
stake. If you can't find a job (or get into grad school), they have failed! 
Work with their employment services and exploit them as much as possible.

- -- 
Jonathan Gardner <jgardner at jonathangardner.net>
(was jgardn at alumni.washington.edu)
Live Free, Use Linux!
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