4 months and no freaking job?

[fizzak]

Thank you for applying for the HELP DESK ANALYST position with (grocery store chain). In an effort to select the top candidates for interviews, careful consideration was given to formal education, related work experience and overall qualifications as related to the position. Although your qualifications are impressive, I regret to advise you that we have identified other candidates who have qualifications which more closely match those of the position.
Your information will be kept in our files for one year in the event that other opportunities that match your qualifications develop.
Thank you for your interest in this position and in (grocery store chain). . We wish you the best in your career endeavors.

I cannot believe I got turned down for this. I was a system admin AND a tier 3 tech with 12 years experience at a giant 100 year old company. By myself I managed 50 EU's and with a tiny team of 2 others, took care of another 250 remote EU's, half with Mac's on a 2003 infra!! I'm sure I can handle a few local IBM POS machines running XP!!! My BSCS degree is totally worthless now and I'm still paying it off after 15 years.
I've never experienced a market like this in my whole life. So what do I do? Fall back to my other related profession which is freelance web design and development...I've done it before!....nope! The market for devs is also saturated as well PLUS the offshore f'ers bidding jobs at $3hr...And American clients are still paying for their crappy work.

So what else can I do?

I'm very good at mechanics, mill work, and operating heavy machinery. But I have no professional experience with any of it. Perhaps I should go back to retail making $8hr?

Thanks, needed to vent here (again)....Peace

 

[North323]

very sorry for your troubles fizzak. things are not the bright i know. however, things could be worse. there are other educated people that have been unemployed for much longer. i say keep your chin up, keep sending those resumes, do some networking and something will come about.

North323

 

[Demonpiggies]

Um... having been laid off and waiting just over 3 months before being hired it is frustrating. Granted I had less exp then fizzak so chances are that fizzak would be a better candidate for some of things I applied for than me. If you are making unemployment and it pays your bills than just keep truckin'. A friend of mine (who is also an engineer) has been unemployed for almost 6 months now and is happy. He's been applying like mad but he's still taking it easy and relaxing. You are probably like me (or vise versa) and need to work. Monster, Dice and your friend (tho misguided) recruiter will help expedite things. I've been rejected for being "overqualified", which in layman's terms means that I'll be asking a fair day wage which is something most companies don't want to do. SOOOOO with that said... chances are that either you made too much at other positions (if you put that in your resume) OR they already had someone in mind and needed to put the position up to make it seem like it was open (that's happened to me).

I wrote too much, sorry but I hope this helps make things seem a little better?

 

[hilfy]

I would also get involved in sites like LinkedIn. In my experience job hunting I've found that letting friends know that I'm job hunting and having them pass my resume on if they know about a job that is available makes a major difference - that's how I got my current job and the new one that I'll be starting just after Thanksgiving.

-Dell

A computer only does what you actually told it to do - not what you thought you told it to do.

 

[hinesward]

Four months is nothing.

 

[DonQuichote]

I hope the venting has helped a bit ;-)

In my experience, it is by far easier to get a job when you still have one and more difficult if you already left your former employer.

The times may be harder to find a job, but on the other hand, the companies that want to hire somebody are more likely to do so because they actually need somebody and less because the financial numbers say so. So the job you find will statistically be a more serious one.

Don't give up. The fact that you were over-qualified may even be the reason not to hire you. They probably thought you would not stay long with that employer if it is a job below your skills.

Be yourself, don't despair and keep writing to any interesting company with a job offering.

+++ Despite being wrong in every important aspect, that is a very good analogy +++
Hex (in Darwin's Watch)

 

[Glenn9999]

Four months is indeed a drop in the bucket, especially compared to how long I've been looking. After a while, it's hard to even find new possibilities. You may even have to consider something else - it's not a good thing to be needing work in IT, I'm finding that out for sure.

That's especially true, since the companies do not wish to pay a fair wage in any economy (hence outsourcing/offshoring), and then for the bad economy, the IT is usually the first thing to be cut.

Keep at it, but definitely consider that IT will be like many other college majors. It may be nice to do and you may even love it (fit me in on both counts for that), but if you can't make any money on it (like it seems I am in too since I find nothing constant, only odd jobs), then you got to start considering other options.

I'm waiting for the white paper entitled "Finding Employment in the Era of Occupational Irrelevancy

 

[fizzak]

Thanks for the replies, feel better now that I know I'm not the only one here. I figured IT was resession proof but I was wrong. It's just strange to me, the businesses need us to run their day to day, unless they want to go back to rolodexes and carbon copiers. IT staff should be royalty but I feel like a Janitor these days.

 

[tcsbiz]

This isn't intended to be a slam or shot at anyone.

Some trucking companies are hiring. I've had 5 friends of mine in IT take truck driving jobs to pay the bills. It took them about 12 weeks of training and another 2 to get jobs.

They say that they have less stress in their jobs, too. I went through driver training and then picked up my current IT job. I had intended on driving.

 

[kmcferrin]

When I saw the company's response my gut feeling was that you were overqualified. When I saw your response I knew that you were overqualified. That's a major issue in a good economy, but in a down economy it's even worse. The problem with hiring overqualified people is that they tend to be capable of doing much higher level/paying jobs that what they have applied for. In this economy it's virtually guaranteed that every single overqualified candidate that they hire today will be jumping ship when the economy improves and they get a better offer. It costs companies money to hire and train people, and turnover gets expensive.

________________________________________
CompTIA A+, Network+, Server+, Security+
MCTS:Windows 7
MCTS:Hyper-V
MCTS:System Center Virtual Machine Manager
MCSE:Security 2003
MCITP:Enterprise Administrator

 

[MasterRacker]

I was going to say exactly what kmcferrin just said (only not as well ;-) )

I went through this a few years ago and even a simple "thank you for applying" reply was rare. For the most part it was like sending apps into a black hole.

While you're looking beware of a couple of other things. That particular listing looks specific enough to be legit but there are a lot of fake postings. Some are contract agencies just trying to gather resumes. Others are companies trying to find out how easy it might be to fill a particular position and what they might have to pay, but the position doesn't actually exist at the moment.

As far as the value of IT: a lot of companies mgmt don't really know what goes into IT. Technology has gotten so good that it has become invisible to mgmt. They look at it as a commodity service.

Jeff
[small][purple]It's never too early to begin preparing for [/purple]International Talk Like a Pirate Day
"The software I buy sucks, The software I write sucks. It's time to give up and have a beer..." - Me[/small]

 

[DTSMAN]

Quote:
As far as the value of IT: a lot of companies mgmt don't really know what goes into IT.

I think they do and that is why pay has decreased.

The market is saturated with with IT generalist like me and fizzak, so you have to specialize and be near the top of your company's hierarchy to make pay.

From my experience in the last couple of years, what I have seen in small to medium business is that they purchase software packages that meet their needs and the company they bought it from supports it and the database maintence via remote aceess. The IT people on staff are just there for desktop support, network and hardware maintenance.
They don't need a security specialist, the small company of 3 guys that set up their WatchGuard Firebox set that up, backed up the settings, and maintain it for alot less than a minimum wage salary per year.
These scenarios may be different in large places like hospitals or similar. My last company serviced doctor's and lawyer's office and much more,and those guys shop for the lowest contracts when shopping for 3rd party IT support.

When I was unemployed, it was around the 2 month point when I realized things weren't right and I rewrote my resume for jobs geared toward technical\mechanical services as I have an aptitude for that. I didn't necessarily strike gold, but I did find what I was looking for after quite a few more months as I stated in the similar thread this one follows.

Bo

Remember,
If the women don't find you handsome,
they should at least find you handy.
(Red Green)

http://www.redgreen.com

 

[PCmad]

The first thing I thought of on this post was yes you are too qualified. The position might want someone they can mould into and by the sound of things you have done so much you may know more than the people you would report to. Been here many a time, keep looking something will come up in the end

 

[tcsbiz]

The discussions here have been interesting and I've been following them.

I was contacted yesterday by a recruiter for a company that is looking for someone with my experience. I asked him why not hire someone who has been laid off and not working. I told him I could give him three names. He said that once someone has been laid of for three months, they don't even consider them. It's better, he said, to hire someone who is employed.

What a rotten attitude! I said no thanks. I asked him who he was representing and he wouldn't say. He wouldn't even give me his info unless I was interested. It is an employer's market but the attitude is really lousy.

Sorry for the rant.

 

[Glenn9999]

He said that once someone has been laid of for three months, they don't even consider them. It's better, he said, to hire someone who is employed.

It is definitely a lousy attitude, but it's been common over the last decade, and especially in the corporate world. It's something most people I talk with (in person) don't get. Companies don't look for excuses to hire people, but look for excuses to NOT hire people.

In essence, these people I speak with don't understand this because of this logic: If they're looking to hire someone, but they're not looking to fill the position and are using every excuse to NOT hire anyone, then it doesn't indicate any need. So why look to hire anyone in the first place? And I agree with them. It truly doesn't make any sense.

I'm waiting for the white paper entitled "Finding Employment in the Era of Occupational Irrelevancy

 

[kmcferrin]

I've talked to our recruiters about it...it's not a dealbreaker, but if you're unemployed for three months it creates a bit of a perception that there's something wrong with you. In a fantastic economy there might be some truth to that, but in a down economy it's in no way a reasonable belief.

The same is also usually said for having gaps in the employment history. You want to show that you've smoothly transitioned from job to job with minimal downtime. If you took 9 months off to work in the peace corps (or go to school, or whatever) then make sure that you document it so that there are no gaps. If there are gaps then the interviewer or recruiter gets to fill them in (Was he in jail or rehab? Was he just sitting at home playing Xbox?).

________________________________________
CompTIA A+, Network+, Server+, Security+
MCTS:Windows 7
MCTS:Hyper-V
MCTS:System Center Virtual Machine Manager
MCSE:Security 2003
MCITP:Enterprise Administrator

 

[Glenn9999]

And of course, people always tend to think the worst of those around them. Not some misfortune that happened for some reason that brought them out of a job, or the simple "I can't snap my fingers and get a job anytime I want, like I can go buy something if I have the money." (someone's got to approve it, among many applicants), but always something that they willfully did and always the worst conclusion.

Assumptions are always a poor thing from anyone.

I'm waiting for the white paper entitled "Finding Employment in the Era of Occupational Irrelevancy

 

[tcsbiz]

And assumptions are what people make all of the time. I had read somewhere that a person you're meeting for the first time will make assumptions about you within just a few seconds. It can be difficult to recover from a bad first impression.

But, disregarding you because you haven't worked in about 12 weeks shouldn't be one of them; especially in a bad economy.

 

[Mountainbear]

It can be quite an hurdle when you are over qualified. I few things I have tried, if you can do it without leaving gaps, leave out a bit of your schooling that does not pertain to the job. Also you might try re doing your resume'. A resume does not need to be in cronological order if it is done well. I have even made resume's specificly for a particular job. But i have also gotten a lot of "good luck" letters in return.

 

[tcsbiz]

I agree with the idea of schooling. I only put in the college and any additional courses that may be relevant. I no longer list an Associate Degree and I don't put in my college GPA. It was so long ago and the technology has changed so much that it's irrelevant.