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Kinda OT but when I looked for a gig in the middle of the 2003 recession, the borks turned away everyone who wasn't  already "current", with current being the code word for employed.

i.e. if you are not already employed, no need to apply.  That's how they narrowed down the candidates from 500 for one opening to 100.

The most important gig is the next one and the right time to look for one is when you already have one, not when you are 6 months out of work and no longer "current".

Just a footnote in this valuable discussion.

2003 was one of my bad times.  I had just finished a 2 year contract at a financial services firm and could not find another assignment to save my life.   Luckily I had a few SMB clients that kept me alive for over a year until I found another high paying gig.

The job market is sort of like the stock market.   There are high times and low times.  During the high times, you think you can never do anything wrong.  Everything you do works out just fine.   Then comes the crash and everything goes to hell in a handbasket.  But like the stock market, if you panic, you are dead meat.  The stock market and the job market will turn around.  If you get discouraged and give up you will never go to work again.  The only path is to keep at it until you finally land something.   There is a job out there somewhere just waiting for you to apply.  Most interviewers are fools in that they discard everyone who does not fit their pattern of what a person should be like.  But there are a few interviewers who read between the lines and not just play word bingo.  The only way you can find them is to keep at it.

There used to be a guy on this board that engaged in resume bombing to get a job.  I don't remember his name but that was his method - to him it was a numbers game and it works.

Pxsant, you're on a roll with the fantastic observations!

The job market is sort of like the stock market.   There are high times and low times.  During the high times, you think you can never do anything wrong.  Everything you do works out just fine.   Then comes the crash and everything goes to hell in a handbasket.  But like the stock market, if you panic, you are dead meat.  The stock market and the job market will turn around.  If you get discouraged and give up you will never go to work again.  The only path is to keep at it until you finally land something.   

What a good analogy. EG - treat your career and knowledge like an equity. Don't discard yourself or sell out cheap. Ride out market bottoms.

There used to be a guy on this board that engaged in resume bombing to get a job.  I don't remember his name but that was his method - to him it was a numbers game and it works.

Pm4hire. He used to provide email lists of borks. Pm4hire lived out of a mobile home for awhile and traveled the country for PM gigs.

Regardless of skill set people need to understand a few things about finding a job:

First, your resume is a piece of advertising. No matter what the HR idiots tell you, thats what it is. A resume is an advertisement for YOU and what YOU CAN DO FOR THEM. I have seen lots of bad ones, a good one takes lots and lots of work. Your resume should look like a Madison Avenue advertising company wrote it. You want to portray yourself in the best possible light.

You have the obvious things about spacing and punctuation but your resume should be clean and crisp. I write everything as an accomplishment - no more than 2 to 3 lines per accomplishment. Than move on. Whatever the big buzz words are, make sure your resume has them slathered through out along with numbers. Lots of numbers - code ABC models, reduced downtime, save $$, whatever... they want to hear.

Second - an interview is a sales presentation on YOU. You are there to SELL YOURSELF to them. YOU ARE THE PRODUCT. Many people never figure this out. The best way to learn to interview well is to watch sales guys. Forget the HR people, watch successful sales people. That means you have to have great communication skills - both verbal and body language.

You want to be clean, reasonably well dressed, shaved and showered. When you meet them, look them in the eye and smile. Say nice to meet you. You want the people to feel good about meeting you. It helps if you can tell engaging stories which is what an interview is really about. If you can SELL YOURSELF via YOUR STORIES you will be in the door.

Third - networking is very important. If you read the statistics most jobs are gotten via networking as opposed to cold resumes. Sure you can bag a job by the numbers. Grinding out tons and tons of resumes and rolling the dice on the numbers. A smarter way is to network with anyone and everyone BEFORE you lose your job. If you wait till you are unemployed than its already too late.

Lastly as Pxsant said he has seen highs and lows. I believe we are in a high right now. I have seen people leave from where I am for lots more money. A BA guy on my project left and got a 30K increase along with benefits. Will this high last? I don't thing so but as long as Trump is in office it may continue. Who knows....

Quote from: The Gorn on October 16, 2018, 12:13:05 pm

If I may say...

The seed of your project idea was to self-impose your own "boot camp" on learning a new tool.

But your situation - fully employed in tech - doesn't match those of us laid off or otherwise who never managed to find a replacement software gig.

Pxsant, you have momentum. Meaning you were already working.

It's a lot easier to totally lose momentum when you get older. Momentum in your case means that you already have directly relevant employment therefore you will be deemed a close fit if your tech skills are sufficient too.

What about those of us don't have that current gig and no current momentum?

You may not get this since you were the job candidate but you'll project a TON more self-confidence and "ready to run with" attitude than someone who is coming off of a jobless or no-contract period. It's unconscious. One absolutely can't help it. And companies go totally out of their way to read that self confidence in candidates.

I can see doing what you did here as a good first step for the currently long term unemployed. But I don't see it as sufficient by itself. You interviewed from a position of total strength so you appeared just as a 30-40 year old with current employment would.

Your experiment, while worthy, doesn't indicate anything whatsoever about those who've derailed and have been going through that extended unemployment that the business world believes that seniors deserve. 

I have had serious starvation periods in the last 5 to 10 years.   There were times when I had sent out 250 to 500 resumes and didn't get even one interview.   Was I down and discouraged?  Absolutely.  And near bankrupt also.   But I persisted and finally got back into big banks.  Aside from my SMB accounts, I seem to be stuck in banks and financial services.

BTW, at my current bank contract, a high percentage (maybe 75% or more) of the contractors and FTE's are either green cards or work visa's.   Do I care?   Hell no as long as I am there also.

IME, banks pay the best coin. Also insurance companies. Maybe anecdotal data.

Quote from: ilconsiglliere on November 09, 2018, 06:13:31 pm

Regardless of skill set people need to understand a few things about finding a job:

First, your resume is a piece of advertising. No matter what the HR idiots tell you, thats what it is. A resume is an advertisement for YOU and what YOU CAN DO FOR THEM. I have seen lots of bad ones, a good one takes lots and lots of work. Your resume should look like a Madison Avenue advertising company wrote it. You want to portray yourself in the best possible light.

You have the obvious things about spacing and punctuation but your resume should be clean and crisp. I write everything as an accomplishment - no more than 2 to 3 lines per accomplishment. Than move on. Whatever the big buzz words are, make sure your resume has them slathered through out along with numbers. Lots of numbers - code ABC models, reduced downtime, save $$, whatever... they want to hear.

Second - an interview is a sales presentation on YOU. You are there to SELL YOURSELF to them. YOU ARE THE PRODUCT. Many people never figure this out. The best way to learn to interview well is to watch sales guys. Forget the HR people, watch successful sales people. That means you have to have great communication skills - both verbal and body language.

You want to be clean, reasonably well dressed, shaved and showered. When you meet them, look them in the eye and smile. Say nice to meet you. You want the people to feel good about meeting you. It helps if you can tell engaging stories which is what an interview is really about. If you can SELL YOURSELF via YOUR STORIES you will be in the door.

Third - networking is very important. If you read the statistics most jobs are gotten via networking as opposed to cold resumes. Sure you can bag a job by the numbers. Grinding out tons and tons of resumes and rolling the dice on the numbers. A smarter way is to network with anyone and everyone BEFORE you lose your job. If you wait till you are unemployed than its already too late.

Lastly as Pxsant said he has seen highs and lows. I believe we are in a high right now. I have seen people leave from where I am for lots more money. A BA guy on my project left and got a 30K increase along with benefits. Will this high last? I don't thing so but as long as Trump is in office it may continue. Who knows....

All good advise, but I guess the trouble is in following part of it ( the resume is the easiest part, and things like networking are doable) . Many  people who are good at selling themselves are either deluded, or embellish, or lie, or are just great communicators which is not an easy thing for most technically inclined people to do especially with mannerisms and conduct .  Suggestion: you appear to have great social skills, why not use you social skills to get gigs which you can have it done by the ones with less social skills from this forum. Ofcourse that might pan out to be similar to the story  in "Animal Farm" ( I'm referring to the George Orwell's novel)  - but I believe that there are probably some very dealable  ( i.e a notch above the average code monkey)  people here, judging by the posts. But then I could be wrong.

Are you saying to land gigs and than sub contract it out to others?

My skills werent always like this. I worked very hard on improving my communication skills after the first time I got laid off. I realized that I interviewed like crap and took steps to fix it. It was not easy. I bought a ton of books and practiced on people all the time.