Are there even such things as IT headhunters anymore?

Factual Questions
1

With seven years at the same company, my headhunter contacts have more or less dried up, and when I try to call the phone numbers that I still have, they’re no longer in service.

I should have acted long ago, but I didn’t, and I realize now that I’ve been shoved into a kind of Tier 2 Hell, and that in spite of having been sent to Java classes years ago, haven’t gotten to develop a damn thing, besides some minor PL/SQL tweaks. Indeed, most of us in the IT department spend most of our time nursemaiding vendor-written apps and escalating issues that we do not have the legal right or knowledge to maintain ourselves, owing to the hardcore code having been written by others. In my side of the department, there was a strong belief among management that inhouse developers were not as good as outside vendors.

The thing I’ve done that I’m most proud of was writing a Java scheduler for an application that I was the operator on. It was a solution to a non-trivial problem which, while it could have used some improvement, demonstrated to myself that I could still put together a meaningful program. But it was just something for my own use and hence of limited visibility.

I’m kind of rambling now, having just gotten awakened out of a Benadryl haze, by my pager due to a damn INFO level message that shouldn’t have gone to the pager anyway, blast it! I’m just so damn frustrated and fed up.

2

I know how you feel. I also work as a developer and have found the boom of several years ago to be well and truly over. But there are still jobs out there.

Try a Google search for “IT recruitment”.

3

There are IT headhunters out there–but a lot of them are looking for work (or, at least, a different industry to sell).

Monster, careerbuilders, and a few other on-line job services allow you to post a resume and will allow you to get e-mail notifications when certain keywords that you select appear in want-ads on their boards. You can also specifiy whether others can see your resume or not or, if they can see it, whether or not they can see your name and address. If you have a decent resume that you want to shop in an active area, posting it will often bring headhunters to you. (Of course, then *you * have to interview them to see who is willing to find you a decent job and who sold their mother (who had an MBA and 27 years of management experience) as a charwoman last week.

4

Yes, I’ve been contacted by a few since I put my resume on monster and hotjobs. Some of them are useful in getting you interviews. Those that are less useful seem to be clueless about software; they seem to read off lists of technical words without any idea what they mean.

5

I got my last two programming jobs through headhunters. They were both independent guys who knew what they were doing. My experience with big headhunting firms is that they’ll call you once, convince you to send them a resume, and then you never hear from them again, ever.

6

I don’t think the boom is over. I think employers are now a lot more careful with their money, but just as a for instance. The place where I work was looking for a junior level software engineer for an embedded project. They spent 2 months interviewing, and at the end of 2 months, the only net result was that everybody got sent an e-mail stating that there’s a $5000 referral bonus inside the company. My manager personally told me that he’s sick of people interviewing with supposed “MSCS” degrees that can’t tell a #define macro apart from a function, don’t know compiler or OS theory, and can’t even reasonably estimate the number of cycles based on C code.

While I hear about a lot of people not being able to find work, it’s all second-hand and rumors. Headhunting agencies(albeit fishy ones) call and e-mail me all the time because of my recent job search(I got 3 offers after a month, and I didn’t even finish my undergrad degree in CS yet), so they definitely exist.

I think the problem comes that the job market stabilized, but did not subside. As a result, there are a lot more serious engineers in management, and that means that it’s harder to get hired. Back in '97, people were getting hired left and right indiscriminantly, which made a lot of people beleive they were qualified IT professionals or even developers(no offense to anybody here). Right now, the demand for people is still quite high(at least here, in Silicon Valley), but requirements are much tougher and higher.

I don’t mean to offend or discourage anybody, by the way, quite the opposite. Sometimes you have to take the time(if you can afford it) and invest it into learning things that are not taught in schools, have an impressive resume and be prepared to succinctly prove your skills (if you don’t have the required experience).

7

I’ve got a few hits from Guru and Careerbuilder. A couple of those I’ve been actively solicited from, and I have some follow ups with them still to go. Guru is aimed more at contracting consulting, Careerbuilder has that and more permanent or contract to permanent gigs.

I’d polish off your resume, highlight your strengths, and brush up on any marginal skills. Can’t hurt to throw it out there. I’d also recommend building a good network of contacts before you leave your current post, get a couple of good solid references, etc.

Also, and this is just MHO, highlight what you did that had good results for your company versus the technology. Learning most technologies is an aptitude; you either have it or your don’t. What you do with the technology is the key. Not all recruiters or potential employers will necessarily see this, but it can potentially get you past the wall of people looking for a very specific skill.

8

No offense taken. As is obvious from my OP, I got this job in '98, when the conditions mentioned by Shibboleth still very much prevailed. It’s just that at the moment I’ve become so discouraged that I have to keep sight of the fact that I had 12 years of experience before* 1998, and was tapped into the IT field originally because I’d shown ability. Over the years I’ve done Fortran, proprietary citation DB languages, a whole lot of COBOL*, a bit of C, a bit of Java, and a fair amount of PL/SQL. Looking back, the COBOL years were the best for me, because I was building some powerful apps. We used to laugh at COBOL then, but now I even miss developing in that.

Now it’s just stopped being fun. :frowning:

9

I have found the employers (or their agents) to be so damn nitpicky with their requirements anymore that it’s nearly impossible to qualify for any position. But they seem patient enough to wait several months to find that one special person (and that person is probably just a liar with references to back him up).

I have a gazillion years of RDMS database experience, but I don’t have 9i, so I don’t qualify. WTF? I can write device drivers for network interfaces, but I don’t have Crystal Reports experience. I think you get the idea. I’m also 50, I’m almost certain that fact is starting to weigh on their decision.

I did get calls from some impressive companies “out west”, but only to be disappointed when they were looking for a walking textbook.

Yeah, I relish the good old days when I would mail one resume to one headhunter and get 15 responses from all over the country before the week was over.

Here’s an opening …

1.5 yrs = C#/.NET Framework/ADO.NET/WinForms
1 yr = UML Modeling
1 yr = N-Tiered application design
1 yr = SQL Server/Stored Procs
6 mos = Visio

Damn, you almost made it, but sorry, you only have 5 months of Visio.

One final note. IT development people that want to have marketable skills in the next decade better get onboard with MS .NET technology real fast. Indeed, Mr. Gates is taking over the world, like it or not.

10

I work for a software company where we hire probably 2 or 3 developers a year. We also do a bit of headhunting on the side. People call us saying that they’re looking for a particular candidate, we work out a finder’s fee (usually a percentage of salary for so many months), and we try to find the candidate.

I agree. Company’s are extremely picky, I guess because it’s a hirer’s market right now. I’ve compared their job requirements to some of the personals I’ve seen on dating sites.

[ul]
[li]Must be between 24 and 26 years old.[/li][li]Must be between 5’ 6" and 5’ 8.5"[/li][li]Must have reddish hair with auburn undertones.[/li][li]Must be willing to care for my 6 children.[/li][li]Must like pina coladas and walking in the rain.[/li][/ul]

Sure, you can ask, but chances are that you’re going to have a lot of lonely Friday nights. We’ve never found an IT candidate that meets all the client’s requirements, unless money, relocation expenses, etc. was no object. And money has always been an object. We generally have to negotiate with the client about what the really important qualifications are and go from there.

The person finally hired is almost always a compromise, and more often than not, is hired for a big part on his or her attitude/personality. You know, “He seems like a real go-getter,” or “She seems like she really wants to learn.” Also, have you done projects on your own for yourself, your church, etc.? This shows that you really like programming, that it’s not just a job, that you’re a true geek.

Granted, this has been our experience. I don’t know how it is for other firms. For our clients, we never make the final hiring decision, we just send them prospects. But I’m knocking on fifty’s door myself, and the thought of having to find another job fills me with dread. I guarantee, if a client has to choose between a 25 year old and a 50 year old with roughly the same qualifications, the 25 year old will get it every time, at least in my experience. It’s not right, but I’m not sure what to do about it.

Oh, and I’ve never seen anyone hired because of managerial skills, which I have. So if you’re banking on that, good luck.

11

I think they have all changed jobs to IT gravediggers. Looking arround the ghost townish Silicon Valley, as the tumbleweed blows by.

12

Good inside information PoorYorick. It’s funny in a way, I apply for a job that matches my resume perfectly and I get a call back in a couple days. Things go well with the call back, they say they will get back to me, then nothing. This has happened, oh maybe 25 times in the last year. I have a feeling they didn’t realize I graduated from college in 1977.

Have you seen these new MS boot camps sprouting up all over the country? You have to take a test to qualify (yeah, right), but anyway, it costs like $15K and lasts about 3 months I think. They teach you all the MS .NET stuff and send you on your way. I almost applied for one of those deals, then I figured I just didn’t want it that bad.

I don’t know what’s up with these huge contract houses, some of them post 20 jobs a day that I qualify for, but they NEVER get back to me. Again, must be the age factor.

Oh well, life goes on. I never thought I would be going to OTR truck driving school at 50, but here I am. LOL

Best of luck to all you greying IT types out there. :slight_smile: