I sure hope this isn’t inappropriate stuff for SDMB, but I’m getting kind of desperate (a pit rant is in the pipeline) and thought I’d look for some help here.
I quit my job in February - I’m a software developer - because I’d been doing it a long time and it was getting boring. I thought it would be trivial for someone with 20 years of programming experience to get a new job.
Apparently not. Despite the constant chatter about the skills gap in the IT sector, I am reliably informed that each position (both contract and permanent) is oversubscribed by 50 to 1.
This would explain why, after 20+ applications, I haven’t even been invited to interview.
So, I have come to the SDMB to solicit the advice and opinions of mah fellow nerds :
The job market is distinctly tough at the moment - which is why I’m still in my current job, even though they treat me like dirt and haven’t paid me on time in nine months… I’m not quitting until I have something to quite to, and interviews have been thin on the ground.
I’m afraid the only suggestion I can think of is “keep on trying”. It looks as though you’re doing the right things… but it could take a while before they pay off for you.
I was made redundant in August 2001, and got a new job in October, but there are still some of the people who got made redundant at the same time who are still looking. I sent out lots of CVs using some of the same sites you mention, but ended up getting the job thru a head-hunter. Do you have a speciality, or are you a ‘jack of all trades’? It seemed to me that most companies were looking for specialists, such as C++ with DCOM, or Enterprise Java Beans. With 20 years experience, are you maybe asking for too much money? I was at the top of my pay scale in the last job and took a pretty big reduction to get back down to ‘market value’.
Depending on what you are good in, the exact skills you have might not be in demand. Also, consider that you have been programming for 20 years, why haven’t you made it to management, or, at least to SA (System Analyst)?
Why haven’t I made it to management? Didn’t you know that I was the inspiration for the Dilbert character??
I do want to move into management though, not because I want to, but because it’s a safe bet that once India and China (say) can support their own geeks (so they are happy where they are rather than wanting to migrate) then no-one will be hiring Western nerds to write software.
We nerds might have a chance if we’re in management though. God help the rest of us.
(in 20 years time).
