On one hand, I sympathize, since I’ve been in the same boat for a long time. I’m currently working a low paying, hard work job, just to keep insurance and try (and fail) to make ends meet.
On the other hand, I recall you being one of those people who told me and others that if we’d been unable to find a job, it was entirely our own faults for not keeping our skills current and other reasons, citing yourself as an example of having zero difficulties in finding jobs.
Also, it is increasingly obvious that American corporations are NOT hiring older workers these days. If you’re in your 50’s or older, you’re screwed.
Yes, I have tasted my own medicine, and it is bitter.
But to a certain extent, I don’t think I’m wrong. I think one of the reasons I’m having difficulties is that the firm I worked for was largely unchanged from when it was founded by a couple of ex Accenture alums 15 years ago. Well, the consulting world has changed a lot since then.
Also, the world is changing a lot faster than it used to IMHO. So I think that unless you work for a cutting edge company like Google or Amazon or are constantly re-skilling on your own, it’s hard for most people to keep up. Like I was talking to a young college alumni from my school who was asking for advice on finding his first Wall Street job with a background in AI and machine learning. I’m like, I don’t know. Answer your emails, accept the highest offer and then hire me and the rest of these people who will be replaced by software and trading algorithms.
Quoted for truth. I just had a meeting with my dean at our community college, and they’d like us to start coming up with material and courses and degrees in AI and data mining. We initially just rolled our eyes (at least to ourselves), but the industry guys there at the meeting really wanted us to start AI training at a younger age. (And the university we feed into still wants our students to learn assembly language, argh.)
As for the job search, keep on plugging. I went through a layoff myself ten years ago at a large “three-letter” computer company until my instructor position rolled into my lap. I’ve also had the “opportunity” to occasionally teach job-seeking courses here, but since it’s at a community college, it’s focused on auto-techs and the like. Even high-demand trades skills go through some of the same frustrations as the OP.
From what I’ve seen, the mid-level PMO/Delivery management jobs at the Sapients / Merkles / BMCs / etc of the world in the top tier cities in North America are getting scarce. Why would you pay a guy in in New York or SF $250k / year to run a team in Chennai when you could pay a guy in Dallas $120k to do it?
Have you looked in to smaller firms or local/regional mid-sized operations? People in my mid-sized global firm (think Sapient) are always getting poached by the local hospitals and universities. Back when I worked for a much smaller firm, the owners usually got a hard on every time a former big swinging dick Elsevier or one of P&G’s spinoffs threw their resume in the ring for an open slot on our senior management team.
Also, the last company I worked for was founded by middle managers at IBM who got the Wrath Of Gerstner in the mid-90s. Most of them retired at 60 with $1-3m in the bank. The principal sold the place a couple of years ago for roughly $50m at 60 years old. Not bad.
Is Sapient still “mid sized” after the Publicis Sapient merger?
Funny enough, I met a senior delivery director from Merkle at a PMI event shortly after I got laid off. It led to some interviews, but I think he lost his job a few weeks later.
$250k seems a bit high for any job. Even in New York. Unless you are very senior and responsible for bringing in a lot of business. I mean it’s hard to tell these days with all the title inflation.
I actually had two interviews that went really well yesterday:
Engagement manager at a cloud provider (been getting a number of interviews at these sort of companies, which I think is a good fit). So probably next step is more phone interview and then a bunch of in person interviews.
Here’s something I didn’t like. By happenstance, another recruiter from the same company emailed me about a different job which might also be a fit. I told him that I was already going through the process (figure it’s better to be transparent about these sort of things). He didn’t even write back an acknowledgement like “ok, thanks for letting me know”.
The other job is a senior project manager contract for a gigantic project being run by a subsidiary of a giant software company. The scale and the tech involved (big data, cloud, IoT, analytics) would make this a pretty great resume builder. Heck, if it goes well, it’s such a long term project that I might not need a resume again. Anyhow, feedback was really good. Should find out if I’m “the guy” Monday.
You have a STEM degree, a stint in a big consulting firm, start-up experience and you’re an upper middle-class straight white male in his 30s/40s while the US has a 3.6% unemployment rate and you’ve been looking for work for 8 months? Is that tremendously back luck or is there something else?
One thing I’ve noticed is that people who’ve been employed for many years get the recruiter emails (as we all do, particularly if you’re on LinkedIn) and think “I get ten job offers a day, how hard could it be?” Not realizing that the large majority of unsolicited recruiter emails are just fishing for resumes to fill their database/pipeline, and/or shotgunning those emails out to all emails they can scrape off LinkedIn/Indeed/Monster/whatever. It’s not until you’re actually job hunting and start to reply to those emails that you realize they’re not viable.
Be thankful that the industry types don’t want you to teach specific applications they need now. Data mining is a really good thing to teach. I taught myself data mining and it made me highly valued the last five years before I retired.
Since most managers don’t understand it at all, a student with training might be able to get a job even if the business doesn’t have enough data to do real data mining on. Don’t knock it.
What are they calling AI these days? Is it real AI or just heuristics?
Don’t knock assembler. Even if they never use it, it gives them a good model of what is going on under the hood, and that is valuable forever. I learned assembler 50 years ago and never regretted it.
I also sympathize with the OP. I was looking for about the same amount of time. Read somewhere that you can expect about a month’s search for every $10K in salary you expect. What annoyed me most about interviewing were the one’s who subtly implied that I was too old. “We’re looking for someone with energy who will move forward with our company.” Translation: “You’ll be dead soon, you gray-haired fuck.”
I finally gave up after eight months and started selling RVs; and of course, I got a job offer about two months into that gig.
You forgot the MBA and experience consulting with Wall Street firms.
Maybe I suck at modern job hunting.
Tell you what. If you have any advice on finding a job in Manhattan within 90 days that pays in the neighborhood of $200k a year that doesn’t involve writing (a lot of)code, I’d be happy to hear it.
I think the serious answer is that I have kind of a “middle” background for the kind of work I do. A lot of my peers come from better schools, better consulting firms, top tier tech companies or investment banks. But if I try for a less “competitive” job, the recruiter may get turned off by my “non-traditional” work history (IOW, they want to see 15 years spent doing the same job and a similar company).
I loath recruiters. Most of them, at least. I knew a couple who were pretty good but so many of them were just worthless and they didn’t give a shit about doing a good job.
They would waste everyone’s time by not finding out the real requirements or understanding the qualifications. I can understand not being experts on every field, for for hell’s sake, learn the basics.
Have you considered that you find every job offer unappealing not because of their individual characteristics but because 2 decades of riches & bitches is turning out less satisfying over time than you expected?
Provided the necessities of life were secured, what objectives would you be willing to work towards even if no one was paying you? Take the time to think on what that would mean to you and that will give you cues on where to start.
Yeah recruiters never (almost never) understand the role they are trying to fill. Recruiters are one step removed from HR, and HR never understood what role they were trying to fill in the first place. It’s just keywords and whistles to them.
I don’t have a suggestion for you except to try to talk to people that matter in the organization. Talk to the people in charge, if you can find a way to do that.
OP is complaining about not getting a 200K/year job. Adjusted for cost of living, if your household makes 100K/year and you’re not satisfied, it’s probably because it’s lacking something you can’t buy.
Aren’t there organisations which would greatly benefit from OP’s valuable skills but can’t afford it?
Some of OP’s recent threads are titled "The Future is Always “Worse”’
Constantly feeling like you “should be doing something else”’, “Was there ever a time in your memory when people were optimistic about the future/economy?”, "According to The Economist, 40% of jobs are “bullshit”’
That sounds like either depression or a midlife crisis. Trying to solve that thru getting a 200K/year job is probably going to be as effective as thru getting a sports car or a leather jacket to wear on his Harley.
OP also has 2 kids to support and lives in NYC which is very expensive. I’m sure having 2 kids and feeling like he can’t contribute to the household is psychologically stressful. I was under the impression that in OPs field that layoffs occurred every ~5 years or so. So I would’ve assumed he was accustomed to it.
