Seattle Area Dopers! If I may bend your ear for a moment...

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

Hello, and welcome to my thread!

As I’m sure many of you are unaware, my wife and I are in the process of packing up our place in Maryland and wending our weary way westwards. My sister’s family is in Redmond, and most of my extended family claim Vancouver, BC as home.

The problem is that we are not rich folk, and for various reasons, cannot be without health insurance. So we’ve been looking for work out there from out here before moving. Sadly, this has proven to be less than effective. As such, my wife will be spending some time at my sister’s, looking for work. She’s leaving the 29th of April. Once that has happened, I get to pack up and drive a U-Haul cross-country.

But.

We’d like the jobless period to be as brief as possible. And this is where you come in.

I’m not asking for a job (although if you really want to…), nor am I asking for references. All I’m looking for is your knowledge. Where there might be openings in our fields, where there are openings in our fields, what have you. And, of course, we’d like to meet people who like to go out for the occasional beer (rye & Diet Coke for the good lady).

Currently, I’m a state legislative analyst / researcher for a large trade association. I have been a historical researcher and a writer. I’ve got an Honours BA in History and a BA in English/Theatre. I’m interested in something researchy or writey. Steph has been working at the Worldbank for several years as a projects assistant. She’s looking for something officey (entry level, opportunity to advance), one that preferably involves contact with the outside world. She is also fluent in Spanish. She currently holds a BA in Business and Spanish, with a year towards her MBA.

So whaddya say, Seattle-type folks? Can you help a guy out?

As usual, many thanks in advance for any replies.

2

May I add a big “Me too!” to this thread?

I write Easytrieve Plus programs and ust TSO/ISPF and JCL. Looking for something anywhere between Seattle and Blaine.

Good luck, Aguecheek, and thanks for letting me borrow your thread. :wink:

3

This website may be of help, Johnny and Ague.
It lists tons of jobs and has links to all kinds of classified ads, etc.

Good luck!

4

the best I can do for you is to direct you here, which is where I work. There probably isn’t much in your field, and it is a Christian university, but it’s what I can contribute to your cause. :slight_smile:

FWIW, Mr. Stargazer works at Starbucks part-time, and it’s actually a good place to work. They pay decently and you can opt into insurance as long as you work 20+ hours/week. It may be something to look into for some interim income. :slight_smile:

Best of luck!

5

P.T. Smegma: Thanks, I’ve bookmarked the site.

6

As have I. From another future Seattle Doper, thanks. :slight_smile:

7

Yeah, what she said.

Lots of latching on to this thread, huh? :slight_smile:

8

You’re very welcome!:slight_smile:

9

That’s it. I’m gonna start charging rent. :stuck_out_tongue:

So, lessee. Johnny L.A., AudreyK and KKBattousai, and myself, of course. Gads. It’s an invasion!

Thanks, P.T. Smegma and stargazer!

I know there’s more of you out there!

10

I wish I could give you some pointers, but I’m in the process of leaving the area, myself. :slight_smile:

11

Can I have your job? :smiley:

12

You’re moving into the Seattle job market right now? Yikes. Well my strategy, after several months of futile job search was to sign up with a temp agency that specializes in my field of interest. After about a year it finally translated into a permanent job. This has the drawback of not providing benefits like health insurance and since I presume you’re not a recent college grad still able to mooch health insurance off Dad’s plan I don’t know how it would work for you. But it makes a decent fall-back plan.

13

Yeah, did you notice that Admin Assistant job at Seattle Pacific University, starts at $24K/year and requires a bachelor’s degree and 5 years’ experience? Right there, that tells you something about the Seattle job market. You go looking for work, and you find that experienced tech people with bachelors’ and masters’ degrees are now willing to work at the shoe store, so the shoe store can pick and choose among a pool of overqualified applicants.

Not that seattle won’t be a lovely experience otherwise, I’m sure. Welcome to town.:stuck_out_tongue:

14

Johnny, you don’t want to work where I work. Even I don’t want work where I work. :slight_smile:

As someone mentioned, the tech field in Seattle is so saturated that it’s impossible to get a really good job. I have a decent one (it’s better than being poked in the eye with a stick, but not by much) that I’m sticking with just long enough to find work in a part of the country where it doesn’t rain quite so much. :slight_smile:

15

Yup, that’s pretty much what I was planning to do. But who knows, something might turn up.

16

Yup, folks the job market in Seattle sucks like an Electrolux. So, don’t move here until I get a job!:smiley:

17

Your skills would well serve larger employers who need lots of stuff written well. While Seattle is not the home to many large companies, excepting Boeing, Weyerhauser, Costco, Nordstrom and Microsoft, there is a fair number of insurance companies that love to generate lots of words. Consider Group Health, Safeco, Premera Blue Cross, Regence Blue Shield and other large boring sounding operations. They will provide you with stable work environments and pretty interesting content.

Start by ordering the Book of Lists from the Puget Sound Business Journal http://www.bizjournals.com/seattle/ and strategize from that data. SeattleWeekly also has ads from communications-oriented agencies.

Make sure you have a good portfolio–or better yet–a website you can link to from your resume or cover letter. Consider getting into systems analysis type of work–it entails much writing and research and pays a lot better than most writing and editing gigs.

Even though the high tech job scene here is pretty dismal lately, there are still plenty of damn good jobs in the unsexy market. You’ll do fine here.

18

I don’t really care what kind of job I get, although Easytrieve Plus/JCL/TSO would be great. But I want to move to Bellingham, so I’ll have to take what I can get. Hey, I just want to get out of this hot weather!*

Plans: Buy a house in Bellingham. Rent it out. Get laid off. Collect unemployment. Move to Washington and rent a room from a friend. Look for a job.

*[sub]When I went to Washington in February it was sunny before I came, rained every day I was there, and then was sunny for about 10 days after I left.[/sub]

19

Systems Analyst? I like the cut of your jib, stranger, but yer fancy talkin’ confuses me. What, pray, entails a systems analyst’s job function?

That’s some good stuff, Geoduck, thanks! Does SeattleWeekly have a website? Is that like the Reader/City Paper/Georgia Straight, etc.? Weekly alternative paper kind of thing? Sexy to me means something that I look forward to in the mornings. I don’t personally care whether Bill Gates thinks I’m a stud or not, only that I’m making enough money to save for a semi-comfortable retirement.

Funny enough, when I lived in Vancouver, I worked for a company that did business with Weyerhauser. If I apply there, I’ll make sure to omit that from my resume. Relations were not good last I heard…

You have heard what comes after two days of rain in that part of the world?

…Monday.:wink:
[sub](Disclaimer: Joke! It’s a joke! I’m the first person who’ll try to convince the ignorant that the rainfall is barely above the national average!)[/sub]

20

Here I am, answering my own freaking question. Oy.

It certainly does, and it certainly is: http://www.seattleweekly.com/