job seeking skills

Some Faint Glimmers of Hope?

Just over a month ago (March 23), I wrote a blog entitled “It’s COLD out there/here.” Therein I reported on my own attempts to find full-time, permanent employment by saying that responses were few and far between — a scant handful from over two dozen direct and online applications — and of such few as did present themselves for consideration, most offers were way below what I would be willing to consider, let alone accept. Seemed like a perfect opportunity to toss around some doom and gloom, so that’s just what I did.

In the past month, some interesting things have started happening:

1. I’ve been contacted by several recruiters and hiring managers, all from or representing reputable mid-sized to large companies. Nobody’s tried to low-ball me on salaries or rates, either, much to my extreme surprise.
2. My volume of freelance work is starting to pick up appreciably all of a sudden. In the past 30 days, I’ve kicked off nearly half-a-dozen new projects, and have brought four significant new customers online. The pace of work from existing customers is picking up dramatically, too, and I’ve had several calls recently from editors with whom I’d stopped working for a while to let me know that new work is (or could be) in the pipeline.
3. There’s enough going on, in fact, that I’ve re-hired one of my former co-workers and associates to act as a full-time project manager to help me keep things flowing and under control. I’ve learned the hard way that without somebody to keep an eye on deadlines, deliverables, and quality, when the pace of work gets really frenetic far too much can go by the wayside, if not left entirely behind in the rush and crush.

Coupled with a recent uptick in global markets, improved consumer confidence levels, and the onset of the influx of government stimulus spending, I’m strongly tempted to observe that things show some signs of improvement. I still think it’s too early to talk about a turnaround or upward trends in employment, markets, and business, but it’s very nice to see some positive indicators popping up in my immediate neighborhood.

I can only hope my friends and colleagues in IT are seeing similar signs in their professional neighborhoods and situations as well. If so, please share those observations by commenting on this blog post; if not, share your impressions and observations to the contrary instead. At this tentative stage of the game, I’m all ears, in full-blown “listening mode” if not outright “hoping for the best mode!” If you have some light to shed on these topics, please beam some my way…

Government Stimulus Comes Home to Roost?

According to the Washington Business Journal, the DC area was only one of four major metro areas in the US — including also Boston, Dallas, and Houston — to experience job growth in 2008. For the DC area, 2009 is shaping up even better, due at least in part to the US Government’s aggressive hiring of more staff to help set up, coordinate, and oversee stimulus spending. Given the need for qualified IT staff to help do likewise for the information systems involved (set up, coordinate, and manage/maintain is probably a more appropriate locution), this helps to explain why IT hiring is up, up, up in the DC metro area overall.

Unemployed or underemployed IT professionals willing to relocate for work opportunities should take notice. Here’s an interesting statistic to ponder as well: “For every $1B in Federal spending, 7,000 jobs are created in the Washington area. The new stimulus could give D.C. $23 billion during the next three years, meaning 30,000 Washington D.C. jobs could be created by 2010 and 64,000 jobs could be created by 2019.” (Source jobfetch.org blog 3/12/09) Gosh, those are some pretty compelling numbers.

But before you start loading up the family van, you might also want to ponder these factoids as well:

• DC area median household income ranks the highest in the country, according to the US Census bureau, in ranking large counties around DC (source Cleveland.com)
• Real estate prices have remained pretty firm — and likewise, fairly high — in the DC metro area as well
• Traffic around the DC metro area, particularly inside the I-495 Beltway, is busy and often highly congested
• Overall cost of living in the DC area is among the highest in the country

In other words, if you want to go where the action is, you’ve got to pay in more ways than one to make your way into and around the DC area. But for those with good qualifications who can’t find work, or can’t advance, in their current locales, it may be time to starting thinking about joining up with Mr. Smith, and heading for “Das Kapital!”

It’s COLD Out Here/There…

In a classic exercise known as “eat your own dogfood” — by which I mean practicing what I’m preaching about hunting for contract and full-time employment by signing up at resume and job-hunting sites — I’ve been taking a pretty serious shellacking at the hands of recruiters and hiring managers lately. “It’s OK,” I console myself by saying, “I really don’t want those jobs anyway,” but man it really hurts to see one’s market value decline along with the rest of the economy. Let me explain…

I’ve signed up directly at various job shopping/resume sites, and also through my memberships at Facebook and LinkedIn, to see what the job market is like on a personal basis these days. So far, I’ve found perhaps a dozen positions for which my qualifications match sufficiently for employers to be at least theoretically interested in talking to me, if not actually interested in doing so. Here’s a breakdown of what I’ve experienced so far from these twelve positions:

• So far, no reponse at all for 8 of the online applications has occurred, for intervals between one and three weeks since my indication of e-interest. I’ve been careful to provide cover letters and current resumes in all cases, and have also received electronic tokens of receipt for these applications, so it’s clear they’re not simply floating in the ether never having been received.
• I’ve gotten calls from two recruiters, both of whom have offered half (or slightly less) of the minimum hourly or salary rate that I carefully included in each of my applications. It’s very much a first for me to be approached when such a profound mismatch exists between my stated hourly or salary needs and the rates the hiring or contracting company is willing to pay.
• I’ve gotten electronic messages from two employers, both indicating that my application is under review, and they’ll get back to me if and when they decide my qualifications and their requirements warrant further discussion or conversation. Other than that, nada!

I’m guessing this is typical for the current market. Conventional wisdom holds that it takes one month for every $10,000 in annual salary that a person wishes to earn to conclude a successful job search. At my preferred level of compensation that means it should take me at least a year to find a job. So far, all indications are that the time horizon is further stretched than that, if anything.

The most telling evidence of the state of the market is that recruiters are calling when they know they’re low-balling contract or salary demands. The one contract job I was offered came with an hourly rate that I exceeded (based on converting salary to hourly by dividing yearly earnings by 2,000, a not atypical conversion approach, though 1,000 makes more sense with what benefits cost when you cover them yourself these days) in 1984! Needless to say, I simply informed the recruiter that I wasn’t interested in the work at that rate of pay, and left it at that. The salaried position I was offered got me into the early 1990s given the 2,000 conversion value, but was still about 1/3 lower than I would be willing to start commuting for, were I  to accept such a position.

That’s the way it goes in the 2009 economy. Please share your war stories, too, and I’ll chime in again from time to time with status on this situation. It’s interesting, depressing, and potentially terrifying, depending on what other income streams you have at your disposal. In my case, I’m still staying busy enough as a full-time freelancer to keep the wolf from the door, but for others…well, you tell me: how’s it going out there?

In Today’s Job Market, Prospective Employers Want It All

I was just musing on the state of the current job market, where it’s not unfair to say that there are a lot more people chasing jobs than there are jobs chasing people. Once again, I find myself pondering the “Big Three’ ingredients that all employers consider when selecting among multiple applicants for any IT position, as must surely be the case with so many IT professionals pursuing (or trying to remain in) a shrinking pool of jobs:

• Education: In today’s market a bachelor’s is no longer a “nice-to-have” credential. As a gifted but undegreed colleague and occasional co-worker of mine has learned several times to his loss in the last 6 months, a degree of some kind is often required just to be considered for any kind of IT position nowadays. Add points for an MA, more points for an MBA, Masters in Science and Engineering, and still more for any kind of PhD. Going back to school, and adding degrees nearly always results in a payoff, says everybody from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics to compensation specialists like David Foote of Foote and Associates.
• Technical qualifications/Certifications: Though not all technical qualifications result in certification, certs are probably the best-recognized example of this type of “tangible technical training and achievement” category. But in this case, perceived (high) value and distinctness are also important. An MCP, CCNA, any CompTIA cert, and other entry level credentials have become must-have checkbox items for many IT positions. It’s the harder-to-earn and scarcer credentials like CCIE, CISSP, and SAP certs that open eyes–and doors to new positions. Increasingly this means earning entry level certs aggressively, and treating them like the stepping stones they’ve become, then stepping up to higher rungs in cert ladders to earn recognition, increased opportunities, and better pay.
• Experience: This is still the king of the IT job qualification hill. Direct, documented, and substantial experience with the tools and technologies that companies use, need, or wish to invest in still trumps the other two items when employers look for differentiation among otherwise similar candidates.

But the problem with a buyer’s market is that an abundance of candidates to choose from means that employers can become extremely selective about whom they’ll bring on board to fill open positions. Hence my point for this blog (and its title): given the situation, employers want real stars who’ve got depth in all three areas. That means advanced degrees, serious certifications, and lots of direct relevant experience are what it takes to get through the door and on board these days. That means we all have to be looking for ways to address these concerns and to convince prospective employers we’ve got the chops to do the job, whether or not we can claim to max out in all three categories!

When Job Fairs Aren’t Completely Fair Affairs

I heard a very interesting news story on NPR this morning about job fairs in the Midwest. As you might expect, attendance at such soirees among employers is down for the time being, while attendance among those seeking work is way up, especially for unemployed people. Check out the story by Adam Hochberg online: it’s entitled “Job Seekers Find Long Lines, Little Payoff At Fairs“

What suprised me was hearing that many companies currently attending job fairs may actually not have any positions open. Here’s the quote that caught me off-guard lifted straight from the tail-end of the aforementioned story:

And some of the firms accepting applications didn’t really have any openings. Rather, they were trying to improve the quality of their work force — by searching for people who might do a better job than the employees they already have.

Wow! Talk about a chilling signal of a buyer’s market for employment. Presumably this means that if some candidate were to present him- or herself at a job fair, and be significantly better qualified than a person currently occupying some particular position, then the current job-holder might be laid off or let go to create a space for that person to fill. The very notion sends chills racing up and down my spine.

I got one of my best-ever corporate jobs at a job fair, working for a company called Excelan as a networking consultant from 1987 to 1989, at which time the outfit was acquired by Novell, for whom I continued to work until 1994. I’m pretty sure that nobody was let go to make room for me during that downturn in the economy (we were coming out of a recession back then), but you never know. Kind of makes me rethink the whole politics of attending such events, but then, those who do attend them usually do so because they feel they must, rather than really wanting to go.

A Small Silver Lining?

Although I enjoy writing these blogs, I sometimes find myself wondering if they have any real impact. In the case of my Friday the 13th blog “How Can You Get a Job that Requires IT Experience, When You Have None?” I got a very nice email back from the person whose original correspondence with me served as its impetus. I reproduce most of it next, then follow up with some comments and observations:

Thank you for blogging about my experience. Before I made the decision to go down the IT path, I found a job for a PC-Tech-like job. A company needed an individual to handle PC/laptop upgrades. They stated A+ preferred but not required. I applied for the position and in my cover letter I listed out the same experience as in my email to you. Needless to say I got no response from the company but that is when I finally decided to get A+ certified. Being 38 years old and going back to school to start over was very difficult, at first. I knew that I could do it but was it where I should go career-wise? In other words without technically being in the field, should I try it?

Years back when I first started college, I took a career profile test to see what suited my personality. The results came back auto technician or detective. I am a car guy for sure and like guns too but, I have this thing about being shot at. So, for years I did car stereo, body shop and auto parts work until I finished college( Associates in Marketing). I spent 11 years at BMW (11 years at one car dealership is pretty much unheard of, tremendous turnover), then 11 months at a Porsche dealership as a service advisor, which felt like 11 years.

A majority of the jobs that I see now want years of experience with the certifications. I know that I have a good bit but not wanting to sell myself short, not enough PC and networking yet to be on my own. That is why I am looking for job environment that has some supervision. Like a large company that does PC and laptop exchanges, were I would transfer files, set permissions, network settings….etc. I did create a profile on ADP’s web site since they support car dealerships like Reynolds&Reynolds and also on RIM’s (Blackberry) site. I know that with some good mentoring, I will excel very quickly. When I started at BMW, I had to learn a lot on my own which taught me so much. I was skipped over several times for training yet I was still able to figure out and diagnose the cars. I have found a few possibilities on Dice, which does seem like the best tech job web site out of all the ones I have been on. I will keep you posted.

I see some emerging glimmers of hope in this reply and some good positive attempts to find work as well. I also continue to see more evidence of highly relevant experience that he’s still hesitant to claim. I’d urge him to make as much of that experience as possible, to stress his abilities to learn, solve problems, and deal with complex systems even in the absence of formal training to learn them.

I’d also urge him to look beyond Dice and other job sites, to ply his own personal network to look for opportunities. I’d also urge him to look for forums and message boards online where others are asking questions about tools and technologies he knows, and posting helpful information to answer those questions. This not only gives him a chance to flex some intellectual and problem-solving muscles, it will also give him something to point to in a job interview or cover letter as evidence of technical skills and a willingness to help and work with others (key ingredients for IT personnel of all stripes). I also recommended that he research PC repair depot operations in his local metro area, because such operations always have need of qualified repair technicians. So do big technology outlets such as Fry’s, Best Buy, Office Depot, and so forth. My final word to him: leave no stone unturned in your search for work. One job will surely lead to another thereafter.

Don’t forget “other sources” when funding IT training

As veteran blogger and commenter Suzanne Wheeler (she writes “Views from the PIT-People in IT” blog here) noticed about my previous blog, it’s important to factor other sources of financing into the equation when job loss, underemployment, or other circumstances lead people to ponder the suitability of and financing for continuing adult education. Thus, I am very nicely reminded to point out the following potential sources of funding for those in need of additional support for a training, skills development, or “back to school” adventure:

• Federal Student Loans, about which information is available on the Web at http://studentaid.ed.gov/. See also this nice third-party overview of available programs at SallieMae’s CollegeAnswer.com.
• State employment or unemployment programs (use the search engine on your state’s Website, or Google something like “Oklahoma education assistance” or “Oklahoma employment assistance” for more information). See also the State Unemployment Insurance Benefits page from the US Department of Labor.
• Be sure to ask at local employment or workforce centers about available training benefits, vouchers, or programs as you apply for benefits, or otherwise interact with such offices.
• Check with local community colleges to see if they have any free or discounted training offerings for unemployed or underemployed workers: many do. Community College Week Magazine sponsors an active an informative Website that you can use to find such resources in your geographical area.

If you can’t come up with the money for continuing education, IT certificaiton, or skills and knowledge development entirely on your own, please don’t be bashful about looking for–and, more important, asking about–other sources of help and funding. This is a case where some persistence and lots of knocking on doors can really make a big difference.

What about spending money when you have no money?

I just did a follow-up phone interview with TechTarget news writer MIchael Morisy, who raised the question with me “Will people really spend money on certs in a down economy?” Notice carefully the use of “people” in this question: we’re talking about individuals spending their own hard-earned money, perhaps from a dwindling pool of savings, perhaps from a severance check that is being pulled in Lord knows how many directions for how long is anybody’s guess. It’s not  a pretty pictures, particularly for those facing the question of how best to get back into the word force in the wake of job loss.

My take on this situation has evolved a bit, thanks to my conversation with Mr. Morisy, to include the following perhaps essential points:

• Don’t look for the unemployed to be rushing out to spend any money on training or certification at all, unless they believe it will make a big difference in their prospects for another job, or the speed into which they can slot themselves into a new position.
• If the unemployed (or underemployed) do decide to train and certify as a bootstrapping or prospect enhancing strategy, look for them to stretch whatever dollars they do spend all the way to the breaking point. This is good news for publishers of self-study materials, practice tests, and training simulators, but won’t do anything to improve the bottom lines at top-dollar training companies such as Global Knowledge, Fast Lane, New Horizons, or Learning Tree, nor will it do much for top-flight vendor training programs like those at Cisco, Microsoft, IBM, RedHat, and so forth.
• In an uncertain economy with an indeterminate amount of time to devote to skills and knowledge development, individual goals are likely to be single-point and very focused. Though some may go back to school to finish a degree, or pursue a more advanced degree, most IT professionals will be looking for programs they can finish in a few months. Likewise, most will shy away from time horizons that span more than six months, let alone a year or more.
• Online training sources may experience a bump in business during this time of rising unemployment and rising job uncertainty. Those barely hanging onto questionable or doomed positions will probably join those already out of a job in droves on Websites where they can obtain study materials to prep for valuable certifications, interact with experts and other students, and practice for or simulate real-world and/or exam conditions to help them prepare for a trip to a test center nearby.

The last time I did the analysis of what a typical certification  cost, the breakdown looked something like this:

• Cost of the exam: usually $150 to $500 (only a very few exams cost more than that, but some go into the thousands, such as the Cisco CCIE Lab exam, various RedHat lab exams, SAP consultant exams, and so forth)
• Cost of reading/study materials: $30 for an Exam Cram, $50-60 for an All-in-One Prep tool for many exams, up to $400-500 for a more complete library for more demanding exams (CISSP, CCIE, SNIA, and so on). You’ll also find flash cards, command references, exam reviews, and other prep materials readily available, mostly for very poplular credentials (CCNA, MCSE, MCSA, A+, Network+, Security+, and  so forth).
• Practice exams: $90-150 per set, with one or two sets typical for most self-study exam candidates.
• Other sources of expense: travel to/from test center, access to online labs or simulators, exam retakes. This can add as little as nothing to overall costs to over $1,000 when air travel and lab or simulator time are essential to passing exams.

In this economy, especially for those out of work or contemplating same, the tendency will be to low-ball expenses to the point of absurdity. Under the circumstances, this is not a criticism: it’s simply the application of common sense to a difficult situation.

Foote Partners Pinpoints 10 Top IT Jobs for 2009

My old buddy David Foote at IT compensation specialist firm Foote Partners, recently shared with e-week the results of his latest compensation data in a slideshow named “10 Hot IT Jobs for 2009.” Here;s a list of what he came up with in “David Letterman Top 10″ (reverse) order:

10. Storage Directors: coordinate storage, reduce overall hardware outlays (consolidated storage usually costs less than decentralized, distributed storage). Relevant certifications include SNIA, plus offerings from ECM, HP, Dell, IBM, Cisco, Sun, Oracle, and many others

9.AJAX Developers: Microsoft’s ASP.NET technology that support Web 2.0 interactivity and media on Web sites, using browser-neutral ECMAScript/JavaScript and dynamic HTML. Relevant certs: ProCert, Microsoft, Brainbench

8. Security Architects: somebody’s got to design security policy and implementations to match; that’s what these people do. See our infosec cert survey for plenty of pointers.

7. Virtualization experts: everybody’s doing it, and certs are starting to pop up in this area, primarily from VMWare and Microsoft, but also IBM, and probably other big vendors (HP, Sun, Dell, and so forth) soon

6. ITIL Managers: with governance interest and participation at an all-time high, and growing further, ITIL and business process expertise are increasingly valuable. Check the ITIL site for more info and pointers.

5. Enterprise Architects: These guys get tagged to “automate and streamline processes and infrastructure,” and can save organizations big bucks. Related certs: Sun/Java, IBM, Microsoft, EACOE, Institute for Enterprise Architecture, ITAC/Open Group

4. Outsourcing and Vendor Managers: Project Management Specialists who run existing vendor relationships. Related Certs: PMP plus items from number 3.

3.  Vendor Procurement Specialists: in a tight economy VPAs and other vendor agreements will be reworked. Foote says “…companies are going to be renegotiating contracts like crazy.” Related certs: American Purchasing Society, Institute for Supply Management, Senior Professional in Supply Mgmt (SPSM)

2. Resiliency Services Professionals: A new buzzphrase for BC/DR, these services are gaining major traction in the middle of the marketplace (enterprises are pretty mature in this respect, but there are a lot more medium sized businesses in need of such things right now). Related cert programs: See “Cert Programs“

1. Business Intelligence (BI) Experts: help organizations keep up with customer thinking, market makeup, pricing, services, and other key aspects of the target audience. Related cert programs: IBM, Microsoft, TDWI/CBIP

Let this be an inspiration to those looking for more ways to fill their personal development and training dance cards for 2009.

Out of an IT Job? Then what?

In some e-mail with a fellow certification market follower recently, my correspondent opined that those who find themselves out of work in IT can look for a silver lining in such dire circumstances. The sudden change of work status creates a fabulous opportunity for study, learning, training, or other activities that can sharpen current IT skills or help to develop new ones.

Of course, the recently unemployed don’t usually have nothing but time on their hands, so this will take some effort, some ingenuity, and above all, some motivation to keep digging into something that isn’t paying very well at the moment. Don’t forget to file your job loss paperwork, make your unemployment claims, and go through whatever motions your local job placement authorities may require of you. Obtaining more income must always come first. But pursuing IT skills and knowledge should come a close second, because it may open more doors for your job search,. It could also broaden the field of positions you could fill, thereby increasing the odds of finding something new, and hopefully shortening the time it takes to get into a new job.

Given that unemployed people are rightfully wary about spending money on anything, you’ll want to be creative in finding materials for your hurry-up and unexpected learning adventures. Ask around to see who’s got books and study guides. Check out your local library to see what’s there (if you can’t afford Internet access at the moment, you can often sign up to use Internet-connected PCs at that same place). Surf the Web for good, free materials. You’ll also want to check out local community colleges for classroom training: these are the most affordable adult education providers around, and your (un)employment status may even qualify you for reduced- or no-cost training.

While you’re looking for that next job, this might be a perfect time to pursue that credential you’ve always been interested in, but never had the time to go after. It could also give you the opportunity to investigate interesting technologies or platforms that you never had time to dig into before. Think about high-demand IT specialties, such as storage, information security , ERP software, software architecture, databases, identity management, and so forth, and pretty soon you’ll have a wish list that’s at least enough to keep you busy, if not enough to last a lifetime.

As the old saying goes, a problem for some is an opportunity for others. Turn your employment (or underemployment) problem into an opportunity to learn more, and pretty soon you’ll be doing more, too!