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Ever been unemployed for more than a month ?


gobbledonk

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TTM,

 

Have you gone for any interviews where you've come out of there thinking 'Christ, I dont know if I really WANT that job !' ?

 

Perhaps almost 3 months of unemployment has affected me, but I have to question whether I chould be applying for jobs simply because they bear some resemblance to my skillset and they represent an income. If money is the only issue, I may as well just accept work as a courier and be done with it.

 

The downside is that the role I want - Web Developer - is SO competitive at the moment that it may take months to land a job, and thats a timeframe I'm not keen to consider.

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>Have you gone for any interviews where you've come out of there thinking 'Christ, I dont know if I really WANT that job !' ?

 

Just yesterday. A former colleague of mine oferred me a job (a support role) that is not really good. The skill set was right but everybody gets 3 months training and has to make a 18-24 months "gentlemen word" commitment. I could not do that.

 

In a few hours I'll say thanks but no thanks and go back and wait for other leads to develop further.

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[color:"red"] The skill set was right but everybody gets 3 months training and has to make a 18-24 months "gentlemen word" commitment. I could not do that.

 

[/color]

 

TTM, 18 months is not really that long for a job commitment. The US IT market is not getting any better. One of my team was just told that 3/31 is his last day.

 

Cheers! :D

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>TTM, 18 months is not really that long for a job commitment. The US IT market is not getting any better.

 

3 more things are in the wings, I am taking a gamble. It was a tough call, must admit.

The thought of signing papers today and boarding the plane this afternoon for a month in BKK...

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The US IT market is not getting any better. One of my team was just told that 3/31 is his last day.

 

Jas,

 

This is depressing news - it effects everyone's morale when stuff like this happens, IMO. Its one of the main reasons I volunteered for the redundancy - things were going from bad to worse.

 

Although I havent nailed the job I want yet, there IS a noticeable increase in the number of jobs being advertised on Seek (www.seek.com.au), even allowing for the fact that the same job is being listed by several recruiters. Some industry observers are cautiously predicting an improvement in the Oz IT market as the year progresses.

 

Its very much an employers market at the moment. One of the recruiters told me that they are getting more and more requests for people who can 'do it all' : Unix+Windows+development+admin+networking .... and wanting the candidates on their doorstep within a couple of days. We are seeing more ads for people with '3+' years .NET experience - LOL ! Hilarious, particularly when you consider the situation 3 or so years ago, when we were forced to guard our internal phone list in case it fell into the hands of recruiters ....

 

With all these projects on the backburner, something has to give when the impact of Iraq becomes clearer, and there will be renewed demand for tech skills. Perhaps you should consider spending some time Down Under :)

 

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Says artiew:

SO I take it you dont approve of the Australian invasion of Britain ?

 

You'll forgive me for sounding sardonic, but there is work out there for techies. I used to work as a pimp. I still have contacts, and the £ is worth a lot more than the $ Aussie at the mo.

Drop us a PM with your skills I could have a think.

 

Cheers

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Thanks, SL, but I'm not prepared to relocate to sunny England at this point in time :)

 

Just for the record, this is an excerpt from the front page of my resume, and its all backed up by years of commercial experience in mission-critical environments :

 

Unix Systems Administration (Tru64, Solaris, Red Hat Linux)

- Server specification, installation and post-Sales support

- Routine maintenance : hardware, network and operating system

- Software installation : PROGRESS, Java, Apache, GNU compilers/tools

- Performance Tuning : kernel parameters, database parameters

- Utility Creation : C, Unix Shell scripts, Perl, Python

 

PROGRESS

- Development (V7-V8 Character)

- Database Administration (V7-V9)

 

Web Development

- PHP, Perl, Javascript, HTML, XML/XSLT, CSS : coding, maintenance

- PostgreSQL : installation, configuration, tuning, backup and recovery

- Apache webserver : installation, configuration, tuning

- Sound understanding of a wide range of Open Source technologies

 

Its a modest skillset, compared to a lot of resumes I've seen on the net, but I refuse to list things I use 'without thinking' (anything to do with Windows - I find thought only gets in the way...) or anything that I havent used for more than 3-5 years(COBOL, Pascal etc - who really wants to know ?).

 

A few of my former colleagues have adopted the approach that you need to put anything on your resume that will get the job, but I am a woeful liar. As soon as the interviewer said 'Oh, I see you've used Java extensively', I'd blurt out , 'That depends on your interpretation of the word extensively ..... and the word Java. '

 

Anyway, thanks again - this sort of generosity is ne of the things that keeps me coming back to the baord again and again. Talk about 'extensive experience' :D

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