[NTLUG:Discuss] Job Searching

[Greg Edwards]

Well since I started some of this traffic explosion I guess I should
join back in:)

Like the bug man:) I'm a consultant/contractor.  I also have my own
company but I do sub-contract work for the most part.  I generally don't
have the time or money to do marketing so I give away a cut of the
billing to agencies.

[2:1 job ratio]

As was pointed out my 2:1 ratio statement in the broadest of techie
terms is not necessarily accurate.  It does depend on what you do. 
Right now the market for tech writers is dead, visual basic types are in
trouble, pure HTML has all but disappeared, and mainframe is on life
support.  However, UNIX and C++ skills are reasonable markets
considering the rest.  Java with C++ is an active combination as well. 
UNIX sys admin work with perl is out there if you've got real network
management experience, sun/solaris is probably the top dog here.

I'm in a fairly good position because I'm a Software Engineer and I do
Full Life Cycle development (blank sheet to out the door) UNIX/C/SQL
along with a bunch of other acronyms, languages, OSs, and platforms. 
Companies bring me in to do projects where they don't want to hire a
monster team of coders working from specs that took months to write by
another monster team of designers.  I'm somewhat specialized but, as I'm
sure bug hunter can confirm, that's the nature of consulting.

I don't know how many were in this game in the DFW area from 91 to 93
but just let me say that if you think this is bad, you ain't seen nothin
yet!!!  Those of us doing contract work found ourselves competing with
people that just lost $45K salaried jobs and thought $22/hr was the big
time.  On top of a dead R&D environment on all fronts the rates were
getting killed.  I know a whole lot of good engineers that are no longer
in the metroplex because the rates got too low to live on.  We lost
nearly 5 years worth of rate growth in less than 6 months.  I was out
(off and on) for 11 1/2 months over that 3 year period and I didn't even
come close to setting the record for $0/hr income.  I knew a guy that
was out for 2 years straight.

[recruiters]

Being in the business that I'm in I know allot of recruiters and deal
with several agencies.  Actually I don't deal with recruiters as much as
I deal with account managers.  The recruiter is the screener and the
account manager is your way in the department managers door.  And yes
agencies do stockpile resumes during lean times.  There is nothing wrong
with this practice, its the way the game is played.  You'll find several
agencies in this town that don't have the ethics that god gave a fire
ant.  However, most are good and employ honest hard working people.  You
can generally believe a reputable agency that says a position was filled
even though the ad is still running.  Very rarely will you get the job
that you answered the ad for because the ad takes time to get placed and
they will have candidates already in the pipe when the job order comes
in.

I'm sure that many of those looking for work now haven't been in the job
market for a long time and don't do job searches very often.  As someone
who has to do it all the time I know it can be frustrating.  There is a
general rule of thumb that says to find a salaried position expect it to
take 1 month for every $10K in salary.  This is not a myth, the last
couple of years were not normal and finding a (salaried) job in a week
is not normal.

In this field forget going to companies directly.  Yes you can get some
jobs that way but you reduce your chances.  Little known by most
salaried types is that if your resume is received by a company no one
else can present you.  Only the original submittor can represent you. 
If that is you and the resume gets filed in HR and HR doesn't forward it
on you'll never see a department manager.  Some companies will even toss
your resume if they see it from more than one source.

Also unknown to most salaried people is the fact that most jobs get
placed without ever going through HR.  Yes HR does get notice of open
positions but the hiring managers generally already have 2-3 agencies
presenting them with candidates before HR ever hears about it.  A good
account manager will have a basic working relationship with HR but
that's just for ceremonial reasons.  These folks work directly with
hiring managers and know long before HR that a position is coming open. 
While HR may have to deal with 50 resumes a hiring manager will only see
a couple resumes from an account manager.  If yours is one of these what
do think your chances are vs going the HR route.  Since the hiring
manager has a relationship with the account manager they know that they
don't have to wade through a pile of resumes to find the 2 or 3 that
they want to interview.  HR generally doesn't have a clue as to what the
hiring manager is looking for.  Most of those ads you see for 5 years
experience in a technology that has only existed for 6 months are
written by HR.  Agencies do not write the experience requirements, they
just copy what they're given.  The one that floored me the most was the
Java position that wanted 5 years experience in a production web
environment using swing for at least 2 years, that was in 1998.  What
that department manager (I knew the account manager) was looking for was
someone that had at least 5 years experience of which 2 were in web
development, knew Java and the team was going to use swing.  HR has a
funny way of missing the details on a job description.

[H1B]

I saved this for last.  If your still reading I can guarantee you that I
will probably piss off both sides here!!  I have followed the H1B issue
for a long time and I've heard all the arguments from all sides of this
issue.

First off, in Steve's defense I do think that the original intent of the
H1B program had (and still does have) merit.  However, do to the
politics and money it has become an abomination and proof that money has
to be eliminated from american politics!

In its original form H1B was limited to 65,000 visas.  By the time the
bill was forced down Clintens throat last fall it had ballooned to
195,000 visas.  For those that like those numbers you can thank groups
like the ITAA, the republican party, and many of your favorite high tech
firms from the silicon valley.  For those that are glad its not 500,000
you can thank groups like the NACCB (www.naccb.org) for doing as much as
they can considering they're outspent by at least 10:1.  A group called
Project Censored (www.projectcensored.org) called the H1B story one of
the top 25 neglected stories of 2000.  So far it has just been talk but
Labor Secretary Elaine Chao is on record as saying that the H1B process
needs a comprehensive review.

The H1B program was never intended to be a way to replace domestic
workers but it has become just that because of the way its been handled
in congress and abused by the industry.  The biggest benefactors have
been big IT employers but other engineering fields have been hit hard as
well with the EEs probably coming in a distant 2nd.  If anyone thinks
that it has not held down salaries or consulting rates they are fooling
themselves.  Especially in the specialized areas of our industry.

The H1B program was intended to allow employers of engineers (of all
types) to be able to hire workers when there was a shortage of domestic
workers.  It was not intended to give companies a way to hire skill sets
that were advertised but not filled.  This is one of the abuse areas
that has arisen when companies advertise positions at rates or salaries
that are not competitive.  Generally if a position is available and the
incentives are realistic, and advertised where qualified people can see
it, it'll attract some attention.  The H1B program by itself isn't bad
for our industry but the constant rise of the limits has artificially
capped the supply and demand curve that our economy is suppose to work
on.

Lets not go down the path of shorter green card status Steve.  The H1B
program was not intended to short circuit the INS process or path to US
Citizenship.

The H1B program in its original form was very generous as to the number
of visas (65,000) made available to foreign workers.  The idea that a
reduction in H1B limits would move work away from the US to other
countries is unrealistic.  Last year, for example, Germany only made
20,000 similar visas available.  While some companies will always allow
work to be done overseas they are in the minority.  One of the reasons
that american companies are adamant about on site work (and why
telecommunting will remain a pipe dream) is the fear of the loss of
their IP (Intellectual Property).  American CEOs are paranoid enough
about employees right down the hall stealing secrets.  Do you really
think they are going to trust an employee half way around the world that
they'll never even see?

While I think the H1B program has merit and should be continued it has
to be tied to the rate of unemployment in each engineering discipline
that workers are here under.  If there really are 100,000 engineering
jobs unfilled then 50,000 visas would be reasonable, not 195,000.  As
long as salaries and rates are held down students will not enter the
programs that fill those positions.  If students don't enter the fields
we won't get the quality workers that are necessary.  We already have
too much bad code in the products produced by our industry, M$ is all
the example I need to give!

OK, I'm off my soapbox now, sorry for being so long winded.

-- 
Greg Edwards
New Age Software, Inc.
http://www.nas-inet.com