My employment problem (job stuff)
So after getting upset with myself for every mistake I've made in life, I calmed down and made some brownies, and thought about the problems in trying to get a job. (Maybe it'll lead to a solution.)
Basically, unskilled high-school dropouts have an easier time making ends meet than me, because at least high-school dropouts are able to get a piss-ant job and work their way up from there.
There have been two problems which have, so far, led to me being unable to secure employment:
- Nobody will even bother to interview me because I'm "over-qualified" for their positions — the belief being that if I do take a job with them then I'll just leave in two months when I get a better offer somewhere else (because none of those jobs are even in my field)
- The few jobs which I have been able to interview for have either been extremely competitive positions where my lack of real-world experience (which I can't get without a job) tends to be the killing factor, or have been positions where the company couldn't justify paying me a salary for someone with a MS in Computer Science
With the over-qualified line, all I can tell people is that it may be the case, but so far I've been searching for a job for quite some time and if there are any jobs which I'd snatch up, I certainly haven't been able to find them.
Salary-wise, I really don't care about making what I'm supposedly worth right now. As long as I can make ends meet and have enough left over to save up for later, I'll be fine.
One problem is that while I have a lot of breadth with depth in my skills (systems architecture, human-computer interaction, web development, parallel computing, network programming, systems administration, etc.), people only see my research area (graphics) and assume that I wouldn't even want whatever job I applied for (even though applying for the job is supposed to be an indication that I do, in fact, want that job). Another problem with my skillset is that they aren't things which can typically be done on a freelance basis, and the things which I can do which are freelanceable (music, graphic design, webdesign, etc.) are extremely competitive fields in which I'm only mediocre at best.
Simply going into business for myself is not an option. Self-employment requires a few things:
- Customers (see above for freelance issues)
- Capital to live on (which I don't have, and can't get without customers)
- The ability to whore myself out (which I don't have the physical presence or networking skills for)
- Alternatively to all of the above, coming up with a great idea and getting investors to put up the capital to live on (but investment capital is pretty scarce these days too)
Hobby work also seems to be irrelevant. So do the part-time student positions I've had which gave me very specific experience in what the various jobs need.
University employment is a red herring; the university wants, for the most part, three types of people:
- Faculty (which I am not qualified for)
- Technical staff (such as systems administration, which I'm "overqualified for")
- Administrative staff (i.e. secretarial jobs, which I am exceedingly unsuited for)
- Not taking a co-op or internship position when I was an undergrad (since these positions do seem to count for real experience)
- Buying a car (that $240/month could have gone to lots of savings, and right now if I were to sell my car I'd still have to buy another car and pay off at least another $1000 on the loan)
- Not renting out a bedroom in my house (that other $240/month could have also gone to lots of savings)
- Getting a master's degree in a highly-specialized field
Does anyone who has recently become employed (preferrably from a situation as close to mine as possible) have any thoughts to share? Also, if you know of any openings for me, feel free to send me email and I'll reply with my resume or whatever else. (I'm not posting it here for reasons not worth getting into.)
Thanks to anyone who can help.
Comments
I know I've said this before, but I think your best bet is to knuckle down and take an entry-level programming position, maybe on a graduate programme. Once you've got your foot in the door, it's a lot easier to get ahead.
I had to do that myself after a relatively long period out of work, but I got my promotion pretty soon.
I'm not that convinced by the "won't interview me because I'm over-qualified" thing. How do you know that's why they won't interview you? Most recruiters want the best person they can get. And this isn't the dot com boom anymore: hirers really aren't that worried about people skipping off too quickly in this climate.
Also, if you want to move from the academic world to the commercial world, you're just going to have to bite the bullet and accept that your academic experience doesn't count for anything. It's tough but that's the way it is: your years in academia aren't going to be seen as any more relevant than if you'd been working in McDonalds.
I've been pretty impressed with the interviews you've had so far, but you seem to be trying for very specialised and high-level stuff. Getting in on a graduate programme for a big company is a good way to learn the business. Apply to Sun, IBM, Apple, Microsoft; wherever. After a couple of years of commercial experience, you're in a good position to move on.
Good luck with it anyway.
I have to say that I pretty much agree with Theosophile. Often, you have to put up with shit programming jobs outside your field of interest in order to get the experience lots of places want, and to get the time and capital to make a more leisurely search for the perfect job.
It's much easier to get a great job when you already have another job. That's one of the cruel facts of life.
And what theo said has happened to me as well. It's often easier to get promoted once in a company than it is to get a good job there.
Take a look at these.
http://appzone.intel.com/jobs/uRequisition.asp?Posting=32656
http://appzone.intel.com/jobs/uRequisition.asp?Posting=33254
http://appzone.intel.com/jobs/uRequisition.asp?Posting=32698
http://appzone.intel.com/jobs/uRequisition.asp?Posting=33091
theo and ucblockhead: You seem to be missing the bit where I get turned away from those jobs because I'm overqualified. Seriously, I've applied for quite a few of those too. I'd happily bite the bullet (and have tried many times!) but nobody with bullets seems to think I should have to slobber on theirs.
broken: I've never done OpenGL driver development (i.e. no "proven background"), I'm not a hardware engineer (and don't have an MSEE), and I don't have "five years of relevant work experience" for software QA or BIOS engineering.
I'm in the same boat as you,except that I don't have a Masters, nor did I do all that exceptionally well in college. I too made mistakes when I was laid off. I got bored with the 2 week manual labor job and quit, thus screwing over my chances to go back to the temp place to get another palcement.
I also blew off two other jobs, one manual labor, another telemarketing. I apply for any and all jobs I find in the papers. Some are IT related, some are not. None have resulted in an interview.
I do have a freelancing gig but it's very sporadic and the look I got from the guy when I told him how much he owed me this last time, pretty much said "Don't go asking for 8 dollars an hour all the time now."
It's tough. Everyone criticizes, but no one asks for my resume, or if I offer it, it never leads anywhere.
I also can't help but wonder if a lot of employers are calling the place I worked for in the summer of 1999 and/or Dr. Cecil when checking references. (I'd take them off of my resume but they're the only "relevant work experience" I even have...)
The main concern CTC had with me was the whole "overqualified" thing too though. Like, they really wanted to hire me as a graphics programmer, and had a possible graphics programming project. I'd made it clear to them that I didn't have to be a graphics programmer, and that many of their other things were interesting and also things I'd have been happy to do, but they were still stuck in the "this job might be too boring for you" mindset.
I wonder if my large skillset tells people that I "get bored easily" (as a reason for picking new skills up) or something equally retarded.
What bothers me about the CTC thing, is that they flew you out to interview and all that jazz. Why were they interested enough to fly you out, but after the interview, seem to have lost that interest? You couldn't have been that bad of an interviewee.
They wanted to find you something graphics related, which is understandable, but weren't open to finding you something else? Well, your resume, says it all, so why waste the time to fly you out and interview if they pretty much knew that they only had a 'possible?' graphics project?
Maybe I'm too cynical or something but I hate when companies do that, makes me want to get into HR, I have to be better able to know which candidates are well suited for an interview than some of the people I have run into.
Their HR guy seemed to be totally clueless in a lot of ways. :/ I wonder if it's just something as dumb as "this person didn't seem like they were gonna fit in" or whatever. But the HR guy didn't seem to be on the same wavelength as everyone else.
I think your big problem is that it's just a really sucky time to to look for a job, especially a programming job. Outside of relocating to Nebraska or North Dakota, I don't know that there is anything that can help you increase your odds until the economy starts massively reabsorbing all the unemployed knowledgeworkers in the US. My former employer (www.convergys.com) is currently hiring testers down in Florida if you're interested.
The annoying thing is that I went back to grad school specifically in order to weather the coming storm of recession which I had predicted after I quit my shitty programming job in 1999. I guess my timing was a bit off.