March 11, 2010

Looking for work in the Modern Era

I am out of work. I know, a lot of people are. It is pretty tough out there. It isn't that there aren't any jobs, but that there are so many applicants for each job. Today I got word from a guy from church that is hiring an entry level or barely above that desktop support person. The top of the payscale is about $32K. Not the worst pay for entry level, but they want entry level that knows what they are doing with Windows, Linux, servers, MSSQL, and a fair number of other things. That doesn't sound like entry level to me. Well, with my experience, he said he could put me at the top of the pile, even though he knows I wouldn't be planning to stick around for that pay level. He expects I will eventually find something that pays about 3 times that. The real point, then he told me, is it will only take him about 2 months to get through the resumes he has received already. This job has been open like a week.

Now, I typically wouldn't be even considering anything entry level or desktop support, or anywhere even close to that. With well more than a decade of IT management experience, I should be applying for IT Director positions, and I have been. But in 6 months of looking, I have had 1 interview, ... by a recruiter. I suppose part of the problem is that my experience is so broad, and companies are looking for silo'ed people. The other part of the problem is that there are sooooo many people looking for work. 2 months of resume sifting. Man, and you though desktop support was rough.

We need some kind of system that integrates jobs openings into a single mega system and really closely matches the skills and backgrounds of those looking for work. Yeah, I know, lots of recruiters have automated systems out there. I have tried most of them, and they really don't come even close to what is needed. Not sure how such a thing would be created. It would have to have meta data on the meta data, and granular focus on everything, and then somehow still be able to come up with a good selection of matches. I have more ideas, but I don't need to build a better job search system right now. What I need is a job that pays actual money.

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