Should I give up in IT?
Discussion
I've not worked in IT for around 7 months now and despite applying for over 100 jobs I've not even had an interview, the longer I am without a job the harder I think it will become.
I know I am a bit of an all rounder but one with about 20 years experience.
What is worth training in these days or should I just call it a day and become a teacher
I know I am a bit of an all rounder but one with about 20 years experience.
What is worth training in these days or should I just call it a day and become a teacher
I will admit my CV does need work, that is in the process of being done.
I am applying for the types of roles that companies have been falling over themselves to offer me for the past few years.
Most I am getting these days from recruiters is "erm we lost your CV" to "We don't think you would fit in with the culture of the company"
I am applying for the types of roles that companies have been falling over themselves to offer me for the past few years.
Most I am getting these days from recruiters is "erm we lost your CV" to "We don't think you would fit in with the culture of the company"
Sheets Tabuer said:
I've not worked in IT for around 7 months now and despite applying for over 100 jobs I've not even had an interview, the longer I am without a job the harder I think it will become.
I know I am a bit of an all rounder but one with about 20 years experience.
What is worth training in these days or should I just call it a day and become a teacher
You need totally different skills to be a teacher comparedI know I am a bit of an all rounder but one with about 20 years experience.
What is worth training in these days or should I just call it a day and become a teacher
to working in IT.
You could be proactive and try keeping your skills fresh by working
on various Open Source projects - fix bugs etc.
Try any of the major Linux distros - Suse, Fedora, Debian etc
They will all be keen if you've got any skills like C / C++ / Java / Perl /
Python / GUI / databases.
Sheets Tabuer said:
I am applying for the types of roles that companies have been falling over themselves to offer me for the past few years.
Which are? Are you being realistic about rate / salary?Sheets Tabuer said:
Most I am getting these days from recruiters is "erm we lost your CV" to "We don't think you would fit in with the culture of the company"
Which really means "I thought your CV was s
te" or "the client thought your CV was ste"UpTheIron said:
Sheets Tabuer said:
I am applying for the types of roles that companies have been falling over themselves to offer me for the past few years.
Which are? Are you being realistic about rate / salary?Sheets Tabuer said:
Most I am getting these days from recruiters is "erm we lost your CV" to "We don't think you would fit in with the culture of the company"
Which really means "I thought your CV was ste" or "the client thought your CV was ste"Personally, alarm bells would have been ringing with me after knock back number 5, rather than number 100.
are you just applying electronically on job search pages? as the agencies at the moment really wont do anything unless you chase them and sell yourself. If you are selling yourself then its time for a new CV, a completely different CV which is catered for where you want to be. Re-load your CV up to job sites every 2 weeks to stay at the top of most recent CVs. I just changed the saved name with a date in. I do receive quite a lot of interest through that method.
Having worked in IT recruitment, one of the worst things to hear is "I'm an all rounder."
I know many people are genuinely good at a wide range of IT skills, but companies are usually looking for a specific skill set. Sad but true, most managers looking for say a Network Engineer for their Microsoft environment will want someone who is specialised in just that, and will see skills in software development, testing or business analysis as at best irrelevant, at worst a distraction. Similarly if you say go into detail about your experience as an Architect or a PM they will feel that you are likely to get bored.
These sort of things might not have ruled you out a couple of years ago when the market was tight, but it's a buyers market now, so to speak, and employers can be a lot more picky. Likelihood is that the manager looking for a Network Engineer above has got 5 CVs on his desk of bright young guys with 3-4 years experience in a Microsoft environment and a background in support before that, and sorry to say, they will go for this every time.
My advice would be concentrate on what you were doing in your last job and (assuming you want to do something similar) then market yourself as this and this only. If you can, do a course relevant to this to keep you up to date, and probably most importantly of all, ask recruitment consultants what you are doing wrong and listen.
I'm not emphasising this for you particularly but for the countless times I have given people sincere and constructive advice on their CV only to be totally ignored.
If you really do want to be an all rounder, then I guess the best bet is to get into a small business that needs someone to do everything and anything computery, and have grown a bit too big for the boss's son to keep on top of it in the school holidays.
I know many people are genuinely good at a wide range of IT skills, but companies are usually looking for a specific skill set. Sad but true, most managers looking for say a Network Engineer for their Microsoft environment will want someone who is specialised in just that, and will see skills in software development, testing or business analysis as at best irrelevant, at worst a distraction. Similarly if you say go into detail about your experience as an Architect or a PM they will feel that you are likely to get bored.
These sort of things might not have ruled you out a couple of years ago when the market was tight, but it's a buyers market now, so to speak, and employers can be a lot more picky. Likelihood is that the manager looking for a Network Engineer above has got 5 CVs on his desk of bright young guys with 3-4 years experience in a Microsoft environment and a background in support before that, and sorry to say, they will go for this every time.
My advice would be concentrate on what you were doing in your last job and (assuming you want to do something similar) then market yourself as this and this only. If you can, do a course relevant to this to keep you up to date, and probably most importantly of all, ask recruitment consultants what you are doing wrong and listen.
I'm not emphasising this for you particularly but for the countless times I have given people sincere and constructive advice on their CV only to be totally ignored.
If you really do want to be an all rounder, then I guess the best bet is to get into a small business that needs someone to do everything and anything computery, and have grown a bit too big for the boss's son to keep on top of it in the school holidays.
AJS- said:
Having worked in IT recruitment, one of the worst things to hear is "I'm an all rounder."
I know many people are genuinely good at a wide range of IT skills, but companies are usually looking for a specific skill set. Sad but true, most managers looking for say a Network Engineer for their Microsoft environment will want someone who is specialised in just that, and will see skills in software development, testing or business analysis as at best irrelevant, at worst a distraction. Similarly if you say go into detail about your experience as an Architect or a PM they will feel that you are likely to get bored.
These sort of things might not have ruled you out a couple of years ago when the market was tight, but it's a buyers market now, so to speak, and employers can be a lot more picky. Likelihood is that the manager looking for a Network Engineer above has got 5 CVs on his desk of bright young guys with 3-4 years experience in a Microsoft environment and a background in support before that, and sorry to say, they will go for this every time.
My advice would be concentrate on what you were doing in your last job and (assuming you want to do something similar) then market yourself as this and this only. If you can, do a course relevant to this to keep you up to date, and probably most importantly of all, ask recruitment consultants what you are doing wrong and listen.
I'm not emphasising this for you particularly but for the countless times I have given people sincere and constructive advice on their CV only to be totally ignored.
If you really do want to be an all rounder, then I guess the best bet is to get into a small business that needs someone to do everything and anything computery, and have grown a bit too big for the boss's son to keep on top of it in the school holidays.
The problem is most IT adverts expect you to know just about everything and anything about IT.I know many people are genuinely good at a wide range of IT skills, but companies are usually looking for a specific skill set. Sad but true, most managers looking for say a Network Engineer for their Microsoft environment will want someone who is specialised in just that, and will see skills in software development, testing or business analysis as at best irrelevant, at worst a distraction. Similarly if you say go into detail about your experience as an Architect or a PM they will feel that you are likely to get bored.
These sort of things might not have ruled you out a couple of years ago when the market was tight, but it's a buyers market now, so to speak, and employers can be a lot more picky. Likelihood is that the manager looking for a Network Engineer above has got 5 CVs on his desk of bright young guys with 3-4 years experience in a Microsoft environment and a background in support before that, and sorry to say, they will go for this every time.
My advice would be concentrate on what you were doing in your last job and (assuming you want to do something similar) then market yourself as this and this only. If you can, do a course relevant to this to keep you up to date, and probably most importantly of all, ask recruitment consultants what you are doing wrong and listen.
I'm not emphasising this for you particularly but for the countless times I have given people sincere and constructive advice on their CV only to be totally ignored.
If you really do want to be an all rounder, then I guess the best bet is to get into a small business that needs someone to do everything and anything computery, and have grown a bit too big for the boss's son to keep on top of it in the school holidays.
something like-
Must have 1+ years experience on Win2/3k AD, SQL,PHP, Perl, Dos
linux all variants, including installs and maintenance, cisco routers switches pix firewalls, checkpoint voip call manager,backup exec must have MCSE CCNA CCNP and on and on goes the list.Must know Remedy!!
Must be willing to work on a rotating shift, and standby on 1 week per month.
Personal spec:
This is a 1st line support role, You will have just left Uni and are willing to fit in with a dynamic YOUNG company, there is plenty of scope for progression. yada yada yada.
£17-21k 20 day holidays.
The chance of someone with 20 years experience getting put forward is minimal, a 20/30 something IT recruiter will think he/shes reading a CV from a dinosaur, worst still and sadly they are the type of employee most IT companies request.
ex HP
What's your skillset? Know any programming languages?
Get some experience in a specific skill, as said, use open source projects to do that if necessary.
FWIW I'm a Java developer, I've just been offered a retention bonus if I stay on for 3 months with another if I stay a further 6 months. Not sure if that reflects the job market. Certainly doesn't reflect the news I've been hearing on the economy.
Get some experience in a specific skill, as said, use open source projects to do that if necessary.
FWIW I'm a Java developer, I've just been offered a retention bonus if I stay on for 3 months with another if I stay a further 6 months. Not sure if that reflects the job market. Certainly doesn't reflect the news I've been hearing on the economy.
69 coupe said:
The problem is most IT adverts expect you to know just about everything and anything about IT.
something like-
Must have 1+ years experience on Win2/3k AD, SQL,PHP, Perl, Dos linux all variants, including installs and maintenance, cisco routers switches pix firewalls, checkpoint voip call manager,backup exec must have MCSE CCNA CCNP and on and on goes the list.
Must know Remedy!!
Must be willing to work on a rotating shift, and standby on 1 week per month.
Personal spec:
This is a 1st line support role, You will have just left Uni and are willing to fit in with a dynamic YOUNG company, there is plenty of scope for progression. yada yada yada.
£17-21k 20 day holidays.
The chance of someone with 20 years experience getting put forward is minimal, a 20/30 something IT recruiter will think he/shes reading a CV from a dinosaur, worst still and sadly they are the type of employee most IT companies request.
ex HP
Very true. Most of those adverts will be drafted by either a recruitment consultant or an HR assistant who doesn't know what he/she is talking about and so includes every acronym and buzz word he can lay his hands on. Alternatively they are written by a manager as a description of the person who left that job. something like-
Must have 1+ years experience on Win2/3k AD, SQL,PHP, Perl, Dos
linux all variants, including installs and maintenance, cisco routers switches pix firewalls, checkpoint voip call manager,backup exec must have MCSE CCNA CCNP and on and on goes the list.Must know Remedy!!
Must be willing to work on a rotating shift, and standby on 1 week per month.
Personal spec:
This is a 1st line support role, You will have just left Uni and are willing to fit in with a dynamic YOUNG company, there is plenty of scope for progression. yada yada yada.
£17-21k 20 day holidays.
The chance of someone with 20 years experience getting put forward is minimal, a 20/30 something IT recruiter will think he/shes reading a CV from a dinosaur, worst still and sadly they are the type of employee most IT companies request.
ex HP
In an ideal world I would say avoid them, in our less than ideal world I would say it's a good excuse to phone them and find out what is the number one skill this job will require. What will you be doing day to day, and if they don't find someone with all those skills (they won't) then would yours be a potential fit.
I was lucky to work for a very good recruitment consultancy with a few guys who had worked on the IT side and understood the industry. I wouldn't pretend to know anything about Java Development, Network Architecture or any of the other job functions, but by far the most effective way of matching a candidate to a job is to ask the employer what this person will be doing day to day and what they will have achieved after 6 months, and asking the candidate what they are doing day to day and what they have delivered in the last few months.
Cuts straight through the bulls
t, and you normally find that what is actually needed is a deep understanding of one key area, and a broad awareness of the way in which that particular technology interacts with other Delphi." In fact they are looking for an Oracle developer who can work with a Java front end and their system has some PHP and PERL stuff they'll never use and one or two Delphi legacy applications which they want to replace eventually. Techies, feel free to laugh at my technical ineptitude, but I hope it at least illustrates the point?If I had a s
t hot Oracle developer with some experience working with a Java front end (as most Oracle systems do, don't they?), and everything else like personality and expectations fitted then I would definitely put them forward. The thing is, if that guy was saying he had done lots of all of the above in the last job, and was just as comfortable with a Sybase database and .NET front end, but his last job was mostly in a COBOL environment then I would tend to think he was probably none of either. If I thought the guy was a good match for my clients then I would dig deeper to find out exactly what they were doing and where I could place them, if not then I would probably steer clear. Many, probably most consultants would drop it like a hot potato and look for the guy who said what he wanted to hear.
Edited by AJS- on Sunday 29th March 22:00
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