IT Job Market Recovering Faster Now Than After Dot-com Bubble Burst 242
tsamsoniw writes "More new tech jobs have emerged since the end of the past recession than during the same recovery timelines following the dot-com bubble burst and the early-1990s recession. What's more, the unemployment rate among technology professionals is now half that of the national average — with especially low unemployment rates for database administrators and network architects. What's not clear, though, is how many unemployed techies aren't being counted because they've abandoned job searches."
At least one (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, I've pretty much stopped looking. I suppose what I'm doing now counts as a "tech job", but the IT job market sure has lost a lot of appeal to me. Who wants to get chewed up and spit out again?
Well, doh! (Score:4, Insightful)
The dot com bust hit the IT sectory specifically, and followed a huge bubble in which tons of people were found in unnecessary jobs fueled by the gush of easy start-up money.
How can you even compare.
Isn't this to be expected? (Score:5, Insightful)
The dot-com burst was a tech sector bubble.
The current burst is a finance sector bubble.
How's that finance job market recovery going?
Re:Is the job market real? (Score:5, Insightful)
I have been a victim so to speak. You see, I got a job but the employer wanted me to get "up-to-date" certification at my cost, at my time and then commit to working 5 days a week and being on-call at least one weekend every 6 weeks for the first year, then on-call for one of the weekends in two months.
Needless to say, I declined the offer....still looking.
This may have been sarcasm, and if so, a big whoosh to me, but if you seriously declined a job offer because they wanted you to get some certifications and be on call for 9 weekends per year, you evidently don't really need a job.
Re:Is the job market real? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:"techies" unemployed? Maybe those over 50... (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm over 50 (just barely).
the agism (in the sf bay area) is visible and intense. my healthcare went up A LOT on my 50'th birthday and I have private HI since I'm not employed now and wasn't when I was 50, either.
companies have to pay higher rates for older employees (I'm pretty sure). they also have more legal hurdles to jump thru when they fire you. in general, they don't like older guys. lots of reasons, with very few of them actually good reasons.
fwiw, if you are in the bay area and approach mid 30's, start thinking about an 'exit strategy'. by mid 40's you should have some idea or plan. I did not and I'm paying the price for my lack of forethought (I really didn't believe this, back when I was still young).
maybe other areas of the country are more accepting of us older guys, but the bay area IS NOT! trust me. yes, there are companies that have grey-hairs there but they are usually the minority and very few of them feel totally secure in their jobs, if you ask them and if they answer honestly.
its a shame. some cultures in the world respect and honor age, experience and wisdom. the bay area, fwiw, is NOT one of them ;(
(I wish I could speak one of the asian languages or be able to move there; I am told that the eastern part of the world still DOES honor and respect age and experience.)
Re:At least one (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:"techies" unemployed? Maybe those over 50... (Score:0, Insightful)
the agism (in the sf bay area) is visible and intense [...] its a shame. some cultures in the world respect and honor age, experience and wisdom. the bay area, fwiw, is NOT one of them ;(
Some cultures care more for communication skills. If you write like that at work, it's not ageism holding you back. At least pretend like your words are worth reading.
Re:At least one (Score:4, Insightful)
Take the advice of another old fart: Lose the old experience, and don't date anything past the last three jobs, or 7 years, whichever is least. Like you, I used to feel that all of my experience was (or could be) important, since it was broad in scope and domain. However, I found that taking all the old experience, pulling out some keywords, and paraphrasing the rest into short paragraphs made all the difference. When I looked like an old geek, I got nothing from anyone, even when I regularly updated my resume online. Once I removed any indication of my age, I started getting 2-3 phone calls and at least 5 emails per day, wanting me to talk to them. Fortunately by then I had a reasonably good job, and had only updated my resume on a whim, but it shows just how bad the age bias is in the computer HR field.
Hide your age, dye your hair, lose weight, and lie by omission on your resume. They'll lie to you about why they won't hire you, so feel free to "lie" to them about your age.