Jobs

[Skylar]

Applying for a job with serverbeach, i was wondering if you had any positions avaliable, id like to do Customer Support im located in California
I have my First year Cisco (taking year 2 in September)
Familar with Windows 2000 Pro, XP, 98, 95
Know basic linux
FTP
Enism
Plesk

[neo]

It's going to be interesting to see if and when the high tech industry will start recovering, and hiring back a small portion of the thousands they have laid off over the past 3 years. I wish you luck...

[charlie]

no offense to those out of a job still, but i've managed and been a director of a few companies and in that time interviewed hundreds of people both before, during, and after the dot.com/dot.bomb days... and the quality of people prior to the internet was much better than it is now.

speaking from the network engineering side only... during the dot.com days everyone, their moms, their grandma's and their foreign relatives were getting their A+, MCSEs, and CCIEs. what ended up happening was there was now was a flux of unqualified people (paper techs) who got big dollars for learning how to do the job they got hired to do. technical recruiters were making tons of money pimping these people back then.

now flash forward to today... i'm not sure about other people, but nowadays hiring people is harder for me because now you have to wade through tons of people and filter out these unqualified people before you can find the real ones. most of the people i knew who were laid off, had trouble finding a job for over a year or something because they got it in their heads that they can't accept a job offer unless it pays almost the same as their old overpayed jobs. they just see the, "i'm taking a $10,000 pay cut!" instead of the "i'm really only worth $xx,xxx, i'm still getting overpaid, great". not that i'm not for people getting more if they can. go for it! =) my point was that they shouldn't complain if they pass up decent offers.

and as a real world note.. i posted a job on monster specifically for a "systems support specialist" requiring a certain amount of experience and knowledge. the ad posted for 2 weeks and i got almost 500 replies that i had to go through and only got 30+ real qualified applicants. some of them even sent e-mails saying "i see that you are looking for a database administrator (or telecom engineer)" i mean jobs that are completely unrelated.

nowadays most other hiring managers i've talked to are all looking for folks who have experience and certs.

i'm the mindset of "jobs are out there if you are hungry enough". some people i know send out 20 or 30 resumes using monster or e-mail and then sit and wait and then complain they are either turned down or don't get a response. i would call, visit offices directly, send letters, contact people, go to mixers and find out. do everything you can. like i said obviously not hungry enough. then again i hear welfare's better than getting paid sometimes, but that's a diferent topic. =T I talk too much. haha

charlie
=T

[brent]

My post somewhat covers another topic someone started about "what we do". I appologize for being lazy. :)

Its tough sledding for both job seekers and employers, as you've pointed out. The real problem is that the market is swamped. A computer related field was "the thing to do" in the 90s and now we have a massive pool of people that hold certifications or degrees that really have no experience outside of the dot coms. At the companies I've worked for, the problem was magnified by people that were hired based on their paper criteria and once on the job it was apparent they had no real experience doing what they were hired to do. With the company I am with now we look more for the kid in his basement that is a whiz with what he does, and no longer seek out degree holders. 4 years of hacking is now more attractive than 4 years spent taking psychology classes. :)

As for what I do myself, I'm a software engineer and have been since 1986. I'm a partner in a closed circuit television company that does virtual signage, information displays and things such as hospitality channels. The other partners are scattered across the country, and I work from home and (as a result) spend too much time at airports.

I am Canadian, and live about 10 minutes from the US border in to Washington state. I've lived here most of my life, and my family frequently spends time south of the border in Spokane (a wonderful little city - highly recommended).

A quick note to neo. The tech industry has, for the most part, already recovered. Dot coms aren't coming back, thats for sure. We are back to where things used to be before all that stupidity began. The dot com days were good for employment because, to be blunt (and knowing this first hand), dot coms were fueled by investment capital that came largely from individuals and companies that knew nothing about tech. The best bet in winning the "pennies from heaven" (as my former employer used to call it) was to have strength in numbers. In fact, this same employer went out and quickly recruited 2 employees with masters degrees just to land a 6 month investment deal. Sharks...

Anyway, this... well... off topic I suppose. :)

[neo]

Originally posted by brent
A quick note to neo. The tech industry has, for the most part, already recovered. Dot coms aren't coming back, thats for sure. We are back to where things used to be before all that stupidity began. The dot com days were good for employment because, to be blunt (and knowing this first hand), dot coms were fueled by investment capital that came largely from individuals and companies that knew nothing about tech. The best bet in winning the "pennies from heaven" (as my former employer used to call it) was to have strength in numbers. In fact, this same employer went out and quickly recruited 2 employees with masters degrees just to land a 6 month investment deal. Sharks...

I'm gonna have to disagree with you brent. You still hear tech and non-tech companies (especially tech companies!) are laying off by the thousands.

Tech spending has dwindled down to the point where telecom titans like Lucent, Intel, Cisco and the like are forced to slash the workforce in order to compensate for the shrinking profits.

Now that is not necessarily a bad thing, I personally believe a little consolidation can help the industry in the future. But for all these thousands (maybe millions) of employees to run out of their unemployment benefits and suddenly become tight spenders, you can be sure that it will continue to bog down the economy.

I think it's time to go back to the basics, get the brick & mortar industries going accross North America, and start creating employment for the masses the old fashioned way, the sustainable way.

Too big a portion of our economy is unnecessary services, and the service sector has grown way out of proportion with regards to the rest of the economy. So you'd normally manufacture a product, and then have the service around it. Now you have all the service but there's very little product being manufactured.

We'll have to wait and see how this whole scenario plays out, my guess is, we'll be able to bring back some of the manufacturing jobs here at home. We'd have to, or there's very little hope for a sustainable, thriving economy here in North America.

[charlie]

well, not mentioned is that the latest current craze/trend is offshoring. if you're a programmer especially more than likely your job is now being done by someone in india or similar who has a b.s. or masters getting paid $2-$5/hour. how are you suppose to compete with that?

[neo]

That would be very difficult. It's creating a really awkward situation for people who go through years of education, get into debt up to their nose and get that qualification, just to find out there are no jobs to pay the bills once they have graduated.

[brent]

We could have seen this coming though. Any tech related industry is a perfect place for automation and cost cutting. Any company (in time) will find a way to replace its workforce with (as mentioned) cheap offshore labour or computer automation. Also, its very debatable whether or not the mass upsizing of the telecom industry in the late 90s was really warranted. They all assumed infinate growth, which of course, is not possible. Things have settled down.

I certainly feel for those that invest a lot of money into their educations and training only to see very little requirement for their skills. Maybe its bad guideance at our secondary levels of education that is producing the problem. My son wants to be an engineer (building bridges and such). He has been burdened with my speaches over and over: get yourself a trade first. Get yourself a career second. He knows what to do (even if he is only 12 years old).

I am not an American, but I can say Neo, that I agree with you fully and completely. What makes America great (to an outsider) is hard work by the blue collar forces. Those are the only industries which can effectively get the economy rolling again. Time will fix it.

[neo]

Originally posted by brent
We could have seen this coming though. Any tech related industry is a perfect place for automation and cost cutting. Any company (in time) will find a way to replace its workforce with (as mentioned) cheap offshore labour or computer automation.

That's exactly right. The high tech industry is prone to cut the workforce at some point in time. That's why I believe it will be to everybody's benefit, if we bring back the industrial and manufacturing jobs back to this continent. Because in the long term that is what will be sustainable.

I am not saying we should steal jobs from other "less fortunate" people in China, India etc... Those people need to make a living too. What I am saying is, we should initiate new developments accross this continent which will in turn bring new jobs to the market.

Let's hope time does fix it, and soon I may add, otherwise the future of this continent looks dim.

[OOagent137]

If a market is in the US and the work force is in China, wouldn't the Chinese be "stealing" the jobs (if you want to call it that).

Anyway, the economy, from what I understand, is pretty flat right now. Though, personally, I'm overloaded with business at the moment.

[neo]

lol. I must be in the wrong business!

[JoshPet]

Me too thankfully. :)

Self employed consultant... the best of all worlds. ;)

[brent]

I'm very busy as well. The good news is I'll have all the time in the world to sleep once they place my body 6 feet under. In the meantime... :)

[OOagent137]

I'm a self employed consultant as well. It's nice, though can be frustrating dealing with clients all the time.

[Nestor]

Originally posted by charlie
well, not mentioned is that the latest current craze/trend is offshoring. if you're a programmer especially more than likely your job is now being done by someone in india or similar who has a b.s. or masters getting paid $2-$5/hour. how are you suppose to compete with that? It's possible in America. We need a different money system. The Federal Reserve (Private Corporation) promised to keep inflation in check since it's inception in or around 1913. Ever since then, prices have been going up, up, up! Where is all the money in America? Where is all the true wealth? Prior to 1913, there was no Federal Reserve, there was no income tax and America only became a great country because a higher percentage of Americans enjoyed the wealth not taken up by inflation and the money hawk, international central bankers. If you guys didn't know it, the Federal Reserve is a private bank with anonymous stock holders that dictate the value of money for America. If you print more money, prices go up and everything gets more expensive and your buying power decreases. I bet that $2-$5 dollars in India goes a long way. Probably like a 50k a year job does here.

You see, the dot.com bust is what the American investor has had to put up all through the history of this country. How many "busts" have we had? The dot.com wasn't the first and it won't be the last. What the people behind the money making process want is America to be inline with the rest of the world or to collapse our economy to then install their grand socialist scheme. It's not going to happen right away, but how much of these layoffs and high cost of living can we take? There's going to be a breaking point.

There's plenty of wealth in America to go around and keep up our high standard of living. There is no need to fight wars or fight each other because if we organize our monetary systems for the good of all instead of a small shadowy cabal, we would be able to feed the world and almost eliminate poverty.

When you get to know how the money system works, you'll see exactly how much of slaves we are to it. Awareness is everything. Spread the word.

http://100777.com/node/view/297
http://100777.com/fed/

[MajorCrazy]

When you get to know how the money system works, you'll see exactly how much of slaves we are to it. Awareness is everything. Spread the word.

Speaking of Awareness! I once heard that all things created is a reflection of the past, a mirror into the future. Time will stand still. while we create values and men wage war.