I'm losing steam again.

"404 - User No Longer Available" (toni-cipriani)
03/26/2019 at 12:43 • Filed to: Careers

Creeks’ running dry.

One month in to applying, still nothing coming back at all. Even the searches are starting to repeat themselves with the postings, the job boards are cheating and recycling old posts as “new jobs”.

Decided to start a side project as a means of gaining some experience, and I’m stuck and banging my head on the table. Don’t know what else but this seems like the only way for me to get out of my coding rabbit hole.

It would appear my skills gap is much, much wider than I thought. Should’ve saw that coming when I wasn’t even getting any interviews even after my rage applications after comp talks.

Feeling even more hopeless day after day. Sigh.

DISCUSSION (31)

bob and john > 404 - User No Longer Available
03/26/2019 at 12:46

so. beers tn? help get your mind off things for a minute

BigBlock440 > 404 - User No Longer Available
03/26/2019 at 12:48

Have you spoken with a recruiter? There have been jobs I’ve applied to that I got no response , but applied through a recruiter and got called for an interview shortly after.

404 - User No Longer Available > bob and john
03/26/2019 at 12:50

I’m not sure. I feel like I’m in this avoidance vortex where the less I try to think about it, the more I do.

3point8isgreat > 404 - User No Longer Available
03/26/2019 at 12:51

Some companies are just really really slow. I’ve gotten interviews 3 months after having applied. Hearing anything within a month of application is surprising to me anymore.

Chariotoflove > 404 - User No Longer Available
03/26/2019 at 12:51

That’s a really tough spot to be in. Sending you support thr ough the ether.

404 - User No Longer Available > BigBlock440
03/26/2019 at 12:55

I’ve been submitting apps to a few known recruiters, but they stopped responding to me altogether. I am however working with a career cousellor right now, but not so much for networking leads.

404 - User No Longer Available > 3point8isgreat
03/26/2019 at 12:58

That’s what my friend told me. He applied back in November 2018 and he just got the int yesterday.

404 - User No Longer Available > Chariotoflove
03/26/2019 at 12:58

Thanks. I know my spot isn’t exactly THAT bad, some of the networking forums I went to had people out of a job for way longer.

Guess that just proves my EQ capacity just isn’t there, lol.

bob and john > 404 - User No Longer Available
03/26/2019 at 13:00

fair. Well, I have nothing going on tonight. If you change you mind and want o hang out for food or something, let me know alright?

My bird IS the word > 404 - User No Longer Available
03/26/2019 at 13:02

Don’t let that whole “my problem is worse, so stop whining” thing get you. I’ve been out of work for 10 months, but I know people who were out for a year. It is still stressful and I wouldn’t wish it on anyone.

E90M3 > 404 - User No Longer Available
03/26/2019 at 13:02

That’s the worst. It took me a few months of searching before I had any results at all. Hopefully it won’t be the same with you.

404 - User No Longer Available > bob and john
03/26/2019 at 13:09

Thanks for the offer. I’ll definitely keep that in mind.

random001 > 404 - User No Longer Available
03/26/2019 at 13:17

Where are you located, and what do you do, and are you willing to relocate? I’ll dig into my company a bit, see if I can find something to recommend you for.

CarsofFortLangley - Oppo Forever > 404 - User No Longer Available
03/26/2019 at 13:18

Have you considered a career change at all? Insurance is always a very good field.

404 - User No Longer Available > random001
03/26/2019 at 13:22

Toronto, formerly Software QA, looking at a more Ops/DevOps role. I would prefer not to relocate though. Frankly I’m really early in the process. I’ve had people say I should just go on a trip or something for now.

404 - User No Longer Available > CarsofFortLangley - Oppo Forever
03/26/2019 at 13:24

Sales roles? I kinda prefer to stick with IT though. Just right now I’m preferring a slightly different path within IT, could be part of the issue.

Oh and I’m terrible at networking, so...

random001 > 404 - User No Longer Available
03/26/2019 at 13:27

I assume Toronto, Canada?

404 - User No Longer Available > random001
03/26/2019 at 13:28

That is correct.

LOREM IPSUM > 404 - User No Longer Available
03/26/2019 at 13:35

So play more EQ in your free time.

random001 > 404 - User No Longer Available
03/26/2019 at 13:42

I’ll do some digging, see what I can come up with.

404 - User No Longer Available > random001
03/26/2019 at 13:43

Thanks for your help.

Mid Engine > 404 - User No Longer Available
03/26/2019 at 14:25

Update your Linked In profile and your resume, chances are excellent ( like most people) they flat out suck. I paid for the service, look up Robynn Store y on LinkedIn or call her

!!! UNKNOWN CONTENT TYPE !!!

Also, don’t think “I’m out of work, I can’t afford this”. You can’t afford not to.

Spamfeller Loves Nazi Clicks > 404 - User No Longer Available
03/26/2019 at 14:28

Everyone’s retrenching for the coming recession, and experienced (yet somehow still completely fucking incompetent) folks are continually shopping for better salary right now. So the market is all kinds of screwy everywhere.

I’d recommend sticking with development honestly, and look for somebody who’s already done their headcount cutting. Toronto’s a good place to be for that if you focus on FinServ and legal .

jminer > 404 - User No Longer Available
03/26/2019 at 15:13

IT veteran here - been a sys admin for 15 years and really lov e the work. Some companies are shit, but over all the career has been good to me.

There are a lot of jobs out there in the field, though less system jobs tha n there used to be. I’d look at getting some exposure to AWS, there is a lot of free training and a lot of companies want to leverage legacy workloads to Amazon’s infrastructure.

Good luck and keep your head up!

404 - User No Longer Available > Mid Engine
03/26/2019 at 15:21

Actually as part of my package that was already done via the career counsellor, including rewriting my resume, headlines and provided LinkedIn feedback. Thanks for the info though.

404 - User No Longer Available > jminer
03/26/2019 at 15:29

Yeah, that is most certainly the trend that I see. During my tenure as QA I find myself enjoying the environment maintenance part of the work, e.g. checking on the servers and cleaning up files on the Linux boxes, I even got to play with Ansible on my final project before getting let go. That’s why I thought to give DevOps a shot. I was this close to getting a systems role but the manager wanted someone with more experience so it fell through. Elsewhere didn’t seem to be hiring such roles at a junior level, and that’s where I’m stuck. I have a senior tenure in QA but not for Ops and certainly not dev (I suck at coding).

I found one posting for another bank, applied to the first one about a week ago but it got relisted today. Only thing changed was the location, they repositioned it to a building closer to me, lol. I see that most tech they listed were ones I played with so I really hope I can get this.

404 - User No Longer Available > Spamfeller Loves Nazi Clicks
03/26/2019 at 15:31

That’s one thing that made me feel bad. I was among a few to be let go, the others I know of all got re-hired back by the company recently , albeit in different groups. So I was the only one left hanging... the position I wanted to move over to didn’t work out.

Mid Engine > 404 - User No Longer Available
03/26/2019 at 15:39

Have her take a peek all the same, it worked for me

jminer > 404 - User No Longer Available
03/26/2019 at 16:30

Yeah, hold out. It’s a really fun thing to do. I’ve drifted more into architecture lately which is a lot of fun, but not enough experience yet to move into a position dedicated to it.

One thing I’ve always found did me well during interviews and impressed me when interviewing someone was that they did advanced tinkering o n their own. Oh you have an AD, VMware infra structure and Docker Swarm setup at home - that’s awesome!

You can get really far on old scrounged equipment and free versions of software. Play with Linux (always free) Wi ndows Core and Nano (also free), Docker (free) and so on.

You’ll learn a ton and be a better candidate. If you lived in STL I’d help you more, but you’re a long ways away from me . If you ever want to bounce an idea off me or have questions hit me up at wonkothesanest@gmail.com and I’ll be happy to help where I can.

404 - User No Longer Available > jminer
03/26/2019 at 16:37

Yeah, the internal position I interviewed seemed really impressed when I told them I have a Raspberry Pi running as a server (obviously I didn’t tell them it was for torrenting behind a VPN, lol), and did a storage migration when I got a new router to move the hard drive into a new NFS storage, lol. Definitely not a huge scale as having AD and Swarm though. I did think about running logstash to catch when my DSL connection goes down. I think that I can handle, question is getting people to see me first.

Right now I’m trying to build out a simple (PostgreSQL) DB and (Nginx) web server app in Python as a practice, but my coding is really not there, so kinda struggling. I’m trying to keep all component deployments/installs using Ansible playbooks and maybe putting it on in a Docker container.

jminer > 404 - User No Longer Available
03/26/2019 at 17:49

That’s an awesome start for sure. You can really do a lot without a lot of resources now, there is so much free instruction, open source tools and free tiers of products to help you learn (and get you to use it in the future too).

I’ve always been a Windows admin that dabbled in *NIX as needed by my current role. The hard part is always getting that interview - then choosing a candidate (especially for an entry role) is culture fit and ability to learn. Time after time I’ve chosen junior candidates with the before over senior techs and we ended up better for it.

Good luck!