this post was submitted on 10 Oct 2023
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20 years in IT, and my career is effectively stuck (programming.dev)
submitted 1 year ago by unquietwiki@programming.dev to c/cs_career_questions@programming.dev
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If you look up my username on LinkedIn, you can get a good summary of my career. Most of my jobs have been go in, fix things, then on to the next thing; though the immediate COVID period was pretty bumpy in that regard (shorter-term gigs). I'm pretty sure I need another cert or two at this point, but have had some family issues distracting me the past few months from studying/focusing on what's next. I'm also working three different things right now (1 5-10hr/wk PT job + 2 intermittent gigs). I can't remember the job market being this bad or picky in my life; and I actively wonder how I'd be able to leave the field entirely. It feels like everyone wants a unicorn on the cheap these days.

Something with a "solid" 10-15/hrs a week would be an improvement over what I have going on right now; let alone full-time work. How do I even find such a thing on LinkedIn/Indeed/whatnot? Reddit's gotten me at least two jobs in the past, but the state of things there seems to be less promising these days. I figured I'd ask here to see if anyone else is in a similar situation, and how they're managing.

Thank you.

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[–] MajorHavoc@lemmy.world 11 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (3 children)

A couple thoughts for you:

  • The current six months is the coolest the IT hiring makret has been this decade.
  • I, as a hiring manager, am seeing signs of a "the musical chairs music is ending" tension.
  • I suspect we will see a rush to hire IT talent in January, because we experienced IT managers are aware that we will soon once again face a market where most people with the talent we need are happy where they are and tell us "no thank you" to even interviewing. (I buy them lunch to work around this.)

Looking at your experience, it looks good.

As a hiring manager, I would ask you what was different about the job you stayed at for 7 years, vs the many that are less than 18 months.

It's not a deal breaker, but you do have very few tenures that even reach two years.

As a manager, it takes me up to two years to get a staff member to the point of being really valuable to my organization.

I don't have any problem with a large number of short tenures.

But when a resume has mostly tenures under two years, I need to discuss with the candidate whether there's a way I can make a longer stretch of employment (with my team) work for them.

I would expect your resume to land you conversations, so I would encourage you to be prepared to talk about that point. Doesn't need to be a big deal, but some managers are going to want to discuss it.

[–] unquietwiki@programming.dev 9 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Thanks for digging into this on your end. Yeah, that 7 year stint was with an outfit wherein I was the constant, and everyone else kept coming & going. The 3 year job, I got canned for an overtime dispute; and they replaced me with two people after. The rest are a mix of layoffs or other reasons for not staying: I'm not one to just "quit". Give me the right org; that's not overly worried about being cheap, or has too many people coming & going; and I'd be happy to stay. Otherwise, I feel like my career has been more or less a "firefighter" vs a "builder" (I had to do both in the 7 year job). I hope that makes some kind of sense?

[–] MajorHavoc@lemmy.world 4 points 1 year ago

Makes perfect sense, and that's a good answer when it comes up.

[–] tinker_james@programming.dev 6 points 1 year ago

This is an interesting and unexpected take on the near future market. Nice to hear somebody thinks it may start warming up again that soon.

[–] Jivebunny@lemmy.world 4 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I'm not even really IT but have a educational background in this. I'm an online marketeer and will be in the future. Even in this role I'm in the position where I go to interviews and have to say, no thank you at the moment. So yeah, maybe even before January is where you get to this point. And I'm not even in IT really. Of course this depends on country and market but yeah, you seem to have the right vision here.