[lug] Linux jobs in Boulder/Denver?

[Chip Atkinson]

I don't know, I think your "rant" is better than Dennis Miller any time.
:-)

A friend of mine is an excellent Java programmer.  He's all but given up.
When I look for jobs, all I see is Java this and Java that.  I think "if I
only knew Java I'd be in much better shape".
 His experience is that he doesn't have some little java flip or curl, the
employers don't want to talk with him.  If he gets an interview, he's
either over or under qualified.
After a few phone interviews, here's my theory on why things are so tough
out there.  Most employers aren't really looking for employees right now.
Those that are are looking for an exact matching Superman or Wonder Woman.
If they don't find it, no big deal.  They didn't really have to hire
anyone anyway.  If they do find it, great, they got a "gem", and probably
for much less now than they would have paid a year ago.

I've applied for jobs that I'm very well qualified for and haven't even
heard anything.  Not even a "get lost".  There are still employers out
there that return your inquiries and they are a rare breath of fresh air.

That said, I have to go get ready for work.  New job -- First day of real
work since 12/15/01.

Chip

 On 17 Apr 2002, Nate Duehr wrote:

> On Wed, 2002-04-17 at 01:43, D. Stimits wrote:
>
> > I've been unemployed here now for over a year.
>
> Ditto on the crappy job market.  I took a job at a pay scale similar to
> the first year I was in the telco/IP industry recently just to try to
> pay the bills...
>
> I'm a sysadmin with a "reasonable" amount of general knowledge just
> starting to specialize in higher-end stuff (admin'ed about 200 servers
> basically by myself with help from a developer and our security guy for
> the former employer for about a year, had another admin helping the year
> before that...).
>
> Now I am working for a small retail/wholesaler watching batch jobs run
> in Oracle and monitoring systems -- heh, no root anymore... but learning
> as much as I can about Oracle (hard to do from a distance) and Veritas
> and some of their other toys, er... um, tools, and generally trying to
> make the best of it.
>
> I don't know if I had a good friend call me up saying they were looking
> to move to Denver if I could yet recommend it  -- we're still
> over-saturated with folks who were laid off who really do know their
> stuff, and folks (like myself) who now fall in the severely
> underemployed category.
>
> But again, I'm a sysadmin with networking and general security
> backgrounds who's worn a lot of hats (and probably mastered none... just
> doing a "good" job taking care of LOTS of stuff) and things may be
> better (or worse) in the Java programmer world out here -- knowing
> someone in a shop that needs Java people would be the way to go, I
> suppose.  If that's what you're looking for...
>
> I do wish you well and good luck!  After having gone through this
> experience I wouldn't wish it on anyone.  Perhaps the cycle is turning
> around, perhaps it's recovered a bit and is "holding".  I can't tell.
> But there are some more job postings and the recruiters and such don't
> appear to be as picky about things slightly again -- it used to be that
> folks could judge by past projects whether or not you could do
> something, but something's fishy in the hiring right now, and I can't
> quite put a finger on it.
>
> The closest I can figure out here is that somewhere the business has
> fallen off track a bit in judgment of WHO to hire -- lately, very
> SPECIFIC software knowledge is usually needed to get a foot in the door,
> and *that* in an industry that throws out whole operating systems every
> one to two years.  Does that make any sense?  Their specific proprietary
> software package they want people for right now will be gone and
> replaced by "the next latest-and-greatest" thing in about six months to
> a year at most shops.  So why hire massive specialists?  Get a
> generalist who is willing to learn it well enough to make it work
> properly and who will put in the extra time effort and struggle, but who
> also doesn't know just that ONE thing.
>
> I'd want FLEXIBLE people right now, in preparation to finish existing
> projects and prepare for new revenue-generators, not people that only
> knew that one piece of software... but... obviously, I'm not a hiring
> manager these days.  (Done that before too...)  GRIN.
>
> Hire the person that can set up the routers, run the cabling, deal with
> digital telco circuit outages, maintain the servers, keep a reasonable
> level of security on the network, and who enjoys change.  (Heh heh...
> hint hint H.R. people...)
>
> Sorry, off on a rant here... not exactly as funny as Dennis Miller style
> ones either...
>
>