Job Market

Fri Nov 4 12:46:19 PST 2005

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On Nov 4, 2005, at 9:33 AM, Brian Street wrote:

> Quoting "Paul M. Moriarty" <pmm at igtc.com>:
>
>> Danny Howard writes:
>>> On Thu, Nov 03, 2005 at 04:52:28PM -0800, Paul M. Moriarty wrote:
>>>
>>>> The job market today is still pretty bleak for employees.
>>>
>>> Enh?
>>>
>>
>> I'm atypical.  At the top of the IT mgmt food chain, jobs are still
>> scarce
>> (but I have landed and am off the market).
>>
>> - Paul -
>>
>
>
> I'm still down 20% from my peak salary in 2000. My AS degree may have
> something to do with that though but I would have thought my almost
> 20 years of experience would have made up for that.
>
> Brian.

Brian,

I don't think education has anything to do with it. I finished high  
school at 15
and went straight to work as a sysadmin. I've never been turned down  
for a
position due to a  lack of higher education. I did find that the more I
focused on the business impact of infrastructure, and the more I  
focused on
infrastructure, that my "value" went up.

What I really found was most beneficial when I was on the market was  
going
into every job interview, with one goal, to learn about the customer.  
I do my best
not to talk about myself, my experience, or anything, because the  
customer
really doesn't care. The customer cares about themselves. Businesses  
aren't
in business to provide jobs, they're in business to make money. The  
more interest
I showed in the customer, the more I understood about my customer's  
business, the
easier it was to show that I could benefit them. The easier it was to  
put into their
minds that "I can  manage your assets more reliably, and more cost  
efficiently than
anybody else you will interview"

A lot of people don't know how to interview. When I've been in hiring  
positions, I've
had people come in and brag about themselves, "me this, me that",  
basically patting
themselves on the back. Those candidates went straight into the  
reject pile.

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