Even established IT Professionals can suffer looking for work.

Oh man! Ad-blocking software has been detected! :'(

This website is run by the community, for the community... and it needs advertisements in order to keep running. Blocking our ads means your killing our stats!
Please disable your ad-block, or become a premium member to hide all advertisements and this notice.

So a little back story for you, I spent 5 years working for my previous employer but was made redundant at the end of January this year, the payoff wasn't too bad and I took some time off (Feb and March).

In April I started what was supposed to be a 6 month contract, however 2 months later was released from that contract due to them placing the project on indefinite hold, to my advantage I did receive 30 Days pay as they broke the contract.

I then took a month off to study for my VCAP DCA exam (which I passed on the 4th of July) and have spent the last 6 weeks looking for work.

Interviews at my level have changed over the years, joining my company 5 years ago as a contractor I had a 30 minute call with the hiring manager and joined the company a week later as a new security contractor, 2 months in I was asked in to a meeting (expecting to be laid off) and asked to go perm, I did and had a great time there.

In the last couple of weeks I have had a number of deeply technical interviews (both visual and telephone based), these were panel based interviews with a minimum of 4 people asking various technical questions (at one interview for a Hedge Fund I was interviewed by 6 people at once).

I found my perfect role 10 days ago, was verbally asked if I would accept the role (which I did) but am still waiting for the actual offer letter and details to come through to me (they were finalised today, not an issue as this is a senior role and needed approval from the US for the hiring and package).

What surprised me is that in the last 9 months I have only actually worked for 3 months, I had imagined that in early July I would have found a new contract pretty quickly however that wasn't the case, I had a couple of interviews, spoke to a couple of agencies but things dried up, agencies didn't phone back and I wasn't getting feedback, things started to look bleak.

Being honest with you I probably applied for over 50 roles (both perm and contract based) but I only actually managed to speak to 5 or 6 agents about their roles because no phone numbers with a large number of the roles advertised on JobServe.

It's been hard but luckily I had enough money set aside to last until the end of September but I really expected to find work sooner.

All I can advise is stick with it, chase as much as you can and it will happen.... eventually.

 

Oh man! Ad-blocking software has been detected! :'(

This website is run by the community, for the community... and it needs advertisements in order to keep running. Blocking our ads means your killing our stats!
Please disable your ad-block, or become a premium member to hide all advertisements and this notice.

Helpdesk work? Lol.. But seriously would you?

 

Congrats on the new role.

I know the feeling of the "Panel" interview too, i've had 4 people interview me before now and it definitely gets a bit more nerve wracking than the standard line manager / HR person

In response to Juelz - I've not worked on Helpdesk in over 6 years now, but i definitely would if it was getting to the point of running out of money and needing to pay bills.

 

Juelz, I have been in this industry for nearly 20 years now, I have done my Service Desk times ;)

Apexes, there is an issue with me now tho with regards to experience etc, most people won't hire very experienced people for low wage jobs as they are concerned that they will leave as soon as something better comes along. I can tell you that no one would hire me for a Hell Desk position with my CV.

 

Nice story there Simon a definitely a benefit for the CF people to see that its not always just getting on the initial rung of the ladder that can be time consuming even when you have immense skills like you do. I'm glad you found something though.

 

I like that story and I am glad you got something.

Ed