What are good places to look for work?
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I will be graduating this May and I'm looking for work right now. I've had continuous 3+ year internship with .NET C# mainly doing client server programming with MSSQL 2000/2005 and a little bit of ASP.NET and everything involved. The company did indicate that they would like to have me on board but I want to explore other opportunities. I've been looking through monster/dice/careerbuilder websites but 95% of their postings are from recruiters and I haven't had much luck with those. Besides local career fairs/college placement programs/networking (have none of that one), does anybody have any ideas what other places online that posts IT listings? PS as a separate question, I've talked to a recruiter recently and he had a position in west Chicago suburbs at $40-45K for a programmer of my level of experience. I asked him what it would take to the next level, he said in order to jump to 55-65K range I would have had to have 10+ years of experience. Am I totally off base thinking this kind of compensation is ridiculous? This is for Chicagoland area.
While pay is important, another thing to really think about is how you are as a developer, kinda like a personal portfolio. Questions you should ask yourself: How fast do I learn and adapt to new technologies? How much time am I willing to spend outside of work learning new things? What is the ideal work environment that you prefer? How many extra hours are you willing to work over 40hrs a week? These are just a few. But you really need to take inventory of these types of things as allot of your ability to climb the pay scale quickly (less than 10 yrs) will be reflected by these. The best advise I would give you is get your foot in the door, but be willing to learn everything possible. I would recommend reading and studying everything, not only will this help you out with your job possibilities and future growth, they will also develop good habits to maintain your job. Try a book like the pragmatic programmer. Also, read outside of the technical, spend some time learning about databases, frameworks, patterns and the such. This will help you out greatly. From my experience the more you know about the latter the better you are as you work your way up. Also, remember as you work you dont have to be married to the company you first choose to work for. I have had three jobs in the last two years and this is largely because as I worked for them longer I found the goals of the company did not match my personal goals, or the atmosphere and environment were wrong for me. I have now ended up at a company I enjoy working for and will stay with for a while. Just some thoughts!!
_____________________________________________________________________ Our developers never release code. Rather, it tends to escape, pillaging the countryside all around. The Enlightenment Project (paraphrased comment) Visit Me at GISDevCafe
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I will be graduating this May and I'm looking for work right now. I've had continuous 3+ year internship with .NET C# mainly doing client server programming with MSSQL 2000/2005 and a little bit of ASP.NET and everything involved. The company did indicate that they would like to have me on board but I want to explore other opportunities. I've been looking through monster/dice/careerbuilder websites but 95% of their postings are from recruiters and I haven't had much luck with those. Besides local career fairs/college placement programs/networking (have none of that one), does anybody have any ideas what other places online that posts IT listings? PS as a separate question, I've talked to a recruiter recently and he had a position in west Chicago suburbs at $40-45K for a programmer of my level of experience. I asked him what it would take to the next level, he said in order to jump to 55-65K range I would have had to have 10+ years of experience. Am I totally off base thinking this kind of compensation is ridiculous? This is for Chicagoland area.
Hi, Some time ago i found a survey (2006) from Redmond magazine on salaries, perhaps it's some help to get an indication what Microsoft specialist make. http://redmondmag.com/salarysurveys/[^]
With friendly greetings,:) Eric Goedhart Interbritt
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Jeffry J. Brickley wrote:
Nish... you are so shocked you are stuttering? It was probably a government recruiter. That sounds about right.
Oh crap - I only submitted that once and it timed out. So I submitted it again and it hung and I closed the browser after copying the text to the clipboard. Then I loaded the Lounge again to hit reply once more and find that 4 copies have been posted. Oh well!
Regards, Nish
Nish’s thoughts on MFC, C++/CLI and .NET (my blog)
C++/CLI in Action (*E-Book is out, Print version April 6th*) -
While pay is important, another thing to really think about is how you are as a developer, kinda like a personal portfolio. Questions you should ask yourself: How fast do I learn and adapt to new technologies? How much time am I willing to spend outside of work learning new things? What is the ideal work environment that you prefer? How many extra hours are you willing to work over 40hrs a week? These are just a few. But you really need to take inventory of these types of things as allot of your ability to climb the pay scale quickly (less than 10 yrs) will be reflected by these. The best advise I would give you is get your foot in the door, but be willing to learn everything possible. I would recommend reading and studying everything, not only will this help you out with your job possibilities and future growth, they will also develop good habits to maintain your job. Try a book like the pragmatic programmer. Also, read outside of the technical, spend some time learning about databases, frameworks, patterns and the such. This will help you out greatly. From my experience the more you know about the latter the better you are as you work your way up. Also, remember as you work you dont have to be married to the company you first choose to work for. I have had three jobs in the last two years and this is largely because as I worked for them longer I found the goals of the company did not match my personal goals, or the atmosphere and environment were wrong for me. I have now ended up at a company I enjoy working for and will stay with for a while. Just some thoughts!!
_____________________________________________________________________ Our developers never release code. Rather, it tends to escape, pillaging the countryside all around. The Enlightenment Project (paraphrased comment) Visit Me at GISDevCafe
Read my previous post. I am a fast learner and I do learn new things on my own time, and as I'm not an old matured developer yet I actually enjoy learning new things. That's why it's so frustrating talking with recruiters who do not appreciate and do not want to know about the work I put in and which prompted me to create this thread. That is why I asked about the places I can look for a job because I want best possible job that I can manage at this time. Ideally I would prefer a dynamic environment which does involve a bit of learning of new technologies but that's rarely possible. Regarding 40+ hours week, I'd rather not to because while it may be expected in some companies, it usually indicates poor management, because it takes away from my personal time, because it doesn't let me work on my own personal projects and improve my skills and because extra pay is not worth the time.
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I will be graduating this May and I'm looking for work right now. I've had continuous 3+ year internship with .NET C# mainly doing client server programming with MSSQL 2000/2005 and a little bit of ASP.NET and everything involved. The company did indicate that they would like to have me on board but I want to explore other opportunities. I've been looking through monster/dice/careerbuilder websites but 95% of their postings are from recruiters and I haven't had much luck with those. Besides local career fairs/college placement programs/networking (have none of that one), does anybody have any ideas what other places online that posts IT listings? PS as a separate question, I've talked to a recruiter recently and he had a position in west Chicago suburbs at $40-45K for a programmer of my level of experience. I asked him what it would take to the next level, he said in order to jump to 55-65K range I would have had to have 10+ years of experience. Am I totally off base thinking this kind of compensation is ridiculous? This is for Chicagoland area.
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JazzJackRabbit wrote:
but 40-45K is a joke,
Hardly a joke - that's far more than I make as an engineer with 25+ years of experience. A lot depends on where you live/work, but even in a big city I'd call $40k an awful lot to pay for a beginning programmer. I'd ask $35k and settle for $32 if it was in an expensive neighborhood. If you're any good (and with your intern experience you should be quite good) your skill will show, and your rate of climb will accelerate very soon.
"A Journey of a Thousand Rest Stops Begins with a Single Movement"
Roger, you're getting screwed.
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there is also a delete option, btw 5 globes :)
Omit Needless Words - Strunk, William, Jr.
Vista? Photoshop Preview Handler here
Quartz. wrote:
there is also a delete option, btw 5 globes
So you think that won't time out then? :rolleyes:
Regards, Nish
Nish’s thoughts on MFC, C++/CLI and .NET (my blog)
C++/CLI in Action (*E-Book is out, Print version April 6th*) -
Read my previous post. I am a fast learner and I do learn new things on my own time, and as I'm not an old matured developer yet I actually enjoy learning new things. That's why it's so frustrating talking with recruiters who do not appreciate and do not want to know about the work I put in and which prompted me to create this thread. That is why I asked about the places I can look for a job because I want best possible job that I can manage at this time. Ideally I would prefer a dynamic environment which does involve a bit of learning of new technologies but that's rarely possible. Regarding 40+ hours week, I'd rather not to because while it may be expected in some companies, it usually indicates poor management, because it takes away from my personal time, because it doesn't let me work on my own personal projects and improve my skills and because extra pay is not worth the time.
I'm also looking round for new work, funny thing is that your experience doesn't count for much here, your package that you will be offered depends a lot on your you are currently earning. So if your currently being underpaid, your next employer won't offer much more. But that's in SA. For example, I have 2years experience, the range for my experience is between R12000-R15000 a month, I currently earn about half that, all offers I received will be about 1000 more than what I'm currently earning, which doesn't even put me in the minimum bracket. Now, that sounds a lot, but keep in mind that to rent, and a cheap place cost R3500 a month water and electricity is R200 a month.
He who laughs last is a bit on the slow side
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I will be graduating this May and I'm looking for work right now. I've had continuous 3+ year internship with .NET C# mainly doing client server programming with MSSQL 2000/2005 and a little bit of ASP.NET and everything involved. The company did indicate that they would like to have me on board but I want to explore other opportunities. I've been looking through monster/dice/careerbuilder websites but 95% of their postings are from recruiters and I haven't had much luck with those. Besides local career fairs/college placement programs/networking (have none of that one), does anybody have any ideas what other places online that posts IT listings? PS as a separate question, I've talked to a recruiter recently and he had a position in west Chicago suburbs at $40-45K for a programmer of my level of experience. I asked him what it would take to the next level, he said in order to jump to 55-65K range I would have had to have 10+ years of experience. Am I totally off base thinking this kind of compensation is ridiculous? This is for Chicagoland area.
Here in Canada intern wages are so low that employers rarely care about their results and use internships as a cheap way to pick cherries. The fact that you are on the market after your 3 year internship shows that your former employer was not interested enough to extend a serious offer to you. The best programmer at my place started there right after graduation and never was on the job market. I myself started for 40k (CAD) in 1999 and my salary went up almost 20% the very first year. It's understandable that employers should have the right to "test drive" before they commit serious money into you. I don't know Chicago area, but IMHO $40-$45k starter salary does not sound ridiculous at all. $55-%65k after 10 years seems little low, but in order to get to those magnitutes you need to perform well and stay at one place. If you will be jumping around for more money, you will miss on the salary ranges and job offers that never make it to the job market. If you don't like what they are offering you, start your own company and make your own salary without splitting it with army of other office peons spending half their time chatting at the water coolers and cofeee makers. Your own company would be probably the best job out there that you can find.
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I will be graduating this May and I'm looking for work right now. I've had continuous 3+ year internship with .NET C# mainly doing client server programming with MSSQL 2000/2005 and a little bit of ASP.NET and everything involved. The company did indicate that they would like to have me on board but I want to explore other opportunities. I've been looking through monster/dice/careerbuilder websites but 95% of their postings are from recruiters and I haven't had much luck with those. Besides local career fairs/college placement programs/networking (have none of that one), does anybody have any ideas what other places online that posts IT listings? PS as a separate question, I've talked to a recruiter recently and he had a position in west Chicago suburbs at $40-45K for a programmer of my level of experience. I asked him what it would take to the next level, he said in order to jump to 55-65K range I would have had to have 10+ years of experience. Am I totally off base thinking this kind of compensation is ridiculous? This is for Chicagoland area.
Nish, The signal-to-noise ratio of job boards - even the Code Project's - make them a complete and utter waste of time between the recruiters that don't care about your career path, the spam posts or even the legitimate posts that are error-filled or simply do not tell you what you need to know. The job board crawlers like Job Central only amplify the problem by showing you all that junk and copies of it. No, before you do anything, try to figure out what your dream job would be: http://jobmob.co.il/blog/the-secret-to-finding-dream-jobs/ There's no reason you should waste years figuring that out by accident like most people, sadly enough. And that's if they ever do. Once you know what to look for, network. Then network some more. Via sites like this one, other forums/mailing lists/user groups/etc. that you follow and even LinkedIn. Sign up if you haven't done so already, and then contact people at companies that have appealing openings and ask them to refer you internally or simply ask them if it's worth applying there. You may even meet a future teammate that way. Jacob
--- http://jobmob.co.il/ All Together Now to get jobs.
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Roger, you're getting screwed.
IIRC he lives way out in the middle of nowhere, which means very low salaries. Obviously not somewhere you go for the money, but if you want to live out there low pay and a lack of jobs (of any sort) are part of the price you pay.
-- CleaKO The sad part about this instance is that none of the users ever said anything [about the problem]. Pete O`Hanlon Doesn't that just tell you everything you need to know about users?
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Here in Canada intern wages are so low that employers rarely care about their results and use internships as a cheap way to pick cherries. The fact that you are on the market after your 3 year internship shows that your former employer was not interested enough to extend a serious offer to you. The best programmer at my place started there right after graduation and never was on the job market. I myself started for 40k (CAD) in 1999 and my salary went up almost 20% the very first year. It's understandable that employers should have the right to "test drive" before they commit serious money into you. I don't know Chicago area, but IMHO $40-$45k starter salary does not sound ridiculous at all. $55-%65k after 10 years seems little low, but in order to get to those magnitutes you need to perform well and stay at one place. If you will be jumping around for more money, you will miss on the salary ranges and job offers that never make it to the job market. If you don't like what they are offering you, start your own company and make your own salary without splitting it with army of other office peons spending half their time chatting at the water coolers and cofeee makers. Your own company would be probably the best job out there that you can find.
I never even thought of full time employment at my current employer because I was studying full time, I simply couldn't meet time quota for full time position or even part time. Now that graduation is near cards are on the table. Like I said my employer did indicate they would like me full time, and they did throw numbers around which were quite competitive. However you are right, I do not know if they will actually offer what they talked about or if they make an offer at all (might change their mind, don't know).
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Well I suppose I understand why I don't have much luck with recruiters. I do have 3 years of experience, and I was/am doing real work. However, it just doesn't look good on resume and they can't sell me. I've also made mistake of telling one or two recruiters that I'm open to discussion about salary and as long as it's market rate we'll talk. They said sure, we'll send you couple of opportunities and was the last I heard about them. Stupid me. :rolleyes: Well anyway, since this is going to be my first non-intern job, I can't be real picky, but damn it, I need to pay bills and I already owe my dad money and there will be significant expenses in the next couple of years when my sister transfers to real college, not to mention saving for retirement etc etc. I'm not asking for much, but 40-45K is a joke, that's how much secretaries make (no offense to secretaries).
JazzJackRabbit wrote:
I'm not asking for much, but 40-45K is a joke, that's how much secretaries make (no offense to secretaries).
I signed in after reading your post just to write "ARE YOU NUTS?" 40-45K is really good for a start. I'm in simliar situation as I now have the 3 years. The difference is I graduated with 1 year programming experience, and worked my way up. I started with 30K, spend 4 months there then moved to a better paying and more responsible position. I don't think the 40-45K is anything to complain about. I'd take the job and check out if your satisfied. Job satisfaction goes along way, because I've had jobs where the IT department is full of people who graduated from business, sales and law, so there are no standards or ambitions to learn anything new. The project managers have no idea what there doing ... and the list goes on. Take what you get right now and continue to look on. But check what the averages for Chicago are and see if there inline with what there offering.
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I will be graduating this May and I'm looking for work right now. I've had continuous 3+ year internship with .NET C# mainly doing client server programming with MSSQL 2000/2005 and a little bit of ASP.NET and everything involved. The company did indicate that they would like to have me on board but I want to explore other opportunities. I've been looking through monster/dice/careerbuilder websites but 95% of their postings are from recruiters and I haven't had much luck with those. Besides local career fairs/college placement programs/networking (have none of that one), does anybody have any ideas what other places online that posts IT listings? PS as a separate question, I've talked to a recruiter recently and he had a position in west Chicago suburbs at $40-45K for a programmer of my level of experience. I asked him what it would take to the next level, he said in order to jump to 55-65K range I would have had to have 10+ years of experience. Am I totally off base thinking this kind of compensation is ridiculous? This is for Chicagoland area.
Well, if it were me, my first step would be to check out Robert Half Technology recruiters. They seem to get better job listings. Typically a person with just a couple years of experience can whip up $55K-$65K. Someone with ten years of experience will typically pull down $75K-$120K per year although you would be expected to have some lead experience. All numbers quoted are based on Microsoft .NET technologies.
Rocky <>< Latest Code Blog Post: OpenID - More thought - Great system if.. Latest Tech Blog Post: Frustrated Total Internal Reflection-FTIR = Cool!
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Well, if it were me, my first step would be to check out Robert Half Technology recruiters. They seem to get better job listings. Typically a person with just a couple years of experience can whip up $55K-$65K. Someone with ten years of experience will typically pull down $75K-$120K per year although you would be expected to have some lead experience. All numbers quoted are based on Microsoft .NET technologies.
Rocky <>< Latest Code Blog Post: OpenID - More thought - Great system if.. Latest Tech Blog Post: Frustrated Total Internal Reflection-FTIR = Cool!
Would that be for contract or full time positions because those are very different? Do you have any direct experience with RHT? It's just that in my experience recruiters almost never put price range in the ads and if they do mostly it's just to collect your resume (CyberCoders are especially bad, you know they are when they offer 100+ for 3-5 years of experience and they give you generic jobs@cybercoders.com address). There are of course exceptions, but thats what RHT seemed like.
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JazzJackRabbit wrote:
but 3-4 years ago I have seen ads that come out to 30K for girls on phone in the office
You believe ads? :omg: Be aware that salaries don't track inflation. There are also changes in salary depending on the qualified job pool and the types of companies hiring. Frankly, I think you're being an arrogant twit, thinking you are "owed" money because of your degree and your needs wants. You are justifying your arrogance by bashing other careers with no knowledge of those careers. In my experience, a good secretary--even one that "only" answers the phone--is worth a hell of a lot more than you give credit for. I hope you find someone to hire your sorry ass, because I wouldn't.
Anyone who thinks he has a better idea of what's good for people than people do is a swine. - P.J. O'Rourke
Joe Woodbury wrote:
Frankly, I think you're being an arrogant twit, thinking you are "owed" money because of your degree and your needs wants.
Uhhh... 3 years of steady working isn't just based on the degree. After 3 years, I was making 60 and this was in the 90s. No, 40k is too cheap. But I think 50-60 is reasonable if you can demonstrate ability. What crawled up your butt today?
This statement was never false.
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Well, if it were me, my first step would be to check out Robert Half Technology recruiters. They seem to get better job listings. Typically a person with just a couple years of experience can whip up $55K-$65K. Someone with ten years of experience will typically pull down $75K-$120K per year although you would be expected to have some lead experience. All numbers quoted are based on Microsoft .NET technologies.
Rocky <>< Latest Code Blog Post: OpenID - More thought - Great system if.. Latest Tech Blog Post: Frustrated Total Internal Reflection-FTIR = Cool!
Rocky Moore wrote:
Well, if it were me, my first step would be to check out Robert Half Technology recruiters. They seem to get better job listings.
Must be a regional thing since where I live, they are one of the worse recruiters.
Anyone who thinks he has a better idea of what's good for people than people do is a swine. - P.J. O'Rourke
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I'm also looking round for new work, funny thing is that your experience doesn't count for much here, your package that you will be offered depends a lot on your you are currently earning. So if your currently being underpaid, your next employer won't offer much more. But that's in SA. For example, I have 2years experience, the range for my experience is between R12000-R15000 a month, I currently earn about half that, all offers I received will be about 1000 more than what I'm currently earning, which doesn't even put me in the minimum bracket. Now, that sounds a lot, but keep in mind that to rent, and a cheap place cost R3500 a month water and electricity is R200 a month.
He who laughs last is a bit on the slow side
NeroToxic wrote:
your package that you will be offered depends a lot on your you are currently earning. So if your currently being underpaid, your next employer won't offer much more.
That is so true. Many moons ago, I moved from the boonies of the panhandle of Florida (think southern Alabama, not what you'd think of as Florida) to the Washington DC area. Very low living expenses to high living expenses - for example, we bought a comparable house when we moved and paid over twice what we sold the Florida house for. I had 5 offers - 3 of them were the "making 5% more than your last salary" and 2 of them were what a developer with my experience was making in the area. There was a 18K difference in the two groups. Judy
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Would that be for contract or full time positions because those are very different? Do you have any direct experience with RHT? It's just that in my experience recruiters almost never put price range in the ads and if they do mostly it's just to collect your resume (CyberCoders are especially bad, you know they are when they offer 100+ for 3-5 years of experience and they give you generic jobs@cybercoders.com address). There are of course exceptions, but thats what RHT seemed like.
They often have both position types. As far as I know, RHT is a very professional service. All I know about them, is second and third hand knowledge, but if I were in the market, they would be the first step.
Rocky <>< Latest Code Blog Post: OpenID - More thought - Great system if.. Latest Tech Blog Post: Want to test Joost (video on demand) - I have invites!
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Rocky Moore wrote:
Well, if it were me, my first step would be to check out Robert Half Technology recruiters. They seem to get better job listings.
Must be a regional thing since where I live, they are one of the worse recruiters.
Anyone who thinks he has a better idea of what's good for people than people do is a swine. - P.J. O'Rourke
Might be... Could also be age, it has been a few years since I was really paying attention to the recruiter world, things do change. -- modified at 15:13 Friday 6th April, 2007 This could also be a good section on my Devs4Hire site. A section for developers to post experiences with different recruiters and rate them. Not sure some of the recruiters will like it but... :)
Rocky <>< Latest Code Blog Post: OpenID - More thought - Great system if.. Latest Tech Blog Post: Want to test Joost (video on demand) - I have invites!