Is the job market really *that* bad? (long)

[tgr -at- LanMinds -dot- Com]

A well-known Bay Area recruiter, Andrew Davis, sent this email 
yesterday to subscribers to his jobs mailing lists. It describes 
current employment prospects for tech writers in the Silicon 
Valley/SF Bay Area.

Andrew Davis is a past-president of the San Francisco STC, was a Tech 
Writer in the software industry for a decade until 1994, and has been 
recruiting Tech Writers in Silicon Valley for seven years. He's well 
known for his connections and candor.

Read it and weep.

- Tony


   (This note is being distributed to both our contract and staff
    opportunities lists. If you're on both lists, you'll see it twice.)


Many of you have noticed how few staff and contract listings are 
posted on our website, and have written or called to ask 'is the job 
market really that bad?'.

The quick answer is 'yes, it's that bad'.

What's going on?
---------------
By contrast with the past six years, when we had at least ten times 
this number of active listings and would often post seven or eight 
new opportunities each week, we now receive an average of one new 
listing every couple of weeks.

At the risk of demoralizing you further, you need to know the following:

1) we don't expect the tide to turn any time soon
2) Northern California's economy appears to be in worse shape than most
3) there are far fewer opportunities for contractors than for "staff" 
candidates
4) most managers prefer that candidates (even contractors) work onsite
5) salaries and contract rates are down about 25 percent from their highs
6) companies are taking an inordinately long time to make hiring decisions
7) companies sometimes discriminate against recruiters' candidates to 
avoid fees

Today's high-tech economy is truly a mirror image of last year's. 
There are now many more qualified candidates available than there are 
(funded) positions, and companies with openings realize that they 
often don't need to use recruiters to fill them.

Basically, it's no longer a candidate's market. Control is now firmly 
in the hiring managers' hands, and they know it.

What should you do?
------------------
As a result of this shift, we strongly suggest the following responses:

1) Conserve your cash. To be safe, you'll need at least six months' worth.
2) If you've been meaning to move out of the Bay Area, consider acting now.
3) If you're a contractor, arrange your life so you can cope with captivity.
4) For "telecommute-or-die" types, arrange cheap ways to visit 
clients. And take
   to heart the advice we give to those seeking 
<http://www.synergistech.com/offsitecontracts.html>offsite contracts.
5) To keep your income high in a glutted market, invest in your career. Acquire
   the technical skills sought by solvent companies (eg, XML, Java, API/SDK
   doc, JavaScript, wireless telecom, voice telephony, storage area networks,
   data security, middleware, relational databases, and 
single-sourcing). If you
   lack showable portfolio samples, 
<http://www.synergistech.com/devdocport.html>build some now. And if 
you need training,
   use these portals to find web-based courses:



<http://www.elementk.com/>ElementK.com
  <http://www.leapit.com/>LeapIt.<http://www.leapit.com/>com
  <http://www.learn.com/coursecatalog.asp?category=28&sessionid=317620064257592054>Learn.com
  <http://www.tutorials.com/>Learn2.com
  <http://www.smartplanet.com/>SmartPlanet.com
  <http://www.techies.com/techpro.html>Techies.com
  <http://www.w3schools.com/>W3Schools.<http://www.w3schools.com/>com

6) Be patient, and have as many irons in the fire as you can. Many companies
   have discarded the final vestiges of fairness in their hiring practices.
   For example, we've seen offers retracted after both parties have signed, and
   we've lost count of the 11th-hour company-wide hiring freezes affecting our
   candidates.
7) SEND US YOUR 
<mailto:pubpros -at- synergistech -dot- com%3Fsubject=Here's%20my%20resume>RESUME 
FIRST. Unless we present your resume to a company first,
   we can't use our contacts, insight, and influence to benefit your candidacy.
   Even though we don't have as many listings as we used to, all our postings
   are *real* (ie, the managers asked for our help and have the funds to fill
   the position). We'll do our utmost to let you know within 24 hours whether
   we have any appropriate matches.

Managers with whom we work remain responsive and interested in 
working with us. They often go out of their way to evaluate and 
interview our candidates before those from other sources, and give us 
the benefit of the doubt if issues arise. They see us as reliable 
allies in their hiring process, and frequently 
<http://www.synergistech.com/testimonials.html>tell us that they'd 
bring us more listings if they could.

If you can't afford to be unemployed and are concerned about your 
job's viability, update your resume now, 
<mailto:pubpros -at- synergistech -dot- com%3Fsubject=Here's%20my%20resume>send 
it to us, and let's launch your job search in earnest. You can always 
count on us to respond quickly and honestly, with the bad news as 
well as the good, so that you know where you stand.

If we don't have the right opportunity for you right now, there's 
always <http://www.brassring.com/>brassring, 
<http://www.hotjobs.com/>hotjobs, <http://www.monster.com/>monster, 
and <http://www.dice.com/>dice. Be aware, however, that most 
recruiters have no real (ie, funded) listings and are simply 
harvesting resumes. For this reason, we suggest that you respond only 
to direct employers' ads.

Wha'appened?
-----------
Management everywhere appears to be striving for "profitability at 
any cost". Budget reductions have resulted in hiring freezes, 
layoffs, plummeting morale, and vastly increased pressure on those 
still employed.

No one asked us, but we doubt that customers will be better served by 
this strategy than they were by the "ship it now" imperative of the 
late 90s. Product quality will decrease as companies' development and 
support teams are decimated, and customer satisfaction will follow 
suit as delivery dates are delayed and feature sets reduced. 
Customers will continue to sit on their wallets, as will venture 
capitalists, until there's compelling evidence that companies can 
deliver on their promises.

Common sense suggests that the tech wreck is an over-reaction by both 
investors and customers, and that the pendulum has already swung too 
far in the opposite direction relative to last Fall. The prevailing 
mood among tech pubs hiring managers, however, is not one of 
anticipation or hope, but of acceptance tinged with fear. They have 
no control over their budgets or hiring priorities, have had to 
postpone or cancel raises and bonuses, and are focused entirely on 
preserving what they have left. Most have resigned themselves to 
trying to do more with less, even though they know that some members 
of their teams have been burnt out for years. In short, no one's 
having fun, and the only long-term winners will be the therapists.

Is there any relief around the corner?
-------------------------------------
The evidence is contradictory, and our hiring managers haven't made 
us any promises, but we remain stubbornly optimistic that hiring 
momentum will increase during calendar Q4 (that's October - December).

Although it sometimes appears that only hyper-qualified, 
well-connected, and insanely productive technical publications 
veterans are having an easy time finding work, we continue to see 
occasional opportunities for intermediate-level candidates with 
relevant work experience. What's changed is that there are now no 
opportunities for entry-level candidates; this is a terrible time to 
be trying to enter the technical communications business.

Across the board, fewer managers than ever are willing to take 
chances on someone who "could do the job", opting instead to hire 
someone who's already done it, ideally more than once. We're seeing 
most managers act more slowly, cautiously, and with more focus on 
ensuring a high-quality match (in terms both of personality fit and 
professional function), so hiring decisions that might have been made 
in a week last year are now taking a month.

Unfortunately for jobseekers, supply and demand now work in the 
hiring manager's favor. As one particularly candid observer opined, 
"it's a crowded candidate market in a very expensive neighborhood 
with sharply reduced demand, where hiring decisions are controlled by 
panic-stricken executives; you do the math."

Will Synergistech survive?
-------------------------
Absolutely. We'll emerge from this economic meltdown stronger and 
more effective than ever. We have plenty of cash, a talented and 
cohesive recruiting and operations team who are all committed to 
going the distance, excellent relationships with thousands of hiring 
managers and candidates, and an ever-improving recruiting 
infrastructure.

We're boosting our marketing efforts, investing in our recruiters' 
professional growth, optimizing our database, setting up alliances 
with selected ancillary services, implementing virtual private 
network and other tele-working technology, overhauling our website, 
and handling a dozen other tasks that were deferred during the boom 
years.

We haven't forgotten the source of our successes, either. We recently 
mailed out over $4500.00 in referral fees to express our gratitude to 
those who introduced us to candidates we succeeded in placing last 
year. And we're well along in our plans to host the fourth annual 
Synergistech "Thank You" party for our recently placed candidates.

Synergistech will be here when the smoke clears, and we sincerely 
hope you will be too. In the meantime, we're focusing even more 
completely on our mission -- to be the Bay Area's best and 
most-respected recruiter of high-tech technical communicators.

Good luck to us all!

- Andrew, Cliff, Jackie, Monica, and Zeff
  Synergistech Communications, Inc.
  Recruiting and Career Coaching Services for Technical Communicators

  tel:   (650) 344-2141
  fax:   (650) 344-5664
  pager: (650) 523-1636
  email: pubpros -at- synergistech -dot- com
  web:   http://www.synergistech.com


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It is worth more to satisfy a desire than to acquire an estate.