Re: Job Market - Same or Worse Than Before DotCom Mania?

[Sabahat Ashraf <sabahat -at- viragelogic -dot- com>]

My apologies for the late post to this thread, but having had to search
for a job in this market I have had to do some serious soul-searching on
the topic. My conclusion:

Folks, in the language of today: Duuuuuh! Newsflash! *THIS* is what a
normal market looks like. Contrary to the experience of those of our
friends who started their careers after about early 1997, what one needs
to do more often than not through, say, a normal human lifespan is
actually word hard to find job and ke... -- okay, so keeping a job was
hard work even during the dotCom era; but you get my point.

And if you want me to distill the wisdom -- or should I say shoe leather
-- of my recent job search into one sentence, I would say "It's back to
the basics, folks, and the three most important words you need to
remember about looking for a job are Network, Network, Network."

I mean, seriously, I thought I was an old fogey compared to the
dotWhippersnappers of the field; but it took a little humble pie to beat
that axiom into me again -- usually in the form of dropping off your
resume at *every* booth in a Silicon Valley [no less] job fair and
getting only three responses: postcards saying "Thank you for getting in
touch with ACME ..."

Most of my dotPrehistoric career was spent outside the United States --
so I have had two parts to my career; a "normal" part that was not in
The States, and a dotInfluenced part that I have spent working mostly
for notdot companies Stateside. And throughout grad school, and since,
every career counselor and headhunter has repeated the old axiom [repeat
after me, boys and girls!!] "80% of jobs are never advertised in the
paper -- or anywhere -- they are filled thru networking". But hey! it
just didn't ring true when every dotBomb was offering signing bonuses,
options, and whatnot. But in the last three, four months, suddenly, I
can't seem to get that line out of my head. [Raindrops keep falling on
my heaaaaa... Get out! Out!! Out!!! Somebody stop the voices!!!]

I will get off the soapbox now. Thanks for listening.

Sabahat.

PS, it's nice to be back on TechWr-L.

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