CCNP - I is the hunt going?

Author

I is the hunt going?

Sea Dragon

2003-03-25, 5:44 pm

How is the job hunt going for my commrads?

akio63

2003-03-31, 2:31 am

The job hunt has been horrible. No one replies back, calls back or writes back. I'm beginning to wonder if there really are any jobs out there. I can't wait for Easter, at least I can get something at the Easter Egg Hunt.

peterd

2003-04-01, 9:09 am

Hi Guys,

I've given up (for now anyway)!

From November last year until about three weeks ago I posted around 360 applications for advertised jobs. I got four interviews and failed all of them.

I also sent out 82 'spec' letters to any telephone / data company in the Yellow Pages (business phone books) for all major towns and cities within 60 miles and got about six 'thanks but not yet' replies.

So I'm currently working two days a week (Monday and Tuesday) for my old employer as a Voice Analyst to install VOIP across the group.

I've been given a twelve month contract but I'm hoping to gain enough experience that I can 'con' my way into a full time job in about six months time.

Meanwhile I make up my income with selling metalwork on a local 'Sunday' market...

if I find the right product line then I can stand on another local market on a Thursday which would still leave me a couple of days welding time...

and I find the perfect product line then I'll take up a few more markets on different days and be out of IT forever!

Regards
Peter

Imran4sin

2003-04-05, 4:22 pm

wow Dude,
Just hang in there.

IT market is pretty crap down in NZ too--big time.

There are ppl applying for a help desk job with certs like MCSE and getting rejected.

I have no chance man

I just wanna finish my degree, get in to any IT company --get some experience, meanwhile work on my CCNP and get the heck outa there and get a better role.

But so far, its been crap

Just dont give up !!

Sea Dragon

2003-04-05, 5:15 pm

Hey ya peter, sorry to hear this I have been there and I am still there ( checking my pulse right now)

To me this is nothing more than the American illusion. I have seen more and more schools advertising on TV, this will flood the market. As companies outsource their work to other countries and H1B continues to slit the throat of the indigenous people here in the US. Networkers will go the same thing the graphic art industry went through 10 years ago

I feel for the veterans, I really do, they will be displaced if not by lower wages, then by automation. If you think that the Cisco's IOS will not evolve, just like DOS evolved to Windows, then you are living the illusion

This is an evolutionary process. Just like the industrial age displaced the blacksmith slavery and the labor force in general. If you recall IBM went through the same process in the 80's

This seems to be the end of the supply demand issue in data and Telco networks. Newbies getting a opportunity to have a new career may still be alive, but that will change.

Some one please correct me!

Sea Dragon

2003-04-05, 5:37 pm

Present-day profit-motivated economics is doomed unless profit motives can be augmented by service motives. Ruthless competition based on narrow-minded self-interest is ultimately destructive of even those things which it seeks to maintain. Exclusive and self-serving profit motivation is incompatible with Christian ideals--much more incompatible with the teachings of Jesus.
------------
In economics, profit motivation is to service motivation what fear is to love in religion. But the profit motive must not be suddenly destroyed or removed; it keeps many otherwise slothful mortals hard at work. It is not necessary, however, that this social energy arouser be forever selfish in its objectives.
----------------
The profit motive of economic activities is altogether base and wholly unworthy of an advanced order of society; nevertheless, it is an indispensable factor throughout the earlier phases of civilization. Profit motivation must not be taken away from men until they have firmly possessed themselves of superior types of nonprofit motives for economic striving and social serving--the transcendent urges of superlative wisdom, intriguing brotherhood, and excellency of spiritual attainment.

The bottom of the Corporate ocean lies many and yet many will follow. Look at my post from a year ago or so and there you will see the "ocean story"

and

In knowledge alone there can never be absolute certainty, only increasing probability of approximation; but the religious soul of spiritual
illumination knows, and knows now!

this has been aprt of my learning cirve.What ya think

ciao
Charlie

peterd

2003-04-08, 2:42 am

hi Sea Dragon,

we have a similar problem in the UK...

while there are any number of IT guys who can't get jobs (300+ replies to any advertised jobs!) our moronic government want to make it easier for people to come here from India, etc, to take IT jobs because they think there's a shortage of qualified workers!

Of course, the government have no idea at all what's going on in any industry, they're politicians and most of them have never worked in 'business'. So they rely on business leaders to tell them what's going on.

And these business leaders will say that there's a shortage of qualified workers as the main qualification as far as they're concerned is that someone will do the job for next to no pay.

People from a 'poor' country would be happy to work here for half the average pay as it's more that they'd get in their own country.

That's the main problem as I see it.

Perhaps I need to get a job in the US (I'd work for less than you guys!) and then someone from India/Pakistan can get the job that I should have had over here?

Or better still, find some way (legal or otherwise) of getting my house mortgage paid off quickly and then I can earn more than enough to live on from trading on the local markets...

no stress, no training, no exams, just buy stock and sit/stand around chatting with people as they give me money!

Regards
Peter

Sea Dragon

2003-04-08, 9:46 am

Peter

I agree but for the life of me I can't figure out why so many other countries still live in the year 100 AD. Business, what a term, example Michael Jorden was paid more money for the Nikki commercial than all the workers at the Nikki shoe plant in Malaysia combined. Is there a misguided value system here?

I understand that other cultures want to do better for themselves but the governments of theses contries need to upgrade their social /economic plan (if there is one) and stop worshipping cows! Sorry to those who do worship cows I don't want to offend any one.

We ( USA) plan to rebuild Baghdad ( after we kill this one dude, Sadam or something like that) with a new infrastructure , Brown and Root may get the one of many contracts. Now there is a business model, destroy and rebuild. Need a job?

England, were the sun once never set on this great empire, has been so heavily taxed that the motivation to work is dubious at best. What is the tax rate now, above 50%? The IT guy goes to work comes home and has to study much of the time only to look up at the end of June and say to himself, ' oh, I get to work the rest of the year for me" then studies some more. What a life.

Day trading, that seems like fun, but I know a few who lost their A&& and now have IRS issues. One of the mainstays for the failure is the lack of real time quotes on the Internet. The flip side is that many are driving really expensive cars and own rather large homes on high value property

I have stepped outside the Cisco box and I am looking at Avaya, Shoreline and others. There is a new network world rising in the not to distant future. Till next time
C'ya

Charlie

anchor40

2003-04-08, 10:48 am

Charlie and Peter,

I can simpathize, and may be empathizing before too long - gotta love the outsourcing initiatives.

Anyway, as I see it, in a very short period of time the market has swung from demanding specialists to generalists. A few years ago, before the bubble burst, companies could afford to have the top-dollar network staff, the top-dollar server guys, and the mid-dollar desktop staff. Now, due to that lovely economic principle of supply and demand, they can ask for a top-dollar jack-of-all trades, but offer mid-dollar salaries. Those guys who have been out of work for many months will take anything, and the companies know it. Again, supply and demand.

You really need to know more than one field to gain empolyment these days. 95% of the postings I've seen have had MCSE 2000 AND CCNP as requirements. Pre-bubble-burst, the companies would accept the applicants who partially meet the criteria, but now they can wait for the handful of the 1000 responses per posting that fully meet.

The key - breadth and depth!

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