Job Seekers thread Mark 2

[CaptainCrunch]

Originally Posted by RichieRich

I've come across a few brand new (ie that day) job postings in the last 2-3 weeks where the post had either no deadline or one several weeks away... but then within 2 days was closed to further applicants. What gives?


I say that... yet I was short short listed for an interview a couple weeks back and then the day before they cancelled the interview with the story that they'd gone too far prior to proper financial approvals... and subsequently the role was cancelled. aaaargh.

I went through that, I still look at the ads for positions that come through my email though I'm not looking any more.


There are still jobs that haven't been filled that have been up since March.



For the one's with no time limit, realistically they are exploring hiring for a position and probably don't have hiring approval, they want to see what talent is out there and silo it for later.



But there are an awful lot of roles where the job is cancelled due to uncertainty.



On top of that there are a lot of roles where there are hundreds applying to the role, so the chances of even getting to the interview stage even if your really qualified for the role are low because they can pick and choose the top 5 with the lowest expected salary.

[JR449]

How is the IT field ladies and gents? Over saturated unless you are a developer?

[You Need a Thneed]

Originally Posted by You Need a Thneed

Well, will be getting an interview next week out of the preliminary phone call I got this morning. That's good news.

So...

This interview I talked about... never happened. Haven't heard a peep back from the company. followed up at one point even, but nothing.

Have been applying for everything remotely close to what I'm good at here in town, and for things that fit me better in some other cities (even though

Not a phone call, email, interview, whatever basically since these posts in July.

I've applied to a couple positions in town recently (and better fits?) that are likely still open, so hoping to hear from them.

The market is soo cold though.

[CaptainCrunch]

Originally Posted by JR449

How is the IT field ladies and gents? Over saturated unless you are a developer?

Right now I'd say ya, its a tough field with a lot of people in it that are looking for work. Its really over saturated right now, and Just talking to people in it that are looking, the salaries are sliding down in terms of offers.

[CaptainCrunch]

Originally Posted by You Need a Thneed

So...

This interview I talked about... never happened. Haven't heard a peep back from the company. followed up at one point even, but nothing.

Have been applying for everything remotely close to what I'm good at here in town, and for things that fit me better in some other cities (even though

Not a phone call, email, interview, whatever basically since these posts in July.

I've applied to a couple positions in town recently (and better fits?) that are likely still open, so hoping to hear from them.

The market is soo cold though.

I'm sorry to hear that. Its a pretty ####ty thing for someone to do to you. Who knows what the reason is for them to not getting touch with you.


Right now, yeah the market is tight, I've also noticed that for a while the number of opportunities that were coming across my email have been shrinking as people and companies are so uncertain in what's happening next.

[CaptainCrunch]

So I wanted to tell a bit of a story, I don't know if its helpful or not.


When I lost my job to layoffs in the recruiting field, about a couple of dozen in Canada and about 80 world wide woke up without a chair.


I decided to keep in touch with a couple of the guys I'd worked with and gotten a long with they were both based in Toronto. I thought maybe we could work to keep each other kind of sane and swap tips.



With one after I went after and got this contract, and started doing my own thing, I had a deep talk with him. He'd been recruiting for about 16 years, and he was good at it. We talked about whether or not it was something that he wanted to keep doing, and he did though the job market was soft.


So I sat down with him virtually and we worked through the benefits of starting his own thing.



- We looked at the cost of starting his own business.
- We looked at his and my contacts list and put together a list of potential people to contact.
- We looked at what he would need technology wise. For the most part there were

- excellent open source options that would be dirt cheap. He could get a quick website made up.
- He started up his own company, and just started doing a lot of basic business development.

- I worked with him on scripting and his elevator pitch and all of that stuff.
- We talked about the fact that in the recruiting field your charging pretty high fees, and as an employee you see less then a third of those fees. We worked out a goal of him doing 6 fills in his first year, which means that his share at 100% would be between $60,000 and $120,000.
- He's signed up three new clients in the first month and has closed one of them.

Thats compared to the cost of setting up a business and some other expenses.


In a ####ty job market I think there's a validity that if you're good at something and you like doing it, that it doesn't hurt to maybe look at setting up your own thing instead of trying to survive and wait in a soft job market.


With the other gentleman, he's more risk adverse and is good at taking directions and executing, but he's not that guy that will take a leap of faith, and that's ok, but in a tight job market like this, sometimes you have do do things that you normally wouldn't do.


In my current role, I can state that there are lots of support groups and communities for startups, the government has recently released new grants at a provincial and federal level.



Any ways, why am I rambling on at 11 at night about this. Because this job market and especially in this province, I can't think of a major magic bullet to get a job quickly like I could even a couple of years ago. Keep your options over.


I'm always here if you have questions.

[RichieRich]

The other day I got all excited because I actually received an email PFO instead of just submitting to the black hole of eternal silence.

[You Need a Thneed]

Originally Posted by RichieRich

The other day I got all excited because I actually received an email PFO instead of just submitting to the black hole of eternal silence.

Yup, even the automated PFOs are better than eternal silence.

Of the two interviews (1 in person, 1 video) I’ve done in the 3 months, I’ve received not even an email from either of those companies after the interview.

The one I was talking about where I thought is was going to advance to the in person interview - the interview went very well I thought, and the talk during the video interview was that the in person interview was going to be a certainty. How does something go from that, to not even an email - even after a follow up?

[CaptainReboot]

Originally Posted by JR449

How is the IT field ladies and gents? Over saturated unless you are a developer?

There is a lot of IT talent out there so it's very saturated. I've noticed a lot of BA roles being posted and cyber security.

[CaptainReboot]

Originally Posted by RichieRich

The other day I got all excited because I actually received an email PFO instead of just submitting to the black hole of eternal silence.

I've gotten a handful of those. But agreed that it's better than just silence. I've been laid off since mid June. Looked and applied on and off during the summer but now that the kids are back in school I have more time to seriously look so that's what I'm doing now. I figured that summer was a little slow in terms of postings. I see many more IT opportunities in general now being posted than a few months ago. Depending on the company, they can take a while to get back to you as well. I was an IT Manager before, overseeing the deskside support team. Those roles don't really come up often so I'm looking at BA roles as well as I've done that in the past.

I've talked to recruiters but nothing as come of it. I'm in then process of getting incorporated so that I could take on some contract work if an opportunity there comes up. So far I've gotten a NUANS report done.

[JR449]

Originally Posted by You Need a Thneed

So...

This interview I talked about... never happened. Haven't heard a peep back from the company. followed up at one point even, but nothing.

Have been applying for everything remotely close to what I'm good at here in town, and for things that fit me better in some other cities (even though

Not a phone call, email, interview, whatever basically since these posts in July.

I've applied to a couple positions in town recently (and better fits?) that are likely still open, so hoping to hear from them.

The market is soo cold though.

Whats your field of work? Lots of areas seem saturated

[Kerplunk]

Just thought I would throw this in here.

My company is looking for a few new senior software devs. Both positions are C# based with one focusing on front end web development. Shoot me a DM if you want more info or know someone who is looking.

[calgarygeologist]

I just have the need to bitch a little about HR. I don't know if they are generally incompetent, under extreme pressure or can't meet expectations but I feel let down again this week. I had a good chat late yesterday afternoon with an HR person. She just received a mandate on Monday to hire three people under a tight time frame. They were shortlisting candidates by yesterday evening, interviewing Friday, making offers on Tuesday so a start date of the 14th. I was one of the last to chat with them during the shortlisting and was told that they have a meeting 30 minutes after my call to put together their plan. They were supposed to contact people on Wednesday evening to set up interviews for Friday.

I did not hear anything on Wednesday evening and I didn't think much of it as I could understand a bit of a delay and for them to contact people today. I waited until the late morning for an email and nothing came so I emailed asking for an update. Nothing for the rest of the afternoon. It is really frustrating especially when the HR person outlines their entire process and timing and makes a commitment to contact you one way or the other and nothing actually happens.

[Weitz]

HR is basically a person doing what they are told. I wouldn’t get worked up about HR.

[Torture]

That is a recruiter, which IMO, is only kind of HR. It's a sad reality that they don't get back to applicants 90% of the time.

But if you need to hear it: thanks but no thanks, it was a competitive process and we had lots of great applicants to chose from. Unfortunately we chose another candidate that was a better fit but we invite you to continue to follow our career site and LinkedIn for future opportunities.

Thanks,
Recruiter

[calgarygeologist]

Originally Posted by Torture

That is a recruiter, which IMO, is only kind of HR. It's a sad reality that they don't get back to applicants 90% of the time.

But if you need to hear it: thanks but no thanks, it was a competitive process and we had lots of great applicants to chose from. Unfortunately we chose another candidate that was a better fit but we invite you to continue to follow our career site and LinkedIn for future opportunities.

Thanks,
Recruiter

I'm fine with not hearing from them as that is generally the norm but when they come out and say they will get back to you by x time with a decision either way I expect some form of response. I know it doesn't matter to companies right now because they have large pools of candidates available to them but it makes the company look bad in my opinion.

[Scoopdogg]

Has anyone applied for jobs that are open to fully remote workers? I recently switched jobs and am working for a tech company based out of San Francisco. My job is fully remote and I was able to find a well paying job outside of oil and gas and so far it's been great.

My brother is doing the same thing, he's had a couple offers from tech companies based in the bay area as he's looking to get out of oil and gas as well.

With the world shifting towards a remote work environment, it means you can apply for job anywhere in the world, you are no longer constrained to your local market.

My brother and I both work in IT and maybe that's why we're able to expand outside calgary as IT professionals can work in any industry.

Anyways, for the folks that are looking, expand your search outside the calgary market, it doesn't matter where you live anymore.

[simmer2]

We are actively looking for an Accountant interested in being a Senior Controller.

Position is in Victoria BC.

PM me if anyone is interested.

[RichieRich]

Originally Posted by Scoopdogg

Has anyone applied for jobs that are open to fully remote workers? I recently switched jobs and am working for a tech company based out of San Francisco. My job is fully remote and I was able to find a well paying job outside of oil and gas and so far it's been great.

My brother is doing the same thing, he's had a couple offers from tech companies based in the bay area as he's looking to get out of oil and gas as well.

With the world shifting towards a remote work environment, it means you can apply for job anywhere in the world, you are no longer constrained to your local market.

My brother and I both work in IT and maybe that's why we're able to expand outside calgary as IT professionals can work in any industry.

Anyways, for the folks that are looking, expand your search outside the calgary market, it doesn't matter where you live anymore.

I think it may be harder to work remote for some jobs... and I'm not talking about labor-related jobs. I'm thinking engineering, geophysics, geology. Don't get me wrong, I'd *LOVE* to be able to work remote and still get paid decently.

[GGG]

Originally Posted by RichieRich

I think it may be harder to work remote for some jobs... and I'm not talking about labor-related jobs. I'm thinking engineering, geophysics, geology. Don't get me wrong, I'd *LOVE* to be able to work remote and still get paid decently.

I think in the oil based engineering jobs the issue is management having and old school mindset and not practicality. I don’t believe we lost efficiency or efficacy being fully remote. In fact the forced change to processes like improved things in terms of review and meetings