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Hunting For a Tech Job In 2015 174

Posted by samzenpus from the get-to-work dept.
Nerval's Lobster writes It's a brand new year, and by at least some indications the economy's doing pretty well, which means that a lot of people will begin looking for a new, possibly better job. If you're looking to trade up, here are some tips, some of which are pretty standard-issue ("Update resume," etc.), and others that could actually stand you in good stead, including using the Bureau of Labor Statistics to judge the median salary for a position before negotiating with HR. According to Glassdoor, Dice, and other sources, the average salary for many kinds of tech workers will only rise over the next year, so it really could be a good time to see what's out there. Good luck.
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Hunting For a Tech Job In 2015 More

Hunting For a Tech Job In 2015

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  • economy doing well? (Score:5, Funny)

    by umdesch4 ( 3036737 ) on Friday January 02, 2015 @01:17AM (#48714831)
    "and by at least some indications the economy's doing pretty well"

    Which indications are those? Forgive me, but I don't watch CNBC.
    • Even better, the linked article actually states "by all indications the economy’s doing pretty well". I didn't read past that.

      • Re:economy doing well? (Score:5, Interesting)

        by lgw ( 121541 ) on Friday January 02, 2015 @02:03AM (#48714943) Journal

        Where do you live? Here in the Seattle area, the economy is booming. From fast food to construction right through to dev jobs, everyone is hiring like crazy. There are about 20 new buildings (mostly highrises) going up in downtown Seattle, and apartments are going up everywhere in the suburbs. No question things are doing well here. Where's the suck?

      • Exactly. Check out, for example, this: http://www.paulcraigroberts.or... [paulcraigroberts.org]

        Or this: http://www.paulcraigroberts.or... [paulcraigroberts.org]

        If Roberts' in-your-face tone doesn't suit you, try the soberly factual John Williams at http://www.shadowstats.com/ [shadowstats.com]

    • Wall Street broke new records [nytimes.com].

      The Dow gained 64.73 points to 18,024.17 That's up 0.4 percent from its previous high, on Monday. The latest close is the Dow's second 1,000-point milestone this year after closing above 17,000 for the first time in July. The S.&P. 500 rose 3.63 points to 2,082.17. That's a gain of 0.2 percent from its previous high, a day earlier. The Nasdaq composite fell 16 points, or 0.3 percent, to 4,765.42.

      • Wall Street is NOT the economy. (Score:4, Insightful)

        by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 02, 2015 @08:12AM (#48715847)

        Wall Street has been doing well because of all that Fed money that has been printed in the last few years. It has absolutely nothing to do with economic or business fundamentals. It was all bullshit money.

        1. Hedge funds/billionaires being able to borrow at the Fed rate and at much higher margins than us peons (95% vs 50% for the rest of us) pumped the money into the stock markets.

        2. All the money floating around was used by corporations to do stock buybacks - not because their businesses were worth investing in (contrary to the myth taught in Finance classes and spewed by corporate PR departments) but because it allowed the CEOs and billionaires to get even richer.

        3. 1 & 2 were all done at our expense because it weakened the dollar - making consumer goods more expensive; while our wages haven't gone up. In the meantime, we are working longer and longer hours because in order to keep profits up, companies have been laying people off and making their current workforce work harder and longer.

        A plan that was supposed to help us out and get employment back to 2007 levels has horribly failed.

        • In the meantime, we are working longer and longer hours because in order to keep profits up, companies have been laying people off and making their current workforce work harder and longer.

          As an I.T. contractor, my contracts over the last six years has explicitly forbidden me from working overtime. I can only work 40 hours per week, Monday through Friday, during normal business hours. Which is fine with me. The contract for my current job included paid holidays and 20 paid time off (PTO) days. The perks are getting better on my end.

          A plan that was supposed to help us out and get employment back to 2007 levels has horribly failed.

          This isn't a normal economy. If current job growth is maintained, it would still take two years to recover [epi.org] to 2007.

        • 1. Hedge funds/billionaires being able to borrow at the Fed rate and at much higher margins than us peons (95% vs 50% for the rest of us) pumped the money into the stock markets.

          Which I'm not sad about, since my savings is mainly in U.S. equities.

          2. All the money floating around was used by corporations to do stock buybacks - not because their businesses were worth investing in (contrary to the myth taught in Finance classes and spewed by corporate PR departments) but because it allowed the CEOs and billio

    • Which indications are those?

      GDP, Public Sector Job Openings, Employment Rate, Stock Market, Consumer Spending, Consumer Confidence, Housing Prices...

      What are you looking for?

    • When job hunts for you, then economy doing well!

    • Sure, I've got some free time. I'll do your googling for you. U-3 unemployment down 1.2% from 7.0% in Nov-2013 to Nov-2014. Should reach pre-recession levels by end of year 2015, if not earlier. Two successive quarters (Q2 and Q3 2014) of high GDP growth (4.6% and 5.0% annualized). Stock market still doing well, though I question how long that can last given its overvalued relative to GDP. U.S. Consumer Confidence index for Dec-2014 is at an eight-year high. Oil prices are low and project to stay that

  • Wow, no (Score:4, Insightful)

    by phantomfive ( 622387 ) on Friday January 02, 2015 @01:38AM (#48714891) Journal

    others that could actually stand you in good stead, including using the Bureau of Labor Statistics to judge the median salary for a position before negotiating with HR.

    Wow, no, do not do that, the BLS statistics are LOW for huge sections of the United States. Remember, these are the numbers used to pay H1 visas, and they include jobs that aren't necessarily what you would think of when you think of a programmer (like the guy at my brother's company who gets paid $40k to write SQL queries, and not necessarily efficient ones. That's all he can do).

    Secondly, when you are negotiating salary, always ask above the median (and that's assuming the median is correct). You can go lower later, but it's hard to negotiate higher than what you initially ask for.

    • Yeah, here are the BLS statistics for median software developer [bls.gov]: $93,000 per year.
      For web developer it's worse [bls.gov], $62,000 per year.

      Compare that one to this data [wealthfront.com], which puts software engineer at $130,000 median.

      If you've been a programmer for a while, you should be making a lot more than that. Every recruiter that contacts me, I tell them first thing (after hello) that I'm not interested in anything under $170k. A lot of them go away immediately, but that's ok, I'm not interested in them.

    • There are several sites out there I use to research salaries such as glassdoor, salary.com, and payscale.com. They can give you a salary range for the company and job you are looking at. Are there any others out there you consider to be good?

      Also, personally, I do not 'jump' unless there is at least a 10 pct pay increase. The stress of a new job does not make it worth it for me.

    • I usually take my current salary and ask for $5-10k more. If another employer is arguing I should quick my current gig then they should be willing to present a better value proposition. If they're not going to pay me more then they need to convince me that their job is "better" in some other way than what I'm doing now. Of course, I always claim I'm super-happy where I am (even if I'm not), so generally their value proposition is going to involve more compensation.

      As a sanity check you can go to salary
      • Err, "quit my current gig" not "quick".
      • Yeap, just be aware that salaries are going up, so you might be worth more than that.
        • Interestingly, my current employer is the first one I've ever had that gave me significant raises. Everywhere else I've worked I got cost-of-living-increase at most, and sometimes not even that. So, essentially, the only time I got a raise is when I switched jobs. With the current employer, though, I've gotten raises in the 6-9% range for the past two years. I guess they didn't get the memo. That, or they realize their work environment is frustrating enough that they have to overpay people to keep them

          • Interestingly, my current employer is the first one I've ever had that gave me significant raises.

            Nice. I've heard of such companies. Everywhere I've worked, I've either had to quit or threaten to quit to get a raise.

            • I've never threatened to quit somewhere and then stayed. For that matter, I've only ever left one job willingly (the place I was at before this current one). All the other job changes have been due to layoffs or the company going under. So the graph of my salary over time is very "stair-step" in appearance. Periods of relative flatness for 2-3 years followed by sudden jumps.

  • Getter by better if you have skills... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by aaarrrgggh ( 9205 ) on Friday January 02, 2015 @01:47AM (#48714917)

    The only people we hire now have relevant experience and skills in our very specific field, and experience commensurate for the position we are posting. We have sadly given up on new graduates; they are too flakey, having never held an actual job before, and needing substantial training to get to a point where they can generate revenue... and leave. Now is a great time for people that graduated around 2010, found a job in their field at terrible pay, and are now ready for an actual career.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by m00sh ( 2538182 )

      The only people we hire now have relevant experience and skills in our very specific field, and experience commensurate for the position we are posting. We have sadly given up on new graduates; they are too flakey, having never held an actual job before, and needing substantial training to get to a point where they can generate revenue... and leave. Now is a great time for people that graduated around 2010, found a job in their field at terrible pay, and are now ready for an actual career.

      This is not true.

      I know recruiters and they love hiring new graduates. New graduates need jobs, experienced engineers already have jobs.

      Training does not take long at all. Revenue generation isn't a factor since there is not even a way to measure how someone directly generated revenue when hundreds of people work on a single product.

    • So you are saying you only hire people from India because they have all the skills you want on their resume? And you say this will save you money? If not, where do you get these people with specific skills? Out of thin air?

      • The Truth about CV's from India (Score:2, Interesting)

        by Anonymous Coward

        Just because you worked on a project that used [insert product here] it does not make you an expert in that product OR even qualified to put it down on your CV

        Over the past 3-4 years I have seen hundreds if not thousands of CV's coming out of India that contain huge amount of Bullshit if not downright lies.
        Now we filter them out by asking them not overly difficult questions relating to the products they are supposed to be skilled in.
        Even then some seem to slip through the net.
        Many may be good on paper but t

        • Instead of spending this level of effort on each recruit, why not hire someone who is bright in North America and train them. Have you ever stopped to consider that employees will be once again loyal to the company if the company demonstrates that they are loyal to them? People have very little loyalty any more precisely because the MBAs turned employees into 'human resources' to satisfy shareholders in the late 80s.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Shados ( 741919 )

      It depends on the field though. The issue with new grads as devs, is that in big tech hubs, the average developer stays at a company around 1 (SF, Seattle) to 2 (Boston, not sure where NYC stands, haven't seen statistics on it) years.

      So you get your new grad, you train them....and then they're gone. Offering more benefits or money doesn't help, because they're often leaving for some startup with their friends and aren't even going to get paid because they're "founders" (heck, if you paid them more they'd fi

    • Our experience has been hit-or-miss with new grads. Of course, with an absurdly low sample-size, so not really something one can draw general conclusions from. Three have more-or-less worked out. Decent junior-level devs. Two were absolutely terrible. Of course, my employer has such a terrible interview process that we end up hiring people who probably wouldn't be hired elsewhere. I think the trick with new grads is to just be extra-picky.

  • tldr: if you have to use dice to get a job (Score:4, Insightful)

    by xxxJonBoyxxx ( 565205 ) on Friday January 02, 2015 @01:52AM (#48714931)

    tldr: if you have to use dice to get a job you're already f***ed

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by Anrego ( 830717 ) *

      Indeed.

      If any of the advice in this for lack of better word "article" was a big surprise, you haven't got a chance. This is the kind of advice people looking for a McJob need. I'm surprised they didn't mention wearing a suit if you have one and not being too obvious about your mom giving you a ride there.

  • I'd love to know what that CMPID at the end of the URL is.

    Bad enough Dice shitposts their articles here, but are they seriously throwing stuff in the links to track the success of their self posting?

  • Dice = Contract Jobs (Score:5, Informative)

    by JakFrost ( 139885 ) on Friday January 02, 2015 @03:05AM (#48715083)

    I've always been disappointed in Dice.com since it's so full of slimy recruiting firms and even slimier head-hungers offering low-paying contracts. It's so full of Indian firms that it resembles a tech call-center from India and I don't bother anymore to list my resume there since I'll be flooded with worthless contracts in cities that I have no interest in working with. These worthless recruiters don't bother reading your profile or requirements (Perm-Only, Local Area Only) and just spam e-mail and call you with keyword matching crap short-term and low-paying contracts from cities across the nation that you have no interest in working in or moving to. Half the time I can't understand their thick Indian accents either and I wouldn't bother working with them if they can't even communicate well enough with them.

    Dice.com is the slums of Tech Recruiting.

    • Re:Dice = Contract Jobs (Score:4, Interesting)

      by antdude ( 79039 ) on Friday January 02, 2015 @05:30AM (#48715413) Homepage Journal

      So, what are good web sites that are not like Dice.com these days then? I used to use it back in early 2000s.

      • Re:Dice = Contract Jobs (Score:4, Interesting)

        by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 02, 2015 @07:50AM (#48715761)

        To be honest, I don't think any really exist.

        Employers who hire new grads tend to go straight to the universities. Past that, I suspect most decent jobs are found either through networking or by going to places and asking if they are hiring (this can be surprisingly effective, and a lot of places appreciate the initiative).

        It has been awhile since I've heard about someone getting a good job by sending a resume in to some random job they saw posted somewhere. It's always "I have a friend who is working there" or "I heard they won contract X so I went down and talked to them".

        Places like dice.com are, as said, shitty short term contract work. Most companies worth working for do their own HR and have enough contacts through their own employees to find good people.

        • I've been using the job sites, because they do work however the general tendency to offer contract roles is true. Some will be contract-to-hire. Lately I get contacted by phone directly by 20+ different recruiters, mostly not with jobs that are the right fit. By the end of the process I get 2 or 3 serious prospects that I'll actually try to land. I'm pretty much done with this model. I'm not working for anyone else that doesn't have work that's worth doing. Work has to have some meaning or you have to be so

        • going to places and asking if they are hiring

          In my experience you get an answer 1 out of every 3 times. Of those who answer 1 out of 3 will ask you for an interview. Just do not expect it to happen anytime soon. It may take months. The company may not be hiring at the time you asked for a job its as simple as that.

      • Re:Dice = Contract Jobs (Score:4, Informative)

        by __aaclcg7560 ( 824291 ) on Friday January 02, 2015 @08:58AM (#48715987)
        http://www.indeed.com/ [indeed.com]

      • Re:Dice = Contract Jobs (Score:5, Informative)

        by pls2917 ( 97490 ) on Friday January 02, 2015 @10:36AM (#48716587)

        http://careers.stackoverflow.c... [stackoverflow.com] I found my current job there and it's the only place we advertise

  • Painted into a corner (Score:5, Interesting)

    by jandersen ( 462034 ) on Friday January 02, 2015 @04:46AM (#48715299)

    I think the tech industry has painted itself into a corner. I had the misfortune to lose my job early in 2013 and spent almost the whole year looking before I found something; during that whole period I actually saw the same, relatively few jobs being readvertised over and over, with very little new showing up. The sector I was looking at was what you'd call 'devops', and it seemed like the companies were trying to get people with long experience in both development and system administration, but they weren't willing to pay more than what you'd pay for a middle ranking call-center operator. I can't quite imagine how anybody can imagine that being an attractive proposition to anybody with the qualifications.

    So, it looks to me like a number of companies - almost all of them internet businesses - have painted themselves into a corner, where they deperately need highly qualified employees that they are never going to be able or willing to pay for.

    • Re:Painted into a corner (Score:4, Informative)

      by ruir ( 2709173 ) on Friday January 02, 2015 @07:50AM (#48715763)
      I am also a sysadmin with some devop background. It would be interesting to know where you are coming from. I am employed, and have been contacted regularly by people both local and abroad outlets. As for the local ones, both in Portugal and Gibraltar, I have had enough. They ask for the moon, are clueless to know what they want, do not offer any specialisation path, and worse, the pay is low, even for the current market. Ireland seems to be an interesting proposition, Germany not so much, Europe of the North has some interesting projects going on, apparently for our mother tongue Brazil too. Australia seems to always have been very backwards in technology no idea why, and the African market for our ex-colonies was very hot ten years ago, but not anymore. Asia seems to have potencial at the moment, but I really do not know the market (my wife is Asian).

      • I'm in London. There seems to be a reasonable number of genuine jobs, but they simply don't have realistic expectations about what they can get for what they are willing to pay. It is grotesque, really, since they are unwilling to pay, say, more than £40K per year, but on the other hand, they have to pay significantly more for contractors - a very rough calculation says that each £10 per day you pay corresponds to £18000 per year (40 hours per week, 45 weeks per year), an

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by ruir ( 2709173 )
          I also do not get the uk market. It used to be attractive, not anymore. I was a consultant for 5 years, and it is as you say...60K is a good salary for a salaried position. As a consultant I would not charge less than 100 per day, at least and depending on the duration of the gig. I have seen consulting positions for Bristol for 3 months, 400 pounds per day.

        • "There seems to be a reasonable number of genuine jobs, but they simply don't have realistic expectations about what they can get for what they are willing to pay."

          Yet another indication - if any were needed - that the "market mechanism" doesn't work, and is nothing more than a convenient excuse for paying less and demanding more. (Which, let's face it, is the essence of business).

          I have never understood why managers, who really don't understand what programmers and other software experts do, nevertheless

          • Well it is true in a way. Without sales you cannot pay for anyone in the business. Having helped run a family business for some time I kind of get the point. The quality of the work is important but you would be surprised how many clients don't know any better and in fact how many are dumb enough to believe whatever they're told if the salesperson is impressive enough. Even if they get stiffed by that vendor they may still believe they made a good choice because, let's face it, no one likes admitting they m

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by ruir ( 2709173 )
              I do not have an idea what business you where running, but there are several points to the question...while you need people with years of background and training to develop the product, often the salespeople only bring bullshit to the equation. So why should they get more money? You do not need experienced people to sell, though that helps. And you ignored on your reply the point of the unit producing the product being a cost centre.
        • for developers in London id want £400 -£500 perday maybe £350 if I was in desperate need of a job

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by ruir ( 2709173 )
            Exactly the point. 60k year is not pay for a consulting gig.
            • and around 60k is the base salary for a Tube driver

              • Re: (Score:2)

                by ruir ( 2709173 )
                I was just reinforcing a point where salaries and consulting gigs have a very different pay base. I have had a consulting firm who did not know I already secured a job, and that competitors where offering me much more for the same gig, offering me 4k for two months for a telecom gig in Timor Leste. I told them they were idiots in their face.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by ruir ( 2709173 )
      Sorry about the double reply, I noticed something in your email, and forgot to include it. About the rehashing of same jobs again and again, keep in mind there have been studies about 40% of the adverts being fake. Some are made up to increase the perceived value of the company in the market or just to dust off their portfolio of candidates just in case.

      • Well, in 2013 I managed to get called to interviews and then subsequently being contacted about the same jobs for months afterwards by other agents, after I had been rejected. I think the interview part of it rules out the job being fake, but you're right about the fake adverts.

    • I concur regarding mismatched expectations for skill sets and salaries. I saw a local position that I'd be a perfect match for - I'd be their purple unicorn - but they were offering $20,000 less than what I'm currently making. I could probably negotiate a $5-10K salary increase based on being such a perfect match, but $20K isn't going to happen no matter how awesome I am. So I'm not even bothering to apply.
      • You should apply anyway. That way they know how much their purple unicorn really costs, and even if they aren't willing to pay that much, maybe it will help them adjust their expectations.

  • There's plenty of jobs out there for people with 3+ years of experience in things coming out in 2016.

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