Frustrations with interviewing in this wild job market

Peabody said:

In reply to Indy - Guy :

but I've also wondered for a while if he's been having a little fun at your expense.

Canadians are far too polite to do that. 

AngryCorvair (Forum Supporter) said:

Peabody said:

In reply to Indy - Guy :

but I've also wondered for a while if he's been having a little fun at your expense.

Canadians are far too polite to do that. 

Take off you hoser.

DirtyBird222 said:

JThw8 said:

oh what the hell I'll chime in with my current state of the union address as a hiring manager in IT.  We've got jobs, lots of jobs.  I have had one or more open positions for the past two years.   

We've got candidates, piles of candidates, hell I've even told our T&A screeners to send me EVERYTHING, because I dont trust their screening.

What don't I have?   Qualified candidates.   Either due to skill level or more often due to attitude.   We have a very good team right now, to be a fit for the team you need to be a team player, a mentor if the role is at that level, and a skilled technician.   I cant tell you how many interviews went well from the tech side but the person's attitude was a definite no-go.   The few times we decided to take a chance on one of these candidates they never lasted more than two weeks.   

Some roles, we've even been willing to be light on the technical requirements since we have a very specific environment so you will be re-learning much of what you think you know anyway.  But if you come in with the attitude that you are gods gift, I dont even care if you are actually gods gift, you aren't part of our team.

Currently Im looking for a skilled Firewall technician in NC, hit me up if you know someone :)

I'll be the devils advocate here, is it a lack of qualified candidates or are you targeting unicorns and upset when you don't get someone who can be both a software developer while simultaneously running your efforts for FedRamp and writing/enforcing all NIST 800-53 controls and policies? 

That's the problem I saw with my terrible job hunt. This reqs would want people who could do everything and have certifications for everything too. Then they would want to pay as if it were someone with a junior level skillset. 

The IT world is phuked six ways from Sunday in how they recruit and retain talent with unloftly expectations and a total reliance on certifications as a premise for ability vs. experience. 

I got lucky and landed a job with a consulting firm that understands not everyone has every skillset; however, they are more than willing to pay you to get an education or experience in that field if they need you to work in it. Unheard of these days, and the CEO is a total car nut. 

There's stuff out there, you just have to spread your seed like a tree does with pollen, cover large swaths and the probability should go up for a match. 

It's a fair question but not the scenario here.  We aren't looking for magic unicorns who do everything, we are looking for specialists with specific skill sets (ie. Firewall engineers, network specialists, VMware specialists, etc)  The only "above and beyond" we hope to find is industry experience because things are unique here, however we understand it's unique and will train on the industry side if the skills are there.   Hell as an interviewer/hiring manager Im probably even easier to deal with because I give not one wet E36 M3 if you have a degree or not.  It's one of the reasons I dont let T&A screen my candidates, I want to see the folks who have been doing the work, not just someone with paperwork that makes HR types happy.

In reply to AngryCorvair (Forum Supporter) :

Yeah, take off eh

In reply to Indy - Guy :

I'm sure I've spent less time posting in this thread, only part of which is complaining, than the collective time it took to write the two lowest-effort job applications out of the 140+ jobs I've applied to so far. I'm also not on welfare (funny enough, I looked into applying after I lost my last job in the fall of 2023 and saw that a record of job applications was required, but I wanted to try starting my own business in the new year and thought that if I applied to any basic jobs it would be hard to avoid getting one by accident at a time when I might not actually want to, so I abandoned that idea). Out of those jobs, there are 2-3 I'd consider "ones that got away." I've spent pretty much all of my free time since May searching for or applying for jobs. Why would someone who doesn't actually want a job go through all of that trouble? I could've spent that time watching movies and playing videogames instead. I hardly saw any movies or played any games apart from the GRM AC league races in 2024.

In reply to BoxheadTim :

The current "blip" in IT employment is actually objectively worse than the dot-bomb era or the GFC.

It sounds like we have similar educational backgrounds and lack of networking. I only started working a bit before the GFC.

I think I've done pretty well in the "git gud" department, but the skills don't make it any easier to get a job. I've won a few corporate awards, I put them on my resume, still only one interview for anything resembling a tech job out of the 50+ I've applied to, most of which I was fully qualified for. I think a big part of the problem is that a lot of my skills are no longer needed for anything below a systems/cloud architect type position, and since my previous positions are more like midlevel sysadmin (a very endangered job title as everything between cloud architect and the helldesk seems to be going the way of the dodo) I would look underqualified for that kind of work. Plus most of my experience is foreign, and employers here generally tend to disregard foreign experience for whatever reason.

In reply to GameboyRMH :

Are there temp services in Canada? That's where I hire from. Pre-screened and if I don't  like them I drop them. Conversely if the salt mine ain't their gig no hard feelings.