Ping: FOFC HR Contingent (Possible Job Loss)

[sterlingice]

Yeah, unfortunately, it's another "I'm probably losing my job" post for the board. I have to say I'm getting sick of seeing them and I'm certainly not happy to be authoring one. Heck, the giant company I work for doesn't even know that they're losing this part of the contract yet, near as I can tell. The only reason we know is that someone within the company we are contracted to told us and let us know that a rival company is getting all the business in a couple of months. It's probably made it up the chain as one of the guys I worked with told our manager while I was in Colombia. But, really, that just sums it up, doesn't it? They didn't even know they were going to lose the multi-million dollar (part of a 9 figure contract) business until one of us peons on the ground told them.

Well, rather than dwelling on what I can't do, time to get ahead of this problem since I have probably 2 months of lead time. Any help with regards to the following issues or something I haven't thought up is definitely welcome.

-There is a slim but non-zero chance of a silver lining. We never really got along with Richmond for a number of reasons and we had already decided this was not where we were going to settle down and raise a family here. We were probably looking at starting next year but that's now on hold. But maybe this is that opportunity to get us moving again after we had gotten complacent about how good our lives had become the last couple of years (paid off all debts including student loans, quite a bit of travel, saving up money for a house, etc).

Frankly, I was expecting to be around at least another year or two in my current job as I still had some to learn, liked the job, and I didn't really want to be perceived as a job hopper as I've been in each of my past three jobs 9 months, 1 year + 9 months, and now 1 year + 6 months.

So, if I'm going to interviews- do you think that sort of "record", as those are the only jobs I'll have on my resume (I didn't get out of school that much before those) will require explanation of why I'm looking for another job now? In short, do should I bring up that I'm about to get laid off or should I just let it go?

-We can "easily" move within the United States: a generous estimate of $5-10K between breaking lease and moving expenses on par with what we did when we moved from Kansas to Virginia- and that gives us a leg up over a lot of people. My wife works from home so as long as we're in the US or possibly Canada, I don't foresee an issue. So, while we'd be spending a large amount of money to move, we don't have a house or kids to tie us to any location. That's $10K less that we'd have in our house fund but that's better than bleeding money for a year because I don't have a job.

If we move, is there anything we can do to get out of a lease? Particularly related to loss of job? I know there are provisions for military but that's a lot different beast than just "I lost my job".

-I think I had asked this a while back with no response but I thought I'd ask again. Anyone know about jobs in other countries, particularly with regards to visas and citizenship? My wife and I are both US citizens but let's say I had a job opportunity in, say, Canada or, heck, Switzerland (I dunno, pulling countries out of my backside)? Looking at our company's job search site, it looks like you have to have a work visa to apply for work in another country. However, when I go to the Canadian visa site, it looks like you have to have a company you are going to work for to apply for a visa. Is there something about this deadlock that I'm just missing?

-How does unemployment work? Never had to worry about it and hoped I never would but I have 3+ years with my current company and roughly 1.5 in my current position. How do those numbers factor into it at all (3/1.5)? What percentage of your wages, etc- how does all that work?

-Now for another HR part of the situation: Back when I was at training when I just started with my current company, I heard stories from guys making twice what I am who were told to either take a job making significantly less (i.e. basically going from high 5 figures down to 30K per year) or they have to quit. Is this possible and/or common? If I had the choice (which I'm sure I won't but it's good to know) of them trying to transfer me to another job that's much worse (say, something paying $12 an hour in Nebraska or, even worse, $12 an hour in DC where the cost of living would wipe out any wages I made) or take unemployment and keep looking?

-Finally, when that inevitable day comes, if I don't have a job in hand, which is a very likely scenario in this job market, unfortunately- what's a guy to do? Searching for a job just isn't an 8 hour a day job. After you've exhausted all of your leads in the first month or so, you can only beat your head against the computer so many hours a day before you have to do something else. My wife suggested volunteering, which would fill up a job gap on your resume. However, I'm not even seeing that many volunteer opportunities out there to learn new skills so I suspect many have the same idea.

Again, any help on any of these questions is greatly appreciated.


-Oh, and if anyone on the board is looking for an enterprise computer guy: will work for food ;)

I figured it couldn't hurt as my winding path to where I am today started about 5 years ago with a PM conversation between myself and someone else on this board (I figured I'd keep him anonymous unless he wants to be known) about a job in Kansas City. I am still grateful to that person to this day and you know who you are.

SI

[Young Drachma]

Frankly, I was expecting to be around at least another year or two in my current job as I still had some to learn, liked the job, and I didn't really want to be perceived as a job hopper as I've been in each of my past three jobs 9 months, 1 year + 9 months, and now 1 year + 6 months.

So, if I'm going to interviews- do you think that sort of "record", as those are the only jobs I'll have on my resume (I didn't get out of school that much before those) will require explanation of why I'm looking for another job now? In short, do should I bring up that I'm about to get laid off or should I just let it go?

First off, sorry to hear it. But at least you're ahead of it and are being proactive.

New jobs may ask you about "bouncing" around, depending on your industry, but as someone with a similar history of bouncing (in my case due to rapid promotions and then a layoff) you don't have to bring it up.

I had an interview just before I left a job, that I know they only offered me an interview because I had a job currently, if I didn't, they wouldn't have called me. Well, they called me after I'd already left, still flew me out and so forth and while it came up, it wasn't the prominent part of the conversation.

In order words, use the conversation as an opportunity to demonstrate the value you offered those places while you were there, especially if you have good references at each to reflect that.

In my experience, it comes up, but...it's not a dealbreaker. In your case, it might be even be less so, because it's not like you spent six months at places and left.

[jeff061]

Sorry man.

Don't have much to say. Solid references will go a long way towards easing the job hopper perception. Otherwise you just need real solid and understandable reasons for why you left. It's a label I've battled some as well.

[Dutch]

Sorry to hear that, the way contracts work over here, your story is not out of line with reality. What kind of "enterprise" experience do you have? If you don't mind me asking.

[gstelmack]

-Oh, and if anyone on the board is looking for an enterprise computer guy: will work for food ;)

Can you be more specific? Not on the food part, but on the enterprise computer guy part.

[Abe Sargent]

Work visas are like this. You apply for a job. They will ask, do you already have a work visa? You might have one already for a similar job. If you do not, they may still consider you. Then they will make a job offer. If you do not have a work visa, and they offer you a job, then they can apply for that along with you. The problem is that many countries just don;t hand out visa for anyone. It was really hard in the UK to get one, I tried. Even for some Master's level jobs in the UK you wouldn;t get one. Now, I know that thte UK is harder than other countries, for a visa, but that's an example.

[CamEdwards]

As far as breaking a lease, I know my contract has a provision that allows me to break the lease if I am moving more than 30 miles from the house I'm leasing. Not sure if it covers unemployment or not, but that shouldn't be too hard to find in your lease.

Really sorry to hear about this, but hopefully new opportunities are on the horizon for you.

[DataKing]

With regards to your question about being perceived as a "job hopper," I think the perception and whether or not that makes a difference in your interview(s) will depend largely on the culture of the company you are applying for. The company I work for is quite protective of it's employees, and as such we certainly prefer employees who we feel are going to be "in it for the long haul." Many of our company benefits are geared towards employees remaining with the company long term. But at the same time even for us it isn't a show-stopper. The VP of my department was very much an admitted "job-hopper" prior to joining us...he has since been here for 7 years and has (obviously) done quite well for himself.

Talent shines a lot more than anything else during the application and interview process. It may be perceived as a shortcoming on your part (deservedly or otherwise), but it can be more than made up for if you're a strong candidate. Even in the conservative environment company I am with, I have never heard of an employee being outright disqualified due to being a "job-hopper." I work in HR (not in an a Staffing capacity, but I work with those people and hear all sorts of stories)

[wade moore]

Can you be more specific? Not on the food part, but on the enterprise computer guy part.

+1...

Not a high chance, but maybe a smallish chance that I could provide some help without you having to move right away...

[Daimyo]

Sounds like you were with the same company for the last three years, but moved to a new position half way through? If that's the case I wouldn't worry about it, especially if it looks like you were promoted. That will be easy to play up if you're asked about.

Now, if you moved companies every year you probably better have a good explanation ready because you'll probably get asked about it and I know that would be a huge, but not insurmountable, warning sign for me.

[sterlingice]

Sounds like you were with the same company for the last three years, but moved to a new position half way through? If that's the case I wouldn't worry about it, especially if it looks like you were promoted. That will be easy to play up if you're asked about.

Now, if you moved companies every year you probably better have a good explanation ready because you'll probably get asked about it and I know that would be a huge, but not insurmountable, warning sign for me.

Nah- that's what it was. I have worked for the same company for over 3 years but got a promotion (and traveled across the country) about halfways through so I suppose that should be ok. It was a promotion from grunt tech level 2 to grunt tech level 3 but it's still a promotion, right? (I didn't suddenly become manager overnight, for instance, but I am working on higher end equipment and on a higher profile contract) ;)

SI

[sterlingice]

Sorry to hear that, the way contracts work over here, your story is not out of line with reality. What kind of "enterprise" experience do you have? If you don't mind me asking.

Can you be more specific? Not on the food part, but on the enterprise computer guy part.

+1...

Not a high chance, but maybe a smallish chance that I could provide some help without you having to move right away...

I'd rather not go advertising who I work for public consumption over the internet but I'll get a quick writeup for you guys via PM in the next day or so. This came down pretty quickly so I'm wanting to fine tune the resume again.

SI

[sterlingice]

Talent shines a lot more than anything else during the application and interview process. It may be perceived as a shortcoming on your part (deservedly or otherwise), but it can be more than made up for if you're a strong candidate.

I'd argue (lament) that showmanship and polish shines more than anything during the interview process but that's another argument for another day.

(Frankly, it's why I dread the process)

SI

[sterlingice]

Work visas are like this. You apply for a job. They will ask, do you already have a work visa? You might have one already for a similar job. If you do not, they may still consider you. Then they will make a job offer. If you do not have a work visa, and they offer you a job, then they can apply for that along with you. The problem is that many countries just don;t hand out visa for anyone. It was really hard in the UK to get one, I tried. Even for some Master's level jobs in the UK you wouldn;t get one. Now, I know that thte UK is harder than other countries, for a visa, but that's an example.

So how would you get a work visa in the first place? Or do you have to be such a good candidate that they think it's worth the effort to import you and go through the bureaucratic paperwork?

(Or, in this country, you agree to work for cheap and don't ask any questions and you can get an H-1B visa easy! But that doesn't help if you're trying to go somewhere else or retain a job here...)

EDIT: Also, thanks for the insight. It's hard to come by "real" information regarding this online. Sure, you can read pages upon pages of red tape, but it's hard to gauge how realistic your chances are and how the process really flows.

SI

[Abe Sargent]

Sorry, I had this really long and involved post but lost it with an RTE with firefox - wierd. anyway, I was talking about possible back doors that don;t involve work visa, the UK has one where super educated people can get in free without needing a job already lined up and a work visa, and coupels count as one in the points scale, and if you have enough points from education and experience, you get it through this rarely advertised rpgoram because the UK has so many EU immigrants that are not educated.

a work visa is simply proof to the host country that you were needed in the country. the company must attest through documention that after an exhaustive search, the qualified candidtae came ffrom outside the country. Thus, you will need to have a job lined up in order to get your first work visa. Different countires have different standards to get them, as some make that requirement to demonstrate a need for the foreign employee very hard and others pretty easy. It is hard to get a work visa with the UK. It may be easy for Ireland or Australia or New Zealand or Canada, I wouldnt know.

[gstelmack]

I'd rather not go advertising who I work for public consumption over the internet but I'll get a quick writeup for you guys via PM in the next day or so. This came down pretty quickly so I'm wanting to fine tune the resume again.

SI

Hopefully you won't have to go into enough detail to give away the company. I was more concerned with are you an IT guy, sys admin, C++ programmer, database guru, Java nut, web programmer, etc. All of those (and more) fall under the heading of "enterprise computer guy".

[wade moore]

Hopefully you won't have to go into enough detail to give away the company. I was more concerned with are you an IT guy, sys admin, C++ programmer, database guru, Java nut, web programmer, etc. All of those (and more) fall under the heading of "enterprise computer guy".

Yeah - exactly. Wasn't sure if this meant you were just Tier III support guy that really can troubleshoot, you did some architect design, you were a server guy, etc, etc.

[flere-imsaho]

So, if I'm going to interviews- do you think that sort of "record", as those are the only jobs I'll have on my resume (I didn't get out of school that much before those) will require explanation of why I'm looking for another job now? In short, do should I bring up that I'm about to get laid off or should I just let it go?

Honesty is the way to go, but don't feel obligated to volunteer negative information. They're going to ask (obviously) why you left your last job, and you tell them you were laid off because the company lost a huge contract. This isn't going to be an issue - it happens all the time.

Job-hopping? Less and less of a worry these days, and especially in IT. The key is to have a reasonable reason why you left each job. For instance, my series of jobs goes like this: 2 years, 1 year, 1 year, 2 years, 3 years (current). I left each job because either a) a significantly better opportunity presented itself, b) the company was going down the tubes (i.e. a dot com just after the third wave of layoffs), c) I had exhausted all the opportunities for work I had at the job or d) a combination of the above.

Even "I got bored" can be a good reason, if you showed up, finished up the projects you were assigned, and they didn't really have much else for you to do.

So don't worry about that too much.

Searching for a job just isn't an 8 hour a day job.

Sure it is.

1. Create several different resumes for different types of jobs in which you might be interested.

2. Get to know and regularly peruse several job sites.

3. Grow your network and reach out to people. If possible, see if you can get on the phone with people who might be able to steer you to jobs, or take them out for coffee, etc....

You need to be selling (yourself) all the time.

-Oh, and if anyone on the board is looking for an enterprise computer guy: will work for food ;)

PM resume plzkthx.

[Airhog]

What kind of enterprise IT stuff? We are looking for a solid MSSQL DB guy where I work.

[sterlingice]

Sorry for the bit of a delay on this, but it's been a brutal on call week. Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday all had call outs before 6am, which is rough when you're used to a little later schedule. Our normal working hours run from about 9-6 or later as a decent chunk of work that has to be done after 5pm, once the business day is done. So, I know the people who routinely get up at 5 are laughing but when you rarely get to sleep before midnight, 6, 3:30, and 5 all come really early, particularly on back-to-back-to-back days.

Rather than throwing it out in the open for every eye that surfs by, I posted a brief description of my work experience in the spoiler tag below.


I have a Computer Science degree (Kansas) with a programming background but have been a field engineer for my professional career. I work for one of the giant IT hardware/service conglomerates (there's only 3 or, really, 2.5) and have for the past 3 years. I started out with a subcontractor in Spring 2006 as a field engineer in Kansas City, going from site to site, fixing desktos, laptops, printers, plotters, servers, and whatever else we had contracts for. At the end of that year, the big company I work for now took a lot of that work back in-house from the subcontractors and I was pretty much told that if I was offered a job, I should accept because my sub-k job would not exist in 6 months as the work had gone away.

Once with the larger company, I ran most of the same tickets I was running previously but we also had additional duties. For instance, we could have mass installations of printers or servers at a site. I became one of the go-to guys on our team for these as I could give good first impressions to customers thanks to being able to keep a large project organized, my ability to answer questions about the products, and a general professionalism that tended to impress clients. After about a year and a half of this (so ~2.5 total as a field engineer), I talked with my manager about wanting to continue to learn and grow so, with his blessing, I started interviewing and, a couple of months later, moved to Richmond.

My current job involves working in a three person team to maintain all of our hardware in a data center. We maintain the tens of thousands of ISS servers, Blades, some lower-end storage, and some other multi-vendor equipment. Our typical days consist of hardware repair, software and network troubleshooting, and equipment deployment. Most of the time there are scripts we follow to keep things standard but sometimes we get to assist in designing the processes. Personally, I've done projects as disparate as helping troubleshoot ESX deployment scripts to performing the patching and hardware support on SAN migrations to designing and troubleshooting the network configuration for Blade chassis. We're some weird mix of hardware support, system administrator, process engineer, and guinea pig.

I would have preferred to stay and keep learning my current job but one of the other aforementioned behemoth companies is about to poach this contract, greatly expanding their presence at this particular customer's site. We have reason to believe they're going to use their people rather than utilizing our team and the good will and expertise we've built up on this account. In 90 days, the customer is badly going to miss us- we've already been told as much by the couple of clients who know this is happening and they almost universally prefer us to their dealings with the other company. Unfortunately, they aren't in a position to reverse a decision that's already been made higher up the ladder. Again, I'm grateful that one of our clients told us ahead of time so the three of us can get out ahead of what's coming down and we aren't completely blindsided.

As I can get two excellent recommendations by my current and previous manager, I've started looking to leverage that internally for jobs. I'm looking at this fairly open-ended as I'm willing to try a decent number of possibilities. I could continue building on my current skills with another data center based job or some higher end field engineer job, working on more advanced equipment. I could trying delving deeper into something I've worked a bit on in my current job but isn't the main focus like systems administration or networking. I could even try heading in a different direction like technical writing as I've helped author quite a few of our process documents or some sort of technical teacher as I was becoming quite good at teaching customers how to use printers on our mass deployments. I'd even love to get back into programming or database admin work but I found it very difficult right out of school to get a job in those without any professional experience (only a college portfolio) and I imagine it's even harder now that I'm a few years removed from even that. In short, I want a job where I'm going to continue to keep learning.


That's pretty much my story and career description at this point. If you have any additional questions, it's probably best to PM me. I can provide resumes on request as I've finished polishing up a couple of different varieties over the weekend. I can also provide a cover letter if I get some details.

And to everyone, thanks for all the well wishes and help.

SI

[JeeberD]

You call that brief? OK, Chief...

[gstelmack]

Here's the part that I was looking for:

We maintain the tens of thousands of ISS servers, Blades, some lower-end storage, and some other multi-vendor equipment. Our typical days consist of hardware repair, software and network troubleshooting, and equipment deployment. Most of the time there are scripts we follow to keep things standard but sometimes we get to assist in designing the processes. Personally, I've done projects as disparate as helping troubleshoot ESX deployment scripts to performing the patching and hardware support on SAN migrations to designing and troubleshooting the network configuration for Blade chassis. We're some weird mix of hardware support, system administrator, process engineer, and guinea pig.

I'm not aware of any openings right now that fit that bill within my company.

[sterlingice]

You call that brief? OK, Chief...

:D

SI

[wade moore]

Yeah, unfortunately, I'm with greg here. I'll keep an ear out though.

[Toddzilla]

SI - regarding your resume and interviews, Having been on both sides of the process far too many times the past few years, a few things to take away from the situation from the perspective of someone who has hired a lot of people:

Tailor your resume to the job description - you should never send the identical resume to different job openings. In the tech field, the resume says it all. We pick the ones we think are qualified for the specific position based on (1) experience in the field and (2) the ability from job to job to learn new things quickly

By the time your chosen for the interview, we already have a good sense how qualified you are. Hammer the point home and show them that you'd be a great co-worker - friendly, will get along, willing to learn and go the extra mile, etc.

Everything else I'm sure you've got down, but what I mention above are the things that separate the people we want to hire and the people we tell "thanks, but no thanks".

[sterlingice]

Thanks for the continued advice and help, all.

To those who have made longer comments with a lot of detail and knowledge from experience, an additional thanks goes out to you. I know it takes time to type out but the knowledge is invaluable.

SI

[Dodgerchick]

Dang, didn't know about this 'til I read JediKooter's thread. I don't have any advice, just wanted to send some good vibes in your direction.. good luck.

[Blackadar]

-How does unemployment work? Never had to worry about it and hoped I never would but I have 3+ years with my current company and roughly 1.5 in my current position. How do those numbers factor into it at all (3/1.5)? What percentage of your wages, etc- how does all that work?

-Now for another HR part of the situation: Back when I was at training when I just started with my current company, I heard stories from guys making twice what I am who were told to either take a job making significantly less (i.e. basically going from high 5 figures down to 30K per year) or they have to quit. Is this possible and/or common? If I had the choice (which I'm sure I won't but it's good to know) of them trying to transfer me to another job that's much worse (say, something paying $12 an hour in Nebraska or, even worse, $12 an hour in DC where the cost of living would wipe out any wages I made) or take unemployment and keep looking?

SI

Unemployment is typically some percentage of your current base salary (capped). My advice: if you do lose your job, file for unemployment the very same day. Don't wait for pride, a pending job offer or the tooth fairy. File now.

As for the reduction in salary...don't take it unless your circumstances dictate that you absolutely have to. It's one thing if they say that you have to take a 25% reduction in compensation for a limited time period (say, 6 months or 1 year) AND they put that in writing. But if they slash your salary 50% permanently and you stay, then you just told them that you're willing to take a lot less and that you don't have an adequate understanding of your own worth. Frankly, I've never seen that work long-term. The employee is resentful and bitter while the company sees the employee as very expendable. You'd end up wasting time working for peanuts while you could be collecting unemployment and looking for a better gig. Even worse, if you do eventually get laid off, you end up collecting less in unemployment. It'd be different if you had kids and had to put food on the table.

[sterlingice]

Thanks for the continued information and well wishes. I, again, appreciate all the help. I owe a couple of PMs and emails to people but this week has been a 60 hour one after being on call last week so I will get to it all this weekend. Again, thanks all for their patience and help.

SI

[sterlingice]

Update:
Ping: Indianapolis Folks - Front Office Football Central (http://www.operationsports.com/fofc/showthread.php?t=78075)

SI