der_kluge
Adventurer
Oh man, this is crazy. CRAZY!
It's a long story. Allow me to explain.
Last year, my lovely employer decided that they were going to outsource all of their IT (information technology, for you lay-folk) to IBM, who would in turn send it (or most of it) to India. Brilliant move, asshats. Anyway, as part of that transition, they offered everyone who was affected (pretty much 90% of IT, myself included) a job with IBM "guaranteed for up to a year!". No thanks. So, me being the proud person that I am, refused their offer, and took the severance package.
While this was going on, I was frantically trying to find another job. My skillsets are kind of niche, and while I'm good at what I do, there are only so many places who hire people such as myself. And because my employer (Sprint) was laying off so many people in the Kansas City area, the job market was glutted. There wasn't anything to be had in KC. So, I started looking elsewhere. Turns out, there are lots of jobs on the east coast, which is what brought me here.
Back up a little. I put my resume on numerous recruiting sites (monster, computerjobs.com, etc) and started talking with a recruiter based in Charlotte, NC. They had a job opportunity in Richmond, VA at Capital One (what's in your wallet?). During this time, I was also working with a guy in Raleigh, who had an opportunity at Northrop Grumman working at the post office. But the post office isn't so swift, and they decided to take their time making any kind of decision. Meanwhile, Capital One gave me an offer, and they needed an answer. So, I waited a bit, but Capital One couldn't wait any longer. So, I accepted their offer, and told Raleigh that I couldn't wait. The recruiter understood, and that was that.
Fast forward 6 months. I'm in Richmond, and everything is more or less hunky-dorey. The guy from Raleigh emails me, and he's got more positions open in Raleigh, and asks if I'd be interested in them. Well, I wasn't expecting this, so I decided I'd at least hear what he had to say. It was a great opportunity, making more money, and working with some great technology. So, I told him I was interested. Thing was, I didn't have any recent experience with the technology there, so that was my disadvantage. And, I was right. So, a couple of days into this, he informs me that they have chosen other people for this positions.
But, in the meantime, my wife and I had been looking at the housing market in Raleigh, and were quite pleased with the cost of houses there versus the cost of houses in Richmond. The housing market in Richmond has apparently shot through the roof in the last few years, and is just insane. We looked at a 25 year old home in one neighborhood with 3,000 square feet. This house absolutely nothing fancy. Just a basic home, in an average subdivision. No fancy appliances, no hardwood floors. Just basic. It even had kind of an odd layout. They wanted $530k for it. Uh, thanks, but no thanks.
So, my wife and I decided that maybe moving to Raleigh, or perhaps Charlotte wouldn't be a bad idea. We've since sold our house in KC (we're one of the lucky ones!) and we're renting now in Richmond. Half of my stuff is in storage. So we agreed that packing and moving now would be fairly trivial.
So, I put my resume out on monster.com just to see what would happen.
Egads. It's actually comical, if it wasn't so bizarre.
Within 30 minutes of posting it, I had a guy email me regarding his service. I call them "finders". For a fee, they find you a job. No thanks.
Then I got an email from someone in Charlottesville with an offer to be a Cadillac dealer. "Based on my experience and qualifications" - wha-? Whatever. It said that a good one could make 100k a year. No thanks.
I got one asking if I was interested in working with the elderly doing something with medicaid. No thanks.
And then there was the one in Funeral sales. Nice. Didn't you read my resume at all??
And then the recruiters started coming in. Oh, at first it was a trickle, but some of them are very persistent.
And some of them cold-call you just to get you in their database. This one guy called me and he's like "I have a job in Richmond that is a good fit based on your skillset". "ok..." And then he asks what I'm making now. IT recruiters are very pushy that way, and as always, I tell them, because you can't get anywhere if you beat around the bush on that topic. And yes, I do all right for myself. "Oh... do you know anyone with your skill set that is maybe more junior..." translation, I can't pay you that much. Nice. Leave me alone. Then I had a lady call me from Seattle. Hey, it's truly a global market, right? And get this, she calls me and leaves a voicemail, so I call her back. And I can hear her scrambling to try to write down information. "What do you do? What kind of job are you looking for?" I'm thinking, "you know, I can send you my resume and end this entire discussion." Worthless.
So then I get my own recruiter involved in this discussion. Turns out, there are rumors of impending layoffs at Capital One, and I haven't had anything to do here since about January. So, that's another motivating factor for leaving. I tell my recruiter, and in true recruiting fashion, unless he thinks I'm terribly unhappy here, he's not going to bust his ass to find me something new, since they want to just maintain the status quo.
And then the best one of all comes at me today. This guy from New York calls with something in Richmond. It's a skillset that looks almost exactly like what I do. He sends me this description, and then calls. And he's just really pushy, and Indian, so he's pushy and hard to understand, but I can deal with that. So we chat a bit, and then he has "Max" call me (another Indian guy) and he's like "are you interested in this job? I can set up an interview for you." Whoa, time out. All I have is a job description. And I ask him what the rate is. "It's open." "Open? What does that mean, I can make up my own salary?" He just laughs. Finally I tell him what I make hourly, and he seems ok with that. "Can I ask what client this" "Um, I'll have to check to see if I can reveal that." Here's the thing, they can't say, because then I could go behind their back and work directly with the client and cut them out of the picture. They don't want that. All I know is that it's downtown.
And so then Max calls me back and wants to set up an interview. I explained to him, despite the fact that I have no privacy where I sit, so damned to the people who might be overhearing my conversation - I don't care, about how I'm probably more interested in a position in Raleigh, versus one in Richmond, unless it paid more than I was making now. But it was also 7 months, and my current contract runs up until Sep '06, so it wouldn't be terribly wise unless I thought it had a good chance of going permanent. He couldn't answer those. And I told him that I could go on an interview, but that there wasn't any guarantee that I would accept their job. And he said that he couldn't do that, that it would make him look bad in front of the client. I told him that I didn't know of anyone who would accept a job without knowing who it was with, what the exact pay rate was, where it was, or what they'd be doing. And he wanted to know why I needed more time to make a decision. I don't know, because I just freaking heard from you TODAY!? He understood (*gasp*) and said he'd get back to me.
And then I go back and check my email and see that I have a contract to perm offer with Blue Cross/Blue Shield in Jacksonville, FL sitting in my inbox.
I guess I should be glad that there seems to be plenty of jobs in the world for me. But JEEZ, this is ridiculous!
Yes, that was long, but I really needed to get that off my chest.
It's a long story. Allow me to explain.
Last year, my lovely employer decided that they were going to outsource all of their IT (information technology, for you lay-folk) to IBM, who would in turn send it (or most of it) to India. Brilliant move, asshats. Anyway, as part of that transition, they offered everyone who was affected (pretty much 90% of IT, myself included) a job with IBM "guaranteed for up to a year!". No thanks. So, me being the proud person that I am, refused their offer, and took the severance package.
While this was going on, I was frantically trying to find another job. My skillsets are kind of niche, and while I'm good at what I do, there are only so many places who hire people such as myself. And because my employer (Sprint) was laying off so many people in the Kansas City area, the job market was glutted. There wasn't anything to be had in KC. So, I started looking elsewhere. Turns out, there are lots of jobs on the east coast, which is what brought me here.
Back up a little. I put my resume on numerous recruiting sites (monster, computerjobs.com, etc) and started talking with a recruiter based in Charlotte, NC. They had a job opportunity in Richmond, VA at Capital One (what's in your wallet?). During this time, I was also working with a guy in Raleigh, who had an opportunity at Northrop Grumman working at the post office. But the post office isn't so swift, and they decided to take their time making any kind of decision. Meanwhile, Capital One gave me an offer, and they needed an answer. So, I waited a bit, but Capital One couldn't wait any longer. So, I accepted their offer, and told Raleigh that I couldn't wait. The recruiter understood, and that was that.
Fast forward 6 months. I'm in Richmond, and everything is more or less hunky-dorey. The guy from Raleigh emails me, and he's got more positions open in Raleigh, and asks if I'd be interested in them. Well, I wasn't expecting this, so I decided I'd at least hear what he had to say. It was a great opportunity, making more money, and working with some great technology. So, I told him I was interested. Thing was, I didn't have any recent experience with the technology there, so that was my disadvantage. And, I was right. So, a couple of days into this, he informs me that they have chosen other people for this positions.
But, in the meantime, my wife and I had been looking at the housing market in Raleigh, and were quite pleased with the cost of houses there versus the cost of houses in Richmond. The housing market in Richmond has apparently shot through the roof in the last few years, and is just insane. We looked at a 25 year old home in one neighborhood with 3,000 square feet. This house absolutely nothing fancy. Just a basic home, in an average subdivision. No fancy appliances, no hardwood floors. Just basic. It even had kind of an odd layout. They wanted $530k for it. Uh, thanks, but no thanks.
So, my wife and I decided that maybe moving to Raleigh, or perhaps Charlotte wouldn't be a bad idea. We've since sold our house in KC (we're one of the lucky ones!) and we're renting now in Richmond. Half of my stuff is in storage. So we agreed that packing and moving now would be fairly trivial.
So, I put my resume out on monster.com just to see what would happen.
Egads. It's actually comical, if it wasn't so bizarre.
Within 30 minutes of posting it, I had a guy email me regarding his service. I call them "finders". For a fee, they find you a job. No thanks.
Then I got an email from someone in Charlottesville with an offer to be a Cadillac dealer. "Based on my experience and qualifications" - wha-? Whatever. It said that a good one could make 100k a year. No thanks.
I got one asking if I was interested in working with the elderly doing something with medicaid. No thanks.
And then there was the one in Funeral sales. Nice. Didn't you read my resume at all??
And then the recruiters started coming in. Oh, at first it was a trickle, but some of them are very persistent.
And some of them cold-call you just to get you in their database. This one guy called me and he's like "I have a job in Richmond that is a good fit based on your skillset". "ok..." And then he asks what I'm making now. IT recruiters are very pushy that way, and as always, I tell them, because you can't get anywhere if you beat around the bush on that topic. And yes, I do all right for myself. "Oh... do you know anyone with your skill set that is maybe more junior..." translation, I can't pay you that much. Nice. Leave me alone. Then I had a lady call me from Seattle. Hey, it's truly a global market, right? And get this, she calls me and leaves a voicemail, so I call her back. And I can hear her scrambling to try to write down information. "What do you do? What kind of job are you looking for?" I'm thinking, "you know, I can send you my resume and end this entire discussion." Worthless.
So then I get my own recruiter involved in this discussion. Turns out, there are rumors of impending layoffs at Capital One, and I haven't had anything to do here since about January. So, that's another motivating factor for leaving. I tell my recruiter, and in true recruiting fashion, unless he thinks I'm terribly unhappy here, he's not going to bust his ass to find me something new, since they want to just maintain the status quo.
And then the best one of all comes at me today. This guy from New York calls with something in Richmond. It's a skillset that looks almost exactly like what I do. He sends me this description, and then calls. And he's just really pushy, and Indian, so he's pushy and hard to understand, but I can deal with that. So we chat a bit, and then he has "Max" call me (another Indian guy) and he's like "are you interested in this job? I can set up an interview for you." Whoa, time out. All I have is a job description. And I ask him what the rate is. "It's open." "Open? What does that mean, I can make up my own salary?" He just laughs. Finally I tell him what I make hourly, and he seems ok with that. "Can I ask what client this" "Um, I'll have to check to see if I can reveal that." Here's the thing, they can't say, because then I could go behind their back and work directly with the client and cut them out of the picture. They don't want that. All I know is that it's downtown.
And so then Max calls me back and wants to set up an interview. I explained to him, despite the fact that I have no privacy where I sit, so damned to the people who might be overhearing my conversation - I don't care, about how I'm probably more interested in a position in Raleigh, versus one in Richmond, unless it paid more than I was making now. But it was also 7 months, and my current contract runs up until Sep '06, so it wouldn't be terribly wise unless I thought it had a good chance of going permanent. He couldn't answer those. And I told him that I could go on an interview, but that there wasn't any guarantee that I would accept their job. And he said that he couldn't do that, that it would make him look bad in front of the client. I told him that I didn't know of anyone who would accept a job without knowing who it was with, what the exact pay rate was, where it was, or what they'd be doing. And he wanted to know why I needed more time to make a decision. I don't know, because I just freaking heard from you TODAY!? He understood (*gasp*) and said he'd get back to me.
And then I go back and check my email and see that I have a contract to perm offer with Blue Cross/Blue Shield in Jacksonville, FL sitting in my inbox.
I guess I should be glad that there seems to be plenty of jobs in the world for me. But JEEZ, this is ridiculous!
Yes, that was long, but I really needed to get that off my chest.
