Job search strategy discussion thread

Huh.

I just got an interview for a filing job with just a phone call.

Only 8 bucks an hour but thats more than what I get now and more my alley

So I just read an article that unpaid internships is no more helpful than not having done it at all. However, I'm and the researchers, are unsure if that is because unpaid internships are simply inherently crappier positions and thus aren't helpful. (Afterall, it's not like you write your salary on a resume)

edited 31st Jul '12 7:26:49 PM by breadloaf

That really depends on the internship and the company it's with. And how you handle it.

Even unpaid, an internship is a sterling opportunity to build a network of people in the field who know you and know what you can do, at least in terms of what you were doing as an intern. And that's where the company culture comes into play. If all you were doing was fetching coffee and sorting mail, they don't have much information about your ability — but they still have a lot of information about your attitude and work ethic, and those two are nearly as important as ability as to whether or not they'll think to recommend you for a real job or not.

Well, I might need to make a choice soon, but at least I have semi-good news.

I'm starting tomorrow as a temp at my roomates IT company doing helpdesk and technical support. My primary skills have always been in policing, but I've been a nerd since long before I was a cop, or even in school. I grew up putting computers together and troubleshooting problems. It helps that I know most of the people who work there through my roomate, and his immediate supervisor is a guy I play super smash with and hike with on occasion, so he got me a temp position.

Here's the thing, yesterday I did an interview for a military position that would involve me relocating to Riverside, and I have a pretty good feeling that I'll get it. It's something I know how to do, and the pay initially is drastically higher, but I would have to move, and I would also have to change to their military unit, and leave the one that I've been with since day 1, which also happens to be the unit my dad retired from. Essentially my surrogate family.

The IT company has always extended an offer of full time employment to its people who have temp'd with them, so I'm not too worried about it being permanent. They pay fairly and take care of their employees really well, and operate like a small family. I can safely say it's a good place to work, but I'm rather deep in debt and severely need to start getting a cash flow in and paying back my bills on even the most mundane things.

So what it comes down to is this:

Military Job:

Pros:

Starts at around 5000 a month.

Been there, done that.

Would relocate close to family, which I start to miss.

It's a supervisory position that would line me up for my next promotion to T Sgt.

Cons:

If I got the phone call tomorrow, it would take about two weeks before I could even start working, as opposed to how I'm going to start at the IT job tomorrow.

15 hour days because of the type of post I applied for. Not counting the drive home.

Funded by the state, which my last job was, which is why I'm in this unemployment mess to begin with.

Gotta leave my guard unit.

IT Job

Pros:

Get to stay where I live, which is a place I love.

Get to stay in my Guard Unit.

Relevant skills so that even if this company tanked, I would have an IT background and I could get another job without too much trouble(IT is huge down here)

Working with my room mate, who is my bro.

Company really takes care of its people and is a friendly environment full of geeks who like hiking and shooting.

Cons:

Much lower starting pay.

Working with my room mate. I already live with this guy ffs.

Cost of living where I live is very high.

In the meantime I'm trying not to give it much thought, because fuck it, at least I'm working tomorrow for the first time in forever sans drill weekends. But I might need to make a snap decision any day now, so I really should think about it. I really want to take the IT job and just take my life down a new path with a new career, but I get blinded by dollar signs when I think of making 5 grand a month again like I used to.

edited 31st Jul '12 8:01:22 PM by Barkey

My mind/heart agree: you should go with the one that you will enjoy more. If you don't enjoy what you are doing, there is little chance of you succeeding. The problem is that you would enjoy both jobs in different ways so you can't directly compare them.

In that case I have two questions for you:

• My mind asks: Which is more important, money now to pay debts or a constant flow of money for the foreseeable future?
  • I would go with the constant flow. You can always negotiate how much you are paying the debt collectors, especially if you have any sort of paying job.
• My heart asks: Are you willing to turn all your current relationships into long-distance ones or do you want to get back in touch/closer to your family?

While I would probably go for the IT company, you are the only one who knows your exact circumstances and no one else will be able to give specific advice.

edited 1st Aug '12 11:24:40 AM by Belian

I already got the new job after calling 2 days ago...

Its bitch work as a File Clerk at a medical office, 8-5 M T Thur.

It can't be worse than fucking Burger King though.

Congrats!

Thanks.

Nervous as all hell though. Gotta get used to waking up early again. ;-;

That's an absolute bitch. I was 2 months unemployed after being in a job for two and a half years - took a month before I really felt the physical impact.

Hella worth it though, congrats!

My head is still kind of spinning.

My guess is they just lost someone and needed a file clerk ASAP.

Hilariously? Its the same hospital my sister works at.

So I had my first day at the IT job today.

I'm fucking sold. It's a really fun work atmosphere, where nerf darts and flying monkeys are a reality every 30 seconds. Everybody in the company works at desks in one big ass room, and it's a bunch of fun nerdy folks who are really friendly. I made a pretty good splash by picking up the case management system they use and killing a huge backlog of tickets on my first day. There were like 60 unassigned tickets when I came in, and we got about 40 during the course of the day, and when I left only one ticket was unassigned, and it was one which requires a manager to modify.

That's good to hear :P

I always like IT departments with fun atmospheres.

I wish I could work at a place like that...

Man, I really think I took the wrong college course. Now I really don't know what to go into...

I don't want to spend my life doing low wage bitch work, I wanna have fun working like that.

What does IT involve? I mean. I'm a great typist...

edited 1st Aug '12 4:23:19 PM by Thorn14

Yeah, I'm currently a contractor on a 30 day contract, but every person this company has ever temp'd has been given a permanent job offer, so my chances are pretty good.

I have a project tomorrow to work on classifying like 3000 tickets left over from their previous classification system, so that people can get to work on them. Lots and lots and lots of small problems that need to be managed are kind of a specialty of mine, so I think I can definitely impress them and classify all of them within a short amount of time, and it is a really hot button issue with the company right now.

It's funny because my roomate is in the engineering side of the company, the NOC, and is being bred to be the sort of right hand of the manager on that side of the fence. The manager of the more service and support orientated side of the company, who pushed to pick me up, seems to have a similar feeling about me, and is absolutely dead set that I'm going to be a serious asset.

Best of all, the head honcho of day to day Operations who makes all the final decisions is a former marine, and everyone in the office loves military. My roomate and the operations guy were their first impressions of the military in the workplace, so the expectations for my work are realistic yet quite high. I'm going to enjoy working here.

The question is what I say if the Unit out in Riverside gives me a call back, if I should turn them down or not.

EDIT: @Thorn

Well I'm at the level 1 portion, which consists of taking the initial calls and using the information given to create a support ticket describing the problem. Other stuff is assigning tickets to specific people based on their workload and their skill at fixing that sort of problem, as well as troubleshooting issues myself.

The big problem is that essentially people create tickets and assign the tickets to themselves for the issues they want to work on. That means a lot of the tough or pain in the ass tickets don't get worked on until the management harps on someone to do it, which is a problem. The manager who hired me on specifically told me that he wanted a military guy for this position to basically play "Commander" and spend a lot of time assigning blank tickets to different people, basically instead of everyone in the office picking and choosing the issues to resolve in the order that they see fit to do them, they are going to just start finding that they have tickets falling into their laps that they are expected to do.

My actions might cause a bit of hard feelings and resistance at first, but this essentially means that instead of letting problem tickets sit, I'm giving them to people in a position to handle them and putting the burden of the responsibility on them to resolve the issue, which is sorely needed. I like the level 1 managers line of thinking on this, he specifically approached my roomate saying he wanted a soldier for this position, because we aren't afraid to dish out duties and responsibilities to other people and generally don't give a shit when it comes to our reputation around the office when we have to play taskmaster.

edited 1st Aug '12 4:30:20 PM by Barkey

I understand.

How hard was it to learn all this? I mean, what exactly do you help with?

I'm a great typist and I'm pretty decent with technology, so I admit I'm curious.

I'm still trying to find what I want to go into. I think art is something I'd like to do but its just not feasible.

I've never had a job that was primarily a techie job, but I have grown up around computers my entire life. I grew up hotseating Duke Nukem 3D/Doom/Master of Orion with my dad. And when he died when I was 12, I was left with a computer and nobody in my life to help me troubleshoot problems, thus at 12 years old I had to learn how to maintain and troubleshoot the shit out of a computer that had an OS like Windows ME without any real guidance or funds for new parts.

I mean I've used web based applications for the military quite a few times and in lots of roles, but primarily in this case it's a combination of the fact that I'm a naturally fast learner, and that I have grown up around tech since before I could walk.

I pretty much learned everything I just described today on the go. The concepts are really easy to grasp, the only part that takes time are the fine little details, which will probably take a week or two for the ticket assignment process. It's things like learning that X problem needs to go to lvl 2 support because it's an advanced server side problem that needs administrator access to fix, versus a nurse at a hospital the company manages calling to say she lost her password, which is something that a lvl 1 technician can easily fix by logging into the user database remotely and resetting their password for them.

Thorn, here's my advice for going in the right direction.

Pick a job that you want to do, that you feel is a realistic goal. Now look on job websites and google search around, and find what the requirements are to get that job. You obviously won't meet them, but now you need to draw out a plan. If it says you need a bachelors degree in a specific discipline, get to work on school if you can. If it wants lots of prior experience, you need to start tailoring job searches to careers that are in similar fields. If it requires you to move, you need to move. If you can't afford to move, chip away at jobs like you are now and save whatever scratch you can so you can afford to do so.

Start at the top of the chain, and draw out a flow chart down to your current level.

edited 1st Aug '12 4:49:22 PM by Barkey

Thanks man, I appreciate it.

Can I ask what IT you're going into? Its broad I hear.

I mean, I'm also pretty good with computers. I mean, I'm not editing registries without a guide, but I can learn.

This is just basic helpdesk stuff. I have no real formal training or background in IT. My job now consists of "Take calls and make a ticket, pick someone to assign the job to."

Damn. Sounds nice... How did you get it again?

Still, maybe you can ask if someone wanted to go into IT what they should do?

It sounds pretty laid back and a good environment.

edited 1st Aug '12 9:49:10 PM by Thorn14

My roomate works for this company. It helps that I've hung out with half the people in the office. One guy is a shooting buddy, the manager who hired me is a friend I play smash bros with a lot, and I've went hiking with a bunch of the other guys.

Supposedly, you can starve yourself for most of a day and then eat when you want to wake up. Just forcing the change is hellish for me.

Damn, I wish I knew people around here. I know no one anywhere, hurts your ability to get in places.

edited 1st Aug '12 10:06:33 PM by Deboss

Volunteer at a Non-for-profit in your area. That is what I am doing right now and, if nothing else, you get that "good feeling" from helping a good cause as well as regular human contact/conversations.

Sigh.

My new job sucked.

I literally spent 8 hours taking files and squatting and shoving them into cabinets....

I'll trade you.

^^

That's not so bad, I've done way worse.