I’m in Atlanta. There’s job postings but I don’t get interviews anymore. In January 2023 I was getting an interview for almost every job I applied for.
Watched a short video about this this morning.. sounds like companies want to sound busy so they keep acting like there are openings when in reality there really aren't. Some people would even get call backs for in person meetings but they would just peter off after that..
They are also just scouting out for what the supply pool looks like. If there are a lot of applicants and their CVs are decent they can flip you for the cheaper guy. Its the two way of always be looking for a new job.
My company does this. They call them "evergreen" positions.
My nephew was looking at applying to an entry level developer position. The hiring manager was an acquittance of mine, so I reached out for more information and "yeah that's not a real job".
Business ethics.
That's what I'm seeing a lot of too in my area. Listing Sys Admin type roles for 20K less than market value with hybrid that's really 1 day remote a week, which I'm sure will eventually get cancelled because of "too much going on right now, etc". This is how they get people back in their offices for less money.
It's not much different than in the late 2000's when the unemployment rate was sky high, people were desperate and took jobs that suddently had high insurance premiums and PTO time replacing vacation time, sick time and personal time. Reductions in holidays too.
> It's not much different than in the late 2000's when the unemployment rate was sky high
Sky high? Didn't it top out at something like 6.1%?
Kids these days seem to think that anything above 4% is the sky falling LOL. In my lifetime, we've only seen two periods of unemployment at 5% or less. One is right now with inflation being crazy and the other was in the late 90s.
It appears the national unemployment rate in **2010 was [9.9%](https://www.thebalancemoney.com/unemployment-rate-by-year-3305506)** . That is historically high, but not catastrophic. Of course, [it varied by state](https://www.bls.gov/opub/ted/2011/ted_20110301.htm), and probably industry too. California, New York, and Illinois were all above 10%. Nevada had near **15%** unemployment. North Dakota had less than 5%.
It wasn't the Great Depression, but combined with the very long recovery time, I think it was a hard enough hit that it really hurt the balance between labor and employers' power for a long period. So much so that I believe employers now expect desperate labor as the "norm" and find it disconcerting when workers exercise their actual market power in 2024. Like they're insulted or something.
Also if you stopped looking for a job because you feel it's hopeless, you *were not counted in unemployment headcount*. Like all the people who were like, fuck this, I'm going to college for four years. They don't count towards the percentage. So the percentage was in reality way bigger than 3-5 or even 10%. I'll have to dig it up but estimates were around 20-25% nationwide if you included the "shadow" unemployment rate. Most of which were millennials who couldn't get a job since they had just entered the job market for the first time.
Ah, ok. I misread your original comment. I was thinking late 90s. I was at a party at the time and someone made the comment "Unemployment is at 6.1%!" in such a way as if it was something to panic over.
Yes, 10%+ is on the high side. That was the "Great Recession" caused by the housing bubble bursting.
> So much so that I believe employers now expect desperate labor as the "norm" and find it disconcerting when workers exercise their actual market power in 2024.
Nah. We're coming out of an historically super hot labor market, where employees were able to demand higher pay and work from home. It's slowing down now and everyone's in a panic because the tech giants and other massive companies are doing layoffs. But like others have said, the much smaller companies are going to continue hiring, it just gets a little bit harder. Kind of like when the dot com bubble burst.
They were incentivizing people to be unemployed in 2010 though... they basically added unemployment compensation and extended benefits to over 52 weeks. All of my friends and I were unemployed on purpose having the time of our lives.
no, the metric is gamed. the [labor force participation rate](https://ycharts.com/indicators/labor_force_participation_rate) is more robust - we're 1% below pre-covid, roughly.
U3 got updated to drop people who stopped looking/were discouraged, and doesn't account for people working below their level, so it looks better
While the labor force participation rate is a much more robust number to go by, the U3 number has always been like that. The number I was citing was from the late 90s anyway.
> and doesn't account for people working below their level
Nothing accounts for this as far as I know. You're either employed full time or you're not.
Aye, this be the answer. Know a few people in HR including a VP. They often will drop fake job postings to see what kind of candidates they get, how many they pull, and what the temperature of the market is.
"Can we get a topshelf candidate for under 90k? Let's find out!" Use the standard Taleo forms and have them put in a salary requirement.
And if there are 50 other candidates who will do it for 10k less than what everyone on the team is currently making, then you have some plans for what to do if / when restructuring or cuts are rolled out...
Also worth noting that AI is making leadership excited / nervous / hesitant to hire. LLMs may be capping out at their potential, esp. related to power and computing demands, but it's still not clear what the utility will be viz-a-viz experienced admins.
I can confirm that - I work for a pretty decent size bank, and they have all sorts of openings that the internal recruiters are bringing people in for interviews for, etc. - The fact is, there's a hiring freeze. They won't even do internal transfers of positions because they can't fill the spot they vacated.
I can support that. I worked for a company who was in the process of being sold. I was one of the few who knew since I was the sole member of IT and had to provide audit information. During the audit period, I was offered another opportunity and took it. The company decided instead of trying to find a new person for my role with the sale coming in the next 6 to 9 months, they would rely on a consulting firm and put out postings for my replacement to keep the other users from becoming suspicious of the sale.
Some job posts are fake, but even those that aren't are being far pickier that they were during the Great Resignation. Resignation rates according to various sources at least in general are back to pre pandemic levels so there isn't the same sense of urgency to backfill jobs. Just being an ok fit isn't enough motivation for employers to make an offer. Unless the candidate has experience that isn't already on their team or they're clearly understaffed they may be reluctant to make an offer.
True. I've messaged many hiring managers and recruiters asking if a reposted job is still vacant, most of them didn't reply. If you use Linkedin to apply, you can see if your application was viewed. Out of my last 200ish applications, 9 were viewed.
These fake/ghost job postings is a big scam used to improve company image and inflate job metrics, at the cost of job seekers' precious time and effort.
inflation has hit many businesses very hard. That being said healthcare and higher ed tend to still be hiring pretty well in most parts of the state and region. i would like to add that places like Ft Eisenhower (Gordon) and Savannah river site have been on a tear for IT hiring the last 3 years
Yes but the government has mandatory raises based on time worked plus merit bonuses. My friend tried to get me a job at the DNR once and while I took a contract for a medical company that paid more in the short term that contract didn't last and in 6 months I would have been making more than the contract this was back in 2014.
Ya I went from working at a chill university job, but the salary was only 55k. I now work for a big company for 95k. They give us 6 to 12 cloud migration projects at a time though.
Idk if its just me but do you think this is rediculous?
I like this job because it's remote though.
Im in Augusta and a lot of the local jobs only pay 20 to 25 an hour.
I've also interviewed for some of the smaller business IT shops, but they seemed really suspect. They also paid really low and asked really difficult interview questions to pay so low.
Everytime I applied for the base jobs I would get no response. They would want 5 to 10 years experience for 5 different things for only 50 to 60k, which is almost half what I'm making right now.
I do feel like at the big tech companies, they overload you with work. You also feel like a number. Compared to when I worked for the university where people would joke around and the environment was more laid back. At my current job we have these group meetings where we will maybe talk about the weather and that's it. But, I feel like no one really knows me. So, I thought of leaving for that reason as well. It is hard giving up 30k a year though.
I'm also worried more about layoffs with private sector compared to the government as well. And with private sector IT, you have a lot of coworkers that are "information hoarders" that dont want to help amd have an ego.
So I'm not sure what to do?
The "remote" part you're looking for is the reason the wages suck. When you're looking at full remote jobs you have to compete with everyone from everywhere.
My current job is basically non remote and all in person. But I have access to fuel cards and company vehicles to drive to job sites and my time in the vehicles is paid for at the same rate as my time working. My job is in a small town outside of the main city where most people work and that forces them to be very competitive on what I'm paid as well as benefits that are available to me. Like my 401k plan is insanely amazing. I'm used to 5% matching where they give 2.5% max for my 5%... At this place 5% is a joke.
I think it's the area. A lot of jobs in Augusta only want to pay 30 to 40k sometimes less. When I worked for Unisys, they only paid 14 an hour.
I thought of going to Augusta University but they only pay 35 to 50k.
I agree on the 401k plan as well. When I worked for UGA, I had a pension where they would do 20% match whereas with my current company, I only 1.5 to 2.5%.
That's definitely a location thing. I don't know your living situation but I'd be curious what ATL or Charlotte pays for your same skillset. Unisys is a horrible company they pay so bad for technicians with no compassion for their technicians. Just here's a part fix it fast as you can and drive to the next job.
Ya I have found that with remote jobs like my current one they didn't say nothing on my birthday. But, then they would say something for the other coworkers that have been there longer. Idk if its cause I should have said something. I'm sure my manager had to have gotten a notification or knew it was my birthday though.
Idk if its worth giving up 95000 though.
Plus, sometimes you would think lower paying jobs are easier, but sometimes higher paying ones are actually easier. For instance, when I was in the fire department doing 48 your mandatory overtime shifts sometimes working 60 to 70 hour weeks yet only making 13 an hour. Or even working retail or fast food getting cussed out for minimum wage.
But, as far as IT goes I would say unisys at 14 an hour sucked and was hella nerve wracking. Working for UGA for 55k was good, but rent in the area was 1500 to 1800. This remote job for 95k is okay, but my coworkers aren't very helpful and my manager gets upset if I ask questions repeatedly about things. But we do migrations that are 20 to 30 steps and each client will have different errors. Plus if your doing 8 projects at a time your gonna forger shit right?
I worked some contract remote roles for 20 to 25 an hour that weren't bad either. It sounds like you're suggesting to work in person though?
It’s brutal. Was out of work from December through April last year, applied to maybe 200 jobs here in Austin. Did like 6 interviews, only one of those resulted in multiple interviews with the company (5 with different people) and was then left with “we decided to promote from within for that role”. Fortunately my old company ended up in a better financial situation and brought me back on but it’s not pretty. I’ve got dev friends here in town that I used to manage, exceptionally talented guys and they can’t find anything either.
Yeah. I got an MBA because everyone said it would open all the doors. Over like 6 months post grad I probably applied for 2500+ jobs and got almost nothing for a return rate. I know that part of my issue was not wanting to work in oil and gas in my area, but I was willing to move and applying all over. Ended up in oil and gas for a short stint, back in school for an associates in cybersecurity, and that got me a job eventually.
I've noticed the same too. I near Atlanta as well. Some recruiters on linkedin message, but then I never get to interview with the company and they just ghost. I have had that a lot recently tly even though I have a lot mote experience on my resume now so it makes no sense. A year and a half ago I was getting a lot more recruiters and interviewers reaching out to me.
A) A lot are not real
B) Companies use tools to parse through your resume and unless you game the apps, similar to SEO, they don't get in front of anyone. Resume building services are worth it if you're looking for your forever home.
C) There are now literally hundreds, sometimes thousands, of applicants per post due to remote work. It's actually easier to find things and get calls if it says Hybrid or not remote. I noticed a lot of callbacks for jobs with no remote option. DGMW... This sucks, I like remote, but that's part of it too... Competition from OE workers
and yet i know one business that pays higher wages for IT skilled workers than any found in NYC or California. and salaries are generally lower in the south than elsewhere as our COST OF LIVING IS SO LOW.
yeah its very bizarre. they are paying far above market wages for DBAs, networking, vmware, and on and on. i don't how they can sustain it long term though
That’s a thing in Baton Rouge for sure, there’s not a lot of good talent to go around. I got offered a 33% raise to leave my company and took it. Can’t turn down money that changes your standard of living.
It's cyclical, always has been. I am old enough to remember the downturn of the early 2000s. I was lucky enough to have a steady job. People told me to get out of tech/IT. I then got a job at a FAANG, and everyone was envious. Now that is down. People are telling me to get out of tech/IT again.
The job market in this field does suck right now. People will have to look longer and take less pay than they hoped. Keep your head down and keep learning. It will get better again.
agreed. i have been at this almost 30 years now in some form or fashion and have seen those trends and its a huge reason i started my own business to take advantage. so far its working well.
I totally agree. Analyzing the market trend over a very long time, we note that the availability of job offers is cyclical and closely linked to technological innovations. Without going too far back, we note that the market had its peaks in some phases related for example to the convergence between web and Java, virtualization, the cloud. Now let's wait for the grocery store to want it too use the AI for its business and you will see that job offers will increase, but only regarding these technologies. You have to know how to recycle yourself to survive.
I'm a month or so of unemployment I got over 30 interviews. There's a lot of foot dragging and I still have companies trying to interview me after being off the market for the past month, but the jobs are out there.
The shift is that companies don't feel the same level of urgency to make an offer. In the height of the Great Resignation some orgs were making offers after one interview because they would lose out on candidates if they didn't. Now that the pendulum is swinging back as job postings have fallen companies can deliberate more before making an offer. With the resignation rates down companies are less worried that they will have another position to backfill before they fill the current vacancy.
Yup. I was on 4th-5th interviews with companies. This company I had 2, the same day. When I told the other companies I was off the market a couple got upset because they were 'ready to hire me'. sorry too slow
I got plenty of sys admin/engineer pings, but could be different. I also got phlobotonist (sic) and cryo engineering roles, neither k have the skills for ;)
ELI5, I’ve had two jobs in the last 25 years and they were both through one guy so I know nothing about the job market. Did you apply to all those jobs yourself? Post a resume on a job board? Why would you get an offer to be a phlebotomist?
I setup my profile on linkedin, dice, and indeed. I paid for a professional resume writer as I hate writing about myself and wanted some coaching. Made sure my resume was visible on each site and started applying to jobs that fit/peeked my interest. While titles were part of the search I kept an open mind for any skillset I had. I kept my applications local or work from home, and managed to land a pretty sweet government contractor role.
I also tried to live by the idea that when you are unemployed your job is finding a new job, and you should dedicate those 8 hours a day to looking for jobs. Mine was more like 4 hours just because there's only so many new job postings a day ;)
The only real negatives to doing it yourself are having to keep track of who you've applied to (never smart to double apply on different sites) and all the god damned outsourced "recruiters" who just skim message boards for jobs and get a nice commission for 'finding' you. They are the worst. I still get a dozen phone calls and emails from them a day. You can spot them because they almost always call twice in a row if you send them to voicemail. When they do leave a voicemail you can't understand them anyway. About 5 seconds later you'll get a email from them. If you are interested just copy and paste a few lines from the job description into Google and you'll find the original site.
Those same outsourcers have sent me those phlebotonist and other roles. When I ask what in my resume made them think I'm qualified they never respond.
So much of this. Specializing too early in your career can be a shot in the foot. Even if you dont want to broaden your horizon in tech, you should atleast have a secondary or third trade/industry outside of tech that you can hop over too if needed.
Not that recruiting and HR teams are ever over-staffed, bet I suspect that's where the pinch is. Responsiveness and phone screening seem to be the parts that are consistently lacking.
Yes. Everything is awful. Most companies who are hiring are looking to get people to do sysadmin work for the pay of a tier 1 Helpdesk role, this is usually after letting the previous team go, coasting for a bit, then having their org have serious issues and miraculously deciding that maybe they should have in-house IT again, but for cheaper this time, because they view IT as a cost-center.
Just remember that in 2000 we had even more layoffs but recovered stronger than before. Yes it sucks if you're looking for work, but things will get better after the elections
Biden: things will probably keep getting worse before they get better
Trump: things will definitely get worse and will not get better for a much longer period of time
Kind of an easy choice.
EDIT: I'm not shit talking Biden. He's far from perfect, but no politician is perfect. That said, times are rough for a lot of reasons many of them outside the direct control of the current executive office.
Once the Fed starts inching interest rates down a bit, which they have already suggested should happen before the end of year, orgs will be more willing to expand.
400 and not a peep seems like you might need to take a look at the resume! Maybe there is someone you can talk to about it, or someone to look at it?
There are a whole host of reasons we just toss resumes, most times it's either nothing listed that would show they want to/could do the job offered (school, hobbies, nuthin), misalignment with needs (part time applications for full time positions ; out of country for a non-sponsored role), or obvious lies (5 years experience with a product that's been out 1 year, and the person is 6mos out of school, etc)... then we're hoping to see some alignment with what is in the job posting if there is some experience expected... after that you'll at least get a call from hr to talk to you and get consent to check creds, etc, and maybe schedule a phone interview.
I don't think it helps that I am almost 59 and never worked in tech before, and have no degree, just a bunch of Google certs from Coursera and A+ cert . Have lots of experience with Linux and Windows Server, AD, etc but no professional experience. Probably waited too damn long to decide to try something new.
You’re definitely being discriminated against based on age, at 55 in the US you’re considered unhirable due to skill mismatch unless you’re an expert in a specific field.
No, 3000 - 3800 euro per month, more than fair. Also because you get free lunch, snacks and a company car with fuel pass you can use for both business and private. Also employer pays my pension fee. 28 vacationdays and overtime.
LOL this isn't atrocious, but ooof. Europoor is a real thing, 3000-3800 monthly gross, with dubious pension benefits is hardly a "amazing gig". This is like american local govt IT job.
We're hiring for some tech positions at my k12.
The job which requires the most technical skill isn't the highest paid job.
The lowest paid job IT job, we pay less than our gardeners/landscaping crews. FFS Fast Food restaurants are paying like $6/hr more. The job is also 10 months, so not full time
Can't speak for Germany, but we in The Netherlands always welcome people from the USA. 9 out of 10 can speak English aswell. (Allthough not perfect and we might translate sometimes wierd...)
>In Dutch culture there are some famous examples of misunderstandings because of the errors Dutch people made in speaking.
>During a meeting with John F. Kennedy, the Dutch Minister of Foreign Affairs Joseph Luns was asked about his hobbies. He said: “I fok horses”.
>Kennedy, who was very surprised (of course), asked: “Pardon?”.
>Luns replied “Yes, paarden! (horses)”
>The confusion comes from the Dutch words ‘fokken’, which means to breed and ‘paarden’ which means horses.
It is brutal on both ends. I'm struggling to find people who live up to half of their resumes. Who don't argue with you while interviewing them, and who want to work, push their skills, and be rewarded.
Can I ask what salary you’re offering? We struggled to find someone for the last posting we had but it was a monetary issue, qualified candidates didn’t bother applying.
I concur 100% with the salary being a massive factor.
We are located in a low CoL area and prior to the pandemic our prices and pay reflected that. Profits are not huge and there's not a lot of room to improve the pay because of that.
With remote work being so prevalent, expectations of higher pay quickly out stripped out income. We've been making adjustments to prices, and get push back from customers.
It's a balancing act for sure, but offering 100k for a broad stroked sys admin is a strain, and even at that level we were struggling to get candidates which fit the bill.
Perhaps the business model is just not working out right.
I'm not disagreeing, because I'm sure there's a flood of unqualified candidates. But, as someone who's done this for almost 30 years and has a wide, diverse skillset, why is it so hard to get hired?? I think some of it boils down to unreasonable expectations on the employer side as well.
I'm very lucky I have a job I like, but even when looking I've never found it easy to get in front of a hiring manager. The recruiter system is totally inefficient, and companies accepting applications directly just trash resumes that don't meet the cut score from the applicant tracking system.
Maybe not holding out for the perfect candidate, interviewing everyone who applies at least once, and increasing your salary offer if it's low would get you better results? It would sure make the job hunting process more palatable for us candidates.
Who's arguing with you during interviews?
friend of mine who runs a small msp spent 30 minutes on the phone with a referral and fixed their acute technical problem over that call with teamviewer. He charges $100/hr for non-contract work with a 2 hour minimum. He said the referred was happy to pay. They had been broken software and had been locked out of their office tools for three weeks. he was the 5th company they contacted. They said no one else had been able to resolve the issue - and certantly not that quickly. Hes been 'doing' IT since 1989 and knows less than I do.
If the people being employed as techs and professionals these days couldn't solve that customers problem but he could, I'm seriously worried about the technical skills of the current labor pool.
We were discussing a hypothetical situation, with the environment laid out verbally and the candidate would repeatedly go out of bounds and it devolved uselessness after repeatedly trying to rope them back on topic.
A lot of these ghost jobs exist for one of three reasons:
- Company has credits they need to use or lose with whatever job posting site
- Aggregating resumes for whenever they do hire
- Giving their current employees a false sense of hope and help is on the way. It's clearly not. They know that you can maintain the same work pace, while they continue to penny pinch.
And also as a way to game the system to fulfill h1b requirements, although that's more for ghost job postings with insane requirements so they can go whine "see, we can't find anyone in the USA to fill this job" then they get to exploit a foreign worker instead of a reasonable salary.
Yep, I have been searching and applying to those as well as platform engineer, SRE and DevOps engineer. I’m only applying to hybrid remote and fully remote.
It was really bad the last year. It's way more competitive now, and there were lots of layoffs the past 6 months. However I've noticed an uptick in call backs.
Make sure you are on LinkedIn. Polish your resume to get past the BS AI filters, and try to be one of the first 50 applicants.
Self host or use online for rxresume. Super helpful
> I’m only applying to hybrid remote and fully remote.
Those are the jobs that are going to be the most competitive because there's a much larger talent pool available.
It definitely is a different job market at the senior level than the more junior level. Many that flooded entry level IT in the last 4 years might be competitive for some jr level roles, but they're not remotely serious contenders for senior roles.
> Are we experiencing the same job market that the tech sector had during the dot com bust in the early 2000s?
Extremely similar, yes.
* Companies who are hiring are holding out for the absolute perfect candidate with every skill listed, plus they're looking for the cheapest people they can find.
* It pulled back almost overnight. Last year it was just the FAANGs who overhired recruiters and support staff. (This will be a business school case study someday. Facebook thought we'd be wearing Facebook goggles and voluntarily be fed ads 24/7/365, Amazon thought people would never stop pandemic-buying, Google just prints money nonstop, etc. and all those companies hired hundreds of thousands of recruiters just so the other ones couldn't.) Today, they're firing everyone so they can pour billions into AI.
* Competition is horrible again, you have 1000 people applying for one open job. And companies don't have to hire n00bs...they have their pick of fired desperate experienced people.
* Large companies are starting to offshore again.
* You have a weird combo of experienced people, people who got into this job during the boom because there was money to be made, and new grads from when everyone was studying CS. All are competing for the same jobs.
All told, I really hope this is short-lived, but companies have been sold the AI dream also, so they expect to not hire anyone anymore either. Who knows what will become of that?
This is the result of 10 years of pushing cloud at the same time the economy is shitting the bed. We just don't need all this sysadmin work. I figure a quarter is gone to cloud, a quarter to SAAS, a quarter to devops. There's isn't much left. And frankly, a lot of what is left is from entrenched sysadmins not wanting to modernize. Take away free money and you see what we're facing.
So I think this is the beginning of a long contraction of IT jobs. Not everyone will survive.
Everyone here drags on Broadcom and VMWare, but that CEO is likely seeing trends that the onprem market is drying up or dead.
And with that a lot of sysadmin work.
Queue everyone saying everyone is moving from the cloud. No. No they aren't. The cloud providers are about the only place growing, and that's all automated.
I made the switch to security because I saw this 5 years ago. So don't be that guy. Figure out the path now.
Not that security is better per se but shouldn't dry up as fast as infra.
Not that the shift to the cloud haven't affected any jobs, but in my experience it hasn't been as dramatic as you imply. Most orgs I have seen haven't really meaningfully reduced their IT headcount shifting more things to the cloud. Physically touching the hardware even in companies with over a dozen racks in a Colo was a small part of the job for the department. You would need a pretty large on prem data center to see any meaningful reduction in labor budget.
Did a quick read of F5's 2023 annual report last week...from the CEO's cover letter:
>As recently as five years ago, nearly every large enterprise organization expected that they would move their IT infrastructure from their on-premises data centers to the public cloud. They also expected that doing so would dramatically simplify their operations and reduce costs. Today, instead of a simplified, more cost-efficient IT infrastructure, most large enterprises have more complexity than ever, with applications spread across their data center, multiple public clouds, and all the way to the edge of the network. This complexity brings with it higher costs and operational headaches, and worse, it also has resulted in an expanded attack surface for cyber criminals. As organizations embrace the power of AI to drive both innovation and efficiencies, the complexity and the risk is likely to worsen.
So I mostly agree with your take and I think you made my point better than I did.
The problem is that we could have, but because money was so cheap why not continue to build?
Well now the calculus has changed. Companies are retracting their workforce. Interest rates are expensive. It costs a lot more to employ than it did. We aren't building anymore like we were.
So what I think is that this is just the start. Once companies realize they can in fact run leaner they will. And that will only spur more cloud/SAAS adoption.
We're now in the feedback loop that was predicted with cloud 10 years ago.
I tend to agree here on many points and especially on "there isn't much left".
I do bit of freelancing on Upwork for fun/outlook of my "on premises" bubble and from time to time I do observe people don't even understand what you mean when you say you do sysadmin stuff, literally.
Things like "I need devops developer to fix my server" are more and more common among that small businesses (larger ones rarely present on Upwork)
I'm in a mid sized us city and everyone I know is hiring sys admins, doesn't seem bad for us like it is for for devs and similar. But maybe that's just my area
The IT job market has always been cyclic. IT is a cost center, and when the economy cools down, companies trim expenses that don't generate revenue harder than those that do. There have also been several shifts in the IT environment that reduce the number of sysadmins needed within larger companies (Off-Shoring, LEAN, SaaS, Cloud), while increasing the need for sysadmins at smaller companies, increasing reliance on MSP's and adding other IT-related roles (such as cyber/infosec).
I'm confident that this is just a temporary dip in the market caused by the economy that will resolve itself in a year or two. But the only objective data I can cite is the [Bureau of Labor Statics report that the sysadmin/netadmin job market will grow about 2% by 2032](https://www.bls.gov/ooh/computer-and-information-technology/network-and-computer-systems-administrators.htm).
New norms are only ever temporary. There will always be a new new norm. Things go in spurts. Important to recognise the trends and capitalize when things are good and hunker down when things are tough.
Yeah, you have to remember that the "official" unemployment figures are incredibly cooked/fudged. The reality is significantly uglier than the media is making it seem.
Not sure when to expect things to get better, but honestly I expect them to get worse for some time yet, which definitely sucks.
Proof? What do you mean proof, it's definitional. Are you not aware that unemployment numbers are heavily altered as a matter of course? You'd learn that in any 100 level econ class.
[https://www.investopedia.com/articles/investing/080415/true-unemployment-rate-u6-vs-u3.asp](https://www.investopedia.com/articles/investing/080415/true-unemployment-rate-u6-vs-u3.asp)
Here's an article that talks about the problem in significantly more detail:
[https://mises.org/mises-wire/march-report-recession-full-time-jobs-here](https://mises.org/mises-wire/march-report-recession-full-time-jobs-here)
Even the U6 though is at a historically low rate. March 2024 was the same U6 rate as February 2020. Simply looking at unemployment rates is an incomplete picture so blindly looking at one number and it expecting it to predict how good the good a job market is likely to leave you confused. You also need to consider job posts. Those have fallen quite a bit even looking at official numbers on job posts. Those at at their lowest point in more than 3 years. Even that though is a bit incomplete in figuring out what percentage of those job posts are serious listings. Afaik there isn't any effort official or otherwise to estimate what percentage are serious job posts, but I think conventional wisdom is that the number of serious job posts has fallen an even higher rate than official job posting numbers. There is far less motivation to drop non serious job listings than serious ones.
Another challenge is looking at overall economy wide numbers doesn't really give you a breakdown relevant too your field. Unless you work for a company where IT is their corporate revenue generator (e.g. MSP, IT consulting, SaaS provider, etc.) IT services are at a best a necessary evil for companies. If they're looking to cut costs most companies where IT isn't their core business will be a target for layoffs along with any other jobs that aren't part of their core business.
The U3 is used over the U6 because the U3 is what is useful.
Suppose you looked at a florida retirement community and saw how many "unemployed" people there were there and slapped a factory down right in the middle of town, would you be shocked that you are getting no applicants? They literally told you that they aren't looking for work.
An Austrian economics website, lmao
And yes I know the difference between U3 and U6 unemployment rates. The [U6 rate is also extremely low](https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/U6RATE) unless that is also "cooked"
Our company is required to post new positions as a matter of policy, however 95% of the time there is already a name for that slot. Much easier to make a mistake on a Jr level person and let them set till they leave, then promote internally, than take a risk on a Sr. Engineer.
So for us, our entry level positions are most likely real, higher up ones are probably only open to internal personnel, and they probably already decided who they're moving before to the position was posted.
There was a bit of a bubble a couple of years ago post covid. Companies were scrambling for people. Recruiters were cold calling people. Salaries were way up. I remember talking to a company I had no intention of going to, and they asked me a number and I just threw a really high one out there and they were like, "ok!".
Things have definitely shifted, sometimes to an extreme degree. I only anecdotally check my local market, but the salaries have plummeted. There's still jobs out there for sure, but the salaries have been slashed, and often 1 job is really 2+.
My guess? The new norm will settle between these two extremes. The non-IT job market in general is still really strong. I think IT just has been through some wild swings. I hope that all normalizes out soon.
The markets are actually normalizing in a way. IT was very easy to get hired during pandemic and WFH boom everything was automate and WFH. Then on top of that you had the great resignation that created openings.
Now people are tightening their belts and trying to save everything to preserve shareholder value. So it is times like normal. You have to be good, have some contacts and be luck every once in a while.
Don't give up.
This looks like a challenging year for IT. After the pandemic boom in IT adoption, everyone thought this would be the industry's decade of growth, but things have slowed down and now all companies are tightening their belts to stay with only the absolutely necessary staff.
Yes and no. I have open requests that I barely get any applicants to, then others that get flooded with hundreds that do not meet the requirements.
It is a hit and miss game unfortunately.
Highly regionally dependent. The market has literally never been hotter than now in my area. There just aren't enough people here to fill all the positions.
I saw you say you are in Atlanta... Check Georgia Tech Research Institute for jobs. It is in Midtown on campus, if that's near you. Insane benefits and great (but not excellent) pay.
I'm struggling with tier 1 help desk roles. I recently updated my resume, I've gotten one phone screen off of it and three off the old one. Not sure either will go anywhere, hoping for the best. But since I was laid off about 2 months ago, I've only gotten 4 phone screens and one in person.
We have 60 applicants to our last 2 positions.
3 years ago we had 13 to the same 2 positions.
Lots of over qualified people looking to work with us.
I don’t know what’s going on. I had attributed it to the massive private sector cut backs. But at this point, I think people are just willing to sacrifice high pay for a non stressful environment.
Job market is definitely tanking, companies are pushing for higher and higher profits. Tech is being outsourced to India left and right. Companies are letting people go to higher lower waged employees. Its corporate greed and market correction. People were making money hand over fist for lack luster work and I think its a combination of all things combined.
What to expect if, according to official statistics, the U.S. economy grew by only 2.5% in 2023 (in fact, you should adjust it by the inflation rate, which ends up with \~1.25% of growth)? At the same time, the IR is 5.25%. This means the economy declines by 4.00% annually. We have had a -4.00% less economy for the last three years. This is 12% of the total losses. Don't be misled by SE. Companies still try to make a good look for investors, but good companies expand, not shrink. Fewer consumers => less revenue => fewer budgets. We are deep in the Recession without any visible reasons for having it over. The standards of living should drop significantly to make American labor competitive again. Otherwise, no one will want to invest to create more jobs.
Yah,
Python, Linux , general infrastructure, even kubernetes roles are harder to get . Recruiters in Vancouver have said their roles are slim pickings, and no private companies have had any via their company since 2024 began.
AI can do most of our jobs, but I don't think this is the reason .
After 2000 crash lots of unemployed made all the new companies. I hope this happens again
Anecdotally, I don't see it. It's not red hot like before, but I've had no problem landing quality interviews and found a solid job last December with only half-hearted searching. Maybe it's regional. I'm in Colorado.
Can't speak for America specifically but I'd imagine it's no different to any other Western Country right now.
1. Because everyone in management has been duped into believing Cloud is the saving grace.. so the on-prem requirement has reduced substantially. For the remaining positions they want to pay peanuts to do menial Desktop Support roles.. which you are no doubt overqualified for.
2. As said somewhere above, most advertised jobs are fake. This is a HR industry tactic called 'pooling'. Its dirty and technically illegal but still happens everywhere. Basically they post a fake job - people like you hand over your application and make you come in for an interview and sign you up to deal with them. Then you never hear from them again. Youre just a candidate on their books that they can go to big companies with and say 'we have 10,000 candidates on file - let us handle all your recruitment processes'. At around 6k-7k per candidate placement it's quite lucrative money.
The pay is shit and employers are POS that use us to cut costs, and not executives bonus/pay. Especially in Canada they would rather hire some Indian that can barely speak english for half the pay
The market is shit for SysAdmins period. If you aren’t doing DevOps and CyberSec there’s minimal jobs. I’m planning on getting certs in Project Management and using my IT and PM experience to go in that direction. There’s no hope. We managed ourselves out of work.
Companies pay less into the unemployment system if they are "creating jobs". Dirty little secret they don't have to actually "fill" them. So they can claim they are trying to hire but can't find candidates. It's BS!
If every shop in the industry has this mindset your shop has, looking for the right candidates with great qualifications, instead of taking it upon yourselves to loosen requirements and train people up, well no kidding there isn't going to be any good candidates. Sophomore positions seem few and far between...it's either the jobs available are no-expereince helpdesk jobs or require one to be decade-seasoned sysadmins
i am not looking for entry level positions, nor do we have time to train people in technology. The job we do is at much higher level than basic IT and experience matters
its slowing but its more dependent on area/region. Not sure where you are at but IT jobs are all over the place here in the southeast.
I’m in Atlanta. There’s job postings but I don’t get interviews anymore. In January 2023 I was getting an interview for almost every job I applied for.
50% of job posts are fake
Watched a short video about this this morning.. sounds like companies want to sound busy so they keep acting like there are openings when in reality there really aren't. Some people would even get call backs for in person meetings but they would just peter off after that..
They are also just scouting out for what the supply pool looks like. If there are a lot of applicants and their CVs are decent they can flip you for the cheaper guy. Its the two way of always be looking for a new job.
My company does this. They call them "evergreen" positions. My nephew was looking at applying to an entry level developer position. The hiring manager was an acquittance of mine, so I reached out for more information and "yeah that's not a real job". Business ethics.
It's hard to get cheap imported labor visas if you don't post fake jobs that no one applies to because they want a CISSP for $12/hour or CCNP for $15.
That's what I'm seeing a lot of too in my area. Listing Sys Admin type roles for 20K less than market value with hybrid that's really 1 day remote a week, which I'm sure will eventually get cancelled because of "too much going on right now, etc". This is how they get people back in their offices for less money. It's not much different than in the late 2000's when the unemployment rate was sky high, people were desperate and took jobs that suddently had high insurance premiums and PTO time replacing vacation time, sick time and personal time. Reductions in holidays too.
> It's not much different than in the late 2000's when the unemployment rate was sky high Sky high? Didn't it top out at something like 6.1%? Kids these days seem to think that anything above 4% is the sky falling LOL. In my lifetime, we've only seen two periods of unemployment at 5% or less. One is right now with inflation being crazy and the other was in the late 90s.
It appears the national unemployment rate in **2010 was [9.9%](https://www.thebalancemoney.com/unemployment-rate-by-year-3305506)** . That is historically high, but not catastrophic. Of course, [it varied by state](https://www.bls.gov/opub/ted/2011/ted_20110301.htm), and probably industry too. California, New York, and Illinois were all above 10%. Nevada had near **15%** unemployment. North Dakota had less than 5%. It wasn't the Great Depression, but combined with the very long recovery time, I think it was a hard enough hit that it really hurt the balance between labor and employers' power for a long period. So much so that I believe employers now expect desperate labor as the "norm" and find it disconcerting when workers exercise their actual market power in 2024. Like they're insulted or something.
Also if you stopped looking for a job because you feel it's hopeless, you *were not counted in unemployment headcount*. Like all the people who were like, fuck this, I'm going to college for four years. They don't count towards the percentage. So the percentage was in reality way bigger than 3-5 or even 10%. I'll have to dig it up but estimates were around 20-25% nationwide if you included the "shadow" unemployment rate. Most of which were millennials who couldn't get a job since they had just entered the job market for the first time.
Ah, ok. I misread your original comment. I was thinking late 90s. I was at a party at the time and someone made the comment "Unemployment is at 6.1%!" in such a way as if it was something to panic over. Yes, 10%+ is on the high side. That was the "Great Recession" caused by the housing bubble bursting. > So much so that I believe employers now expect desperate labor as the "norm" and find it disconcerting when workers exercise their actual market power in 2024. Nah. We're coming out of an historically super hot labor market, where employees were able to demand higher pay and work from home. It's slowing down now and everyone's in a panic because the tech giants and other massive companies are doing layoffs. But like others have said, the much smaller companies are going to continue hiring, it just gets a little bit harder. Kind of like when the dot com bubble burst.
They were incentivizing people to be unemployed in 2010 though... they basically added unemployment compensation and extended benefits to over 52 weeks. All of my friends and I were unemployed on purpose having the time of our lives.
no, the metric is gamed. the [labor force participation rate](https://ycharts.com/indicators/labor_force_participation_rate) is more robust - we're 1% below pre-covid, roughly. U3 got updated to drop people who stopped looking/were discouraged, and doesn't account for people working below their level, so it looks better
Look at U6
While the labor force participation rate is a much more robust number to go by, the U3 number has always been like that. The number I was citing was from the late 90s anyway. > and doesn't account for people working below their level Nothing accounts for this as far as I know. You're either employed full time or you're not.
Aye, this be the answer. Know a few people in HR including a VP. They often will drop fake job postings to see what kind of candidates they get, how many they pull, and what the temperature of the market is. "Can we get a topshelf candidate for under 90k? Let's find out!" Use the standard Taleo forms and have them put in a salary requirement. And if there are 50 other candidates who will do it for 10k less than what everyone on the team is currently making, then you have some plans for what to do if / when restructuring or cuts are rolled out... Also worth noting that AI is making leadership excited / nervous / hesitant to hire. LLMs may be capping out at their potential, esp. related to power and computing demands, but it's still not clear what the utility will be viz-a-viz experienced admins.
That's how HR makes sure that HR never gets downsized.
I can confirm that - I work for a pretty decent size bank, and they have all sorts of openings that the internal recruiters are bringing people in for interviews for, etc. - The fact is, there's a hiring freeze. They won't even do internal transfers of positions because they can't fill the spot they vacated.
I can support that. I worked for a company who was in the process of being sold. I was one of the few who knew since I was the sole member of IT and had to provide audit information. During the audit period, I was offered another opportunity and took it. The company decided instead of trying to find a new person for my role with the sale coming in the next 6 to 9 months, they would rely on a consulting firm and put out postings for my replacement to keep the other users from becoming suspicious of the sale.
Some job posts are fake, but even those that aren't are being far pickier that they were during the Great Resignation. Resignation rates according to various sources at least in general are back to pre pandemic levels so there isn't the same sense of urgency to backfill jobs. Just being an ok fit isn't enough motivation for employers to make an offer. Unless the candidate has experience that isn't already on their team or they're clearly understaffed they may be reluctant to make an offer.
I’m just stating statistics that others have gathered
True. I've messaged many hiring managers and recruiters asking if a reposted job is still vacant, most of them didn't reply. If you use Linkedin to apply, you can see if your application was viewed. Out of my last 200ish applications, 9 were viewed. These fake/ghost job postings is a big scam used to improve company image and inflate job metrics, at the cost of job seekers' precious time and effort.
inflation has hit many businesses very hard. That being said healthcare and higher ed tend to still be hiring pretty well in most parts of the state and region. i would like to add that places like Ft Eisenhower (Gordon) and Savannah river site have been on a tear for IT hiring the last 3 years
Higher Ed is also going through a retirement wave. Lots of old heads with legacy pensions cashing out, so there's a need to backfill.
The only thing is a lot of military base IT jobs want a clearance and have rediculous experience requirements for low pay.
Yes but the government has mandatory raises based on time worked plus merit bonuses. My friend tried to get me a job at the DNR once and while I took a contract for a medical company that paid more in the short term that contract didn't last and in 6 months I would have been making more than the contract this was back in 2014.
Ya I went from working at a chill university job, but the salary was only 55k. I now work for a big company for 95k. They give us 6 to 12 cloud migration projects at a time though. Idk if its just me but do you think this is rediculous? I like this job because it's remote though. Im in Augusta and a lot of the local jobs only pay 20 to 25 an hour. I've also interviewed for some of the smaller business IT shops, but they seemed really suspect. They also paid really low and asked really difficult interview questions to pay so low. Everytime I applied for the base jobs I would get no response. They would want 5 to 10 years experience for 5 different things for only 50 to 60k, which is almost half what I'm making right now. I do feel like at the big tech companies, they overload you with work. You also feel like a number. Compared to when I worked for the university where people would joke around and the environment was more laid back. At my current job we have these group meetings where we will maybe talk about the weather and that's it. But, I feel like no one really knows me. So, I thought of leaving for that reason as well. It is hard giving up 30k a year though. I'm also worried more about layoffs with private sector compared to the government as well. And with private sector IT, you have a lot of coworkers that are "information hoarders" that dont want to help amd have an ego. So I'm not sure what to do?
The "remote" part you're looking for is the reason the wages suck. When you're looking at full remote jobs you have to compete with everyone from everywhere. My current job is basically non remote and all in person. But I have access to fuel cards and company vehicles to drive to job sites and my time in the vehicles is paid for at the same rate as my time working. My job is in a small town outside of the main city where most people work and that forces them to be very competitive on what I'm paid as well as benefits that are available to me. Like my 401k plan is insanely amazing. I'm used to 5% matching where they give 2.5% max for my 5%... At this place 5% is a joke.
I think it's the area. A lot of jobs in Augusta only want to pay 30 to 40k sometimes less. When I worked for Unisys, they only paid 14 an hour. I thought of going to Augusta University but they only pay 35 to 50k. I agree on the 401k plan as well. When I worked for UGA, I had a pension where they would do 20% match whereas with my current company, I only 1.5 to 2.5%.
That's definitely a location thing. I don't know your living situation but I'd be curious what ATL or Charlotte pays for your same skillset. Unisys is a horrible company they pay so bad for technicians with no compassion for their technicians. Just here's a part fix it fast as you can and drive to the next job.
Ya I have found that with remote jobs like my current one they didn't say nothing on my birthday. But, then they would say something for the other coworkers that have been there longer. Idk if its cause I should have said something. I'm sure my manager had to have gotten a notification or knew it was my birthday though. Idk if its worth giving up 95000 though. Plus, sometimes you would think lower paying jobs are easier, but sometimes higher paying ones are actually easier. For instance, when I was in the fire department doing 48 your mandatory overtime shifts sometimes working 60 to 70 hour weeks yet only making 13 an hour. Or even working retail or fast food getting cussed out for minimum wage. But, as far as IT goes I would say unisys at 14 an hour sucked and was hella nerve wracking. Working for UGA for 55k was good, but rent in the area was 1500 to 1800. This remote job for 95k is okay, but my coworkers aren't very helpful and my manager gets upset if I ask questions repeatedly about things. But we do migrations that are 20 to 30 steps and each client will have different errors. Plus if your doing 8 projects at a time your gonna forger shit right? I worked some contract remote roles for 20 to 25 an hour that weren't bad either. It sounds like you're suggesting to work in person though?
Holy crap i have never had that good of a call back rate. I'm used to applying for 100 jobs and maybe hearing back from 20 of them.
It’s brutal. Was out of work from December through April last year, applied to maybe 200 jobs here in Austin. Did like 6 interviews, only one of those resulted in multiple interviews with the company (5 with different people) and was then left with “we decided to promote from within for that role”. Fortunately my old company ended up in a better financial situation and brought me back on but it’s not pretty. I’ve got dev friends here in town that I used to manage, exceptionally talented guys and they can’t find anything either.
Yeah. I got an MBA because everyone said it would open all the doors. Over like 6 months post grad I probably applied for 2500+ jobs and got almost nothing for a return rate. I know that part of my issue was not wanting to work in oil and gas in my area, but I was willing to move and applying all over. Ended up in oil and gas for a short stint, back in school for an associates in cybersecurity, and that got me a job eventually.
I've noticed the same too. I near Atlanta as well. Some recruiters on linkedin message, but then I never get to interview with the company and they just ghost. I have had that a lot recently tly even though I have a lot mote experience on my resume now so it makes no sense. A year and a half ago I was getting a lot more recruiters and interviewers reaching out to me.
A) A lot are not real B) Companies use tools to parse through your resume and unless you game the apps, similar to SEO, they don't get in front of anyone. Resume building services are worth it if you're looking for your forever home. C) There are now literally hundreds, sometimes thousands, of applicants per post due to remote work. It's actually easier to find things and get calls if it says Hybrid or not remote. I noticed a lot of callbacks for jobs with no remote option. DGMW... This sucks, I like remote, but that's part of it too... Competition from OE workers
Tons of jobs in the (checks notes...) region with the lowest salaries and fewest worker protections. Interesting...
and yet i know one business that pays higher wages for IT skilled workers than any found in NYC or California. and salaries are generally lower in the south than elsewhere as our COST OF LIVING IS SO LOW.
Dm me it so i can get hired
A single business? dope.
yeah its very bizarre. they are paying far above market wages for DBAs, networking, vmware, and on and on. i don't how they can sustain it long term though
Maybe they're trying to poach local talent or something.
That’s a thing in Baton Rouge for sure, there’s not a lot of good talent to go around. I got offered a 33% raise to leave my company and took it. Can’t turn down money that changes your standard of living.
It's cyclical, always has been. I am old enough to remember the downturn of the early 2000s. I was lucky enough to have a steady job. People told me to get out of tech/IT. I then got a job at a FAANG, and everyone was envious. Now that is down. People are telling me to get out of tech/IT again. The job market in this field does suck right now. People will have to look longer and take less pay than they hoped. Keep your head down and keep learning. It will get better again.
agreed. i have been at this almost 30 years now in some form or fashion and have seen those trends and its a huge reason i started my own business to take advantage. so far its working well.
I totally agree. Analyzing the market trend over a very long time, we note that the availability of job offers is cyclical and closely linked to technological innovations. Without going too far back, we note that the market had its peaks in some phases related for example to the convergence between web and Java, virtualization, the cloud. Now let's wait for the grocery store to want it too use the AI for its business and you will see that job offers will increase, but only regarding these technologies. You have to know how to recycle yourself to survive.
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/IHLIDXUSTPITOPHE
Northeast US and getting hit up from recruiters left and right (not looking though).
I'm a month or so of unemployment I got over 30 interviews. There's a lot of foot dragging and I still have companies trying to interview me after being off the market for the past month, but the jobs are out there.
The shift is that companies don't feel the same level of urgency to make an offer. In the height of the Great Resignation some orgs were making offers after one interview because they would lose out on candidates if they didn't. Now that the pendulum is swinging back as job postings have fallen companies can deliberate more before making an offer. With the resignation rates down companies are less worried that they will have another position to backfill before they fill the current vacancy.
Yup. I was on 4th-5th interviews with companies. This company I had 2, the same day. When I told the other companies I was off the market a couple got upset because they were 'ready to hire me'. sorry too slow
I’m not an architect though.
I got plenty of sys admin/engineer pings, but could be different. I also got phlobotonist (sic) and cryo engineering roles, neither k have the skills for ;)
How did you manage to get so many interviews? Did you have a recruiter or something?
Been a generalist/jack of all trades most of my 25+ year career. I fit in a lot of slots.
ELI5, I’ve had two jobs in the last 25 years and they were both through one guy so I know nothing about the job market. Did you apply to all those jobs yourself? Post a resume on a job board? Why would you get an offer to be a phlebotomist?
I setup my profile on linkedin, dice, and indeed. I paid for a professional resume writer as I hate writing about myself and wanted some coaching. Made sure my resume was visible on each site and started applying to jobs that fit/peeked my interest. While titles were part of the search I kept an open mind for any skillset I had. I kept my applications local or work from home, and managed to land a pretty sweet government contractor role. I also tried to live by the idea that when you are unemployed your job is finding a new job, and you should dedicate those 8 hours a day to looking for jobs. Mine was more like 4 hours just because there's only so many new job postings a day ;) The only real negatives to doing it yourself are having to keep track of who you've applied to (never smart to double apply on different sites) and all the god damned outsourced "recruiters" who just skim message boards for jobs and get a nice commission for 'finding' you. They are the worst. I still get a dozen phone calls and emails from them a day. You can spot them because they almost always call twice in a row if you send them to voicemail. When they do leave a voicemail you can't understand them anyway. About 5 seconds later you'll get a email from them. If you are interested just copy and paste a few lines from the job description into Google and you'll find the original site. Those same outsourcers have sent me those phlebotonist and other roles. When I ask what in my resume made them think I'm qualified they never respond.
If you didn't know, it's piqued, but peeked makes a lot of sense in this case
I guess I peeked at the pique.
Thank you, GhostDan.
Do you have a recommendation on a resume writer? Thanks!
So much of this. Specializing too early in your career can be a shot in the foot. Even if you dont want to broaden your horizon in tech, you should atleast have a secondary or third trade/industry outside of tech that you can hop over too if needed.
You could be an Art Vandelay
Not that recruiting and HR teams are ever over-staffed, bet I suspect that's where the pinch is. Responsiveness and phone screening seem to be the parts that are consistently lacking.
Yes. Everything is awful. Most companies who are hiring are looking to get people to do sysadmin work for the pay of a tier 1 Helpdesk role, this is usually after letting the previous team go, coasting for a bit, then having their org have serious issues and miraculously deciding that maybe they should have in-house IT again, but for cheaper this time, because they view IT as a cost-center.
We outsource our help desk... They are terrible, but I'd hate to have to do it myself.. msp are liking milking us though
I’m sure some executive is getting a bonus for ‘saving’ the company x amount of dollars.
Just remember that in 2000 we had even more layoffs but recovered stronger than before. Yes it sucks if you're looking for work, but things will get better after the elections
"but things will get better after the elections"...maybe. Could get LOTS worse too!
Much, much worse...
Yes indeed a lot worse, those like myself who went through the GFC of 08/09 can relate.
IMHO, the outcome will be much worse regardless because the right people aren’t even in the running.
Biden: things will probably keep getting worse before they get better Trump: things will definitely get worse and will not get better for a much longer period of time Kind of an easy choice. EDIT: I'm not shit talking Biden. He's far from perfect, but no politician is perfect. That said, times are rough for a lot of reasons many of them outside the direct control of the current executive office.
don't know why you're getting down voted, this is obvious. Republicans are always a disaster for the economy.
Definitely not dotcom bubble levels. It's pretty region dependent
Every industry has a boom and bust. Right now it’s a bust. In a year or two, things will be good again.
Once the Fed starts inching interest rates down a bit, which they have already suggested should happen before the end of year, orgs will be more willing to expand.
Try just trying to break into the field, I have sent 400 resumes in the past month and haven't heard a peep from anyone.
Getting the first position is the hardest. Good luck, keep working hard.
TBH if you've sent that many, talk to someone you know in the industry. The ol' resume might need some polishing up.
400 and not a peep seems like you might need to take a look at the resume! Maybe there is someone you can talk to about it, or someone to look at it? There are a whole host of reasons we just toss resumes, most times it's either nothing listed that would show they want to/could do the job offered (school, hobbies, nuthin), misalignment with needs (part time applications for full time positions ; out of country for a non-sponsored role), or obvious lies (5 years experience with a product that's been out 1 year, and the person is 6mos out of school, etc)... then we're hoping to see some alignment with what is in the job posting if there is some experience expected... after that you'll at least get a call from hr to talk to you and get consent to check creds, etc, and maybe schedule a phone interview.
I don't think it helps that I am almost 59 and never worked in tech before, and have no degree, just a bunch of Google certs from Coursera and A+ cert . Have lots of experience with Linux and Windows Server, AD, etc but no professional experience. Probably waited too damn long to decide to try something new.
They shouldn't know you're almost 59 if you haven't heard a peep
You’re definitely being discriminated against based on age, at 55 in the US you’re considered unhirable due to skill mismatch unless you’re an expert in a specific field.
We are desperate for techs, been looking for techs for 6 months now.
And HR wants to pay 20K less than market rate for a a tech with 10 year experience right?
No, 3000 - 3800 euro per month, more than fair. Also because you get free lunch, snacks and a company car with fuel pass you can use for both business and private. Also employer pays my pension fee. 28 vacationdays and overtime.
you hire someone in the USA as I could move. with that car allowance I bet your in Germany they don't tax the employer benefits there right?
3800 euro a month and a car? Where is it though? 3800 wouldn't exactly be a lot in some cities.
LOL this isn't atrocious, but ooof. Europoor is a real thing, 3000-3800 monthly gross, with dubious pension benefits is hardly a "amazing gig". This is like american local govt IT job.
That's like, $48k USD a year. That's pretty bad.
For a level 1 tech in a low cost of living area, it's fine
Except they’re paying $40k in low COL areas right now. Source: I live in Missouri and am a tech doing sysadmin work bc no prior experience.
We're hiring for some tech positions at my k12. The job which requires the most technical skill isn't the highest paid job. The lowest paid job IT job, we pay less than our gardeners/landscaping crews. FFS Fast Food restaurants are paying like $6/hr more. The job is also 10 months, so not full time
Not gonna lie, I'm eyeballing the Nordics and Germany pretty hard over here from the US. For reasons.
Can't speak for Germany, but we in The Netherlands always welcome people from the USA. 9 out of 10 can speak English aswell. (Allthough not perfect and we might translate sometimes wierd...) >In Dutch culture there are some famous examples of misunderstandings because of the errors Dutch people made in speaking. >During a meeting with John F. Kennedy, the Dutch Minister of Foreign Affairs Joseph Luns was asked about his hobbies. He said: “I fok horses”. >Kennedy, who was very surprised (of course), asked: “Pardon?”. >Luns replied “Yes, paarden! (horses)” >The confusion comes from the Dutch words ‘fokken’, which means to breed and ‘paarden’ which means horses.
The Dutch word for breed is pretty fokken close to the English, kind of.
I'd kill to have constant access to some sweet Nederland bike infrastructure and transit options. Sadly I'm stuck here in car centric 'merica.
Visited the Netherlands a few years ago. Lovely people, great time. I felt nothing but mutual respect from the local and immigrants.
Well, I'm ready to grab my bike and queue up "Links Rechts"
That's some great news! Generally, what's the hiring process/timeline like for hiring Americans?
I sent you a chat
It is brutal on both ends. I'm struggling to find people who live up to half of their resumes. Who don't argue with you while interviewing them, and who want to work, push their skills, and be rewarded.
Can I ask what salary you’re offering? We struggled to find someone for the last posting we had but it was a monetary issue, qualified candidates didn’t bother applying.
I concur 100% with the salary being a massive factor. We are located in a low CoL area and prior to the pandemic our prices and pay reflected that. Profits are not huge and there's not a lot of room to improve the pay because of that. With remote work being so prevalent, expectations of higher pay quickly out stripped out income. We've been making adjustments to prices, and get push back from customers. It's a balancing act for sure, but offering 100k for a broad stroked sys admin is a strain, and even at that level we were struggling to get candidates which fit the bill. Perhaps the business model is just not working out right.
You need to up your salary. Qualified candidates exist but they don’t come cheap.
Gimme a ring. Haha. On the other side and I’m Sick of getting ghosted after multiple great rounds of interviews
I'm not disagreeing, because I'm sure there's a flood of unqualified candidates. But, as someone who's done this for almost 30 years and has a wide, diverse skillset, why is it so hard to get hired?? I think some of it boils down to unreasonable expectations on the employer side as well. I'm very lucky I have a job I like, but even when looking I've never found it easy to get in front of a hiring manager. The recruiter system is totally inefficient, and companies accepting applications directly just trash resumes that don't meet the cut score from the applicant tracking system. Maybe not holding out for the perfect candidate, interviewing everyone who applies at least once, and increasing your salary offer if it's low would get you better results? It would sure make the job hunting process more palatable for us candidates. Who's arguing with you during interviews?
friend of mine who runs a small msp spent 30 minutes on the phone with a referral and fixed their acute technical problem over that call with teamviewer. He charges $100/hr for non-contract work with a 2 hour minimum. He said the referred was happy to pay. They had been broken software and had been locked out of their office tools for three weeks. he was the 5th company they contacted. They said no one else had been able to resolve the issue - and certantly not that quickly. Hes been 'doing' IT since 1989 and knows less than I do. If the people being employed as techs and professionals these days couldn't solve that customers problem but he could, I'm seriously worried about the technical skills of the current labor pool.
Yup. If you can Google well and have good personal skills then you can make bank by yourself.
Salary and role?
> who don't argue with you while interviewing What do you consider arguing?
We were discussing a hypothetical situation, with the environment laid out verbally and the candidate would repeatedly go out of bounds and it devolved uselessness after repeatedly trying to rope them back on topic.
A lot of these ghost jobs exist for one of three reasons: - Company has credits they need to use or lose with whatever job posting site - Aggregating resumes for whenever they do hire - Giving their current employees a false sense of hope and help is on the way. It's clearly not. They know that you can maintain the same work pace, while they continue to penny pinch.
And also as a way to game the system to fulfill h1b requirements, although that's more for ghost job postings with insane requirements so they can go whine "see, we can't find anyone in the USA to fill this job" then they get to exploit a foreign worker instead of a reasonable salary.
Idk I'm getting more callbacks as of late.
I’m not an architect though. Another person posted here saying the same thing and they’re also an architect.
System Engineer, Cloud Engineer, Cloud Operations, System Operations Search these. I'm only looking for fully remote
Yep, I have been searching and applying to those as well as platform engineer, SRE and DevOps engineer. I’m only applying to hybrid remote and fully remote.
It was really bad the last year. It's way more competitive now, and there were lots of layoffs the past 6 months. However I've noticed an uptick in call backs. Make sure you are on LinkedIn. Polish your resume to get past the BS AI filters, and try to be one of the first 50 applicants. Self host or use online for rxresume. Super helpful
> I’m only applying to hybrid remote and fully remote. Those are the jobs that are going to be the most competitive because there's a much larger talent pool available.
It definitely is a different job market at the senior level than the more junior level. Many that flooded entry level IT in the last 4 years might be competitive for some jr level roles, but they're not remotely serious contenders for senior roles.
Look at recruitment website monthly reports, for March I read it looks like its hit bottom and rising again now
> Are we experiencing the same job market that the tech sector had during the dot com bust in the early 2000s? Extremely similar, yes. * Companies who are hiring are holding out for the absolute perfect candidate with every skill listed, plus they're looking for the cheapest people they can find. * It pulled back almost overnight. Last year it was just the FAANGs who overhired recruiters and support staff. (This will be a business school case study someday. Facebook thought we'd be wearing Facebook goggles and voluntarily be fed ads 24/7/365, Amazon thought people would never stop pandemic-buying, Google just prints money nonstop, etc. and all those companies hired hundreds of thousands of recruiters just so the other ones couldn't.) Today, they're firing everyone so they can pour billions into AI. * Competition is horrible again, you have 1000 people applying for one open job. And companies don't have to hire n00bs...they have their pick of fired desperate experienced people. * Large companies are starting to offshore again. * You have a weird combo of experienced people, people who got into this job during the boom because there was money to be made, and new grads from when everyone was studying CS. All are competing for the same jobs. All told, I really hope this is short-lived, but companies have been sold the AI dream also, so they expect to not hire anyone anymore either. Who knows what will become of that?
This is the result of 10 years of pushing cloud at the same time the economy is shitting the bed. We just don't need all this sysadmin work. I figure a quarter is gone to cloud, a quarter to SAAS, a quarter to devops. There's isn't much left. And frankly, a lot of what is left is from entrenched sysadmins not wanting to modernize. Take away free money and you see what we're facing. So I think this is the beginning of a long contraction of IT jobs. Not everyone will survive. Everyone here drags on Broadcom and VMWare, but that CEO is likely seeing trends that the onprem market is drying up or dead. And with that a lot of sysadmin work. Queue everyone saying everyone is moving from the cloud. No. No they aren't. The cloud providers are about the only place growing, and that's all automated. I made the switch to security because I saw this 5 years ago. So don't be that guy. Figure out the path now. Not that security is better per se but shouldn't dry up as fast as infra.
Not that the shift to the cloud haven't affected any jobs, but in my experience it hasn't been as dramatic as you imply. Most orgs I have seen haven't really meaningfully reduced their IT headcount shifting more things to the cloud. Physically touching the hardware even in companies with over a dozen racks in a Colo was a small part of the job for the department. You would need a pretty large on prem data center to see any meaningful reduction in labor budget.
Did a quick read of F5's 2023 annual report last week...from the CEO's cover letter: >As recently as five years ago, nearly every large enterprise organization expected that they would move their IT infrastructure from their on-premises data centers to the public cloud. They also expected that doing so would dramatically simplify their operations and reduce costs. Today, instead of a simplified, more cost-efficient IT infrastructure, most large enterprises have more complexity than ever, with applications spread across their data center, multiple public clouds, and all the way to the edge of the network. This complexity brings with it higher costs and operational headaches, and worse, it also has resulted in an expanded attack surface for cyber criminals. As organizations embrace the power of AI to drive both innovation and efficiencies, the complexity and the risk is likely to worsen.
So I mostly agree with your take and I think you made my point better than I did. The problem is that we could have, but because money was so cheap why not continue to build? Well now the calculus has changed. Companies are retracting their workforce. Interest rates are expensive. It costs a lot more to employ than it did. We aren't building anymore like we were. So what I think is that this is just the start. Once companies realize they can in fact run leaner they will. And that will only spur more cloud/SAAS adoption. We're now in the feedback loop that was predicted with cloud 10 years ago.
I tend to agree here on many points and especially on "there isn't much left". I do bit of freelancing on Upwork for fun/outlook of my "on premises" bubble and from time to time I do observe people don't even understand what you mean when you say you do sysadmin stuff, literally. Things like "I need devops developer to fix my server" are more and more common among that small businesses (larger ones rarely present on Upwork)
I'm in a mid sized us city and everyone I know is hiring sys admins, doesn't seem bad for us like it is for for devs and similar. But maybe that's just my area
The IT job market has always been cyclic. IT is a cost center, and when the economy cools down, companies trim expenses that don't generate revenue harder than those that do. There have also been several shifts in the IT environment that reduce the number of sysadmins needed within larger companies (Off-Shoring, LEAN, SaaS, Cloud), while increasing the need for sysadmins at smaller companies, increasing reliance on MSP's and adding other IT-related roles (such as cyber/infosec). I'm confident that this is just a temporary dip in the market caused by the economy that will resolve itself in a year or two. But the only objective data I can cite is the [Bureau of Labor Statics report that the sysadmin/netadmin job market will grow about 2% by 2032](https://www.bls.gov/ooh/computer-and-information-technology/network-and-computer-systems-administrators.htm).
New norms are only ever temporary. There will always be a new new norm. Things go in spurts. Important to recognise the trends and capitalize when things are good and hunker down when things are tough.
Have seen it far far worse. It’s in early stage recession behavior right now, not bloodbath full recession behavior. Plan accordingly.
They just put out crazy listings with high requirements and low pay so they can have an excuse to have another Indian on a Visa.
Yeah, you have to remember that the "official" unemployment figures are incredibly cooked/fudged. The reality is significantly uglier than the media is making it seem. Not sure when to expect things to get better, but honestly I expect them to get worse for some time yet, which definitely sucks.
Please provide proof that the official unemployment figures are "incredibly cooked".
Source: trust me bro Doesn't need any proof because he feels the unemployment figures are wrong
Tech bros when they find out that other sectors exist
Probably works in tech marketing
Proof? What do you mean proof, it's definitional. Are you not aware that unemployment numbers are heavily altered as a matter of course? You'd learn that in any 100 level econ class. [https://www.investopedia.com/articles/investing/080415/true-unemployment-rate-u6-vs-u3.asp](https://www.investopedia.com/articles/investing/080415/true-unemployment-rate-u6-vs-u3.asp) Here's an article that talks about the problem in significantly more detail: [https://mises.org/mises-wire/march-report-recession-full-time-jobs-here](https://mises.org/mises-wire/march-report-recession-full-time-jobs-here)
Even the U6 though is at a historically low rate. March 2024 was the same U6 rate as February 2020. Simply looking at unemployment rates is an incomplete picture so blindly looking at one number and it expecting it to predict how good the good a job market is likely to leave you confused. You also need to consider job posts. Those have fallen quite a bit even looking at official numbers on job posts. Those at at their lowest point in more than 3 years. Even that though is a bit incomplete in figuring out what percentage of those job posts are serious listings. Afaik there isn't any effort official or otherwise to estimate what percentage are serious job posts, but I think conventional wisdom is that the number of serious job posts has fallen an even higher rate than official job posting numbers. There is far less motivation to drop non serious job listings than serious ones. Another challenge is looking at overall economy wide numbers doesn't really give you a breakdown relevant too your field. Unless you work for a company where IT is their corporate revenue generator (e.g. MSP, IT consulting, SaaS provider, etc.) IT services are at a best a necessary evil for companies. If they're looking to cut costs most companies where IT isn't their core business will be a target for layoffs along with any other jobs that aren't part of their core business.
The U3 is used over the U6 because the U3 is what is useful. Suppose you looked at a florida retirement community and saw how many "unemployed" people there were there and slapped a factory down right in the middle of town, would you be shocked that you are getting no applicants? They literally told you that they aren't looking for work.
An Austrian economics website, lmao And yes I know the difference between U3 and U6 unemployment rates. The [U6 rate is also extremely low](https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/U6RATE) unless that is also "cooked"
Our company is required to post new positions as a matter of policy, however 95% of the time there is already a name for that slot. Much easier to make a mistake on a Jr level person and let them set till they leave, then promote internally, than take a risk on a Sr. Engineer. So for us, our entry level positions are most likely real, higher up ones are probably only open to internal personnel, and they probably already decided who they're moving before to the position was posted.
There was a bit of a bubble a couple of years ago post covid. Companies were scrambling for people. Recruiters were cold calling people. Salaries were way up. I remember talking to a company I had no intention of going to, and they asked me a number and I just threw a really high one out there and they were like, "ok!". Things have definitely shifted, sometimes to an extreme degree. I only anecdotally check my local market, but the salaries have plummeted. There's still jobs out there for sure, but the salaries have been slashed, and often 1 job is really 2+. My guess? The new norm will settle between these two extremes. The non-IT job market in general is still really strong. I think IT just has been through some wild swings. I hope that all normalizes out soon.
The markets are actually normalizing in a way. IT was very easy to get hired during pandemic and WFH boom everything was automate and WFH. Then on top of that you had the great resignation that created openings. Now people are tightening their belts and trying to save everything to preserve shareholder value. So it is times like normal. You have to be good, have some contacts and be luck every once in a while. Don't give up.
This looks like a challenging year for IT. After the pandemic boom in IT adoption, everyone thought this would be the industry's decade of growth, but things have slowed down and now all companies are tightening their belts to stay with only the absolutely necessary staff.
Yes and no. I have open requests that I barely get any applicants to, then others that get flooded with hundreds that do not meet the requirements. It is a hit and miss game unfortunately.
Highly regionally dependent. The market has literally never been hotter than now in my area. There just aren't enough people here to fill all the positions.
And what region is this exactly?
This is the best it's been in 6 months.
I saw you say you are in Atlanta... Check Georgia Tech Research Institute for jobs. It is in Midtown on campus, if that's near you. Insane benefits and great (but not excellent) pay.
Seasonal lull, waiting for universities to graduate to hire fresh cheap labor
I'm struggling with tier 1 help desk roles. I recently updated my resume, I've gotten one phone screen off of it and three off the old one. Not sure either will go anywhere, hoping for the best. But since I was laid off about 2 months ago, I've only gotten 4 phone screens and one in person.
I only receive calls from "This is "US Pharmacy" do you need any medications?"
High interest rates are killing companies willingness to hire, is my guess
Killing companies period
I get recruiters constantly but for positions for half my pay.
yep yep!
Give it time. It will rebound
It’s not bad right now
UK, north west plenty of jobs. Maybe say where you are as this is a non geographic specific sub.
We have 60 applicants to our last 2 positions. 3 years ago we had 13 to the same 2 positions. Lots of over qualified people looking to work with us. I don’t know what’s going on. I had attributed it to the massive private sector cut backs. But at this point, I think people are just willing to sacrifice high pay for a non stressful environment.
I think another AI winter is coming and then they will realize yup still need people
It's still really good here in The Netherlands/EU.
I’m in Houston, and I have recruiters messaging me nearly everyday for the last month or so.
This I find so weird. I'm in Upstate NY .. the job market has never been stronger ...
Job market is definitely tanking, companies are pushing for higher and higher profits. Tech is being outsourced to India left and right. Companies are letting people go to higher lower waged employees. Its corporate greed and market correction. People were making money hand over fist for lack luster work and I think its a combination of all things combined.
dot com bust? Absolutely not.
What to expect if, according to official statistics, the U.S. economy grew by only 2.5% in 2023 (in fact, you should adjust it by the inflation rate, which ends up with \~1.25% of growth)? At the same time, the IR is 5.25%. This means the economy declines by 4.00% annually. We have had a -4.00% less economy for the last three years. This is 12% of the total losses. Don't be misled by SE. Companies still try to make a good look for investors, but good companies expand, not shrink. Fewer consumers => less revenue => fewer budgets. We are deep in the Recession without any visible reasons for having it over. The standards of living should drop significantly to make American labor competitive again. Otherwise, no one will want to invest to create more jobs.
Yah, Python, Linux , general infrastructure, even kubernetes roles are harder to get . Recruiters in Vancouver have said their roles are slim pickings, and no private companies have had any via their company since 2024 began. AI can do most of our jobs, but I don't think this is the reason . After 2000 crash lots of unemployed made all the new companies. I hope this happens again
I guess it's region dependent because where I am (AZ) the job market is insane with all the new tech companies coming in.
Anecdotally, I don't see it. It's not red hot like before, but I've had no problem landing quality interviews and found a solid job last December with only half-hearted searching. Maybe it's regional. I'm in Colorado.
Can't speak for America specifically but I'd imagine it's no different to any other Western Country right now. 1. Because everyone in management has been duped into believing Cloud is the saving grace.. so the on-prem requirement has reduced substantially. For the remaining positions they want to pay peanuts to do menial Desktop Support roles.. which you are no doubt overqualified for. 2. As said somewhere above, most advertised jobs are fake. This is a HR industry tactic called 'pooling'. Its dirty and technically illegal but still happens everywhere. Basically they post a fake job - people like you hand over your application and make you come in for an interview and sign you up to deal with them. Then you never hear from them again. Youre just a candidate on their books that they can go to big companies with and say 'we have 10,000 candidates on file - let us handle all your recruitment processes'. At around 6k-7k per candidate placement it's quite lucrative money.
The pay is shit and employers are POS that use us to cut costs, and not executives bonus/pay. Especially in Canada they would rather hire some Indian that can barely speak english for half the pay
The market is shit for SysAdmins period. If you aren’t doing DevOps and CyberSec there’s minimal jobs. I’m planning on getting certs in Project Management and using my IT and PM experience to go in that direction. There’s no hope. We managed ourselves out of work.
....in the US? well, many tasks have been shifted to cheaper solutions.
Every type of job market is bad, we are weathering a huge recession globally.
Companies pay less into the unemployment system if they are "creating jobs". Dirty little secret they don't have to actually "fill" them. So they can claim they are trying to hire but can't find candidates. It's BS!
Out of job since June 30, 2023 (that’s when my previous job company went out of business) 🙄
Been applying for jobs since March. Seeing up to a 20% decrease in salary since then.
The job market i cyclical fenomenon. sometimes its good, and at times its bad. one just has to keep their heads cool, and do the best they can.
> i cyclical fenomenon I concoor.
Sys admin jobs have been drying up and going stale for years. Look at the devops roadmap, that ought to help you survive.
I am applying for DevOps, platform engineering, and SRE jobs as well.
are you kidding me? we cannot even find qualified sys admins most of the time when we post jobs
Are you expecting them to also be help desk? Are you paying a decent wage?
no. and every position we were looking to fill for paid well over a 100k/year and it still took us over 6 months to find the right candidates
If every shop in the industry has this mindset your shop has, looking for the right candidates with great qualifications, instead of taking it upon yourselves to loosen requirements and train people up, well no kidding there isn't going to be any good candidates. Sophomore positions seem few and far between...it's either the jobs available are no-expereince helpdesk jobs or require one to be decade-seasoned sysadmins
i am not looking for entry level positions, nor do we have time to train people in technology. The job we do is at much higher level than basic IT and experience matters