I wrote this to the San Francisco PHP Meetup List. I am posting it here because in a month or so I know a huge portion of you will be looking for work in the tech area.
From: barce
Date: October 31, 2008 12:06:08 PM PDT
To: SF PHP Meetup List
Let me comment on what’s going on.
I will tell you about two types of layoffs, and then two types of opportunities that I am benefitting from right now.
1. Scapegoating Pathology in Layoffs. This is where staff gets laid off to “fix” a problem, and the problems are still there. Sure, they have one less mouth to feed, but they got rid of the wrong person. How can you tell? The problem is still there. Most recruiters have a hard time filling these spots b/c turnover is high. No amount of technical skill will solve this problem. You need people skills if you’re gonna fill this role.
2. The Invisible Hand Layoffs. The company ends up with more capital and gains more worker productivity because the invisible hand is at work.
I would say that from the Web 2.0 companies that are laying off people it’s 50/50 . If you are really hard up for a job, then your best bet is with a company that’s done scapegoating layoffs.
That is the opportunity #1 that I mentioned, and examples of this are meevio.com which loses a lead every 3 months and Mahalo. Calacanis fired and is now looking for workers again. Talk about scapegating!
Opportunity #2: Litigation Support. Right now a lot of companies have a financial strategy to stay alive, and that is sue. During this economic downturn you will see companies like DTIGlobal, Iron Mountain (NYSE: IRM) and other litigation support companies do well. Iron Mountain is already doing really well. I have a client in litigation support where I do light sysadmin work.
Get a job in these areas. Recruiters won’t know about them because they are still trying to fill jobs where there is a scapegoating pathology.
I wish you all the best of luck,
Barce
PS Beer is doing well right now, too, so look for tech work in the beer industry, or hell, do what I did right out of college, sell beer. It is fun work!
2 replies on “Where Are The Tech Jobs Right Now? In Booze and Legal”
So many people are freaking out about the economy but I still see thousands of jobs posted on employment sites.
http://www.linkedin.com (networking)
http://www.indeed.com (aggregated listings)
http://www.realmatch.com (matches you to jobs)
good luck to those searching for jobs.
A lot of those jobs are red herrings. A company without job postings looks less economically healthy than a company with one.
Also, if you track a lot of job pages, e.g. the one on twitter, you’ll see that positions that used to require just a bachelors degree now ask for a masters.
This is the 3rd down turn that I will go through. I can honestly say that the 2nd one was particularly nasty for the tech industry.
Thanks for posting the links, and now is the time to get a stable job if you don’t already have one.
For my part, I am going to stick it out consulting. I really feel that there are some small companies that will be really big 5 or so years from now.