anyone having trouble getting a job

[ULTRABITE]

I've been looking several months for a basic database development contract...seems like only the rock stars are getting hired.

I'm going to try and make my resume stand out more with SlickResume.com. Their deal is: if you don't have a job within 4 months, you get 4 more months free.

Anyone else been looking a long time....?

[Zeratulsdomain]

Sounds like advertisement.

Out of curiosity, do you have any certs? School diploma? Or job experience?

[ULTRABITE]

by certs, do you mean 'tangy breath mints'
I'm mostly self taught. I've worked for a few email marketing companies and a few e-commerce businesses

[dilettante]

<chuckle> Email marketing is spamming no matter how noble the purpose. I guess we all have to eat!

I feel your pain though. Anybody with a job right now should be careful to keep it. Competition seems to be quite stiff with the job market so glutted with candidates and business consolidating/contracting at the same time. Based on the newbie class problems I see posted here the diploma mills are still running at full tilt too.

[FunkyDexter]

Thankfully I'm nice and secure at the moment but I finished my degree in 2001, just after the millenium bubble had burst and jobs were rarer than hens' teeth. My aproach (which worked very well) to get a job was this:-
1. Get hold of the Yellow Pages for your area (I believe colonials will refer to the as the 'Business Directory' or something like that)
2. Look up 'software houses'.
3. Phone them up and say you're a developer looking for work. You'll probably be speaking to a receptionist so ask if you can speak to the devempment manager or whoever would be responsible for hiring developers.
4. The receptionist will almost certainly refuse to put you through. They may offer to put you through to Human Resources - say no. HR are you enemy until after you get hired. Instead, ask if you can have their email address so you can mail in your CV. They will probably be happy to give you this and, the best bit is, it will almost certainly contain the individuals name.
5. EMail your CV
6. 3 days to 1 week later, phone again. This time ask for the development manager by name. This is usually enough for the receptionist to put you through.
7. (This is the golden bit. Everything you've done up to now has really just been a ruse to get you speaking to the right person.) Just chat. The real surprise here is that the development manager is just a guy; he's probably a bit bored so your distraction is probably quite welcome; he's probably quite passionate about the company he works for so ask him about the business and listen to what he has to say; he's probably very into his technologies so you can have a chin wag about methodologies and paradigms and other words that nobody really understands. The point is not really to impress him, it's to make him like you and that means you should be listening rather than talkiong and agreeing with as much of what he says as you can while still being able to sleep at night. If he likes you it's actually quite likely that you'll get an interview.

I've used this aproach 3 times in my career. In each case it got me a job within a month and once it was within a week. It's a bit scary at first to phone up companies prospectively (it's just not something we normally do) but it quickly starts to feel natural and it really works.

One caveat - this did tend to get me jobs from which I was made redundant 6 months later. The problem is that the company is often hiring you prospectively in the hope that they will be able to find enough work to justify your position. If they can't generate that work you tend to hit the bricks at the end of your probationary period. Even so, it's ideal for keeping you in work which the industry is quiet.

Good Luck

[DeanMc]

.... Why not try to become a rockstar. I'm not the best programmer there is and mostly self taught. I have recently been handing out my (carefully woven) CV and have been getting some pretty positive responses. Most of the good things I hear are about the unusual projects I tend to take up. To me the ultimate goal is not the job but to become a rockstar.