WorkingOT: 2018 job market heating up ... are you looking?
https://www.housingwire.com/articles/42693-adp-job-market-threatening-to-overheat
All reports are pointing to one of the best markets for job seekers in a long time. Many people have been hanging on to their jobs, underpaid and/or underappreciated, for many reasons not least of which was the (relatively) recent 2009 recession.
Anecdotally, I've seen a noticeable increase in pings from headhunters to my Linkedin profile and others I know are saying the same.
How many of you are looking to upgrade your job situation or have been stuck due to non compete agreements, lack of demand for your specialty or something else?
Because I am moving to a different country and thus literally had to do so
Was a good job and I'd otherwise have stayed on for sure, but sometimes there's quite compelling personal reasons to leave.
I am an elementary teacher, I enjoy what I do but I would love a change. I'm tired of being beat up as a profession and locked in to yearly small raises beause I lived another year. I look daily for new jobs in education but you can't move districts and maintain your pay let alone increase it.
I'd love to throw my hat in the ring for anything in the private section but no idea where to begin looking. I applied to a few places under HR to present and train but I'm sure my resume and education ard holding me back a bit.
In the private sector many companies have done away with yearly raises. Basically, a position pays between $-X and $-Y. Once you reach $-Y there are no more raises.
Or...if you've been with a company for a while and have received a number of raises then you are a prime target for layoffs. I always found it striking to go into my son's school and all the teachers had pictures & personal things in their desk areas. In the automotive sector, where I work, most people keep their cubicles fairly spartan. The reason being is it keeps the box small they have to carry out when escorted out during a layoff.
I work in the automotive sector as well and can confirm, the only personal items on my desk are my water cup and stress ball
The stress ball comment made me LOLIRL...and I've seen these on people's desks many many times
I preach to my kids to get a good education and a high paying job. If you end up with a shitty job, at least you're making money. It's better than being broke and hating your job. If you find something you love to do and can earn a living doing it, awesome, count yourself lucky.
exactly, it's the total opposite.
then again, a "good education" was never meant to lead to high-pay.
that's a 20th century invention, a century which holds the record for atrocities (many of which we still fondly harbor to this day!)
I'm always looking but content with where I'm at right now for the moment.
Bourbon taster
Ugh, been struggling with this lately.
I graduated in 2016 and was at my first job (consulting) for a little bit over a year (13-14 months). Liked the work and was satisfied with the pay and people on my level; wasn't looking for a new job at all, but one of my clients tried to poach me and I ended up taking it, after a lot of back and forth, primarily because the consulting company was starting to go into a leadership meltdown mode (bunch of ppl quitting, wasn't selling new work, CEO sexual harassment scandal brewing). New job also was a modest pay bump with a better work-life balance, which is hard to say no to when you're uneasy about your current leadership/direction/viability of the company.
Now, I'm 6-7 months into the second job and really just starting to feel stagnant and like I'm not learning/being challenged/progressing towards my career goals. The compensation is solid and the work-life balance is fantastic, but I'm worried that I'm kind of in quick sand and not working towards what would be a next step type of job in any way except just having more time on a resume.
Feel like I'm going to end up putting in 2 years total and then getting out (especially because the 401k, which is a pretty strong match, isn't vested at all until then), but the idea of 18 more months in a job where I'm not learning anything, at my age, isn't great. Kinda meh. On the other hand, even though I have some valid reasons as to why I made the first move, I don't want to be seen as a person who hops around too much too quickly.
I somewhat agree with this, but not totally.
Your twenties are the prime of your life in so many ways. To forgo work-life balance during them is sad.
How much money would the average 74 year old pay to be 24 again for a year? A lot more than the pay difference you'd get in your 30s/40s for being a slave vs. simply working hard.
Second, you can challenge yourself to grow in two ways. 1. Become a carnivorous reader of material that pertains to your field. You’ll gradually display a heightened knowledge above your colleagues and it will help leadership at your workplace to notice you have potential.
2. Identify someone in your field with more experience and ask to be mentored. Take that person out for lunch once every month or two to learn what decisions need to be avoided and which decisions will help you succeed as you navigate your career. This mentor could be at your current workplace or someone you know of through work channels.
Any IP attorneys on here? I'm middling away at a boutique, doing ok, but it feels like my career is going nowhere. Would love to hear how other IP attorneys grew their business, found new jobs, etc...
I was an IP attorney, didn't like it and went back to software development. Pay obviously isn't as high as it would be at a firm, but the hours are better and I can have a life outside of work.
But if you want to stay with the law theme, see about being counsel for a collection of smaller companies/start-ups. They usually don't need a hell of a lot of work or have a bunch of money for a retainer, but on a per-job gig you can roll out incorporation docs, NDAs, provisional patent applications, licensing deals, vendor contracts, etc. pretty efficiently. It would be a bit of a grind, but people I know who have done it typically find it a bit more interesting.
I've been at my current job for 20 years. I'm 60 so I'm hanging in there and this is pretty certain to be my last ride. I have been lucky with only two real jobs. Thay have paid decent and I have never been out of work(LARGE KNOCK ON WOOD).
The future had grown dim at my first employer. The year was 1998 when the Tech field was on fire becuase of Y2K. If you could spell COBOL you could contract for $50 an hour. Jobs were so easy to get I jumped but only looked for jobs that were long term. It worked out for me.
Young guys - If you need a job change do it when things are hot!! Get established so you are untouchable during down turns. Think long term.
Note - Y2K -- I spent New Years Eve at work(double time pay) waiting for the world to end. Not a dang thing happened!!!
Through many lessons in my career up to this point, I’ve learned that money is important, but no more important than the quality of “fit” of job to my unique abilities and preferences. I cannot stand having jobs that keep me in an office all day every day, I need variety. I also like weekends and nights off. I also like feeling that my voice is heard when my employer makes major decisions, so I like being in leadership circles where the decisions are made.
The more you know about yourself, the better questions you will ask when interviewing for a new job. Money is important, but not at the cost of your ability to “fit” in your role and quality of life factors.
This is fucking awesome.
I just got an offer on Monday from a place I really want to be a part of, and I just finished interviewing at another hot company, and I'm expecting an offer tomorrow. Thanks for the insights. Definitely going to use some of this material in my counter-offers!
However, I’m also not going to wait until I’m feeling dejected and frustrated in my current role, so I’ll Always Be Checking for opportunities.
but at 65 years of age, been receiving feelers to measure my interest in possibly going to work PT with possiibility (don't think so) of going FT.
This battery is incredibly insightful. During the debriefing, the consultant will know you better than you know yourself
https://www.highlandsco.com
Sorry
My current position is for an educational conglomerate in Ohio, I am a contracted tech to a school district we service, if it wasn't for me knowing I worked for them you would think I worked for the school district as I have almost zero communication with them. It didn't take long for me to be over worked and under paid (aren't we all?) to the point where when I did need to reach out to my employer and notify them of the situation (was hired to do break/fix turned into budget and project management for all IT services and inventory) they were no where to be found and I had to handle the situation on my own. Fast forward a few more months and the school district finally understood what I was telling them about my contract and actually tried to get me a raise through calling my employer and they were told they could pay my company all they wanted and it wouldn't change anything for me, it was impossible for me to leave. So my district then tried to buy my contract out and hire me for 25k more than what my current salary was then due to the 5 different no compete clauses they had to buy out they would of had to pay well over 200k for contract buyouts as they had to pay 5 years worth of them. I don't know if they were bull shitting me on that part or not but I was aware you did have to pay some sort of fee to buy a tech out. Long story short I have been stuck at my current position for over two years being paid well below a competitive wage, up until two days ago when I accepted a new position at Ohio University for 11k more than my current salary. Long story short no-compete clauses are shit and do nothing for the employee, also KNOW YOUR WORTH when negotiating a salary.
They did come in and bid on what my company got though. tried to charge almost a half million a year for 3 employees. We used them for some training and they didn't send the same guy twice, as he left and the other dude got a position change the whole experience with them was bad.
I got the job young (21) and had no clue other than they were giving me a "good" salary for the area I live in, so I just signed everything in front of me like a dummy. Thank you, it is definitely life changing for my wife and I, I have actually been working two jobs and she works as well just so we could pay our very cheap mortgage payment and car payment and bills and still have a little money to save. Won't have to do the second job as much which is real estate and the amount of crap with that alone is enough to drive someone nuts.
Will be interviewing for a new position in Ann Arbor next week. Actually created an account to ask for advice. It looks like I am going to have a free afternoon/evening. Any particulr places or restaurants/bars I should check out. Wife and I (late 30s no kids) would be moving from a larger city so I would like to get a feel for what it would be like living in Ann Arbor. I know this is hard to do in an afternoon but anything helps. For "city people" is it crazy to consider living in Detroit and communting to Ann Harbor? Thanks.