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Ornery and Hornery posted:A bunch of my friends are getting burned out in their professions. Different friends in their mid thirties who have been in tech for a decade have been telling them that they could totally make the jump to coding. And make $$$ in relatively short time. The tech job market of the 2010s was driven largely by low real interest rates. Now that that's over, hiring has slowed way down and everyone's getting pickier about who they hire. That, combined with the large number of senior people who have recently entered the job market, mean that it's a rough time to be looking for an entry-level job. Some of those factors are temporary, though. The job market isn't even as rough as it was back in February, and it'll probably keep improving as the churn from the layoffs dies down further. Interest rates are high now but they won't be high forever. On the other hand, there's been a huge spike in the number of CS degrees awarded in the last few years, and that probably is going to depress the market for people without those degrees for a while. It's not going to take effect for a little while because those people are still junior, but yeah, long term we probably won't see anything like the last decade or so for a while.
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Aug 17, 2023 15:39
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What about trades?
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Aug 17, 2023 16:01
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All that said, it's still an in-demand profession and if you're good at it I think you'll be successful. I don't think the market was ever "Make top 1% money right out of bootcamp" for the average person, its going to be hard to land that first job, and you may need to work in non-ideal environments at first, etc. I wouldn't do it just because you're burned out, but if you have interest I don't think the door is closed. I tell people to do some free Python coding online bootcamps and see what they think. If you hate that, you'll almost certainly wash out of a paid bootcamp after spending money and time.
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Aug 17, 2023 16:13
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ultrafilter posted:The tech job market of the 2010s was driven largely by low real interest rates. Now that that's over, hiring has slowed way down and everyone's getting pickier about who they hire. That, combined with the large number of senior people who have recently entered the job market, mean that it's a rough time to be looking for an entry-level job. Lockback posted:All that said, it's still an in-demand profession and if you're good at it I think you'll be successful. I don't think the market was ever "Make top 1% money right out of bootcamp" for the average person, its going to be hard to land that first job, and you may need to work in non-ideal environments at first, etc. Thanks for the feedback you two. It seems like a tough situation. I should have also added that my friends who are thinking of making the career jump to coding are more than burnt out - they are broke as poo poo. We live in Seattle and their jobs pay like $55k a year. That sounds like a lot of money on paper but in Seattle, in 2023, it just doesn’t do a lot for quality of life. They want the higher income jobs and by golly I understand them.
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Aug 17, 2023 16:30
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Odddzy posted:What about trades? Trades are generally a way to make pretty good money with limited education but they are very much a young and fit person's game. The dudes I worked with in construction who were pushing 50 were self-medicating pretty constantly (at the low end advil and booze, at the high end...) to reduce aches and pains on their bodies. They were all pretty adamant that I not blow my education and opportunities on that kind of work. There are of course trades that are less hard on the body, but they're relatively more scarce.
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Aug 17, 2023 16:31
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Ornery and Hornery posted:Thanks for the feedback you two. It seems like a tough situation. I hire people who are new in software engineering, and in fact LOVE people who are doing a later-ish career change. That said, I can pick out in 30 seconds when someone is in the field because they are chasing easy paychecks and who actually gives a poo poo and has some passion. The latter is 1000x more likely to be successful and who I want to hire. So if its not something that is going to get you excited it is likely to not be a very good path.
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Aug 17, 2023 16:37
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Some college acquaintances went into the trades and it’s worked out well. All it took was working themselves into the ground in their 20s to build the business up enough to get acquired, then spinning that money (and money from HNW family/college connections) into their own fund to buy out retirement-aged owners of other small businesses. They’ll end up running some small towns by their mid 40s.
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Aug 17, 2023 16:42
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Lockback posted:I hire people who are new in software engineering, and in fact LOVE people who are doing a later-ish career change. That said, I can pick out in 30 seconds when someone is in the field because they are chasing easy paychecks and who actually gives a poo poo and has some passion. The latter is 1000x more likely to be successful and who I want to hire. So if its not something that is going to get you excited it is likely to not be a very good path. poo poo!!!!
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Aug 17, 2023 17:09
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Democratic Pirate posted:Some college acquaintances went into the trades and it’s worked out well. I knew guy in b u s s i n e s s s c h o o l who left a big corp finance job to run a landscaping company with a buddy. He's on step two right now, rolling up a bunch of similar co's with old boomers trying to retire. Probably going to end up the richest guy in our whole class. Especially factoring for CoL and hours he'll have to work once (if) it's all humming along.
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Aug 17, 2023 17:15
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Xguard86 posted:I knew guy in b u s s i n e s s s c h o o l who left a big corp finance job to run a landscaping company with a buddy. He's on step two right now, rolling up a bunch of similar co's with old boomers trying to retire. getting there sucks rear end though, like you are gonna work like a dog up until that end gate and as you said there's no guarantee on getting there
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Aug 17, 2023 17:22
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Ornery and Hornery posted:A bunch of my friends are getting burned out in their professions. Different friends in their mid thirties who have been in tech for a decade have been telling them that they could totally make the jump to coding. And make $$$ in relatively short time. The market is still recovering from the layoffs from a while back. When we get back to the point of too much open headcount and not enough available candidates, they'll be able to walk into jobs again. But the market isn't great right now, even if it's started recovering.
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Aug 17, 2023 17:47
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I’m aware that flexibility is power, and that I’m trying to do something overly picky. I don’t know if I’m just venting or looking for some sort of specific advice but if anyone has any I’d love to hear it. I have a degree in Engineering. When I graduated I took a job in food manufacturing. That was 12 years ago. I hate it. It’s gotten progressively worse. I’m a very high performer and have been offered promotions but would've had to move and I can’t/don’t want to. Time ought to be on my side but the situation where I am is starting to spiral due to a megalomaniacal boss and the stress that my shift change has put on my family so I’m more desperate to leave than I would like to be. The reasons against moving are that my wife also works and gets paid pretty well (about 2/3 as much as me) and would need to get relicensed and then find a new job too anywhere we went to. No job is paying me nearly enough to make up both of our salaries. Also, we have two young kids and have free babysitters here. I also just like the area a lot. I want to get out of food manufacturing. I would probably like to get out of all manufacturing really but am open to certain roles. I have grown to just not like the constantly on-call nature of it. If I could show up, do my work, and not get constant calls while off shift, on PTO, and have my shift time getting thrown all around it would be much better, but that seems to be the norm in manufacturing from what I’ve gathered. I also can’t really afford, family wise, to take a big pay cut. A small one, but not a big one. So I’m kind of locked in to $85k+ jobs as best I can figure. The thing I am flexible on is what I’m looking to do. Something back with engineering? Some sort of data analysis? If I’m staying in manufacturing, some sort of continuous improvement job? Hell, I applied for a job doing background check interviews. My problem is since I get paid decently now I’m kind of priced out of most “entry level” jobs, and they obviously want me to have experience. I can and have twisted some things around to highlight how relevant they could be interpreted to be, but if they want X years experience making airline parts I can’t really claim anything I did is close to that. I started actively applying last week and I’m really scattershotting applications to almost anything that looks interesting at all. I’m not sure what else to do. I had my resume looked at and made some changes and I’ve been tweaking it for each type of job. Of course each of them say how much I want to be an (INSERT JOB HERE) and not that this is application #5 to completely different job #5 that I’ve sent out today. I guess, is there anywhere I should be looking for postings besides Indeed, LinkedIn, USAJOBS, and the California government jobs site? Is it worth just going to a ton of large companies sites and browsing, or do they post most everything from their sites onto the big job boards?
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Aug 17, 2023 21:14
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So, I've just hit 40 and I feel like it's time for a change. I wonder if it's just midlife crisis or if it does make sense, please help me figure this out. Pleas excuse the long post, a lot of this is kind of stream of consciousness. The situation right now. I'm a public accountant, been doing this or closely-adjacent jobs since I was 20. Went self employed in 2011, and I've been doing this ever since then. Business has grown, but due to my my sub-par management I find myself struggling to keep up. I've given it some thought and I'm confident I know what needs to change, but it involves a few radical changes and some potential drama/emotional distress. So I'm thinking of applying to one of the big 4 accounting firms for a senior tax advisor role. Pros: 1. I'd be making roughly the same money I'm making now, but without all the added expenses. Plus, regular payment instead of having to chase clients to pay me. Right now the situation is I'm making money on paper but due to a combination of bad organisation and added expenses, my cash influx is irregular. One month I might be making 4k and the next 1k. This makes it feel like I'm living paycheck to paycheck. Regular payment would mean I can plan my finances better, and also put some money aside from a couple of other sources that I have. 2. I feel like it'd be less stressful. I'm at the point where I have my phone permanently on silent, because I'm almost getting panic attacks from how much it rings. I'm currently juggling about 65 corporate clients, plus any walk-ins that need something done, such as inheritance or income taxes or whatever. 3. There would be room for upwards mobility, and working with more prestigious clients. The way things are right now at the office, I'm mostly working with a lot of small clients bringing in a small amount each. It's come to the point where if I want to solicit higher paying clients, there's a good chance I won't be able to provide the level of services that would warrant a higher price. Cons: 1. Right now I'm my own boss. I'm typing this while having a cold beer at a cafe, a sit's my first day back from the holidays. I don't have to ask anyone's permission, can work from my laptop, and I can go home pretty much whenever I want. I can rock up to the office in flipflops, shorts and a tank top if I wanted. That's pretty hard to leave behind. 2. I've never been in a competitive corporate environment. My last "corporate" job was when I was working tech support at a small (<50 employees) tax software company. I'm not sure if I could be as cut-throat as I believe is needed to make it in a big multinational. Nor am I sure I'd want to. I'm very sociable, work hard, can commu icate well, but I find it very hard to throw others under the bus to advance my position. I also don't take it very well if I'm the one getting thrown under the bus. 3. Long hours at the office. I'm fine with working 10 hour days sometimes, but my understanding is that places like those expect you to work 10-12 hours minimum every day. Right now I'm working long hours when something needs to be done, but the next day I might leave early or even skip the office entirely. Also me and my girlfriend are trying for a baby, and if that does happen I'd rather be around. Also ties in to con #1. So whar do you think goons? Is it worth it?
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Aug 21, 2023 11:05
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I think you're overthinking things quite a bit. Especially post-covid I'd be surprised if you couldn't at least negotiate only being in the office 2-3 days per week. If not fully remote. It's also quite easy to play the politics game defensively; just take notes and confirm decisions. When someone says their fuckup is your fault, reply and CC your and their manager with the notes/email documenting their decision. For your WFH days, it should be easy to determine which clients/colleagues expect business formal (this number should be zero, but for your world probably won't be) -- for internal calls with these people just leave your camera off; external calls are almost always scheduled ahead just make sure you're dressed from the waist up.
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Aug 21, 2023 13:43
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Hey, I'm Covok. You might remember me from having doomer polticial predictions or me quitting my job because my boss kept using the n-word to describe other employees. As you may remember, I resigned and got out of there. Did my two weeks and left. But, while I was there, I helped one of the owner's with a long shot attempt to get their debt thrown out with the IRS. It's been about 3 months and I have a new job. I am cautious about even including this job on my resume in the future. I only worked there about 8 months. I might just claim a sabbatical in the future. Well, they keep calling me. I got about 3 calls in the last few weeks. I have them all blocked on my phone and the texts are set to the trash automatically. I, frankly, never want to speak with yhese people again. I did my two weeks and already kind of burned the bridge by yelling at my boss and calling him out for racism. Is there any reason that ignoring these guys might be a bad idea? From a career perspective?
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Aug 22, 2023 23:25
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Not really, you should probably ignore them.
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Aug 22, 2023 23:28
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Lockback posted:Not really, you should probably ignore them. Hell, even if I do put them on a resume, what does it matter? They can't legally say anything. But, I'm considering not mentioning them at all. I plan to be at this company for 6 years or more since it actually seems kind of nice; 90k, 15 minute commute, WFH two days a week, full benefits package, boss is nice, etc. So, it won't matter in the long run. And, tbh, I'm honestly curious how many people even confirm these things anymore. If they do, they probably would bad mouth me because they are that type of person but I can't be the only person who quit a job with a racist angry boss who bad mouths people.
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Aug 22, 2023 23:36
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You should screen and block their calls. Glad you’re in a better spot!
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Aug 23, 2023 02:04
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Pooper Trooper posted:So, I've just hit 40 and I feel like it's time for a change. I wonder if it's just midlife crisis or if it does make sense, please help me figure this out. Pleas excuse the long post, a lot of this is kind of stream of consciousness. I haven’t done tax but I have worked with the big 4 on the consulting side. Bit of a brain dump coming up. Couple things that stand out: You have a lot of experience, doesn’t read like anything less than an SM. Partner seems a stretch to me but what’s your book like, and could you bring that to the firm? That should be part of your conversation. Getting a job at that level would be the challenge, but in the US the pay for a tax SM in big 4 is like ~190 base in MCOL cities from what I gather. Tax season is a nightmare obviously, but more for the more junior employees. The more senior ones I know on the tax side are doing high value client touch, building their book, doing QA. They work, but I don’t think many of them are doing 60 hour weeks. In my experience at least, professional service firms are pretty flexible if you get your poo poo done and sell business. I work, on average, 40 hour weeks. On average doing some heavy lifting there, but still. I also get ~8 weeks of vacation on top of stat holidays once you include our bonus “firm days” and scheduled break periods. If I were you I would be reaching out to contacts within these firms to see what’s possible. There’s a certain reticence to bringing senior people in who haven’t worked big 4 before, but if you can get buy in from partners to get past that, you could potentially do well. I’m about to leave big 4 but I really do think they’re a good place to work. The two I was in at least.
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Aug 23, 2023 03:19
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I don't know if this is a proper thread for it, but I'm deciding between two casino & resort jobs that I'm interested in, and I want help deciding. One's a job at a Sportsbook that would help me break into the gaming side of things, but the pay's lower than my other option with the expectation that tips will make up for it. Is there anyone with sportsbook experience who would be willing to share how much they generally make in tips a week? Or if it's easier, are there any general rules of thumb for how to calculate prospective tips a position might provide?
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Aug 24, 2023 23:32
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Blue Labrador posted:I don't know if this is a proper thread for it, but I'm deciding between two casino & resort jobs that I'm interested in, and I want help deciding. One's a job at a Sportsbook that would help me break into the gaming side of things, but the pay's lower than my other option with the expectation that tips will make up for it. People toke the bookies?
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Aug 24, 2023 23:34
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I've only done the casual sports bet here and there, but I've always thrown a couple bucks towards the bookies. My first instinct is that tips probably wouldn't be plentiful, but I have no real experience with that specific branch of casino work, so I didn't want to automatically write it off.
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Aug 25, 2023 00:01
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I just had an interview for a management position but it had a curve ball thrown in that I had missed in the job description. It’s a contract position, so I would work for the staffing agency for a year, but working in the management position at the company. After that year the company could either decide to hire me or just let my contract expire. It’s the kind of work I would like to do in an industry I would like to be in. This was a longshot application and no probably won’t get selected but if I am, or for future things like this, how bad of an idea is that? Part of me thinks hell, they could fire me any time they wanted anyway. But also I have a stable job now (but I hate it) and a family to provide for. How do these situations normally work out? If I do a good job is it pretty much guaranteed that I would be hired? Or is it normal for companies to use these contracts for a year and then just not continue with the position or something? It’s with a very large corporation if that matters.
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Aug 29, 2023 19:13
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I don't like that companies do it, but its not uncommon. You'll be a "contractor" but still a W-2 employee of the staffing agency so no special tax poo poo you have to go through. Most of the time if you're a good fit they'll move you in house. It's not super advantageous of them to keep you as a contractor and for a management position they are just burning money if they are are trying to cycle people yearly. But it will mean you will not be in as good of a position to negotiate salary when they do bring you on, as they control your current situation. Still, in practice I think most people sorta end up more or less where they were going to anyway. If they start stringing you along at the year mark that's where there are red flags. But of course you need to do the thing and spend the time to find that out. Source: My wife works for a giant medical device company and they do this with all new hires. It's still a good job.
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Aug 29, 2023 19:17
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Even the low end of the salary range the agency posted it would be a big step up for me so that end of it doesn’t bother me too much. I’m guessing they wouldn’t really try to go under what the agency would pay me, considering once I’m in-house they don’t have to pay the agency anymore. This wasn’t really a thing last time I was looking for jobs 14 years ago so it caught me off guard but good to hear it isn’t some sort of scam or something.
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Aug 29, 2023 19:50
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Its been around for a while. It's more up to individual companies to bring people onboard via 3rd party or not. Yeah, it's not a scam. It's not ideal for employees and tbh it's kind of a pain in the rear end for the managers but it makes bean counters REAL happy.
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Aug 29, 2023 19:58
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I'm in the process of onboarding for a contract field technician position. It's my first time being a 1099 contractor, what all should I look out for? I'll be using my own vehicle, so will that mean I can claim the vehicle or gas on my taxes? I know I'll have to withhold my own taxes, is there a special way to do that?
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Sep 1, 2023 02:25
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Organic Lube User posted:I'm in the process of onboarding for a contract field technician position. It's my first time being a 1099 contractor, what all should I look out for? I'll be using my own vehicle, so will that mean I can claim the vehicle or gas on my taxes? I know I'll have to withhold my own taxes, is there a special way to do that? Yeah, don't spend the money.
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Sep 1, 2023 15:06
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If you want to be real safe, calculate your taxes and split your direct deposit into a separate bank account. Or just make a budget for it in mint or your spreadsheet so you know that Uncle Sam’s money doesn’t go anywhere.
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Sep 1, 2023 15:32
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Since you won't have withholding you probably ought to pay quarterly estimated taxes. If you haven't already completed contracting, it can often make sense to contract through a LLC you set up, but it sounds like you are already down the path as an individual.
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Sep 1, 2023 15:49
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I've had a very successful career but cannot find a new opportunity. I was a double digit employee at a "cool" company that had a very sexy IPO in 2016. Got poached by the guys who created Beats (before by Dre) and led marketing for their headphone company trying to piggyback off the EDM/DJ culture of the time. Those guys were loving idiots so when I got poached by another lifestyle company (w/ a product) I took it. That was the past 6 years. Created a Gaming department inside a very famous action sports company and in five years overtook the marketing budget for action sports and the 3 other core marketing pillars. The IPO, bonuses, RSUs, etc allowed me to take 6 months off. Much needed as I was traveling to Europe every 2 weeks for 6 days at a time for nearly my entire tenure. Going back has been really frustrating. I'm a great interviewer and have made it to the final interview only to lose out to the other person because my experience is a bit more scattered than most due to the start-up situations. I've been hammering Linkedin hard. What other career sites should one be using in 2023? Is there any tips for the above?
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Sep 5, 2023 08:36
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96 spacejam posted:I've been hammering Linkedin hard. What other career sites should one be using in 2023? Is there any tips for the above? As a job seeker, the only non-industry/non-trade specific sites I have found to be worth a drat are LinkedIn, Indeed and ZipRecruiter and even then the latter two are only sometimes okay. I also discovered Otta, which is startup-specific, and is okay, though I haven't gotten a bite there. Every time I check elsewhere or use a search engine, it's a loving horror show out there. So many stupid loving websites that want me to sign up and then they're just pointing to some other loving barnacle on the rear end of the economy. I'd happily welcome any other suggestions.
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Sep 5, 2023 09:30
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96 spacejam posted:I've had a very successful career but cannot find a new opportunity. You should probably be talking to executive headhunters. Anyone posting on linkedin is going to look at your experience and be afraid for their own job.
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Sep 5, 2023 16:37
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Any advice on how to find consulting gigs on your own? I have fallen back-assward into a few consulting relationships as a niche subject matter expert that have both paid off pretty well, and I'd like to keep this sort of business going but I don't know how to find new clients. Job searches for 'consultant' churn up a lot of what looks like W2 work for consultant firms. Just curious if there's an actual way people go about this.
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Sep 5, 2023 19:25
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96 spacejam posted:I've had a very successful career but cannot find a new opportunity. Man, not only do I feel you, but I am halfway through a long effort-post about my current situation that, at least in the broad strokes, is pretty similar to yours. Stay tuned, thread...
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Sep 12, 2023 18:27
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How about a short post in the meantime? I'm a machinist in a small company that's feeling increasingly shakey and would like a better contingency plan than just getting hired at another shop if things go boom. What are some other jobs I could pivot into? Ideally I'd like to have something that starts at 60 to 70k with out needing massive overtime to meet those numbers. I'm not opposed to going back to school either at the whatever age of 33, so long as there's a good job to pay the loan afterwards. Thus far my brainstorms are engineering, or computer programming of machines or database backends. Ive also had suggestions that medical coding is a thing as well as radiology or xray tech, but I really don't want to do patient facing medical which the latter is. I am wholly aware that medical is the hot field right now, but I hate the thought of it. Do we have a computer toucher thread? I'd like to at least find out what the correct terminolgy is for various flavors of IT so I can start doing proper research on it. Turbinosamente fucked around with this message at 19:31 on Sep 12, 2023 |
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Sep 12, 2023 19:28
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There's a newbie programmer thread over in CoC that's as good a place as any to start.
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Sep 12, 2023 20:11
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This is also not a bad place. I'd suggest doing some online "Learn Python" things as a place to start. See what you think. Is it interesting and engaging? Or frustrating and confusing? That will give you a good frame of reference on where to look. Doing machine programming is another interesting area with overlap, but you won't get much feedback on that in the newbie programmer thread. So it sorta depends on what you're interested in and what you think you'd be good at. There is no "Push these buttons and say these words and get a good job", you have to find what you can do and what engages you.
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Sep 12, 2023 20:25
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ultrafilter posted:There's a newbie programmer thread over in CoC that's as good a place as any to start. Duly noted. Also "...or desperate humanities majors trying to pivot careers into something that pays well." Lol do I feel seen in that line. Edit: Lockback posted:So it sorta depends on what you're interested in and what you think you'd be good at. There is no "Push these buttons and say these words and get a good job", you have to find what you can do and what engages you. I know, I just wanted to know some terms because just saying "I want an IT job" is so broad that it's useless. I want to research specific possible computery jobs to find what might be right for me. Even just "programming" is a big category on it's own, or am I way off base on this? Turbinosamente fucked around with this message at 20:44 on Sep 12, 2023 |
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Sep 12, 2023 20:29
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Looking for some guidance on a recent work situation - not sure if this is the right thread? I work on a team doing algo development/signal processing/data analytics stuff. Recently a team member has been presenting some ML stuff that has managed to gain some traction with the boss. The thing is, the stuff he's presenting is all stuff I explored 3 or 4 years ago, but basically received a pat on the head and was told "that's nice, now get back to work" To be sure, my frustration is not directed to the colleague per se, but rather at my supervisor for somehow ignoring/overlooking my own (and others) efforts here and only suddenly now seeing the value of it, upon seeing it from someone else. I would like to bring this up with my supervisor, but without coming across as angry/bitter. I was thinking of sending something along the lines of: "I feel the need to be direct here and bring up some frustration with our current ML investigations. The image-based peak detection that Chris presented was something that Matt had up and running 4+ years ago. The issues regarding labelling accuracy were well-known already and documented by myself and others who had been exploring this space. In the next steps portion of the meeting a holistic model idea was mentioned - incorporating segment validation followed by feature detection - which is exactly what the ML approach I presented a year+ ago was doing (and was working very well). This is not a criticism of Chris' work, but an expression of frustration that all this prior effort seems to have fallen on deaf ears" Does something like this seem reasonably well-worded? Any suggestions from others who have been in this position would most appreciated! (Slight background: been at this company for ~5 years. Working in the space for 10+ and have a relevant MSc degree)
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Sep 15, 2023 03:50
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