--- John C <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > Wondering though... In Columbus, how's the job market for technical > people? Do recruiters call much for jobs there or do you have to go > directly to the BIG TWO?
Speaking to that from *outside* the valley area, I deal with recruiters pretty much constantly, and I have not seen or heard of any contract positions coming up in that area - L3 and Lockheed are the big guns in Georgia, and they're both in Atlanta - Lockheed being whiny little bitches about hiring, generally speaking - running their own "exclusive recruiting" business, offering low rates, demanding mad credentials but allowing for little or no experience, and just generally not tapping my segment of the market - I have contacted them several times about positions they have posted nationally and never got so much as an email in response - the consensus amongst the contractos I know is that they don't hire for even a tiny fraction of requirements they post claiming they are trying to fill. L3 is not quite as bad, but they're a bit of a fiscal roller coaster - they don't seem to know themselves if their own projects will be funded over the next week, let alone 3 months... at least they use outside agencies to recruit for them. I know Ft Benning has had some involvement in some high-tech defense and defense research projects, but again - no word about it on the national contract market that I've seen - I only know about it from personal contacts in the area and the published reports about the projects. There is a high-tech firm in Columbus - I forget the name of it, and I haven't heard anything about it in a couple years, but they were making dirigibles, I believe. Pretty neat stuff, but they never seem to have advertised for people, and I never received a response to the email I sent them enquiring about employment early on when they were announced. I figured my avionics and networking background would be useful to them, but either a) they're not as high tech as they seem and don't "do email", b) they figured the couldn't afford me [may or may not be true - they're a startup, but I'm pretty flexible with startups cause I like being a part of them], c) know me and don't want me [not the case to the best of my knowledge], or d) something I don't know about. In any case, they didn't respond, and I haven't heard any more about them in some time. Perhaps they just thought I lacked "persistence" cause I didn't email them a second time... As far as teh BIG TWO - I assume you're talking about TSYS and AFLAC? I have never known them to be particularly "high tech" - they do have big IT budgets, and I did run into some of their IT guys who were ... *ahem* leveraging, shall we say, their multiple dial-out lines to in pusuit of tech-related goals in a game called "Tradewars 2000" back in the 1980s, but their tech has trailed somewhat behind the "cutting edge" since before I got into software development in the late 80s. In know TSYS was offering rates in the mid-80k range for consultants in 1999 because they apparently had massive COBOL systems that there were concerned bout re: the y2k problems, but otherwise I have found that they typically don't advertise for IT contractors much, and don't pay much (from a national wage scale perspective) to those people they do hire (direct). AFLAC (from my perspective) is very much a "closed shop". You have to know someone to get on there, as best I can tell. I have also heard some stories about the "corporate culture" there that could stand your hair on end (assuming you're not into all that, which I'm not - at least, not for any money anyone has ever offered me)... Columbus does not as low a "cost of living" as many of the Chamber of Commerce types would have you believe, either - not as high as, say California or New England, but definitely significanly higher than, say, the mid-west (where I am now). So the combined low wages, high cost of living, and the entrenched "old boy network" (clicishness) combine to make it a very un-attractive place to work and live, imo. The medical industry, the telecomms industry, and even the consolidated government in Columbus have typically been slightly ahead of the curve, but they don't seem to have much use for contractors that I've seen. Mostly, I just don't work there because the employers tend to be either oppressive, cheap-skates, or oppresive cheap-skates. I also don't like the weather there, although I do still call Phenix City "home" (some days). All that said, I have to consider that my views are perhaps a bit skewed because I spent my teenage years and early twenties in the area in the late 1970s (NOT something I have many fond memories of) and the last time I was there was in the 2001/2002 timeframe. I don't know specifically what it was like economically in that region, but I know that nationwide, every contract engineer I know went out of work for at least 9 months - so I was looking for work there in Columbus for a minute. Very, very poor market. TSYS (their HR people) couldn't even read my resume, let alone understand it - she trashed the formatting and never called me back. AFLAC wouldn't talk to me. No one else was hiring, that I could find, except one of the ISPs and they just acted pissed off when offered to work for them for a little less than half of what I was working for in AZ or IL in 2001. I don't know what her problem was, but I'm just as glad I didn't get that, since I was drawing more in un-employment at the time than they appeared to be willing to offer, and the next offer I got (in WI) was well above what I offered to work for LDL for. I'm still a bit embarassed about that, but I did have a sentimentality excuse, since I was one of Lightspeed's first customers when they opened up in Columbus. Apparently they arenot sentitmental like that, though. Oh well. So overall I guess I'm just a little bit jaded when it comes to the job market in Columbus. I may, at some point, retire to the area and open up a business there, but if I do, I probably won't be paying very much for help, either Another pet idea of mine: tit for tat. I'll probably ashcan the resume of any applicant who doesn't have green hair, body piercings, or tattoos. It won't be stated, of course, it will be another of those "unspecified rules and regulations" that "we all must observe in order to get by". If the fukkers in "business" down there can discriminate *against* such people (they do, of course - if you don't know it, try dying your hair something besides blond or brunette, or getting your eyebrow pierced) - then I suppose there's nothing particularly illegal about discriminating against good-ole-boys, rednecks, people who wear ties, or debutants. I figure I'll probably open a bank account at whatever the first bank is to hire tellers with nose rings. I'm not unreasonable, you understand - if you want to work for me, and you haven't got any body modifications, we will allow a day or two to dye your hair, get some ripped jeans and a leather jacket, and generally get your act together... permanent mods aren't required, but you'll stand a better chance of promotion if you get some good ink. I mean, who *would* go to a job interview wearing jeans? I'm that it will be someone who knows enough about what they're doing to know not only that they can get away with it, but that it's a good idea if you don't want to get caught up and put through the wringer by just-another-posuer-mega-corp - someone who's tired of it and would rather not have the job than go thru another week of idiotic bullshit perpetrated by brain-dead management types with aspirations to petty dictatorship and totalitarian society. ... anyway - not to get too deep into the tactics of The Enemy, but ... well, you get the idea... :-/ 0x0000 --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "CHAOS706.ORG" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups-beta.google.com/group/chaos706 -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
