I've been reading these various threads on this subject - and finally got so p*ssed off I'm nearly dehydrated. I can't believe the attitudes some people have - just because I'm on unemployment means I'm lazy, don't want to work, or am too good for a lower wage job...it's a load of bovine processed feedgrains. I'd take anything that paid a wage I could make ends meet. I have applied for positions from Minneapolis to Des Moines and many points in between. Of all the resumes I've sent out since the end of August, I've had a total of two interviews. It's damn frustrating - and then to get dumped on by people who have no freaking clue is even more frustrating. I may have to just ignore these threads from now on...
If you've done EVERYTHING you could, to find ANY JOB available, then you have no reason to be angry with anyone. YOU know in heart if that's true. If it is, why are you angry?
I know Keith ... these people are just young under-achievers who are actually enjoying the pain you are going though. You see ... seeing people like us suffer thru these hard times validates their decision to work at "cheesecake" factories or live off their husbands and not really have to work hard to achieve anything of real value. They have never and probably will never achieve anything that can't be readily and easily replaced. They have NO IDEA what it is to dedicate ones life to a career and spend a lifetime achieving it.
Arguing with them or trying to show them something past their simple and VERY limited abilities is like trying to discuss Quantum Mechanics to a 3 year old.
I've been in software development since 1987 when I started at Microsoft after receiving my BSCS. I returned to college at age 30 so I was older than most of the other students in school and the other new recruits at Microsoft. I have founded two small software consulting companies, led four software development teams and worked on award winning projects. In 2000 the consulting business began to diminish so I went back to working as an employee for a dot bomb company that had just received $60 million dollars in V.C. money.
What could go wrong with a well funded company like that? Nine months later they went bankrupt, no severance, no COBRA for the remaining employees.
I tried technical recruiting in 2001, but oddly enough no one seemed to require the services of a recruiter. That company went bankrupt a few months after I started.
So I found myself on unemployment, worked on picking up new skills in Java, XML, SQL etc. I sent out over four hundred resumes initially mainly in the Seattle area, for software development, then nationwide, then outside my field. Three interviews, no job.
I went from an average of $100,000 yearly to around $1900 monthly unemployment. My house was foreclosed, my car repossessed and my unemployment ran out leaving me facing bankruptcy. I now am helping part time with my wife's cleaning business. I even applied at McDonalds and some local restaurants, to no avail.
Luckily, I have ownership in a U.S. patent that I developed for a consumer electronics product that is on the verge of being licensed, thus saving the remainder of my bacon.
Many people are uninformed about the real state of affairs in the software arena and the difficulties faced by those trying to restore a shattered career and financial destruction.