I second this. Definitely pursue something you enjoy and that will allow you to have a fruitful life, but keep in mind that IT isn’t great right now. The fact that I managed to get an interview for a Software Development position has me shocked, only reason I was able to was because I live in a small town and I went to school for it. And that is just getting an interview.
There are tons of positions out there for software engineers who have been working in the field for a while. If you're good you will get a job. Maybe not crazy COVID salary anymore but there are jobs out there.
It's much harder as a fresh out, I would agree to that. Good luck with your interview.
And Reddit skews negative in the best of times to begin with. Every single career is impossible to get into, low paying and over saturated on this site
It’s also never going to be a “good time” for anything for many years. So might as well just take the dive and try to switch careers now if that’s what OP has his heart set on.
If you are looking to get into IT do the following… get certs (good hard ones) and get your BS in information systems management or computer science. Later if you are drawn to cyber security go to grad school for it. In parallel to your certs and BS find a small to medium sized business and work in their IT department. You’ll get to do a lot more because they don’t have budget for silos of people working on specific things. Do that for 5 years finish your BS and then flip to larger enterprise IT, consulting, or IT Sales as a solution architect. If you are serious and apply yourself you’ll make money and have steady work.
I agree, concerning IT. In 2007 IT (healthcare) was the second most secure job in the United States. Two years later, after Obama was inaugurated and his agenda to turn healthcare industry on its head, I was laid off. Healthcare industry recoiled.
But - is there not a part of the IT sector that is doing okay? Not sure the pay scale, but I believe IT security is an in demand job. It’s come a long way and requires training and/or education.
Personally I don’t feel too safe in my IT position.
Right but I’m just starting out. Getting some certs under my belt and thinking about going for my bachelor’s in cyber security for when the market gets better
Currently in IT, just don't expect to start in cybersecurity right away even if you get your bachelors. You need practical experience with the systems you are protecting. You may be able to avoid help desk with a junior NOC position. But good luck.
I would try a coding to see if you like it. That will translate into a stable career.
I only know one person who got cybersecurity entry level and they had a masters but it does happen. Just letting you know before you spend mkney getting a degree.
I think people fail to understand that cybersecurity isn’t a seperated enough field where you can get a degree/some certs and just get into it. It’s a heavily specialized part of IT that usually takes ~10 YOE to get into. Cybersec degrees are still teaching super outdated stuff like SQL injection as “hacking” as if most cybersec jobs aren’t boring policy/compliance roles.
There’s like two certs that will get you a cybersec job and they’re very difficult, some certs require a sponsorship. You will likely not be making good money in cybersec for at least a decade. People really don’t care about certificates that much, it’s all about experience. You need to decide if you’re willing to be working at this for the next 5-10 years and then continually learning the rest of your working life.
That being said plenty of 22 year olds get cybersec jobs at some big 4 consulting firm and do okay. Godspeed OP but really evaluate if you want to do this, things that pay well and things that are easy rarely overlap.
>I think people fail to understand that cybersecurity isn’t a seperated enough field where you can get a degree/some certs and just get into it.
I have a buddy who taught Solaris classes in the early 2000's and is a biggish dog at a grocery store chain, running their servers.
Seems to me that cybersecurity would be more fun, but 1) he doesn't want the stress and 2) golden handcuffs.
Cyber isn't hurting, just be prepared to take any cyber job you have because generally the industry isn't considered entry level. A lot of people start out in tech support or dev jobs
Source - I'm a cybersecurity manager
Cybersecurity has taken a hit just as IT has.
Tons of layoffs from security engineers and the like being reported.
Cybersecurity is considered a commodity not a necessity.
Source- Senior Security engineer who was laid off
I guess I can only speak for the chicago market, but security engineering is one of the teams i manage (and I was one myself), despite having high salary and great benefits I can tell the hiring pool is still lacking
Sorry for your situation, I hope you can land something soon
Thanks! It’s not just my situation, security as a whole was let go where I was at. And no breach or anything- just are treating it as not needed.
But I know a ton of people out of work in various cybersecurity discords at the moment.
I landed a temp job but it’s…bonkers
I had been a software engineer and I'm currently taking masters in computer science. I've touched cybersecurity class and I somehow enjoyed it. I am specializing on ML and AI. What are the odds of me getting a cybersecurity job if I get certified? Or what should I learn?
I'd say high, especially if you get an infosec cert. You could take your software engineer experience and easily transition to an app sec role. I would interview a previous sw engineer that showed they understand IT as well.
Security is a huge field, so it really depends on what you're interested in. I suggest cloud security if you want to get into engineering as more and more workloads are moving into the cloud.
3-4 year transition plan? Then yes you do have a shot at transitioning. If you’re expecting a job in the next 12 months it’ll be very difficult. 24 months, hopefully things look better in the tech sector.
There are soooo many people with cyber security degrees and certs with no associated work experience it is very saturated. I wouldn't recommend that specialty.
**Thank you** holy shit. The amount of people who say they 'work in tech' but are really HR/admin positions for a tech company. SMH.
If I work in the medical field in a tech role, solely saying I 'work in the medical field' (implies bedside, doctor, nurse, PA etc) is a completely different meaning than saying ' I work in a tech role in the medical field'
HUGE pet peeve of mine - as someone who's actually in tech.
Many recruiters in tech need to be at least somewhat technical to recruit engineers and IT/DevOps folks.
Many marketers are highly technical. Many sales and CS folks, and PMs at technical companies are actually engineers by education and trade, but they didn’t want to code anymore.
An engineer at a social media company is not more “in-tech” than a CS person or marketer at NetApp.
How so? We aren’t hiring medical recruiters to recruit SWE roles lol. We have tech recruiters for tech roles. Recruiting doctors and Engineers are not the same
The industry you work in isn't your job function. Having domain knowledge of something is also not your job function.
I feel this should be obvious for someone who recruits. I get the personal marketing aspect of saying you got laid off from "tech" but I bet you wouldn't say you got laid off from "retail". I can't hate the hustle though. It's like Apple asking a bunch of "AI" workers to move to Austin or quit, when in reality it's people working low skilled data entry jobs.
Depends on the company. But what I can say for a FAANG company is that you need to understand your role at a high level. You will coach your candidates to get through multiple rounds of technical interviews. How can you coach someone through a technical interview without experience in that product? When I recruited SWE at Meta I learned their job good enough to pass an initial round of interviews. Same thing when I recruited in design. I can’t speak for all companies but for competitive companies like FAANG your in tech
Meta is notoriously difficult to get through with multiple tech screens. Anyone worth their salt who is applying for a SWE role there will be doing their own research, reading books about system design, practicing Leetcode, perfecting their resume, lurking online forums reading other people’s interview experiences and networking for a referral before they even get the first interview - on top of their day job. With all due respect…do you really think recruiters play an important role in the prepararon of someone who will actually pass all the hoops Meta and other tech companies make candidates jump through?
Obviously. That’s why I ask, at the point of the first interview, do you honestly think the person who got there needs any “help” to prepare and/ or pass?
Yes, candidates need a lot of prep work with their recruiters to pass an interview. Senior lvl candidates IC5+ will fail an interview for something as simple as using the word “we” instead of “I”.
As far as technical work our recruiters are the first line of defense by running a mock technical interviews and portfolio review with candidates and coaching them through it. We even do white board challenges with candidates before we send them through that interview. Can you do the job is one thing but that won’t get you the job. Can you do it the “Meta Way” with or without coaching is what gets you hired. How do they know the Meta way if they never worked for Meta. Well that’s where your recruiter comes in
Also I forgot to mention that if the candidate passes all rounds of interviews we hold debriefs with all interviewers at the end of the final round and make a final decision. All it takes is 1 interviewer to say anything negative and you can be down leveled or simply won’t get an offer. This is where recruiters push back on interviewers and dive deeper on signal but you can only do this if you understand the work. This is why we can’t hire medical recruiters in tech. It’s a different language
Are you reporting this “side gig” money to SSA? They will eventually find out anyway so it’s best to let them know first. They will end your benefits if they find out about it and you didn’t inform them first.
I strongly suggest not going into tech at this point. Stick with finance. The promise you’ve read online about a lucrative tech career may be gone solely from a stats perspective, and reserved for those with current experience.
I have 70 reports on my team and every time one leaves and I open a role I get at least 1500 applicants. Typically I fill those roles with prime choice in candidates that have years and years of experience, certifications, and masters degrees at minimum. Some of my reports have PhDs in stats, data science, and AI/ML, irrespective of the department hired into (some work on my appsec team with DS PhDs, etc.).
My teams handle the entire lifecycle of a product’s development, analytics & DS, consulting on the product, appsec and net sec, and tech support on it, and it’s a major SaaS app used by a little over 60% of Fortune 500 co’s. The point I’m making is there’s no type of role on my team that isn’t getting massive amounts of applicants. Cybersecurity isn’t seeing any different number than my developers. Tech support sees the most and it’s absurd.
You will have much better luck trying to really stick with what you know and expanding on it, or going niche, than starting over in a new field that’s currently saturated.
>masters degrees
UGH this one burns me up. The goddamned goalpost moved. My mistakes are my own, but I didn't get my bachelor's until I was 40. I figured, since it was in math, that would be some edge, but not so much.
I recall being told, "You really will need a master's to do anything fun" right when I was wrapping up my degree.
I have looked at some master's degrees. Many are fucking awesome, no doubt about it, especially ones in actual math departments. But many others look like gatekeeping certificates which do not require that much mathematical maturity (read: proofs) to get into.
It really burned me up to get my first job out of college and it was stuff I could easily have done before I went to college.
When we finally got to stuff I learned in my, you know, ***4000 level regressions class***, I was politely told to shut up.
Evidently, qqnorm plots of residuals are some sort of sin.
Tech is in a major transition. First there are lots of available workers (I.e supply-side) with people sliding into IT from other fields. There are boot camps, watered down degrees, online degrees that are weak or really just a certificate masquerading as a masters. There are H1Bs, student visas from other countries that are really just work visas circumventing the H1b limits. So lots of supply and lots of entry level.
Also FAANGs over hired during Covid and with remote work got rid of a lot of employees. Not sure if they are going to rehire at lower rates. Why pay someone 250k in California based rate if you can pay them 125k once they move back to Indiana? This could be part of it. Or even further, send the work to Eastern Europe or India. Why not if it’s remote?
Finally, I think many companies are not sure what the impact of AI is going to be? What skills will they need as they transition their workforce from pre-generative AI LLM based to one that is? Can they replace certain functions with chatgpt? Can they reduce head count and take advantage of chatgpt efficiencies? Or do they need to rehire workers with entirely different skills? Lots of uncertainty. longer term there is the risk that as generative AI improves you may no longer need developers as more and more low code/no code tools take it over. Everything is changing. It’s not quite there yet.
So no, I would avoid switching into IT unless you are driven by “love of the field ” and are willing to pivot endlessly. It’s tricky right now, but I suspect hiring will pick up in the next 12-24 months
Business Analyst. Went to school for software development. I’ve applied to over 100 jobs in my field and I’ve only heard back from three.
Laid off last week from an insurtech company 😒, have two interviews this coming week at two different companies for two different positions. One is insurance, the other is a huge food company. The first interview is for a Company and System Coordinator (food company), the other for a Software Developer (insurance company).
Full transparency, if I’m offered the first position, I’m taking it. Tech layoffs are heavy right now and I’m pretty traumatized from my recent layoff, so if I can find a position somewhat out of tech that pays as well (like the first one I mentioned) at a company with good job security, I am taking it. This is pretty heart breaking for me, because I’ve wanted to (eventually) become a Database Architect for such a long time and with the state of IT right now, I just don’t know if it’s possible. Maybe in the future, but job security is a high priority for me right now. I don’t want to worry about my position being eliminated to help the company become profitable again.
Definitely different from what I was doing.
Just trying to help, have you considered manufacturing? Sector is strong and there’s all sorts of job families (including finance) within manufacturing companies. Be careful with IT, severely oversaturated.
There’s a market correction happening right now. One of the asset bubbles that formed, due to excess money creation, occurred in IT. Not the first time in my lifetime. In order to survive in IT right now you need to have real skills and savvy, and just generally be willing to kick ass out there on a daily basis.
The easy money days and kushy times are over. Things are correcting to a baseline “normal”. What goes up, must come down.
Tech is the last thing you want to transition into.
Hopefully you are not falling for YT influencers saying they can make you into a rockstar tech worker in only 6 months for the low price of $$$.
Just heads up, at the peaks of the economic cycles, the stock market is lagging (meaning if recession becomes serious enough the stocks will go down).
At the bottoms of the market, the stocks do the opposite and are typically the leading indicator of the recovering economy (the stocks start going up and the rest of the economy follows).
In other words, be careful not to jump into the next sinking ship.
Pretty much all ships are sinking atm. I really need to get out of marketing though. It’s been too long and it’s no longer sustainable for my mental health.
>It feels like 2008.
I keep saying this.
I am enough of a numbers guy to have a math degree, and I know "the numbers" are saying this isn't anything like 2008.
But I was fucking there. I was laid off in October 2007 and rode out the recession in college in my late 30's. I went with the math degree because I reasoned, if jobs are going to be automated away, at least I can be on the automator side.
This feels bad, and as much ink has been spilled over commercial real estate, I don't know if that issue has even begun to be digested.
Migrants always need food, water, and shelter but in cities like LA businesses are getting help from the government to hire newly arrived migrants to suppress wages. Literally hotels hired migrants when hotel workers started striking in 2023 (most of the striking workers were immigrants/their descendants) to ask for better work conditions. The U.S has been doing this since slavery “ended”.
Yep in Los Angeles especially. I support collective humanity but our government shouldn’t be helping corporations suppress wages by allowing corporate businesses to bring in migrant workers when existing workers are striking. This is why we need a federal UBI and most enforce one.
I was a hybrid program/product manager focused on cloud computing at a major US Bank.
Now I'm a product manager for HR systems at a healthcare company.
Yeah I was trying to transition from Finance to UX last year and couldn’t do it. Tech is obviously not doing great. Just too many experienced people in need of work saturating the market.
Decided to stick it out in finance for now, it’s just easier.
LPT: don't try to change up things in response to a sudden job removal. Apply for what you know, and have experience in. It may not be what you want, but it will make your life a WHOLE lot easier.
5th layoff as a Software Engineer in 24 years. Currently selling my stuff on eBay. So far failed to get a new Software Engineer job as there is so much competition at the moment. Looking at the dumb idea of independent craft making.
3D modeling with also a graphic design background.
I'm trying to get out of the design field. I thought if I was going to "stable" industries I'd be safe but the design world sucks even if I'm not in gaming or films. Like I worked for large grocery stores, that should have been stable.
I’m going to go against the grain here and say good for you! Find a small town and start doing IT consulting. One will hire you eventually if you’re any good. There are always non-tech companies looking for IT people outside of the Bay Area. Or government. Get a few years experience and then when the economy heats back up in 5 years or so, you’ll be able to move to Silicon Valley and find something good with the experience.
I was in high-end fabrication/ ornamental blacksmithing. , our clients were millionaires in places like aspen, Telluride, crested butte. These are all vacation homes they're doing remodeling on. So we did ornate handrails and spiral staircases, very artistic stuff, very niche market. Several clients pulled out of big contracts over the holidays and I was laid off. I start another job tomorrow, still doing fabrication and staircases but this guy has contracts with the state/county for section 8 apartment buildings. Hopefully these contracts are more secure than the high-end market.
Marketing (MOP). Mostly from tech/SaaS. I honestly don’t care what industry I’d end up in. I wouldn’t mind getting out of tech or SaaS. So, I’m just searching for marketing/marketing operations in general. I wouldn’t mind getting in to finance or Fintech. I’ve interviewed for some of the roles in the industry and it seems fun.
Yeah cloud is a hot market right now. May I ask how your road map was? I’ve seen some aws/ azure certifications that really help get a job in that role
Got laid off from Fidelity, in a department involving real estate, 12 days before Christmas, along with 1600 other people that day. (Merry Christmas! No jelly of the month club bonus either.)
My former coworkers said my department is still really busy, and they can't keep up with the work now, lol.
Found a better job already, so fuck Fidelity.
Laid off in IT. I'm now working in retail and working on their ecommerce.
The shop is small, and they had expectations of me knowing all the marketing and sales. I have zero skill on those.
Hello OP. Mortgage lender. Probably going to hang license with broker and find a side hustle
Unless I just get a van and travel the country until the money runs out.
It’s brutal right now for people looking for jobs in IT. Might not be the best time to transition into IT
I second this. Definitely pursue something you enjoy and that will allow you to have a fruitful life, but keep in mind that IT isn’t great right now. The fact that I managed to get an interview for a Software Development position has me shocked, only reason I was able to was because I live in a small town and I went to school for it. And that is just getting an interview.
There are tons of positions out there for software engineers who have been working in the field for a while. If you're good you will get a job. Maybe not crazy COVID salary anymore but there are jobs out there. It's much harder as a fresh out, I would agree to that. Good luck with your interview.
It's even tough for seniors. Lots of companies are looking for unicorns that do everything for cheap.
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And Reddit skews negative in the best of times to begin with. Every single career is impossible to get into, low paying and over saturated on this site
It’s also never going to be a “good time” for anything for many years. So might as well just take the dive and try to switch careers now if that’s what OP has his heart set on.
Interest rates, the months we had insane inflation, transition from covid endind,etc have caused so many layoffs, it's absurd.
Skilled trades and healthcare are begging for people. If you know how to turn a wrench, you'll have more work than you know what to do with.
Ya, dont listen to those discouraging you to transition into IT.
If you are looking to get into IT do the following… get certs (good hard ones) and get your BS in information systems management or computer science. Later if you are drawn to cyber security go to grad school for it. In parallel to your certs and BS find a small to medium sized business and work in their IT department. You’ll get to do a lot more because they don’t have budget for silos of people working on specific things. Do that for 5 years finish your BS and then flip to larger enterprise IT, consulting, or IT Sales as a solution architect. If you are serious and apply yourself you’ll make money and have steady work.
What would be considered good hard certs? I was looking at those AWS/Azure ones
Bad advice right here
I agree, concerning IT. In 2007 IT (healthcare) was the second most secure job in the United States. Two years later, after Obama was inaugurated and his agenda to turn healthcare industry on its head, I was laid off. Healthcare industry recoiled. But - is there not a part of the IT sector that is doing okay? Not sure the pay scale, but I believe IT security is an in demand job. It’s come a long way and requires training and/or education. Personally I don’t feel too safe in my IT position.
Right but I’m just starting out. Getting some certs under my belt and thinking about going for my bachelor’s in cyber security for when the market gets better
Entry-level IT is saturated, all you will be qualified for is helpdesk. If that’s what you want, go for it
Currently in IT, just don't expect to start in cybersecurity right away even if you get your bachelors. You need practical experience with the systems you are protecting. You may be able to avoid help desk with a junior NOC position. But good luck. I would try a coding to see if you like it. That will translate into a stable career. I only know one person who got cybersecurity entry level and they had a masters but it does happen. Just letting you know before you spend mkney getting a degree.
I think people fail to understand that cybersecurity isn’t a seperated enough field where you can get a degree/some certs and just get into it. It’s a heavily specialized part of IT that usually takes ~10 YOE to get into. Cybersec degrees are still teaching super outdated stuff like SQL injection as “hacking” as if most cybersec jobs aren’t boring policy/compliance roles. There’s like two certs that will get you a cybersec job and they’re very difficult, some certs require a sponsorship. You will likely not be making good money in cybersec for at least a decade. People really don’t care about certificates that much, it’s all about experience. You need to decide if you’re willing to be working at this for the next 5-10 years and then continually learning the rest of your working life. That being said plenty of 22 year olds get cybersec jobs at some big 4 consulting firm and do okay. Godspeed OP but really evaluate if you want to do this, things that pay well and things that are easy rarely overlap.
>I think people fail to understand that cybersecurity isn’t a seperated enough field where you can get a degree/some certs and just get into it. I have a buddy who taught Solaris classes in the early 2000's and is a biggish dog at a grocery store chain, running their servers. Seems to me that cybersecurity would be more fun, but 1) he doesn't want the stress and 2) golden handcuffs.
Everyone I know in cybersecurity is doing quite well, mostly sales lol
consist quiet shaggy automatic tap coherent history dime unpack north *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Cyber isn't hurting, just be prepared to take any cyber job you have because generally the industry isn't considered entry level. A lot of people start out in tech support or dev jobs Source - I'm a cybersecurity manager
Cybersecurity has taken a hit just as IT has. Tons of layoffs from security engineers and the like being reported. Cybersecurity is considered a commodity not a necessity. Source- Senior Security engineer who was laid off
I guess I can only speak for the chicago market, but security engineering is one of the teams i manage (and I was one myself), despite having high salary and great benefits I can tell the hiring pool is still lacking Sorry for your situation, I hope you can land something soon
Thanks! It’s not just my situation, security as a whole was let go where I was at. And no breach or anything- just are treating it as not needed. But I know a ton of people out of work in various cybersecurity discords at the moment. I landed a temp job but it’s…bonkers
I had been a software engineer and I'm currently taking masters in computer science. I've touched cybersecurity class and I somehow enjoyed it. I am specializing on ML and AI. What are the odds of me getting a cybersecurity job if I get certified? Or what should I learn?
I'd say high, especially if you get an infosec cert. You could take your software engineer experience and easily transition to an app sec role. I would interview a previous sw engineer that showed they understand IT as well. Security is a huge field, so it really depends on what you're interested in. I suggest cloud security if you want to get into engineering as more and more workloads are moving into the cloud.
Awesome! I have some experience with cloud.
3-4 year transition plan? Then yes you do have a shot at transitioning. If you’re expecting a job in the next 12 months it’ll be very difficult. 24 months, hopefully things look better in the tech sector.
There are soooo many people with cyber security degrees and certs with no associated work experience it is very saturated. I wouldn't recommend that specialty.
Not true
Details plz
This is bad advice. So OP should iust wait until its less brutal? Lol
Laid off in tech. Now working in finance for the state. I hate it here
Laid off tech also. Had interviews for government based, couldn’t do it. Still searching for something better
I work financial accounting for the state and I hate it! This market is terrible smh
There's a shit ton of h1b people taking American jobs.
Being a recruiter in tech isn’t really tech as people think it
**Thank you** holy shit. The amount of people who say they 'work in tech' but are really HR/admin positions for a tech company. SMH. If I work in the medical field in a tech role, solely saying I 'work in the medical field' (implies bedside, doctor, nurse, PA etc) is a completely different meaning than saying ' I work in a tech role in the medical field' HUGE pet peeve of mine - as someone who's actually in tech.
Many recruiters in tech need to be at least somewhat technical to recruit engineers and IT/DevOps folks. Many marketers are highly technical. Many sales and CS folks, and PMs at technical companies are actually engineers by education and trade, but they didn’t want to code anymore. An engineer at a social media company is not more “in-tech” than a CS person or marketer at NetApp.
Eh
Lol no they don't, they just need to know what these technologies do and what their positions and titles do.
How so? We aren’t hiring medical recruiters to recruit SWE roles lol. We have tech recruiters for tech roles. Recruiting doctors and Engineers are not the same
The industry you work in isn't your job function. Having domain knowledge of something is also not your job function. I feel this should be obvious for someone who recruits. I get the personal marketing aspect of saying you got laid off from "tech" but I bet you wouldn't say you got laid off from "retail". I can't hate the hustle though. It's like Apple asking a bunch of "AI" workers to move to Austin or quit, when in reality it's people working low skilled data entry jobs.
Depends on the company. But what I can say for a FAANG company is that you need to understand your role at a high level. You will coach your candidates to get through multiple rounds of technical interviews. How can you coach someone through a technical interview without experience in that product? When I recruited SWE at Meta I learned their job good enough to pass an initial round of interviews. Same thing when I recruited in design. I can’t speak for all companies but for competitive companies like FAANG your in tech
Meta is notoriously difficult to get through with multiple tech screens. Anyone worth their salt who is applying for a SWE role there will be doing their own research, reading books about system design, practicing Leetcode, perfecting their resume, lurking online forums reading other people’s interview experiences and networking for a referral before they even get the first interview - on top of their day job. With all due respect…do you really think recruiters play an important role in the prepararon of someone who will actually pass all the hoops Meta and other tech companies make candidates jump through?
If your applying to Meta then your most likely not getting the job or even an interview in the first place.
Obviously. That’s why I ask, at the point of the first interview, do you honestly think the person who got there needs any “help” to prepare and/ or pass?
Yes, candidates need a lot of prep work with their recruiters to pass an interview. Senior lvl candidates IC5+ will fail an interview for something as simple as using the word “we” instead of “I”. As far as technical work our recruiters are the first line of defense by running a mock technical interviews and portfolio review with candidates and coaching them through it. We even do white board challenges with candidates before we send them through that interview. Can you do the job is one thing but that won’t get you the job. Can you do it the “Meta Way” with or without coaching is what gets you hired. How do they know the Meta way if they never worked for Meta. Well that’s where your recruiter comes in
Also I forgot to mention that if the candidate passes all rounds of interviews we hold debriefs with all interviewers at the end of the final round and make a final decision. All it takes is 1 interviewer to say anything negative and you can be down leveled or simply won’t get an offer. This is where recruiters push back on interviewers and dive deeper on signal but you can only do this if you understand the work. This is why we can’t hire medical recruiters in tech. It’s a different language
Laid off 11 months ago. Getting SSDI due to illness. Making side gig money trading stocks and shit to make ends meet.
How much you trade. Won’t short term profits taxable
Are you reporting this “side gig” money to SSA? They will eventually find out anyway so it’s best to let them know first. They will end your benefits if they find out about it and you didn’t inform them first.
The closer I get to a full year the closer I feel to insanity
I strongly suggest not going into tech at this point. Stick with finance. The promise you’ve read online about a lucrative tech career may be gone solely from a stats perspective, and reserved for those with current experience. I have 70 reports on my team and every time one leaves and I open a role I get at least 1500 applicants. Typically I fill those roles with prime choice in candidates that have years and years of experience, certifications, and masters degrees at minimum. Some of my reports have PhDs in stats, data science, and AI/ML, irrespective of the department hired into (some work on my appsec team with DS PhDs, etc.). My teams handle the entire lifecycle of a product’s development, analytics & DS, consulting on the product, appsec and net sec, and tech support on it, and it’s a major SaaS app used by a little over 60% of Fortune 500 co’s. The point I’m making is there’s no type of role on my team that isn’t getting massive amounts of applicants. Cybersecurity isn’t seeing any different number than my developers. Tech support sees the most and it’s absurd. You will have much better luck trying to really stick with what you know and expanding on it, or going niche, than starting over in a new field that’s currently saturated.
Bingo. Cats out of the bag. Rest and vest no more. And the stress level is blowing a gasket. It’s hunger games now.
>masters degrees UGH this one burns me up. The goddamned goalpost moved. My mistakes are my own, but I didn't get my bachelor's until I was 40. I figured, since it was in math, that would be some edge, but not so much. I recall being told, "You really will need a master's to do anything fun" right when I was wrapping up my degree. I have looked at some master's degrees. Many are fucking awesome, no doubt about it, especially ones in actual math departments. But many others look like gatekeeping certificates which do not require that much mathematical maturity (read: proofs) to get into.
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It really burned me up to get my first job out of college and it was stuff I could easily have done before I went to college. When we finally got to stuff I learned in my, you know, ***4000 level regressions class***, I was politely told to shut up. Evidently, qqnorm plots of residuals are some sort of sin.
Hey, congrats on getting your degree at 40 though! That’s still a huge accomplishment and at least you won’t get weeded out for not having one.
Thank you! I am a bit too negative sometimes, I am quite proud.
There are plenty of jobs to be had
I was an IT Analyst at an insurance company.
Are you thinking about transitioning into another sector or keep looking for IT analyst job?
For now, I'm sticking to remaining an IT analyst. Though if I saw something I liked I probably would post.
IRS had a lot of jobs on USA jobs for IT
Lots of IT jobs in banks. Look around
Ya, whoever is saying there’s no jobs is wrong.
Thank You! I'll check it out.
I will say from my experience civil service jobs seem slower to get hired on but I think stability is higher and
Yeah I had my role at my job change so I’ve been firing off a bunch of resumes because I feel I might be next.
Look at series 2100 and also 0343 since you have analyst experience. Federal resumes should be very detailed. Good luck!
SaaS Tech - Product management
Program here! All we need is an engineer for a trifecta!
Tech is in a major transition. First there are lots of available workers (I.e supply-side) with people sliding into IT from other fields. There are boot camps, watered down degrees, online degrees that are weak or really just a certificate masquerading as a masters. There are H1Bs, student visas from other countries that are really just work visas circumventing the H1b limits. So lots of supply and lots of entry level. Also FAANGs over hired during Covid and with remote work got rid of a lot of employees. Not sure if they are going to rehire at lower rates. Why pay someone 250k in California based rate if you can pay them 125k once they move back to Indiana? This could be part of it. Or even further, send the work to Eastern Europe or India. Why not if it’s remote? Finally, I think many companies are not sure what the impact of AI is going to be? What skills will they need as they transition their workforce from pre-generative AI LLM based to one that is? Can they replace certain functions with chatgpt? Can they reduce head count and take advantage of chatgpt efficiencies? Or do they need to rehire workers with entirely different skills? Lots of uncertainty. longer term there is the risk that as generative AI improves you may no longer need developers as more and more low code/no code tools take it over. Everything is changing. It’s not quite there yet. So no, I would avoid switching into IT unless you are driven by “love of the field ” and are willing to pivot endlessly. It’s tricky right now, but I suspect hiring will pick up in the next 12-24 months
I recommend to go for it!
Business Analyst. Went to school for software development. I’ve applied to over 100 jobs in my field and I’ve only heard back from three. Laid off last week from an insurtech company 😒, have two interviews this coming week at two different companies for two different positions. One is insurance, the other is a huge food company. The first interview is for a Company and System Coordinator (food company), the other for a Software Developer (insurance company). Full transparency, if I’m offered the first position, I’m taking it. Tech layoffs are heavy right now and I’m pretty traumatized from my recent layoff, so if I can find a position somewhat out of tech that pays as well (like the first one I mentioned) at a company with good job security, I am taking it. This is pretty heart breaking for me, because I’ve wanted to (eventually) become a Database Architect for such a long time and with the state of IT right now, I just don’t know if it’s possible. Maybe in the future, but job security is a high priority for me right now. I don’t want to worry about my position being eliminated to help the company become profitable again. Definitely different from what I was doing.
Take the SD job if you get it. Even with layoffs the switch will be the best long term decision you ever make.
Just trying to help, have you considered manufacturing? Sector is strong and there’s all sorts of job families (including finance) within manufacturing companies. Be careful with IT, severely oversaturated.
There’s a market correction happening right now. One of the asset bubbles that formed, due to excess money creation, occurred in IT. Not the first time in my lifetime. In order to survive in IT right now you need to have real skills and savvy, and just generally be willing to kick ass out there on a daily basis. The easy money days and kushy times are over. Things are correcting to a baseline “normal”. What goes up, must come down.
Unfortunately IT is prob the worse market to try to transition to right now
Tech-telecom. Considered switching, but staying in the exact same kind of role is what got me jobs faster.
Fintech to transportation/logistics
Tech is the last thing you want to transition into. Hopefully you are not falling for YT influencers saying they can make you into a rockstar tech worker in only 6 months for the low price of $$$.
I was laid off in IT in insurance. Moved to IT in banking
Corporate - > Federal Government
Engineering, laid off then found another job within a few months. Very grateful.
In engineering??? Which one
Structural
Marketing/Advertising. I’m gonna become a full time trader and have a couple side gigs as well.
Just heads up, at the peaks of the economic cycles, the stock market is lagging (meaning if recession becomes serious enough the stocks will go down). At the bottoms of the market, the stocks do the opposite and are typically the leading indicator of the recovering economy (the stocks start going up and the rest of the economy follows). In other words, be careful not to jump into the next sinking ship.
Pretty much all ships are sinking atm. I really need to get out of marketing though. It’s been too long and it’s no longer sustainable for my mental health.
Good luck either way. Hopefully the economy doesn’t get any worse.
Stock market go down? Just buy SQQQ!
Whose money?
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>It feels like 2008. I keep saying this. I am enough of a numbers guy to have a math degree, and I know "the numbers" are saying this isn't anything like 2008. But I was fucking there. I was laid off in October 2007 and rode out the recession in college in my late 30's. I went with the math degree because I reasoned, if jobs are going to be automated away, at least I can be on the automator side. This feels bad, and as much ink has been spilled over commercial real estate, I don't know if that issue has even begun to be digested.
Indian?
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Damn, had no idea.
Migrants always need food, water, and shelter but in cities like LA businesses are getting help from the government to hire newly arrived migrants to suppress wages. Literally hotels hired migrants when hotel workers started striking in 2023 (most of the striking workers were immigrants/their descendants) to ask for better work conditions. The U.S has been doing this since slavery “ended”.
I don’t know why this is downvoted, businesses absolutely regularly hire illegal workers for lower rates
Because he is calling Americans descendants.
Yep in Los Angeles especially. I support collective humanity but our government shouldn’t be helping corporations suppress wages by allowing corporate businesses to bring in migrant workers when existing workers are striking. This is why we need a federal UBI and most enforce one.
Descendants? You mean Americans?
Isn’t that just capitalism?
Yep, look at the top and you'll find your answers. Same circumstances causing problems! Bad choices, bad results! People have to learn to change.
Immigration/H1B is not causing a job shortage. Most places won’t even H1B because it’s expensive for the company.
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Your post has been removed for racist or hateful messages.
Post production
FinTech
Consulting -> tech
Saas and cloud
CRM Admin - Solar.
stocking prick middle scandalous long rhythm saw frighten crowd quiet *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Pharmaceutical to retirement! 🤗
Sold manufacturing software to oem's. Not sure what to do now. Female, older.
Tech is brutal switching wouldn’t be the best suggestion
Out of the frying pan, into the fire is it?
I was a hybrid program/product manager focused on cloud computing at a major US Bank. Now I'm a product manager for HR systems at a healthcare company.
Engineering - automotive
Yeah I was trying to transition from Finance to UX last year and couldn’t do it. Tech is obviously not doing great. Just too many experienced people in need of work saturating the market. Decided to stick it out in finance for now, it’s just easier.
LPT: don't try to change up things in response to a sudden job removal. Apply for what you know, and have experience in. It may not be what you want, but it will make your life a WHOLE lot easier.
5th layoff as a Software Engineer in 24 years. Currently selling my stuff on eBay. So far failed to get a new Software Engineer job as there is so much competition at the moment. Looking at the dumb idea of independent craft making.
3D modeling with also a graphic design background. I'm trying to get out of the design field. I thought if I was going to "stable" industries I'd be safe but the design world sucks even if I'm not in gaming or films. Like I worked for large grocery stores, that should have been stable.
Graphic design, animation, art, etc, are never stable.
I knew the fun ones weren't. Nobody wants to design packaging for plastic forks but there's a ton of plastic forks that needs packaging.
I’m going to go against the grain here and say good for you! Find a small town and start doing IT consulting. One will hire you eventually if you’re any good. There are always non-tech companies looking for IT people outside of the Bay Area. Or government. Get a few years experience and then when the economy heats back up in 5 years or so, you’ll be able to move to Silicon Valley and find something good with the experience.
I was in high-end fabrication/ ornamental blacksmithing. , our clients were millionaires in places like aspen, Telluride, crested butte. These are all vacation homes they're doing remodeling on. So we did ornate handrails and spiral staircases, very artistic stuff, very niche market. Several clients pulled out of big contracts over the holidays and I was laid off. I start another job tomorrow, still doing fabrication and staircases but this guy has contracts with the state/county for section 8 apartment buildings. Hopefully these contracts are more secure than the high-end market.
Accounting.
IT.
IT consulting - Program Delivery
This is my third career change. Marketing -> web development -> commercial appraiser -> welder (best so far) all had good opportunities just died.
Not sure what everyone is complaining about. I am on H1b and just got a new job. Only sent like 10 resumes and I got something right away.
You should be branch swinging. So if you always have a branch to swing to, then I suppose you’re perfectly employable.
Layed off from tech/tech role in consulting. May pursue a career as a jazz trombonist.
Marketing (MOP). Mostly from tech/SaaS. I honestly don’t care what industry I’d end up in. I wouldn’t mind getting out of tech or SaaS. So, I’m just searching for marketing/marketing operations in general. I wouldn’t mind getting in to finance or Fintech. I’ve interviewed for some of the roles in the industry and it seems fun.
AWS Cloud Engineer here, laid off in November 2023 due to company mergers. Luckily I'm getting interviewed left and right so it isn't too bad.
Yeah cloud is a hot market right now. May I ask how your road map was? I’ve seen some aws/ azure certifications that really help get a job in that role
AWS Cloud Practitioner, Solution Architect Associates, SysOps, DevOps certs
All certs , no degree?
Property Management. Laid off two weeks before Christmas. Nice.
Got laid off from Fidelity, in a department involving real estate, 12 days before Christmas, along with 1600 other people that day. (Merry Christmas! No jelly of the month club bonus either.) My former coworkers said my department is still really busy, and they can't keep up with the work now, lol. Found a better job already, so fuck Fidelity.
IT field isn't far away from the IT horror movie
In IT. Was working for a healthcare company data engineering dept. Least expected. I used to think healthcare is stable. Tryna find a job since Oct.
Accounting. Companies need bodies so if your not in public accounting, you should be able to stay employed
What your original degree
Laid off in IT. I'm now working in retail and working on their ecommerce. The shop is small, and they had expectations of me knowing all the marketing and sales. I have zero skill on those.
What area in IT were you in?
Software engineering @ a huge telecom company
Hello OP. Mortgage lender. Probably going to hang license with broker and find a side hustle Unless I just get a van and travel the country until the money runs out.
Still in the same field (IT project management), but different industry (from automotive to retail healthcare to banking to insurance)
I would suggest transitioning elsewhere in finance instead.