Is the situation really this bad?

[NickK]

Classic nonsense from a recruiter today, I changed my LinkedIn profile at the weekend as I was starting a new job today. First job I've had with title of X.

So I get this message this afternoon asking if I'm interested in another job with title X. In the blurb it explictly states in the list of their requirements, literally the first point listed "extensive experience in a X role". At the point the message was sent I had less than a full day of experience
I mean, a 10 second glance at my history would have shown that I started my current role in July.

If this scattergun approach is being used, there can't be that big a glut of candidates to roles in some sectors, surely?

Classic - very few will understand the role itself or distinction.

I get a lot of "I see you have done security work - do you fit this security role?", I have to explain the difference between quantum encryption (sold that) and a security analyst or CISO/BISO (been on the product management side IAM etc to a high level too but security has it's own skills, knowledge and personality paranoia traits).

The issue is I try todo a lot of side of desk things, it keeps me mentally engaged - which often end up driving up into group. The reorg now brings me out of software and into group CTO office.. not a great move for someone in product but my CV reads being tasked by group directors to provide recommendations etc to group chief of staff for steering one of the worlds largest banks. I still get would I like a developer role from recruiters..
The role I am doing now was advertised as a lower role but the plan was to move into a contracted role (which I have been asked todo informally) but it seems the reorg will end up under-roling. To boot - it seems that someone thinks having a trio of 'product', delivery, and technology is a good idea where the product is a glorified BA and no business cases are made nor does anyone really talk to the customers. I can see the core drivers of the issues (usual group sit in their cloud koocoo land and dream up unicorn roadmaps but deliver nothing) and not talking or even working for the benefit of the end customer that is the source of revenue.

Hence I'm open for new work.. if the organisation don't want to change then I will move to protect my skillsets and prevent them from wasting away.

 

[BUDFORCE]

Looking through this thread seems like mostly IT jobs, but the situation in the mortgage industry is pretty grim at the moment, as per the other thread I got put at risk of redundancy, I'm keeping my fingers crossed I'll survive this round, but if I lost my job now it's looking like change of industry and salary drop, probably down to minimum wage, as there is nothing out there.

Had the same problem in 2008, took me literally years to get back to a similar salary I was on.

 

[jonneymendoza]

Looking through this thread seems like mostly IT jobs, but the situation in the mortgage industry is pretty grim at the moment, as per the other thread I got put at risk of redundancy, I'm keeping my fingers crossed I'll survive this round, but if I lost my job now it's looking like change of industry and salary drop, probably down to minimum wage, as there is nothing out there.

Had the same problem in 2008, took me literally years to get back to a similar salary I was on.

Its grim in other sectors

 

[HangTime]

Situation really is bad. Last recession we had, tech wasn't affected much

I think that was a bit unusual because the recession was due to a pandemic, which impacted Tech relatively lightly in comparison to some sectors. There was also a boom in remote working and hence digital services, cloud infrastructure etc as a result.
I think a lot of organisations were naturally cautious around hiring in the early months but effectively I think what was happening in a lot of cases was simply deferring tech hires (wait and see approach) rather than actually binning off the roles in the long term. Hence there was a 'backlog' of hiring needs when we came out of lockdown in March 2021.

 

[BUDFORCE]

Its grim in other sectors

Yea I believe it.

 

[BUDFORCE]

The whole state of the countries economy is screwed, I don't know if it's various wars or what, maybe because it's happening gradually (well ish) but doesn't seem to be making the news, but it's bad and it's starting to sniff a bit like 2008.

Although unlike 2008 which was top down, this seems more like bottom up.

What I mean by that before the innuendos come in, is 2008 was really bank to bank lending and investments etc all tanking, the value of a lot of money ended up being worthless which was obviously a huge issue, and of course has a knock on effect to the average Joe. But the problem started at the top of the food chain, financially.

But this time it's looking like it's the opposite.

 

[Freddie1980]

I work in finance and I've noticed there's not been as many open roles available as there was last year. For tech jobs it's doubly worse as you have the perfect storm of general economic pressures and companies that over recruited during the lockdown now having to cut their cloth accordingly.

 

[CapitalOne]

I work in finance and I've noticed there's not been as many open roles available as there was last year. For tech jobs it's doubly worse as you have the perfect storm of general economic pressures and companies that over recruited during the lockdown now having to cut their cloth accordingly.

#metoo

Outlook not good for the UK, likely formal recession next year although you can "feel it" right now. Best hope we've got is opening up to EU on trade and a post election bounce.

 

[Freddie1980]

I'm in to minds if the UK will go into recession, it's been spoken about for over a year now but so far the economy has been pretty resilient. There's still plenty of people who's cheap mortgage deals are coming to and end and even if interest rates don't move mortgage renewals over the next 12 months could push us over the edge with a collapse in consumer spending.

 

[Sider]

This thread has been quite the roller coaster of a read. Having just gone through the process of looking for a job as a junior I just wanted to post my experience in case it helps anyone else in the same situation as me. I am due to start my first developer role at the end of the month. Judging from previous posts I’m sure some of you will think I’m insane switching careers in the current market.

A little background:

I’ve worked in the NHS pretty much all my working life as a biomedical scientist and then clinical biochemist. I fell out of love with my job, career opportunities were slim and always dead man’s boots. Flexible working and the ability to work from home is almost non-existent. Not because its not possible, but because clinical laboratories are set in their ways and have not embraced different ways of working.

At the ripe(?) age of 35 I set out to turn what at the time was more of a hobby into a career. I was already making small applications and scripts to help automate some of the more laborious tasks. I found myself really enjoying it and I got a lot of personal satisfaction from doing it. I hope to look back at these projects in a few years time and cringe at how bad they were written!

I started out (as I’m sure most people do) learning javascript, html, css etc but then kind of fell into C# and the dotnet ecosystem and felt at home.

The getting hired process:

How was I meant to convince someone I would be a good candidate to interview? 35 year old bloke with zero experience coding in a professional setting with no computer science degree.

I wrote my first CV (you don’t need one in the NHS) which was hard because all my experience had little or nothing to do with the roles I was applying for. I did my best to lean on the soft skills I had developed.

I created a ‘portfolio’ website demoing the projects I had created, which consisted of one WPF application at the time I was offered a job! I tidied up my GitHub and LinkedIn pages and started to respond to recruiters.

I had been approached by 3 maybe 4 recruiters who asked for my CV. At all stages I was very open and honest about my experience. Never heard back from anyone despite everyone assuring me they would be in contact regardless. The whole thing was very demoralizing but not unexpected.

I was sent some positions by the most recent recruiter to contact me, all for senior positions. I was assured they were looking to hire for non-senior positions too. Gave them the ok to send over my CV. Got a call a few hours later to say they wanted to interview me the next day!

The interview:

I was so utterly unprepared, I can no idea what the process would be like or how it would be structured. Luckily it ended up being an informal chat with the director (also an engineer) and the head of operations. I was again very honest with my experience as I didn’t want to waste anyone’s time as the advert was for a senior. I got asked about TDD which I had heard of but essentially knew nothing about. I did my best to explain what I did know. I was asked about databases, specifically CosmosDB, a NoSQL database I had heard of but never used. I tried my best to talk about what I knew about NoSQL databases and took the opportunity to ask the interviewer lots of questions about it, why they chose NoSQL, why CosmosDB in particular. Looking back this probably helped me put my enthusiasm across. I had researched the company and had a look round their website and was sure to ask them questions about their products. I was dreading all the leetcode questions and DSA type interview questions I had heard about, but thankfully none came.

Overall, the interview went ok, I felt like I built up a rapport and left feeling happy but not confident I would get it given the lack of knowledge round CosmosDB and TDD. However, I received a call later from the recruiters saying they were really impressed and would like to offer me a job as a C# developer. Been a while since a grin that large has crossed my face.

The company is quite small 12-13 people, so I suspect that might be why my experience would be a little different compared to say someone applying for big tech companies. I was worried that my notice period of 3 months would be an issue but they assured me it was not. I am due to start at the end of the month, very excited but also bricking it somewhat

Apologies for the long post but I wanted to share my experience. Hopefully my story will inspire someone else who might also be considering a career change.

p.s If anyone has any advice for me I’d be very keen to hear it!

 

[ivrytwr3]

snip

Sounds like you have the skills but not the confidence. I think you've lowballed yourself into them paying a lower salary due to your oversharing.

Hopefully not and they will do right by you - but good luck on the new role

 

[Sider]

Sounds like you have the skills but not the confidence. I think you've lowballed yourself into them paying a lower salary due to your oversharing.

Hopefully not and they will do right by you - but good luck on the new role

What would you say is the starting salary of a junior C# developer with no experience is? They offered to match my current salary + 5k which I am very happy with and way more than what I was expecting. I was expecting to take a considerable pay cut given my lack of experience.

If I went in to that interview giving it the big spuds they would have seen through it instantly and doubt they would have even made an offer. Id hardly call it oversharing to clarify that my experience matches their expectations for the role.

but thanks

 

[ivrytwr3]

What would you say is the starting salary of a junior C# developer with no experience is? They offered to match my current salary + 5k which I am very happy with and way more than what I was expecting. I was expecting to take a considerable pay cut given my lack of experience.

No idea, that should have formed part of your research into the role - but it sounds like you smashed it and you are happy with it, so that's what's important.

 

[peterwalkley]

What would you say is the starting salary of a junior C# developer with no experience is? They offered to match my current salary + 5k which I am very happy with and way more than what I was expecting. I was expecting to take a considerable pay cut given my lack of experience.

If I went in to that interview giving it the big spuds they would have seen through it instantly and doubt they would have even made an offer. Id hardly call it oversharing to clarify that my experience matches their expectations for the role.

but thanks

Congratulations first of all. Glad to see you found someone willing to take an older "junior" and also not mess around with that leetcode bullcrap at interview. You never ever need it in the real world - and even if you did, its a google/chatgpt away.

Entry level with no experience is 30-40K according to a salary benchmark I was emailed not that long ago.

Best advice i can offer (>35 years in the industry) is "keep learning new stuff".

 

[ivrytwr3]

https://www.glassdoor.co.uk/Salaries/junior-c-net-developer-salary-SRCH_KO0,22.htm

Puts the salary between £22k - £31k.

 

[Sider]

Congratulations first of all. Glad to see you found someone willing to take an older "junior" and also not mess around with that leetcode bullcrap at interview. You never ever need it in the real world - and even if you did, its a google/chatgpt away.

Entry level with no experience is 30-40K according to a salary benchmark I was emailed not that long ago.

Best advice i can offer (>35 years in the industry) is "keep learning new stuff".

30-35k was the ball park too when I was researching, been quite lucky really. After 6 months I'm allowed to take shares, the recruiter was bigging it up as a major benefit but im not convinced... need to do some research.

Thank you for the advice

 

[jon86]

30-35k was the ball park too when I was researching, been quite lucky really. After 6 months I'm allowed to take shares, the recruiter was bigging it up as a major benefit but im not convinced... need to do some research.

Thank you for the advice

What does "take shares" mean? This could be an employee share save scheme, where you get shares at a reduced price on a set cadence, or it could possibly be (no upfront cost) share grants issued to you. Either way, in the world of big tech, shares are pretty-much an expected part of your compensation arrangement, and as you rise in the ranks, shares should become a larger and larger percentage of your compensation. When I was still working in (US) big tech, shares contributed to ~50% of my annual compensation.

 

[Sider]

What does "take shares" mean? This could be an employee share save scheme, where you get shares at a reduced price on a set cadence, or it could possibly be (no upfront cost) share grants issued to you. Either way, in the world of big tech, shares are pretty-much an expected part of your compensation arrangement, and as you rise in the ranks, shares should become a larger and larger percentage of your compensation. When I was still working in (US) big tech, shares contributed to ~50% of my annual compensation.

Just says after 6 months I will be "eligable for the company's share options scheme" Guess I'll find out more details in 6 months, got to get through the probation period first

 

[FishThrower]

After a brutal 8 month marathon I got an offer in mid July from a Big Evil Bank. 3 months of back and forth later the offer was withdrawn because of "hiring freeze"... So this is the end. I wish a damn war started in this country already, at least that way the system would be too busy with that instead of grinding down the people.

Were you spending three months negotiating with them salary wise ? Or was it due to the security checks / vetting process? The checks for banks can take ages for permanent positions. If you really want to work for a bank try the contracting route first in one of there are roles available. Clearance checks are normally much quicker and you get paid a lot more for the short term, and good for experience.

 

[jonneymendoza]

Were you spending three months negotiating with them salary wise ? Or was it due to the security checks / vetting process? The checks for banks can take ages for permanent positions. If you really want to work for a bank try the contracting route first in one of there are roles available. Clearance checks are normally much quicker and you get paid a lot more for the short term, and good for experience.

Contract market is dead at the moment