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I have been unemployed for over a year. Today I just got my first offer, which made me go "Coincidence?! Probably." It was less than I wanted but really after
by hfsktr 13y ago
I have been unemployed for over a year. Today I just got my first offer, which made me go "Coincidence?! Probably."
It was less than I wanted but really after a year I feel like I have no power to negotiate.
Add to that my personality (avoid confrontation) and the fact that my last job I fell into so I didn't have to negotiate (there wasn't a contract it was just spoken and my checks increased).
That excerpt kind of summed up what I had been thinking all along. It was all I could do not to shout YES right away (before I even saw the details).
- broham 13y agoCongrats! Here's hoping that you'll be happy there.
- orangethirty 13y agoI don't think you suffered from bad luck. Just bad marketing. Programmers need to realize that you have to learn how to sell yourself if you want a good steady job.
- hfsktr 13y agoSome of it might have been bad luck but I didn't really think any of it was. I knew that I was bad at interviewing. I just didn't realize how bad. My experience is probably more limited than I knew and the area I live in, while having jobs, isn't huge. That added frustration when the same companies had the same job pop up every 3 months (I applied for the new ones every time and never got a call). I hope that I can prove to this new place I am worth taking a chance on. Just feels good to not have to worry that I am a failure (at least for now).
- orangethirty 13y agoYou will never be a failure.
- roguecoder 13y agoIf you do well, it's also possible to negotiate once you are already employed. You'll probably be more valuable to the company after a year, since you'll know how things work, and chances are good that your alternatives will have improved. I've always brought it up in a positive way ("I think I've been contributing significant value and would like to find a way for my compensation to reflect that"), but the managers understand the subtext ("now that I have a year's experience here, other companies are calling me at home.") Success will depend on the company, but it can work.
- Ecio78 13y agoSome of it might have been bad luck but I didn't really think any of it was. I knew that I was bad at interviewing. I just didn't realize how bad I've been working for 8 years in three different companies: I found the first job (out of university) because a friend of mine worked there. The two following jobs were "found" because our manager moved and we (me, my friend and some others) move consequently as a team. I did some interviews during these years, never an offer. I really couldn't say if it was because of my salary (definitively above - italian sh###y - market) or because of me (my skills, my attitude, whatever). Of course Headhunters and HR are so kind not to give you any feedback (sometimes neither a response). Now our last companies has failed, I'm unemployed and I've decided with my wife to relocate to Luxembourg where she can have a stable job (at least her..). So here I am, unemployed and looking for a job[1] in another country (with the additional problem of the language: I'm a real novice in French, I don't speak German and my English should be far better..). I think that probably I'll discover which part of me was the problem... [1] or coming back to university or learning coding (i'm more a sys/net engineer) or studying some online courses or trying to think if some startup ideas I have are feasible
- rm445 13y agoI could nitpick a couple of grammatical points, but your English is better than that of many native speakers I have worked with. Unless you sweated over a dictionary for an hour to write the above comment, or your speaking is much worse, please make sure to market yourself as fluent in English!