State of the market in New York city ?

[Eliza Tworkowska]

Hi,
I'm thinking about moving to New York city area in a couple of weeks. I'm currently employed with a telecommunications company but I would like to do more development and it looks like my current position will not present me with suitable opportunities any time soon. I need some advice: does anybody know how hard is it to find a Java Programmer job in that area ? What is the time frame I'm looking at ? Any approved recruiting agencies ?
Summary of my qualifications:
B.Sc. in Computer Science (Queen's University, Canada)
Sun Certified Programmer for JAVA 2 Platform
2 years of professional experience
1 year Java (academic experience)
1 year Java (professional experience)
JDBC, JFC SWING, INFORMIX RDMS, SQL, UNIX (Solaris), HTML, UML, OOAD
Any input would be greately appreciated.

[Fei Ng]

I have a BS in CS,EE and two years experience in java, c and c++
... pretty much the same as you.
Been looking for three months, no luck.
Think i will go back to school for MD.
I know a lot of people couldn't find one and went back to
school.

[Lee Xu]

NY new unemploy number in Sep tops in US, followed by CA and MI. It seems nowhere is good now.
Good luck.

[Eliza Tworkowska]

Thanks for your input guys. That doesn't look promising - kind of what I was expecting but a little part of me was hoping to hear an encouraging success story of someone with limited experience who found a gold-mine job :-).
The reason I want to move to New York (besides wanting to do more development) is that my boyfriend was one of the poor souls that used to work for Nortel and got a "pink-slip". Fortunately for him, he landed a job with a startup financial company in NY after only four weeks.
What methods are you guys using ? Direct contact with potential companies, recruiting agencies ? Did you have some interviews that just didn't come through or there is absolutely no response ?
Thanks once again for your comments.

[John Coxey]

Eliza Tworkowska:
The Java job search should take around 3 to 4 months on average.
The folks in the job market game that I have been talking to - are saying it's about a 3 to 4 month process.
Market is slow. Companies are talking - but are very slow in hiring. Usually about a 3 to 4 week wait for an answer after the on-site interview and then another 3 or 4 weeks after that until the actual hire date. Normally, it's 1 week for an anwer and 2 weeks until the hire date. Sometimes, even faster.
Regarding looking for work. The folks I deal with are using every means possible. We're talking about recruiters, website resume posting, responding to jobs on these websites, newspapers, even reading articles and using them as basis for cover letter in a blind resume to a particular company.
I would say to start reading the NY & NJ papers on Sundays, and use the job site boards. You may want to talk to some headhunters in NYC - see if they have anything - at least get on their list of potential candidates.
John Coxey
([e-mail])

[Daniel Dunleavy]

I think you might also try CT or NJ
Dan

[Fred Abbot]

I just heard the are holding a job fair In madison square garden with 13000 available jobs
sorry but i do not have any additional info

[Alex Ayzin]

The job fair in MSG is for those only who lost his/her job in WTC. So unless you can prove that you used to work for one of the companies in the WTC you're out. Sorry.
--Alex

[Eliza Tworkowska]

Thanks for all the replies. I know that the job fair is only for those who used to work in WTC - naturally those people have a priority... Either way I wouldn't be able to got there as I'm still in Canada. I figured it will be more beneficial if I save enough money to last me for a couple of months as I would like to pursue my new job full-time - it's tough and I don't want to "settle down". Have you had any luck with posting your resume online ? I'm interested in some statistics...so far I got five responses, all from head-hunters.