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My 14-Month Job Search Experience

 
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Just in case you're intested:

I graduated from UC Berkeley in August 2003 with a B.S. in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science; the degree came at the end of summer since I had one non-technical requirement that I saved for summer school, so for all intensive purposes I was done in December of 2002. I worked (2) 3-month summer internships (Sun in 2000, Microsoft in 2002) and (1) 6-month co-op (PG&E in 2002) during the course of my education (see my resume here).

Unfortunately, I've had a hell of a time finding a job; it's been 14 months since I graduated and I only just now received a couple of offers, both of which are terrible (all things considered). If you're interseted in what other graduates are doing, check out this survery from our career center (which includes salary data) here. Despite the average salary for graduates in my major being around $60k/yr. my offer from Accenture consulting was for $40k/yr. and my offer from CIS Data Systems (small local company) is $40k/yr. with 3 months being on a contract/trial basis.

I'm quite surprised that, despite having about a year's experience in internships with top-notch companies that I was unable to find work; even the jobs that I was offered weren't programming per-se (Accenture is programming/analyst but CIS is PHP/MySQL developer). Most companies seem pretty unwilling to hire fresh graduates these days, even when recruiting on-campus. I also noticed that most employers are pretty fickle in what they're looking for and are willing to dismiss qualified candidates with the knowledge that there's plenty of other applicants out there (typically 100+ for 1 job). They also tend to do more hiring during the fall semesters through the campus career center, typically August-October. I've included some stats from my job search and a list of companies that I interviewed with (second-round) and approximate dates; this might be helpful for those looking for employment:

Sent 1,000+ resumes, Got ~15 in-person interviews, 2 offers (so far)

Echo Group (12/2003)
Guidewire Software (2/2004)
Actus Lend Lease (2/2004)
Cougaar Software (8/2004)
Digital Impact (8/2004 - Unable to budget for hire)
Wells Fargo (8/2004 - Thought I wanted to work alone?!?)
Mercury Software (8/2004 - Required 18pg. technical screening test)
Accenture (9/2004 - Extended offer, company intiated contact)
Sparkart (9/2004)
QuinnStreet (9/2004)
CIS Data Systems (9/2004 - Extended offer)
@Com (Working part time, $20/hr., no benefits, customer support)
Amazon.com (10/2004)
IBM (9/2004, second interview with consulting, possible offer from Websphere pending)
BearingPoint (possible offer pending)

If the offer from IBM Websphere (Trigo) does not come through, I have to either accept a job in consulting at BearingPoint, Accenture, or IBM BCS (which most likely will not be purely technical or software development) or work at CIS doing PHP/MySQL at about 2/3 of the market rate. Needless to say I'm not too happy about how any of these options look as far as getting a career going in software development.

Since my job search wasn't yielding results, I applied and was accepted to Texas A&M for an MS program in EE (fiber-optics) and I'm also about half-way through certification training for SCJP (on my own) and OCA (through the local community college.) The only obvious problem with going to grad school is that the job market in fiber optics and telecom is even worse than software development and I might just end up unemployed with an MS and even further removed from opportunity.

Needless to say, I can understand how crappy the job market is and just how lucky some of my Indian bretheren are to be finding work in India doing the programming tasks that they love (especially Java!!!) I can honestly say that it's very disappointing to learn just about everything there is to know about a computer from the physics on up to the applications and ethics only to be shut out the industry that works with them.
[ October 17, 2004: Message edited by: Rishi Ugersain Chopra ]
 
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Rishi Ugersain Chopra:

Despite the average salary for graduates in my major being around $60k/yr. my offer from Accenture consulting was for $40k/yr. and my offer from CIS Data Systems (small local company) is $40k/yr. with 3 months being on a contract/trial basis.

Is the $60k/yr for other new graduates in your major, or for everyone who has ever graduated from your major?

If it's for other new graduates, I'd suggest that you try to figure out what you're not doing that is preventing you from getting the same offers that those other people are getting. For example, you might seek out former classmates who landed $60k/yr jobs and ask them to critique your job search.

If it's current salaries for everyone who has ever graduated from your major, you should realize that salaries go up with experience; you shouldn't be hoping to be paid the same as someone who has all of your qualifications plus five years of full time experience, for example. Even if the figure is for the first job of everyone who has graduated from your major, you might want to consider that the figure might be inflated by the unrealistically exorbitant salaries that were being offered to everyone during the internet bubble.
 
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It's been a numnber of years since I was in your position, but even in the mid-90's, the consulting firms paid lower than software companies. Remember, at many of those firms, you basically need to "pledge" for two years--long hours at low pay. These days the consulting firms are coming out of a very big slump, so I'm not surprised by this. For the industry, this doesn't seem too out of line.

--Mark
 
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Another issue is the location: I remember during the height of the dot-com boom, silicon valley were paying ridiculous salaries. For many years, I couldn't get a hotel rate less $200 per night, when visiting the area, mainly because companies were shipping people in to fill positions.

Now after the bust, the valley unemployment rate is probably higher than the industry average. So I am not surprised if the pay is below industry average.

Henry
 
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Originally posted by Warren Dew:
Rishi Ugersain Chopra:

Despite the average salary for graduates in my major being around $60k/yr. my offer from Accenture consulting was for $40k/yr. and my offer from CIS Data Systems (small local company) is $40k/yr. with 3 months being on a contract/trial basis.

Is the $60k/yr for other new graduates in your major, or for everyone who has ever graduated from your major?



That data represents the average starting salary of new employees of the same major over the last 4 years.
 
Rishi Ugersain Chopra
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Warren,

Unfortunately, tracking down people from major is harder than it seems. I think I've done just about everything I can to find a good starting job. I honestly believe that the market is so bad that it weighs upon fresh graduates very heavily.


Mark,

I appreciate the insight; consulting is not my first choice, but, in the end, it may be my only option.


Henry,

I agree; the job situation in the Bay Area is much worse than other places...
 
Warren Dew
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Rishi Ugersain Chopra:

Unfortunately, tracking down people from major is harder than it seems. I think I've done just about everything I can to find a good starting job. I honestly believe that the market is so bad that it weighs upon fresh graduates very heavily.

Here's a quote for you - unfortunately I don't remember the author:

"A good job is a job where you're paid more than you're worth."

It's true that graduates from the beginning of the survey you mention were getting good jobs in this sense - because while there were signs in 2000 that the internet bubble was going to burst, it hadn't actually burst yet. This probably led to inflated expectations in subsequent years. Unfortunately, we're still recovering from that bubble's bursting, so time are still a little tough right now - but even in normal, one generally has to settle for an okay job, instead of a good one.

I think the key statistic from the Berkeley data is this: in 2000, 73% of the graduates got jobs, and only 8% were looking but hadn't got one; in 2003, only 41% got jobs, and 26% were looking but hadn't got one. And I have to believe that some who looked for jobs and didn't get them, instead didn't turn in the survey (the response rate dropped from 56% to 46%) or went to grad school or "other endeavors" instead (went from 12% to 26%). So I think the 2003 salaries listed are inflated, because Berkeley isn't averaging in the zero salaries of people who don't have jobs.

To put it another way, if you interpolate/extrapolate the median salary for the 81% actually looking for jobs in 2000, along with the 67% actually looking in 2003, you get something like the following:

2000: $61,241 -- inflated by bubble
2003: $44,796 -- deflated by burst

If you look at all respondents, only 45% in 2003 have jobs, so the median is unemployed, or maybe living on a graduate school stipend - in either case far less than $45k. $60k is not a reasonable estimate of the "market rate" in this environment - $40k actually sounds much closer.

I would add a couple of things:

The formatting and layout of your resume seems good. However, when I read it, it seems devoid of actual Java coding - JSP doesn't really count. Your resume actually looks stronger on the database side. If you truly love programming in Java, I'd recommend spending some time writing Java programs, even if for free - join an open source project, or find a good cause and start one yourself, or even just work on something you'd enjoy doing as a private project.

The other thing I would recommend is leaving the customer support work for the work with CIS. At least you'll be programming and gaining experience with working with real code in a production environment, even if it's not in your favorite language. And since it's a contract position, you needn't feel guilty about leaving in six months or a year if you get a better offer.

(And if any of CIS's clients get successful enough that they need to move to something more robust than PHP/MySQL, you'll be in a good position to help them move to Java/Oracle.)
 
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$60k is not a reasonable estimate of the "market rate" in this environment - $40k actually sounds much closer.




True. Those stats are inflated a bit. I remember doing a similar survey when I was a college grad. I used to round up the number -- for example, my actualy salary was $56K but I'd put $60K -- most of my friends also exaggerated a bit.

By the way, depending on where the job is located, $40K may not be too bad for entry-level programmer.

Here in Philadelphia suburb, the starting salary for entry-level Java programmer is around $40K - $50K. However, if the job is located in places like NYC, Boston, San Francisco with high costs of living, $40K is a bit low.
 
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Maybe u should Consider moving to other country, anyway BS is not really anything unless with substantial amount of experience and many certs because so many people these days have an MS and quite a few ppl have double MS degrees.
I was in ur position last year too and suffered same setbacks finally i had no choice but to move to another country and gave up a lot of things.
And I think $60K is the starting rate for MS graduates.
 
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I realize you're talking a degree from Berkley and probably looking at CA salaries, but around here, $60K is a salary many experienced programmers would kill for, and AFAIK, even in the dot-com days, entry was closer to $35K.

I spent 28 months job-hunting myself, and the new job is about 12% lower than the last one was (raw dollars, not inflation adjusted).
 
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Originally posted by Rishi Ugersain Chopra:


That data represents the average starting salary of new employees of the same major over the last 4 years.



And there's the problem. 4 years ago a lot of people were still entering the industry at inflated salaries.
Since 2002 salaries (especially starting salaries) have dropped dramatically while the number of people entering the market has dropped so the average isn't going down as fast as would seem logical.

Heck, with now 7 years experience I make 10-20% LESS now than I did in 2002 and that's before taking into consideration things like inflation.

I don't know about your area but over here �20k would be a handsome starting salary. $60k (3 times as much) for a fresh graduate seems excessive to me. Such high starting salaries were the initial reason companies started offshoring development...
 
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Originally posted by Jeroen Wenting:


I don't know about your area but over here �20k would be a handsome starting salary. $60k (3 times as much) for a fresh graduate seems excessive to me. Such high starting salaries were the initial reason companies started offshoring development...



�20k? Now that's depressing. grads were being offered $25-30 in the late '80's around here, long before the bubble. Unless the $/� exchange rate has slid further than I realized, that means that they'd be worse off now than they were 20 years ago.

Actually, it wasn't high starting salaries that led the rush to offshoring - it was the ability for offshore workers to live well on salaries too low to be even be legal to offer in developed countries with minimum wage laws and higher living expenses. Many of the first jobs to go were low-wage call-center jobs.
 
Rishi Ugersain Chopra
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See my other post with statistics regarding decline of total IT and Software Engineering jobs.

BTW, the mean number I mentioned was only $2k more than the mean for 2003. Certainly there are less respondents and fewer graduates with jobs, but this is naturally a result of market conditions.

I think the reason the average is still high is that quality large companies are still paying well. The consulting companies and small companies don't offer much, but some of the perrenial UC Berkeley favorites (Amazon, IBM, Microsoft) still pay well.

I also don't think the starting salaries were a major contributing factor to the bubble; a lot of the jobs that disappeared were for people who developing the same thing in parallel at multiple places (e.g. 5 .coms creating groupware). Now that companies like Yahoo offer free hosted services, who needs eGroups?
 
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All great guys has to start somewhere.

If I were you, I will take one of the present offers(or wait a week or so to see what comes through the other channels).

I see signs of hiring improvement in Dallas area. Why don't u send a resume to 'Tek Systems' in Dallas( they are hiring people with US citizenship or GC).
This is their web site.
 
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Jeroen Wenting:

Heck, with now 7 years experience I make 10-20% LESS now than I did in 2002 and that's before taking into consideration things like inflation.

That's a good point. I make 30% less than I did at the peak of the bubble, though about 10% more than before the bubble - say, about the same as 7 years ago, after adjusting for inflation. I have a lot more experience now than I did then, though. By that measure, one would expect the salaries for people with four years' experience now to be no more than that of fresh graduates in 2000. New college graduates might be in a similar position now to new high school graduates during the bubble - though that's not as bad as it sounds; I know of a number of cases of people hired right out of high school during the bubble.

Tim Holloway:

Actually, it wasn't high starting salaries that led the rush to offshoring - it was the ability for offshore workers to live well on salaries too low to be even be legal to offer in developed countries with minimum wage laws and higher living expenses. Many of the first jobs to go were low-wage call-center jobs.

Not initially, no. But if you take a look at what passes for a senior engineer in the India based jobs wanted ads, they're only looking for three or four years of experience - that's a junior position in the U.S.
 
Rishi Ugersain Chopra
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I found out today that I got an offer from my top choice (IBM Websphere) so I'll report back when I get the details of the offer.

I think the most telling thing about my experience is that I wasn't able to get a single offer for 13 months, despite pounding the pavement pretty hard. Things seem to have improved significantly since last year; even the IBM Consulting reps (different group, formerly PriceWaterhouseCoopers) were saying this was the first time they've been on campus since 2000.

More than anything else, I'm relieved I won't have to join a consulting company; CRM, ERP, SCM, and management consulting were not the direction I wanted to head in. I'm also more of a Java/Oracle guy than PHP/MySQL so not having to go that route is good too (I've always thought the seperation of content from presentation is much cleaner in JSP/Servlet/Tags than PHP)...
 
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Originally posted by Tim Holloway:


�20k? Now that's depressing. grads were being offered $25-30 in the late '80's around here, long before the bubble. Unless the $/� exchange rate has slid further than I realized, that means that they'd be worse off now than they were 20 years ago.



The Euro seems stable at about $1.22 give or take a few tenths of a cent right now.
That's 25% over the introduction rate when electronic trading started in 2000 which was deliberately started at below expected market value in order to generate a surge of initial volume to gain acceptance (yes, governments manipulate the financial markets directly if they want to).

Salaries here are generally that much lower than in the US while cost of living is higher.
That's the main reason the standard of living in Europe is lower (at the benefit of more vacation time and short workweeks, the pressure to do unpaid overtime is a lot less) than in most of the US.
$25-30k in the 1980s would (off the top of my head, exchange rate from that time might be off a bit) equal about �30k or 50% more than a graduate in Europe would make during the same period.

Seeing current US salaries compared with current Euro salaries that seems consistent, if anything the difference has gotten bigger.
 
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I agree w/ Warren's way of explaining the data. Rishi if you took any statistic class you'll understand there is alot of factor(s) can affect the "number". I also took a deep cut after the bubble and had to take a job working with VB instead of Java (gotta pay the bill). It's no fun out there... but you gotta keep on trying. hmmm isn't IBM outsoucing part of their consultant group?

If you use a bigger pool of sampling size such as this artical http://money.cnn.com/2004/07/26/pf/college/pay/ from CNN gives you some more salary information.

Best of luck,

Originally posted by Warren Dew:

I think the key statistic from the Berkeley data is this: in 2000, 73% of the graduates got jobs, and only 8% were looking but hadn't got one; in 2003, only 41% got jobs, and 26% were looking but hadn't got one. And I have to believe that some who looked for jobs and didn't get them, instead didn't turn in the survey (the response rate dropped from 56% to 46%) or went to grad school or "other endeavors" instead (went from 12% to 26%). So I think the 2003 salaries listed are inflated, because Berkeley isn't averaging in the zero salaries of people who don't have jobs.

To put it another way, if you interpolate/extrapolate the median salary for the 81% actually looking for jobs in 2000, along with the 67% actually looking in 2003, you get something like the following:

2000: $61,241 -- inflated by bubble
2003: $44,796 -- deflated by burst

If you look at all respondents, only 45% in 2003 have jobs, so the median is unemployed, or maybe living on a graduate school stipend - in either case far less than $45k. $60k is not a reasonable estimate of the "market rate" in this environment - $40k actually sounds much closer.

I would add a couple of things:

The formatting and layout of your resume seems good. However, when I read it, it seems devoid of actual Java coding - JSP doesn't really count. Your resume actually looks stronger on the database side. If you truly love programming in Java, I'd recommend spending some time writing Java programs, even if for free - join an open source project, or find a good cause and start one yourself, or even just work on something you'd enjoy doing as a private project.

The other thing I would recommend is leaving the customer support work for the work with CIS. At least you'll be programming and gaining experience with working with real code in a production environment, even if it's not in your favorite language. And since it's a contract position, you needn't feel guilty about leaving in six months or a year if you get a better offer.

(And if any of CIS's clients get successful enough that they need to move to something more robust than PHP/MySQL, you'll be in a good position to help them move to Java/Oracle.)[/QB]

 
Rishi Ugersain Chopra
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Originally posted by Bob Tai:
I agree w/ Warren's way of explaining the data.



While I don't see any flaw in Warren's analysis, I do know that, based on my offer from IBM the $40k offers were low for graduates from my major. I certainly think the more telling thing (much moreso than the money) is that it took me 14+ months to finally get an offer, even if it was low.

The offer from IBM (Trigo/Websphere group, not BCS) is for $60k/yr., which is what I was hoping for.

My understanding is that BCS is not outsourcing; since acquiring PriceWaterhouseCoopers they have been on a tear, and this is the first year that they are hiring on US Campuses since 2000.
 
Kishore Dandu
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Originally posted by Rishi Ugersain Chopra:



My understanding is that BCS is not outsourcing; since acquiring PriceWaterhouseCoopers they have been on a tear, and this is the first year that they are hiring on US Campuses since 2000.



You are wrong with respect to BCS not outsourcing. They don't give work to other firms. They do have setup big campus near Delhi, India. And they did offer to many mid-management employees to relocate to India. They are hiring like crazy in India(much more in number compared to US hiring)
 
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Originally posted by Kishore Dandu:

You are wrong with respect to BCS not outsourcing. They don't give work to other firms. They do have setup big campus near Delhi, India. And they did offer to many mid-management employees to relocate to India. They are hiring like crazy in India(much more in number compared to US hiring)



Offshoring and outsourcing are very different concepts. The company I work for has recently stopped most of its outsourced operations, bringing the work back in-house. At the same time they are expanding their own operations in locations such as Bangalore and Geneva, both offshore, and chosen for very different reasons.
 
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Originally posted by Kishore Dandu:


You are wrong with respect to BCS not outsourcing.



My comments were pertaining to their domestic operations.
 
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Originally posted by Rishi Ugersain Chopra:


My comments were pertaining to their domestic operations.



Domestic operations are interconnected with work done for same project in other countries right!! So, that will have major impact on local hiring practises.
 
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Originally posted by Kishore Dandu:


Domestic operations are interconnected with work done for same project in other countries right!! So, that will have major impact on local hiring practises.



Yes and no. IBM BCS has lots of business in Inida as well. Many of the domestic projects require US Citizens to be on-site at the client's location and consist of duties that cannot be delegated to IBM BCS in India.

The comments the IBM BCS recruiters made (they were all PriceWaterhouseCoopers employees who were acquired along with PWC) was that IBM BCS had not been hiring on US campuses since 1999.

I think you can speculate/draw your own conclusions as to why BCS was not hiring on US campuses, though I think this has more to do with US domestic demand for IBM consulting services than any specific loss of work to Indian counterparts...
 
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Originally posted by Rishi Ugersain Chopra:


Yes and no. IBM BCS has lots of business in Inida as well. Many of the domestic projects require US Citizens to be on-site at the client's location and consist of duties that cannot be delegated to IBM BCS in India.

The comments the IBM BCS recruiters made (they were all PriceWaterhouseCoopers employees who were acquired along with PWC) was that IBM BCS had not been hiring on US campuses since 1999.

I think you can speculate/draw your own conclusions as to why BCS was not hiring on US campuses, though I think this has more to do with US domestic demand for IBM consulting services than any specific loss of work to Indian counterparts...




Don't say "MANY" projects. Almost all my friends who work for BCS don't work in the above setup u are mentioning. They have both development in US and India going on for almost all their projects. So I don't believe in the MANY part of ur argument.
 
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Originally posted by Kishore Dandu:



Don't say "MANY" projects. Almost all my friends who work for BCS don't work in the above setup u are mentioning. They have both development in US and India going on for almost all their projects. So I don't believe in the MANY part of ur argument.



The BCS employees in the US rarely (if ever) work in their home office. They spend Monday through Thursday at the client site almost as a rule.

You're right; I shouldn't say "MANY" when I mean "ALL". While I'm sure IBM has plenty of work in India, if you're hired by BCS in the US you can expect to be at a client site. My impression is that the work that you are saying goes on for US projects in India is raw development work; all consulting companies have R&D and Development groups that focus on creating solutions that can be deployed and customized for clients. The consultants here in the US work on site at the customer either implementing solutions or designing their implementation. BCS here in The States WILL NOT hire a developer out of college in a strict R&D or Development capacity.
 
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Originally posted by Rishi Ugersain Chopra:


The BCS employees in the US rarely (if ever) work in their home office. They spend Monday through Thursday at the client site almost as a rule.

You're right; I shouldn't say "MANY" when I mean "ALL". While I'm sure IBM has plenty of work in India, if you're hired by BCS in the US you can expect to be at a client site. My impression is that the work that you are saying goes on for US projects in India is raw development work; all consulting companies have R&D and Development groups that focus on creating solutions that can be deployed and customized for clients. The consultants here in the US work on site at the customer either implementing solutions or designing their implementation. BCS here in The States WILL NOT hire a developer out of college in a strict R&D or Development capacity.




I should say no,no,no.

Some of local BCS employees(like my friend based out of Houston) works from home 50% of the time. Remaining time he spends on the customer site. In case of a manager I know from Detroit, she spends 80% from home, leading a big client facing time. She spends only 20% at customer. Both these candidates have lot of customer specific customizations done in India(it is sure not R&D or development of a core product as such).
 
Rishi Ugersain Chopra
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Originally posted by Kishore Dandu:



I should say no,no,no.

Some of local BCS employees(like my friend based out of Houston) works from home 50% of the time. Remaining time he spends on the customer site. In case of a manager I know from Detroit, she spends 80% from home, leading a big client facing time. She spends only 20% at customer. Both these candidates have lot of customer specific customizations done in India(it is sure not R&D or development of a core product as such).



I doubt these people are new employees... when were they hired?
 
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Originally posted by Tim Holloway:


�20k? Now that's depressing. grads were being offered $25-30 in the late '80's around here, long before the bubble. Unless the $/� exchange rate has slid further than I realized, that means that they'd be worse off now than they were 20 years ago.



Tim, lower salaries are traditional in much of the EU. When I worked in Netherlands in 1991 I was shocked to learn that Dutch engineers tended to get in guilders what US guys got in dollars. The guilder trading at 2-1 to the dollar. Basically half. With the strong euro 20K Euros works out to about $25K. There are more crackerboxes - er excessively tiny apartments in European cities, too.

20K euros would be relatively decent in Prague, where I may end up next. I scoped out apartments there and a 2-bedroom in a very nice area was $350 a month (or the equivalent).
 
Don Stadler
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To Rishi - I'd check for CIS and see what kind of work they do and what they would have you do. If you like it take that one. It's probably useless to do that with Accenture. The big consultantcies are factories. You may get something you like, you may not. Transfers are more rare than they imply.
 
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Originally posted by Don Stadler:
To Rishi - I'd check for CIS and see what kind of work they do and what they would have you do. If you like it take that one. It's probably useless to do that with Accenture. The big consultantcies are factories. You may get something you like, you may not. Transfers are more rare than they imply.



Funny that you describe the transfers as rare; the hiring manager was explicit about the 0% chance of changing assignments =)

I was very intersted in the job at CIS (PHP/mySQL platform development for real-estate hosting) but I found a much better opportunity with IBM, specifically as a sales engineer for IBM Websphere. From what I understand the development is java-like (who-hoo!) and the compensation is about 50% more than what the consulting companies and CIS were offering.
 
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That is really excellent news, Rishi. About as good as you could expect. IBM GCS is something of a factory itself (they bought the consultantcy PWC a couple of years ago). But you'll probably get real java exposure and Websphere is a good thing to know right now. And the training will be real training I think. The money is damn good for this period, even in Silicon Valley (where living costs are pretty amazing). This would probably work out to something like �35-40K in London terms. Generous for entry-level.

About the other.... Accenture telling the truth now? Who knew?

Actually my Big 5 background was with the UK part of an outfit now calling itself Bearing Point in the US. KPMG. Breaking Point is more like it....
 
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Actually my Big 5 background was with the UK part of an outfit now calling itself Bearing Point in the US. KPMG. Breaking Point is more like it.... [/QB]



Yeah, I had an offer from BearingPoint to work in Redmond at MS as a maangement consultant (whatever that is), but the offer wasn't as cherry (~$45k/yr., no relocation, etc.)
 
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Originally posted by Rishi Ugersain Chopra:
See my other post with statistics regarding decline of total IT and Software Engineering jobs.

BTW, the mean number I mentioned was only $2k more than the mean for 2003. Certainly there are less respondents and fewer graduates with jobs, but this is naturally a result of market conditions.

I think the reason the average is still high is that quality large companies are still paying well. The consulting companies and small companies don't offer much, but some of the perrenial UC Berkeley favorites (Amazon, IBM, Microsoft) still pay well.

I also don't think the starting salaries were a major contributing factor to the bubble; a lot of the jobs that disappeared were for people who developing the same thing in parallel at multiple places (e.g. 5 .coms creating groupware). Now that companies like Yahoo offer free hosted services, who needs eGroups?


My advice to you is to "begin with the end in mind"--where do you see yourself in five years , tem years etc. I have been there and I have worked in biggest companies out there. Staking your career on Java or some transient technology is a mistake.I my honest opinion, you are looking to stake your career on something that's a commodity. You would have been better off taking the time to get a some industry specific education like a
an degree finance/accounting/healthcare etc than pounding the pavement to get a job that is in danger of being offshored.
just my $.02
 
Bob E. Lee
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Yep "bein with the end in mind" a goal of sometype....or get your feet in first, show you are worth more... or to gain some experience...

here is an artcal on how to "Ask your boss for more" kinda fun to read
http://money.cnn.com/2004/10/21/pf/jobs_raise_0411/index.htm

wish u the best (wish everyone in javaranch the best!).

Bob

Originally posted by shay Aluko:

My advice to you is to "begin with the end in mind"--where do you see yourself in five years , tem years etc. I have been there and I have worked in biggest companies out there. Staking your career on Java or some transient technology is a mistake.I my honest opinion, you are looking to stake your career on something that's a commodity. You would have been better off taking the time to get a some industry specific education like a
an degree finance/accounting/healthcare etc than pounding the pavement to get a job that is in danger of being offshored.
just my $.02

 
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Hi Rishi,

The only thing that I can advice to you for job hunting is that sometimes you to move to the city where you want to work for example NY or Chicago, for most of the company don't usually want to hire someone from out of their state. Those days are over. Maybe, you could stay with your relatives in that city or rent an apartment, but you have take the risk.

The next step that you can take after relocating is to find a good recruiter in the area that can find you a local job.

Good Luck,
Ronald
 
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