Looking for a job...

[rinse]

I have been searching the Chicago area (can't move out of the city) for a job for the last few months to no avail. I have a great online portfolio showcasing my design and web development skills. I have an impressive resume.

I also have no leads!

Does anyone have any ideas for job searching? I check Flipdog, Hotjobs, Monster and the Chicago Reader nearly daily.

Any suggestions are welcome.

 

[nkuvu]

Haven't been there in a while, but Dice.com generally has a lot of posts...

 

[dlookus]

Unfortunately, I'm in the same boat. The bottom just fell out of the market in the NYC area. I have been having absolutely no luck. Here in the NYC area we have a new media organization called the New York New Media Association. Look for something similar in Chicago.

Also, from what I've been seeing around here there is much more print work than web work. If you want to stay fresh but still work, I'd get a print job and freelance web design.

If you are really coming up empty handed, I would suggest one of 1 of 2 things. Go 100% freelance if you feel you can pull it off (you may be happier this way anyway), or go back to school. IMO this is the perfect time to go for a further degree.

I know quite a few people who have gotten laid off in the last year and so far almost all of them have found jobs, but it took most of them a few months.

I have one suggestion for you. Your PDF resume is huge. You can embed the font and make it much smaller. Also there's no Education section. Are you leaving that off purposely?

Sorry if this isn't helpful, but I wish I had the secret to finding a great web job in this day and age.

 

[rinse]

dlookus and nkuvu, thanks for your input...

i had removed the education section from my resume as I wanted to deempahasize the fact that I had only graduated from college in 1999... perhaps i will put it back on there. do you feel it is that important for someone with several years of experience to broadcast where they got their degree from?

as for the fonts in my pdf... i have had bad luck embedding fonts and then ending up with poorly printed resumes... i will look into that again.

i am thinking a bit of going back to school for a MBA or computer science degreee... this design market is driving me nuts.

i have been doing some freelance to keep fresh and busy, but overall, it is too stressful IMHO having to scramble for work.

dice seems to be a bit to tech-oriented for my tastes. i have enough dev experience to work as a webmaster/junior developer with design tasks... but the thought of being a straight up code monkey does little for me.

 

[dlookus]

i am thinking a bit of going back to school for a MBA or computer science degreee... this design market is driving me nuts.

Really, if your thinking about it seriously, now is the time. Why wait until the market is good again to go back to school.

As far as the education thing goes, I imagine employers wonder why you don't have it on there too.

 

[rinse]

dlookus... i went ahead and updated my resume with my education info...

also... after looking at the PDF doc, i determined the file size is not in the fonts or type, but the illustration / vector art on the resume as an accent. perhaps it could be shrunk, but i dont think im going to mess with it beyond what i have.

thanks for your feedback.

 

[nkuvu]

If you're planning on a CS degree expect it to take some time. Not that I think you're not up to it (I really have no idea -- are you? ), but CS degrees are often more credit-intensive than other programs.

In addition, a lot of the CS classes I had (frequently 3 credits) ended up giving me about 10-15 hours/week of homework/programming. It's a lot of time to spend.

Add to that the fact that CS degrees often ignore other schools' CS classes. So the C and Pascal classes I took in community college counted for nothing (Yes, I'm old enough that Pascal was still one of the primary languages being taught -- right before I transferred to the four-year university they changed to C). Basically I got to learn about integers and for loops three times. And I knew it before the first class.

This isn't intended to inhibit your decision -- just to make it more informed.

Anyway, I tend to agree with dlookus -- but I personally won't go back to school for a long long time. I took too long getting my degree, and I am totally sick of school.