[TriLUG] New member re-location question

[Greg Brown]

I wanted to respond to Phil's original query.  The market down here is  
tough, real tough, right now.  If you are dead set on moving down here  
from Boston you're going to have tough time finding work right away,  
but the good news is there ARE jobs around here, they are just few and  
far between and competition is FIERCE.

For instance, a local drug company just added two UNIX admins paying  
close to the 100k a year range.  Knowing the VP of IT, Chairman of the  
Board, and several global directors didn't land me that one, but at  
least I applied (as did probably everyone on this list an a zillion  
others) and managed to land an interview.

I hadn't even finished crying in my beer about the above job when I  
heard about another (even better in my opinion) job.  The job I just  
landed is as close to my dream job as can be had these days.  It's  
network management related, Linux related, and it rocks.  To land the  
job I had to know some of the big dogs in the company, and some of the  
people that the big dogs know, and show that my 10 years plus of  
network management and UNIX skills hadn't gone stale.

Prior to working here I road the train wreck that was Lucent from  
120,000 employees down to 35,000.  While I was doing hard-core  
technically related stuff when I started at Lucent I ended by writing  
specs on splayed manholes that wouldn't crush under the weight of tanks  
or settle too deep into Korea's unique soil conditions.  Oh yippie,  
that was fun I can tell you.  But I did keep my skills up to date by  
volunteering for any technically challenging project that came along  
and tinkering with technical projects at home (i.e. learning new  
programming languages, keeping the ones I didn't know as sharp as  
possible, etc).

But the good news is there are jobs here!  For instance UNC-TV also  
recently added two UNIX admins.  Heck, Revlon Corporate has been trying  
to find a UNIX admin out in Oxford (a bit North of where I live in  
Youngsville) for EIGHT MONTHS.  I've send the link out before, but here  
it is again:

<"http://skillnet.skillset.com/revlon/extpost.nsf/ 
bf017f390970e816882566f6005aa7cb/ 
fe05896282793df185256c4b00175e66?OpenDocument">

I guess what I'm saying is DON'T GIVE UP HOPE!    Meaningful,  
challenging work is out there.  Just be ready to pounce when the time  
comes and get that resume polished and get some good references that  
can really speak to your technical abilities.  And get involved with a  
local LUG (as much as is possible, anyway) and just try to keep your  
skills up to date.

Just my $.02.

Greg

On Tuesday, June 10, 2003, at 09:34 PM, Philip Buckley wrote:

> I am planning on moving down to the Raleigh area from up here in  
> Boston. I will be heading down sometime in July and was wondering if  
> you guys could help point me towards some good resources (internet or  
> "real") to help me find employment when I get down there.
>
> I'm looking, and I know this may be a shocker, for something  
> Linux/Free/Open based, preferably doing web development.
>
> TIA,
> Phil Buckley
>
>
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