longest time you have being without a job.

Everlife

I had a three-month gap between undergrad and my first job. Since then, I've been quite lucky.

One thing I would recommend is to keep in contact with headhunters throughout your career. I am sent job opportunities fairly regularly by a few different headhunters and I try to ensure they are passed along to various mailing lists I belong to that the headhunters do not have access to. It's the "I'll scratch your back if you scratch my back" scenario. It is also beneficial to ask them what skills are in demand at any present point in time to give you an idea where you stand and what skills might be worth pursuing.

Good luck with your job search!

petedude

nicklauscombs wrote: »

if i had to guess, a lot of the time the check you receive from unemployment will be higher than what you could make working part time.

Yes, but there are some who say it's better to be working at anything while waiting for the next gig. I guess it's to show you're not sitting around.

earweed

I guess you could say I'm still trying to get my first real IT job. I work at Wal-Mart to pay the bills and have had my own side PC repair/ home network setup thing going for a while now. I also recently started a part-time gig as an HDTV warranty repair tech. It's just basically diagnosing the problem opening the back up and replacing the correct board (there are only 2 boards the main and power boards),
The private PC business has been going pretty good as I've gotten to set up 2 small (10 and 20 user) offices. I kind of like doing that and have even seeked out employment at a few places in my area that specialize at that. I've gained a few new skills but want to get in a more enterprise environment which means either helpdesk or desktop support.
As for helpdesk and desktop support in my area I've sent out a lot of resumes via email and snail mail and it seems that they all want someone with experience doing it already as I've had very few interviews even. I'm currently dealing with several different recruiters and they are no use to me at all as they have gotten me zero interviews.

erpadmin

The longest I've been unemployed was 8 months. I crashed with my sister for that whole period until I obtained fulltime employment. Since then, I had moved on to a better job. No shame in collecting unemployment, but I don't wish that on my worst enemy. I was going EVERYWHERE for interviews, but nothing was biting. This was during the 9/11 era, so you know it was rough then. Right before my last check, I got hired. I just had to make sure unemployment didn't send me that last check, lest I have to pay them back.

Seriously though, I have made it a point to make sure I never have to make that call answering yes, yes, no, no, no,no,no,no, yes (or whatever it was) to get an unemployment check. It is not fun, and now my salary way exceeds any unemployment benefit I qualify for.

Danieltheman

After Circuit city went out buisness, so did I...got hired for a seasonal job at a warehouse(not fun) then go laid-off...it's real hard for some people when your barely starting out or trying to get into IT like me..

Countryboi

loxleynew wrote: »

How do you guys survive such long periods without a job? Parents/wife help pay for stuff?

Also at what point do you say ok I have to get a part time job and you go out to home depot or whatever and get a part time job there while still looking for IT work? Do you guys not really care if you got a job at home depot then quit it 2 weeks later if you randomly found an IT job?

when i was unemployed my girl had a crap job and i had unemployment plus i was living in my fathers second home so he was helping me with the rent and after all that it still were barely getting by.....never again

brewd

Six months for me, it was horrible. My family (wife and 2 kids) and I moved in with my in laws, that really made it an incentive to work hard looking for a job.

I was layed off for a job that I moved out of state for, looked for a job there for about 3 months, then moved in with family and found a job after 3 more months. It was horrible, the in laws were gracious enough to allows us to stay with them but it was a constant reminder to me that I wasn't providing for my kids...

I didn't bother working on certifications at the time, I spend as much time as I could sending out resumes and interviewing. For the next four years of employment I layed back and also didn't bother with certs, but when our parent company threatened to have all of our servers moved to the corporate HQ that got me hitting the books. In the last year I got my MCSA, MCSE, MCITP, Security+, and Network+.

Plan at this point is to get the Server+ (I know, it's probably a waste of time, but I'm on a roll with CompTIA at this point) then move on to Cisco's CCNA, and considering the CISSP and CCNA Security and CCNP after that if all goes according to plan.

I feel for anyone unemployed in this economy, it was hard enough for me to find a job back in 2005, so I feel for you if you're unemployed and looking. That pressure builds up fast as you don't want too big of a gap of employment on your resume. It's hard enough for me trying to explain a 6 month gap as it is, but a one to two year gap in employment sends up real big red flags to HR from what I hear.

ajmatson

Almost two months for me so far. I got laid off when our company was parted off and buildings were foreclosed on. Thankfully I have unemployment and contract work under the table because I also have a wife and three kids. Not fun at all but I have time to catch up on certs.

Daniel333

I started working when I was ohh.. 14. I had a 1 week gap in between my last job and this one. Other than that, I have had at least one job at any time since then.

shaqazoolu

I haven't been without a job since I was 17.

wweboy

A full year to the week. it sucked big time but I picked up my MCDST during the time but after awhile I felt like I was losing my skills.

Paul Boz

Eh, hard to say. I started at the telephone company two days after I graduated high school. For the next five years I worked at least 50 hours a week while going to university. After I left the telephone company I really didn’t want to find another “real” job for a while. I never had the opportunity to have fun in college because I had to work so dang much. I spent about six weeks just enjoying a summer vacation, and then got a job making pizza to get by. Between cashing out my 401(k) and my pizza checks my wife and I made our bills easily. After a few months of working in the kitchen a security job opened up to me. I was at my last job for about 20 months but got burned out of that place. I was just unemployed for about six weeks but had about $20k saved up for bills, emergencies, etc. I could still not work until January and live comfortably. My mortgage is like $650/month so I can seriously work in food service and not stress about money. I’ve never been motivated by money, but by what interests me. I didn’t go out looking for my current job (a recruiter came to me) but I wound up doing well. Every time I go to a new job I wind up making $20-$25k/year more hah.

My best advice to those that are unemployed or contemplating unemployment is to look in the mirror, then look around you at all of your junk. Realize that you don’t need to spend $120/month or more on video games, $500/month on eating out, etc, and you’ll be able to get by on very little money for a very long time. A problem that most people have is that they’re overly willing to pay others to do things for them. Examples include eating out at restaurants (you’re paying someone to cook for you), getting your car serviced at a mechanic, paying for a landscape service, etc. Why spend $500/month on restaurants when you can cook yourself and spend $150? Why pay someone to mow the grass when you can buy a lawn mower? Why pay someone to change your oil when you can read how to do it on google? A little economics can go a long way.

If you just cook every meal yourself and shop frugally you can eat for almost nothing. At my last job I got very complacent with eating out every day because I traveled all the time and had to. When you’re on the road for 90 days a year you pick that habit up hard. I brought that bad habit home with me and continued to spend way too much on food even when I was home. Over the last few months I’ve gotten back into being a good cook at home and have only paid for restaurant food maybe twice. I can cook better than just about anything you can buy in a restaurant (ask Dynamik, he can vouch for my skills in the kitchen [insert joke here]). For an example, I make my own jams and jellies because I can make two gallons of jam for the cost of a few jars worth at the grocery. Why would I go to Does Eat Place and spend $300 on a steak dinner when I can just cook it better myself? If you think you’re a bad cook than start small and make it a hobby. Try to get really good at cooking one thing then use those skills to get better.

Just being smart with the money you DO have will stretch it so much further. I also recommend signing up for mint.com and tracking your spending. When you get a week-end statement that tells you that you spent $200 on restaurants it’s a wakeup call. When you stop paying others to do things for you its also very rewarding because you’re taking charge, which is something you need in your life when you’re unemployed. Its stressful to not have a job, but if you can wake up in the morning and make bread from scratch with your bare hands, at least you can say you did something fulfilling that day.

Anonymouse

Was laid off in Feb of '09 and didn't start work until Aug of '09. So that's 6 months. Would have preferred to stay in desktop support but no one will hire me. I am a computer operator right now and just run backups for low pay. If it weren't for this job I would still be out of work as I've been actively searching for work the whole year I've been here and no job offers at all!

ipconfig.all

why is life hard for ipconfig ;(

over9000

I did a joke major out of school (I thought it wasn't a joke major, but boy was I wrong! ) and couldn't find a job for 9 months. I had to go from the freedom of school to living back with my parents. I found a small job making pizza for 2 months and got laid off. I got my A+ along the way and finally got my first IT job.

It's been hard having to start over from scratch since I had no IT experience to begin with, but at least I finally found employment. Maybe with a few more certs I can break into this field and finally afford to live on my own.

Anonymouse

over9000 wrote: »

I did a joke major out of school (I thought it wasn't a joke major, but boy was I wrong! ) and couldn't find a job for 9 months. I had to go from the freedom of school to living back with my parents. I found a small job making pizza for 2 months and got laid off. I got my A+ along the way and finally got my first IT job.

It's been hard having to start over from scratch since I had no IT experience to begin with, but at least I finally found employment. Maybe with a few more certs I can break into this field and finally afford to live on my own.

Just curious but what's your joke/not joke major? I figure at least you have that degree to show you are a hardworker.