A programmer's personal story about finding a job in this economy

I also went for a job with a military contractor a couple of months ago. The first thing that the interviewer asked was "what are your views on the Afghan war?". I gave him my views, but stopped myself after a few sentences as he looked increasingly horrified. Needless to say, I didn't get the job, but I wasn't disappointed because a job which required me to become closely involved in a cause that I didn't believe in wouldn't have suited me.

I've been getting a fairly steady flow of recruiters emails for the last 3 months looking for people. Even a few .Net jobs, and the recruiters know I'm not a .Net person. Since my last job search I've started helping the recruiters connect with people even if I'm not interested at the time. If they send me a job post I try and send it around to my network of people. If I hear of someone looking I forward them the posts I get.<p>I see it two ways one I'm helping people get jobs which I think is very important, and two it keeps me in the loop for when I'm looking. The recruiters remember me and help me out.<p>I wish this guy was in my contact list. He wouldn't have gotten so desperate. But, if you're a programmer get to know some recruiters make sure you know them and they know you. Don't wait until you're looking.

It's also interesting, apropos of the recent interest in StackOverflow Careers and the discussions on HN, that this guy has a pretty spectacular StackOverflow rep and still was having trouble finding a job. I wonder if he knew of the Careers/jobs portion of StackOverflow and if he used it at all. Of course it's anecdotal but seems odd if Joel's theory stands up that this fellow had such a hard time getting a job.

Wow. Seattle, SF, NYC, etc. must be little islands of prosperity for programmers... Still seems pretty active. The OP went to Charlestown, SC ("home")... I wonder if he tried remote work? It seems like if he was willing to work retail/gas stations that he could find SOMEONE who would pay him $10/hr to do junior coding working from abroad AT VERY LEAST...

Never thought it would be that hard to find a job as a developer. I seem to never have enough developers.

Pretty interesting story, and it's cool that he was able to bounce back. In some areas, programmers seem to have lots of opportunities, even while there are few jobs in other fields.

I think this guys problem is that he knows mostly .net, and that's it. He might be pretty good at it, but shoehorning yourself into one technology stack is not good.<p>Anyway, It might be a problem of the location also. I know that in Boston people are having trouble finding jobs too. It seems that in Sillicon Valley there is always demand for really good engineers.<p>If you are really good, you will find something for sure.

His lack of team experience really would be a big downer for getting a job. Glad to see he found something.

I found my current job in a week, actually I wasn't even looking. I said hey what if I moved to Boston (was living in MN at the time) so i posted my resume on Dice, an hour later I got my first email.. a week later I was at an interview in Boston. Of course that was just after the stock market crashed, I don't think the full repercussions had hit.<p>But I can understand having difficulty if he prefers to be a lone wolf.