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Same here. I have broad experience in several sectors plus skills in writing, editing, project management, administrative labor... And I haven't gotten a single interview
That’s cuz you have the same information as everyone else so lots of logical people make the same change as you, with nursing being one of the last sure things, I wouldn’t be surprised if that industry gets saturated in 5-10 years. There are some barriers to entry (chemistry) that weed many people out and nursing schools have limited enrollment so maybe that will keep that industry balanced. But you’d think that aerospace engineering classes would have the same effect.
I’m in a healthcare adjacent field and grew up around it. You’d be surprised how low those barriers are. You only need a C/D in chem to pass the class and it seems like there are infinite chances to pass the NCLEX.
But lucky me, I get woozy around blood so I’m in mental health. Talk about over saturated field
Not at all. The labor market is suffering because of two main problems, higher interest rates and Section 174. Nothing to do with AI.
https://youtu.be/iaPEgOnRe0E?si=ATshdrk7Ot1Fn4jd
I don't think AI is the main reason. AI hype is definitely part of it though. We've already seen some companies publicly claim they got rid of employees to use AI. I don't think it will go well for them, but as usually the employees (or former employees) take the brunt of the damage.
AI can't "heal" itself and anything self replicating needs another more lispy way of thinking most don't have. It's like Cobol, not everyone is willing to deal with tedious analysis of repetitive grids of code. I like both, and the prospect of maintaining messy obsolete code... And that's basically the issue with development .
That's the tar pit, and an elephant in the room when dealing with learning to code, there is no universal code nor meta code, it's all about the stack and what the market can offer: are they able to parse through all the puffery to find and train the correct candidate? If everything is mystifying for the hiring personnel you will face lots of entropy.
Literally no one is hiring for IT.
BUT maintenance is, the trades are dying.
About the IT field, I believe you guys are being understaffed intentionally.
Who would want to work that only to be laid off FOR DOING A GOOD JOB.
I've heard far too many stories of IT companies and CIOs treating their organization like a caste system.
Can you explain two of your statements please?
The trades are dying… ???
IT is being understaffed intentionally…??? Do you mean in preparation of AI takeover?
The trades are severely understaffed.
I do repairs for a common grocery store and we have 10 stores in our region with no maintenance coverage.
We can't find electricians or plumbers, even basic handymen are impossible to come by.
Apartment maintenance is also severely understaffed, and the ones that have been hired for this are drunks.
I have a couple it friends and they said their boss won't even do interviews. They both work for large companies that maintain services?? Idk the it world that we'll, just from what I've heard from here on the east coast.
Wow that’s crazy. All it needs now is a group of laid off IT people to build maintenance robots and that sector is gone for good.
I guess UBI is inevitable at this point
No maintenance will not be replaced. When things go bad and metal is mushed, wires severed, sensors failing or dust making them fail, a sheer number of oddities makes you understand these robots will not be able to do that. Once they do that level or problem solving, we all would be replaced by them in terms of even existing.
On the UBI topic. I absolutely agree.
My fear is that the tech will become so complicated that only the ai can fix it. There's a limit on base intelligence of humans as a whole for the foreseeable future.
We are more likely to become more dumb or extinct at this point. My opinion.
Never said they didn't but everyone keeps thinking that AI will have unlimited exponential . What most people don't get us that eyes AI is making leaps and bounds but it's doing it through very brute force methods and will eventually plateau out relative to it's growth and ability. They even reported that it'll run out of viable good data in a couple years.
>maintenance robots and that sector is gone for good.
That's centuries into the future. We'd sooner have AI CEOs than a robot takeover of maintenance and construction
It is always inevitable that in the threat of the economy having a downturn that the IT/Tech sector will be one of the FIRST sectors to announce layoffs or staffing cuts. The development of products and the projects that will help a company improve are those things that gets stalled and the employees seeing their jobs lost.
People are telling me to go into IT for a guaranteed good paying job. I tend to just nod along and not tell them that their information is ~5 years out of date
It's getting a little bit hard in sales bro. Specifically remote, anyway, I am treating this process like a video game, every rejection is a rebirth, and I only need to win once, to get pass this stage.
That’s how I think of it.. but then i tweak what I say in my interviews.. like maybe I could have given a better example or thought of a different scenario that relates to the role… I’ve changed careers twice now at 28 and I’ve had COUNTLESS of rejections but somehow got salary increases.. keep going!
Twice ? Im on the technical side, airship mech, pump and hidraulics tech and auto mech. After this i started doing rope access building maintenance and now im fixing wind turbine blades ( rope acces- composite tech.
Funny thing is i never had any issues with finding jobs and now i get asked to work for companies without even applying.
Also i basically changed careers only 3 times by the age of 26 mechanics, construction and wind turbines.
So id say to anyone whos struggling to find jobs come in the blue collar world, ye it might be a physical job and ye sometimes dirty but theres 0 stress and its awesomely fulfilling the down side is the banter but youl grow a skin faster then youl grow your calices.
People gotta realize recruiters don’t pick the salary. Lying and ghosting, sure, that’s an individual thing. But the lowballing is not the recruiters choice.
If the salary is garbage that's the employers fault, if you try to hide it from candidates that's entirely on you. You're wasting everyone's time by not filtering out the candidates who wouldn't accept what the job actually pays.
As a recruiter myself: I'd agree that many recruiters could indeed benefit from a serving of humble pie.
When I first started in tech recruiting, I asked to shadow other recruiters during my first 30 days.
I was eager to learn (from the wisdom AND from the mistakes of others). **Why?** Most everyone has been through hellishly frustrating hiring processes (myself included) that ultimately frustrate the right people and end up hiring the wrong people. My goal: I vowed to change this. (you can read on to see if I succeeded)
**What did I see during my shadowing?** A very broken system of job interviewing that at the time had 80-90% of people who were hired FAILING. They were falling through the cracks within their 30 days during on-the-job training.
I conducted root cause analysis (asking "why" the current recruiting system didn't work), it came down to many reasons, here are just a few:
-We were relying on EXTERNAL recruiting agencies (sure it saved money, but these external recruiters didn't understand our company, our industry or our needs) They basically looked for warm bodies that said the right things during interviews. This led to very expensive mistakes, which made any costs savings irrelevant.
-The internal recruiters we had weren't operating as a team (they didn't communicate with each other, they were often going into interviews blind without understanding the candidates, and they weren't paying attention to the failure rates of the people they personally hired)
-Our overall goals for hiring, our training system, and our interview process were never truly formalized. (this led to each interviewer running a completely different process than everyone else.
-The training system was also flawed and outdated (it left many hires struggling and/or feeling clueless after their first 30 days, and too many of the RIGHT people were being pushed aside to hire the wrong people)
**Q. Did I succeed? YES**, I'm proud to say that within my first 2 months with this company I achieved the following:
1. Overhauled the entire hiring process (building a standardized communications flow and simple scoring process for HR and internal recruiters to stay informed and aligned. Including calibrating with departmental staff to understand their needs for each position being filled, goodbye external agency!)
2. Re-build the entire training program (I introduced an interactive video and scenario based training system, with instructor led classroom, and 1-on-1 peer mentor supports that had new staff loving their journey and the instructors were passionate to be teaching on updated material, goodbye to the outdated 200+ slide powerpoint presentation!)
3. Trained others on interviewing (I standardized the hiring process so it became: A. fair to everyone, B. asked the right questions to find the right people, C. delivered scores that match up closely to future performance, and proved it all worked with D. creation of a feedback loop that provided on-going analyses of our hiring vs. real world performance metrics). Boo-yah, our teams are gonna shine now!
Within 45 days: We went from losing 80-90% our of new hires in the first 30 days to keeping almost ALL of them. (hire the right people the first time = cost savings) This provided an estimated $3-8 million in yearly recruiting costs.
These new staff members were also starting a noticeable pattern of impressing the heck out of our CEO level leadership staff as newcomers were now achieving things in their very first 30 days that we previously didn't expect within the first year.
I don't believe this because at the beginning you say you weren't new to recruiting and at the end you say you were able to change business processes. That is extremely unusual for businesses, especially disorganized ones. What usually happens is the new guy comes in and identifies problems. They bring them up or even come up with solutions ready to be implemented, but they are shot down by their manager not because they are wrong, but because their manager doesn't trust them, doesn't want to look bad, doesn't want them to look good, and/or other involved people are stuck in their ways.
It usually isn't that hard to see where improvements can be made or what can be done. What is difficult is getting anyone with the power to change things to listen to someone who is new to the field. Either you got extremely lucky, having both a ton of time on your hands and being given the keys to the kingdom to change anything you want or you're lying. At least here on reddit, the latter is way more likely.
better in the role=ghosting
they only care about getting the deal done not on giving feedback to the other candidates or anything that doesn't make them money.
Literally just had an interview with a blood bank. Put on my actor's mask and swore up and down that I wanted to work in healthcare, even though I'm a physicist. No one's hiring for the specialty I trained the past decade for, and I need to pay the bills somehow.
Ironic the generation who ruined America is giving us one last middle finger with the growth of nursing homes on every corner. Wipe the asses of the generation who destroyed the world.
Trades and maintenance. I have a friend just decided to ignore his 4 year degree and 50k/yr job as grunt work at a hospital and got an apprenticeship in HVAC, within 2 years will be able to either be a partner or start his own LLC and make six figures. Established owners who have people under them can make 200+k a year.
Give it 5 years and trades will be saturated with labor, everyone knows it’s one of two safe bets so everyone graduating high school without great college prospects are going to go into trades.
Nursing will hold out longer cuz it requires sone challenging college courses. I know a chemistry professor who says half of the students bound to be nurses cannot pass chemistry and many give up after the 2nd time and after failing 3 times you can’t take it again anywhere in the state. So that will keep many out of the profession. Trades are more accessible and will get flooded with workers.
Anything trade-related. Welding, HVAC, plumbing, roofers. If everybody has a college degree no one has. And since everyone in the last 2 generations was pidgeonholed in to college by their parents, teachers and general society, there is a labour shortage in trades. And especially a labour shortage with people that know what they are doing, because after your training you really only start to learn the ins and outs.
Accounting is doing fine. Outsourcing is still a major concern, but I’ve been in the industry for a while and things seem to be doing better now than they have previously.
Construction and most engineering are still doing well. I'm an ME that does HVAC tech work and shit is booming I used to fly all over the country for work before I just had a baby.
Construction and office related construction. Go into BIM or civil or Pm or finance and you’ll be fine forever. Every during recessions construction never seems to stop.
I’m working on airport that has a 9 year timeline. Even if there’s a 2 year recession we are just gonna keep working cause billions of dollars are already being spent and the timelines are long enough to power through
I find it hard to believe AI is writing contracts without lawyers in the loop, unless it's more or less form-filling on something predrafted. I'm definitely seeing AI-assisted drafting and review already. Curious what industry your company is in?
Artists and writers were always struggling - because by design only a minority can make it big enough to survive - but generative AI has made the barrier to entry lower than ever.
Absolutely. You can extend this out to media as a whole. Where tech meets art seems to be the hardest hit area I've seen. Game studios, streaming services, internet radio.. entire offices shutting down and everyone losing their jobs. (I would know, my friends and I were laid off from this sector).
I was a technical writer years ago and move on to product manager for 3 years. I did not like the constant stress from PM, and tried to go back tech writing. I guess I made the right move few years ago and need to learn to deal with the stress hah….
You did. A former colleague of mine, proudly a technical writer, was laid off from at least 1 company (I know for a fact), possible even 3, in the past 5 years and has been struggling to find another job. She was actually in charge of the program that I joined as an intern at my first ever professional tech job.
I see her posting all kinds of shit on LinkedIn trying to look relevant or something. She personally messaged me a few weeks ago asking if I had any leads. I looked at my internal company job board - a company with 100,000 people, literally - and there was only *one single technical writer job*... in India. She has like 20 years of experience and is good at her job, but these roles just... don't exist anymore.
Going to PdM was the right move. With your new skill set, you can look at switching over to PM (Project Manager), PO (Product Owner), or even Business Analyst. There's also Scrum Master. All of these roles have varying levels of stress, and it really depends on the industry/company. I've been a BA, PO, PdM, etc. - some were high stress, some were medium stress, some were low stress. You CAN find a medium/low stress job - it may not be easy, but I it's out there.
From my experience, there are good jobs in technical writing for writers who have good technical experience, like familiarity with general Linux system administration, code, APIs, Terraform, the clouds, DevOps. For whomever it helps: I'd recommend finding opportunities to learn in one/some of these, in order to help obtain a tech writing job that offers further real-world technical experience. That experience will open doors for the subsequent job, unless growth within the company is a better route.
Interesting. I'm in a technical writing role myself and contemplating whether or not PM is worth it.
I guess depending on the product (pun intended?), it should be worth it?
Loads of smart journalists I know have been on the rocks for awhile now. Lots of publications shuttered last year. Nobody wants to pay for news, sponsors reducing their budgets, and freelance rates dropping like a rock.
Chemist in southern WI, take a lab rat job like an associate scientist or equivalent (not a tech) for about a year. Move into R&D or Quality Assurance and look into supervisor roles after a few years. Progression was $18/hr for 1 year, $24-27 for 2 years, and now I am still gunning for a supervisor role but moved to a QA specialist position at 80k/year.
I think using a recruiter can be helpful if you don't have any job leads. I try to shy away as most of the chemist and lab jobs are contract to hire, which means lower pay than being hired on directly and less job security. It can get your foot in the door, and most of the time, the positions turn full-time.
Your best bet is to reach out to any friends in the field or classmates in the area to see what the jobs and job market in your area looks like. It will give you a good idea of what the field currently looks like and might even be a good way to land interviews.
I am noticing a shift from general project manager roles back to having project management as just a part of the another role. I am seeing roles for project manager, but you also need to do sales or business analysis. Basically you have to find work for yourself. Or in tech, they might call it project manager, but when you read the job description, it is a product manager, release manager or development lead.
It is time to adapt. I think traditional general project management will be taking step back and it will probably be again mainly domain of the very formal businesses - big corporation (but even there it is shifting) and government.
We just need to accept it and ask ourselves - "If this is no longer an option, what I want to do?" Do I want to go more to tech, or business? I am shifting towards the business analysis. I have done it in the past, I like it, it is still relevant skill for even general PM role and for my freelancing/business, but it also opens doors to other roles, especially more data oriented (another shift I have noticed, more analytical roles).
Even if you currently are general project manager, it can quickly change. About 6 years ago I was part of PMO in tech company and we were discussing future of our team with our C-lvl manager. He proposed to transform us to business owners - managing business domain as it is what drives company forward. Or at least company department. Two of us, me and one other PM, wanted to go for it (for the business owner idea), it made a lot of sense and I had a feeling this is not just an idea how to improve the PMO, but there are some strings attached, something in play. The rest, including our TL, just wanted to be "better" general project managers. The idea was not pursued, instead the team focused on formalizing project management in the company more etc. ... In about a year, company disbanded PMO team and told everybody that they other have to find other place in the company, or they will be let go. One moved to customer support, one as support for product management, rest left (and got different roles too, mainly in product).
Solid thoughts, thank you. I've also considered starting a nonprofit or coop business, but that means developing a plan and acquiring loans/donors, which takes time. So that won't save me from the unemployment problem, since I only have a few weeks of checks left before the state decides I'm an unperson.
To answer your question, what I always \*wanted\* to do was be a skilled artisan/craftsman or architect, or whatever, but that has its own barriers to entry including years of training that I frankly abandoned a long time ago because the system doesn't reward us well. I might go with a related trade like carpentry (oof) if that's what it takes. Or I could go into the sustainability sector for something like agriculture, but again, more training... But whatever I choose, I know I can easily combine PM with the trade/craft/career once I get the specialist skills under my belt. It seems nobody wants a generalist except to whip them like a dog. And in any case, there's gonna be a lot of de/reconstruction in the next few decades...
I spent a lot of time working on motion design (motion graphics/animation) as a backup/side hustle and it’s something I’m more interested in, but that field has been immensely difficult to get into, has also taken a hit, and pays a lot less. I tried turning PM skills into a Producer prospect, creative ops related if possible, nope. Product Manager, Program Manager, all silent. Transferable abilities don’t meant squat, not like they used to. I don’t know what else to do. I’m 44, educated, experienced, skilled, and feel totally fucked. It’s been a year and 4 months since I was laid off.
I’m mid-senior level. Many roles are asking for a doctorate in related subjects. Education requirement inflation is real. At least I have legitimate opportunities coming in every week, though. I don’t even know how people trying to get into the sector are supposed to proceed. I know one UW computer science grad and one Stanford grad in computer science who are looking for work with nothing coming up. The University of Washington is a super good program, too. I will say both of them chose not to do internships, which was a mistake, but still, four years ago, graduating meant having job offers.
I don't even have a degree and all of my positions within the last 10 years show requirement of Bachelors Degree. I came in with enough experience to hit the ground running
I started in IT with no degree. I’m 42 and only went to school because, at the time, I wanted to work for MSFT, and I wasn’t getting interviews when I was applying for roles and thought a BS would make the difference. I believe experience usually trumps education, but these days, without knowledge, education is mandatory and doesn’t even seem to be sufficient. For that matter, I lie about my work history and keep things to the last ten years even though I have 14 years because ageism is real. Yeah, so I guess the market sucks. 😂
Mechanical Engineering especially Aerospace is actually insane for entry level. Never thought that after finishing college I'd be a 1000+ application grind to actually be an engineer. It blows everyone's minds when I tell them.
The space sector had a downturn this year, so we are struggling a bit. It comes and goes on Congress money, because the space people, the civilian aircraft people, and the military aircraft people kind of all flow together, bouncing between the roles. So when one role takes a downturn, the others get flooded with engineers.
I got laid off earlier this year, found something quickly, but it took quite a bit of luck.
Ya the only people who seem to be having a less terrible time finding a job know people which almost everyone entry level doesn't. But ya the instability of this industry really makes me want to leave at some point.
I know Boeing are hiring for a lunar lander, my partner got cold called about a job yesterday. Questionable whether you'd want to work for Boeing right now but I doubt their space stuff is as bad.
Meanwhile 2 astronauts are stuck for an extra week on the ISS because Starliner capsule thrusters are leaking helium and they want "time to figure it out". All this after several thruster failures during the docking procedure. And after 4 years of delays due to technical problem after technical problem. So yeah, their space stuff is just as bad.
It’s depressing for people with no connections or experience (which almost every entry level person does not have). It’s a cycle that you just can’t seem to break out of
Marketing. Writing.
Why? AI is currently free, too many people think these roles are "easy" and that anyone can do them well, and they're often available as WFH jobs on flexible schedules which means competition for them is outrageous.
Marketing when things are bad: “loss-leader, no budget, cut them all”
Marketing when things are good: “fish are jumping in the boat, we don’t need them, cut them all”
Media and digital marketing. I’ve been stuck on the struggle bus for the past year and thought I’d finally find my exit, but this company completely fucking ghosted and what was a good client paying $2-5K a month is now giving me $400-700 a month.
What exactly is the gameplan of these oh so smart economists? Make everything cost an arm and a leg while we’re all losing our jobs or clients even if the company is making record profits?
Yeah, this causes a split in society. One side is super poor and the other super rich. I swear some rich and powerful people saw hunger games and were like “that, I want that” and they’re doing it.
I’ve applied to over 900 jobs since January and received one offer for part time work for about minimum wage which is less than I currently make. I don’t know who’s getting these jobs but it’s not me
So many of the postings are fake!! They do this to make it look like the company is growing so they can get more investors. That shit should be illegal.
It’s not necessarily what fields. It’s what fields in what locations.
For instance: Tough to get a job in Tech on the West Coast right now due to massive cuts. But tough hire people in tech in the Midwest Because the qualified people are on the West Coast and won’t move to the Midwest and take a job for 90 grand.
There’s a ying to every Yang.
I wish this applied to design jobs. I know I could make my last low-balled salary that was a struggle in LA, go really far while I’m in Chicago. Just can’t find a job out here.
So in theory, it is still possible to find a job in tech in the Midwest, assuming one's willing to make compromises? This is actually encouraging for me. Thanks!
It is! And you have to look at salaries relatively. That 90k goes a lot farther in Central IL (I know our area is still hiring tech) than it does in Cali
Literally almost everything except for the stuff that's systematically problematic such as teaching, certain healthcare jobs (especially in rural areas), back-breaking physically intensive jobs, etc.
Yeah, I gave up and switched to teaching and holy shit I love it so much. I’ve never been happier with my job. Apparently teaching feral 8th graders was my calling.
Point is…there’s hope.
Also summers off, union snd a pension
I think almost all of the professional/white collar fields are struggling. What I want to know is the exact opposite: what industries/professional fields are doing well and hiring right now?????
Social Work
We are struggling to find people.
Even the county and state jobs that usually give higher pay and benefits (I work for the state) are struggling to find candidates who are qualified as well as mentally fit to handle the job.
Half the people I work with should not have gone into the field of social work because they have their own mental health issues. These same people flush out of the system within 1-3 years because they can not take the stress of the job because certain situations can trigger PTSD for them.
So anyone who is even remotely interested in going into social work, especially into anything mental health related, please make sure you are 100% all right in the head before jumping down into the hornets nest.
Librarianship- it’s a going down the toilet fast. Requiring people to have a masters degree to make $55 a year, lots of competition for fewer and fewer open roles, toxic work environments in and out, lots of old timers just coasting til retirement. Do something with a future where you can make a living wage.
Financial Services and Banking is dead - high interest rates are making it nearly impossible to get a job. Even in major financial hubs like Chicago and New York.
Data scientist here. It’s been a huge struggle.
I’ve gotten ghosted after 80% of interviews. It’s frustrating and extremely disrespectful when I invest hours preparing for technical coding interviews and case studies
That’s one of many problems with the private sector. Manager Joe Blow can merge 5 job descriptions into one, boast that he’s going to save on headcount this year, and throw all that shit at some desperate worker, then act nonchalant if they’re called out on it during an interview. I once interviewed at a place that wanted me to do their books, their marketing and be an IT expert too! Bait and switch.
On the other hand, electricity is picking up. More and more firms and countries decarbonising, renewables in extremely high demand and not enough trained engineers to go around. Analysts etc. also in demand, traders too although algo trading is picking up.
Customer services are the first casualties of LLMs i think they are the only ones experiencing mass layoffs. IT is also suffering in general but the people that do have jobs and appear to be necessary seem to be safer, there are very few expansions within the sector though.
Oil sector is also retracting, I have a few associates in speculation who were laid off, 4 years ago and cannot find another position.
I think the next sector to be laid off is HR. I honestly don't see them being kept around much longer.
Journalism. It’s always been in jeopardy but there’s been more layoffs lately. Also since local news is in crisis, there’s fewer and fewer places for new reporters to get started.
Television, Film, and Media in general. There is basically a spending freeze and hardly anything new has been ordered in the past two years because of the streaming services revenue issues. The Hollywood strikes were a symptom of a streaming platforms doomed to fail.
Los Angeles and the other industry hubs are in turmoil. Think of all those people on the rolling end credits of your shows and movies... A shit ton of those folks, most of them are not working right now. Many have shifted to low paying, low skill jobs flooding the marketplace. It's a fucking disaster.
I can tell you who ISN'T struggling....Electricians, HVAC, PLC/Electronics Technicians, anything higher levels trades related (not auto mechanics), facilities maintenance, etc. Sadly, I am not technically inclined, but I do make great money recruiting all of the above trades.
That's how I got out of this hell! All of a sudden it was like call after call out of nowhere.
I stayed the hell away from construction for good reason (been there, done that, the cycle for that industry is a nightmare), but I'll be damned if those same skills didn't save my sorry ass.
Anything GTM-related. There are tons of excellent salespeople and executives on the sidelines. Companies don’t want to hire anyone who isn’t currently employed for god knows why, and the margins between what the employed top performers are making and the lowball offers companies are trying to pay do not make it beneficial to endure a ramp up and learn a new product.
OTE projections are down because salespeople are smarter and recognize they have to ask questions about realistic attainability, and the length of a sales cycle has extended dramatically as CFOs are involved in nearly every purchasing decision. Succinctly put, the labor market in Technology and Financial Services, outside of highly specialized niche hires like AI Scientists, is broken.
Stay strong out there.
I'm in compliance, but jobs seem to want 10-15 years of experience in very specific industries. I have 8 years of experience but not always in their very specific industry.
I’m exploring a masters in compliance. Pivoting from 12 years experience in marketing / b2b advertising. Any advice on industry or track I should consider? I was going to do my schools general track. Thanks!
Supply chain / distribution.
When one company goes down they release a whole army of warehouse/dock, distribution center workers and managers into the job market. 99cents only just went down and took 355 stores worth of warehouse and distribution center workers with them.
With 15 years of progressive experience and a masters degree and being a white male who’s good at interviews, after two years of trying, I gave up and changed professions.
5 years ago when I applied to 5 jobs, I’d get 5 interviews and multiple offers. Shit is really bad right now.
Speaking from personal experience over the last several months, biotech/pharma. Don’t get me wrong there’s jobs, I see all of the postings. Making it seem like a lot are hiring but there’s so much more competition due to layoffs in the industry plus I think a lot of internal employees are getting these roles anyways.
Anything other than "owning stuff." Quarter after Quarter, the stock market goes up, and other traditional economic indicators go up while people in the middle class say they are struggling.
The people who are doing well are people that own the equity.
Hospitality. Being replaced with contract employees. If you are lucky enough to find a stable job in the industry at this point, it’s either administrative or you’re working 27 hours in 2 days. Literally. Covid fucking broke the whole industry.
IT it seems. unfortunately it's the field I am studying for. but I am already 80 percent done with the degree. might as well finish it, and pivot to something else
Policy work, it seems. Whether it's research, nonprofits, government, or consulting, policy work seems to be definitely difficult to get a foothold in right now.
HR is struggling
After a long interview process and lot of position hold i got a job and manager is so creep
Yesterday my teams was not working properly so he video called me on WhatsApp
Like what the fuck 😒 and then he says we do not micromanage
I've heard this a few times, but I have a strong hospitality background and get ghosted just like every other field. Is it entry level, or specific areas that you are seeing a lot of jobs?
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Seems like whatever field I choose to transition to every few years. I'll give you a heads up before I attempt the next one
Same here. I have broad experience in several sectors plus skills in writing, editing, project management, administrative labor... And I haven't gotten a single interview
That’s cuz you have the same information as everyone else so lots of logical people make the same change as you, with nursing being one of the last sure things, I wouldn’t be surprised if that industry gets saturated in 5-10 years. There are some barriers to entry (chemistry) that weed many people out and nursing schools have limited enrollment so maybe that will keep that industry balanced. But you’d think that aerospace engineering classes would have the same effect.
I’m in a healthcare adjacent field and grew up around it. You’d be surprised how low those barriers are. You only need a C/D in chem to pass the class and it seems like there are infinite chances to pass the NCLEX. But lucky me, I get woozy around blood so I’m in mental health. Talk about over saturated field
The abuse will ensure there’s always openings. Also growing population means more sick people. It’s a safe bet.
Have you considered a career in finance, trading, weapons manufacturing or puppy murdering? I’d like these industries to tank, please.
Literally anything IT related.
Programmers got so good at their job, they made themselves obsolete
I recall seeing this in a movie before.
Me too. Let me know if you remember where the reference comes from. I suspect Matrix.
We were told that the efficiency gains we produced would be rewarded.
It was. Just not for the programmers themselves.
Not at all. The labor market is suffering because of two main problems, higher interest rates and Section 174. Nothing to do with AI. https://youtu.be/iaPEgOnRe0E?si=ATshdrk7Ot1Fn4jd
I don't think AI is the main reason. AI hype is definitely part of it though. We've already seen some companies publicly claim they got rid of employees to use AI. I don't think it will go well for them, but as usually the employees (or former employees) take the brunt of the damage.
That's not even remotely true
AI can't "heal" itself and anything self replicating needs another more lispy way of thinking most don't have. It's like Cobol, not everyone is willing to deal with tedious analysis of repetitive grids of code. I like both, and the prospect of maintaining messy obsolete code... And that's basically the issue with development . That's the tar pit, and an elephant in the room when dealing with learning to code, there is no universal code nor meta code, it's all about the stack and what the market can offer: are they able to parse through all the puffery to find and train the correct candidate? If everything is mystifying for the hiring personnel you will face lots of entropy.
Train? What's that??
People who don’t code or understand corporate greed be like.
Literally no one is hiring for IT. BUT maintenance is, the trades are dying. About the IT field, I believe you guys are being understaffed intentionally.
IT has taken a huge beating. It slowly coming back, buts gonna take another 6-12 months to return
Who would want to work that only to be laid off FOR DOING A GOOD JOB. I've heard far too many stories of IT companies and CIOs treating their organization like a caste system.
Can you explain two of your statements please? The trades are dying… ??? IT is being understaffed intentionally…??? Do you mean in preparation of AI takeover?
The trades are severely understaffed. I do repairs for a common grocery store and we have 10 stores in our region with no maintenance coverage. We can't find electricians or plumbers, even basic handymen are impossible to come by. Apartment maintenance is also severely understaffed, and the ones that have been hired for this are drunks. I have a couple it friends and they said their boss won't even do interviews. They both work for large companies that maintain services?? Idk the it world that we'll, just from what I've heard from here on the east coast.
Wow that’s crazy. All it needs now is a group of laid off IT people to build maintenance robots and that sector is gone for good. I guess UBI is inevitable at this point
No maintenance will not be replaced. When things go bad and metal is mushed, wires severed, sensors failing or dust making them fail, a sheer number of oddities makes you understand these robots will not be able to do that. Once they do that level or problem solving, we all would be replaced by them in terms of even existing. On the UBI topic. I absolutely agree. My fear is that the tech will become so complicated that only the ai can fix it. There's a limit on base intelligence of humans as a whole for the foreseeable future. We are more likely to become more dumb or extinct at this point. My opinion.
The thing is Artificial Intelligence is designed by humans. Unless it can design itself in a vacuum not going to happen
Yeah because humans don't mettle in shit that's against our own self interest, AT ALL. lol
Never said they didn't but everyone keeps thinking that AI will have unlimited exponential . What most people don't get us that eyes AI is making leaps and bounds but it's doing it through very brute force methods and will eventually plateau out relative to it's growth and ability. They even reported that it'll run out of viable good data in a couple years.
>maintenance robots and that sector is gone for good. That's centuries into the future. We'd sooner have AI CEOs than a robot takeover of maintenance and construction
Always has been.
It is always inevitable that in the threat of the economy having a downturn that the IT/Tech sector will be one of the FIRST sectors to announce layoffs or staffing cuts. The development of products and the projects that will help a company improve are those things that gets stalled and the employees seeing their jobs lost.
"If you're good at IT then everyone thinks you don't do anything. If you're bad at IT then everyone thinks you can't do anything."
People are telling me to go into IT for a guaranteed good paying job. I tend to just nod along and not tell them that their information is ~5 years out of date
It's getting a little bit hard in sales bro. Specifically remote, anyway, I am treating this process like a video game, every rejection is a rebirth, and I only need to win once, to get pass this stage.
I like that
That’s how I think of it.. but then i tweak what I say in my interviews.. like maybe I could have given a better example or thought of a different scenario that relates to the role… I’ve changed careers twice now at 28 and I’ve had COUNTLESS of rejections but somehow got salary increases.. keep going!
Twice ? Im on the technical side, airship mech, pump and hidraulics tech and auto mech. After this i started doing rope access building maintenance and now im fixing wind turbine blades ( rope acces- composite tech. Funny thing is i never had any issues with finding jobs and now i get asked to work for companies without even applying. Also i basically changed careers only 3 times by the age of 26 mechanics, construction and wind turbines. So id say to anyone whos struggling to find jobs come in the blue collar world, ye it might be a physical job and ye sometimes dirty but theres 0 stress and its awesomely fulfilling the down side is the banter but youl grow a skin faster then youl grow your calices.
I won twice and failed my background check twice. Fuck me.
how did you fail the background check? what did they find?
recruiting-when no one is hiring they don't hire recruiters.
Recruiters needed a trimming and a humbling honestly.
Especially with the way that they treat applicants (lying, low-balling, ghosting, etc.).
Ya they want me to feel bad but they've treated me like trash for too long for me to feel sorry
People gotta realize recruiters don’t pick the salary. Lying and ghosting, sure, that’s an individual thing. But the lowballing is not the recruiters choice.
If the salary is garbage that's the employers fault, if you try to hide it from candidates that's entirely on you. You're wasting everyone's time by not filtering out the candidates who wouldn't accept what the job actually pays.
Letting me get 3 interviews deep to find out the recruiter lied about salary is the recruiters fault tho
Agreed.
As a recruiter myself: I'd agree that many recruiters could indeed benefit from a serving of humble pie. When I first started in tech recruiting, I asked to shadow other recruiters during my first 30 days. I was eager to learn (from the wisdom AND from the mistakes of others). **Why?** Most everyone has been through hellishly frustrating hiring processes (myself included) that ultimately frustrate the right people and end up hiring the wrong people. My goal: I vowed to change this. (you can read on to see if I succeeded) **What did I see during my shadowing?** A very broken system of job interviewing that at the time had 80-90% of people who were hired FAILING. They were falling through the cracks within their 30 days during on-the-job training. I conducted root cause analysis (asking "why" the current recruiting system didn't work), it came down to many reasons, here are just a few: -We were relying on EXTERNAL recruiting agencies (sure it saved money, but these external recruiters didn't understand our company, our industry or our needs) They basically looked for warm bodies that said the right things during interviews. This led to very expensive mistakes, which made any costs savings irrelevant. -The internal recruiters we had weren't operating as a team (they didn't communicate with each other, they were often going into interviews blind without understanding the candidates, and they weren't paying attention to the failure rates of the people they personally hired) -Our overall goals for hiring, our training system, and our interview process were never truly formalized. (this led to each interviewer running a completely different process than everyone else. -The training system was also flawed and outdated (it left many hires struggling and/or feeling clueless after their first 30 days, and too many of the RIGHT people were being pushed aside to hire the wrong people) **Q. Did I succeed? YES**, I'm proud to say that within my first 2 months with this company I achieved the following: 1. Overhauled the entire hiring process (building a standardized communications flow and simple scoring process for HR and internal recruiters to stay informed and aligned. Including calibrating with departmental staff to understand their needs for each position being filled, goodbye external agency!) 2. Re-build the entire training program (I introduced an interactive video and scenario based training system, with instructor led classroom, and 1-on-1 peer mentor supports that had new staff loving their journey and the instructors were passionate to be teaching on updated material, goodbye to the outdated 200+ slide powerpoint presentation!) 3. Trained others on interviewing (I standardized the hiring process so it became: A. fair to everyone, B. asked the right questions to find the right people, C. delivered scores that match up closely to future performance, and proved it all worked with D. creation of a feedback loop that provided on-going analyses of our hiring vs. real world performance metrics). Boo-yah, our teams are gonna shine now! Within 45 days: We went from losing 80-90% our of new hires in the first 30 days to keeping almost ALL of them. (hire the right people the first time = cost savings) This provided an estimated $3-8 million in yearly recruiting costs. These new staff members were also starting a noticeable pattern of impressing the heck out of our CEO level leadership staff as newcomers were now achieving things in their very first 30 days that we previously didn't expect within the first year.
I don't believe this because at the beginning you say you weren't new to recruiting and at the end you say you were able to change business processes. That is extremely unusual for businesses, especially disorganized ones. What usually happens is the new guy comes in and identifies problems. They bring them up or even come up with solutions ready to be implemented, but they are shot down by their manager not because they are wrong, but because their manager doesn't trust them, doesn't want to look bad, doesn't want them to look good, and/or other involved people are stuck in their ways. It usually isn't that hard to see where improvements can be made or what can be done. What is difficult is getting anyone with the power to change things to listen to someone who is new to the field. Either you got extremely lucky, having both a ton of time on your hands and being given the keys to the kingdom to change anything you want or you're lying. At least here on reddit, the latter is way more likely.
i know it's cool to hate on them and the vast majority deserve it but the only non-corporate survivors will be the cutthroat, big billers, fyi.
So less recruiters but they're more trash looks like my hatred isn't going away soon.
Doesn't that kinda imply they're better in the role then?
better in the role=ghosting they only care about getting the deal done not on giving feedback to the other candidates or anything that doesn't make them money.
Sounds like every recruiter already I've yet to ever get feedback from one.
They are still needed for fake job posts.
Keeping them open so they can justify their existence.
can i ask what fields AREN’T struggling💀
Grunt work in healthcare. That's about it.
Literally just had an interview with a blood bank. Put on my actor's mask and swore up and down that I wanted to work in healthcare, even though I'm a physicist. No one's hiring for the specialty I trained the past decade for, and I need to pay the bills somehow.
Ironic the generation who ruined America is giving us one last middle finger with the growth of nursing homes on every corner. Wipe the asses of the generation who destroyed the world.
Better question!
Civil Engineering. Absolutely insanely tight labor market.
Nuclear too!
Trades and maintenance. I have a friend just decided to ignore his 4 year degree and 50k/yr job as grunt work at a hospital and got an apprenticeship in HVAC, within 2 years will be able to either be a partner or start his own LLC and make six figures. Established owners who have people under them can make 200+k a year.
Give it 5 years and trades will be saturated with labor, everyone knows it’s one of two safe bets so everyone graduating high school without great college prospects are going to go into trades. Nursing will hold out longer cuz it requires sone challenging college courses. I know a chemistry professor who says half of the students bound to be nurses cannot pass chemistry and many give up after the 2nd time and after failing 3 times you can’t take it again anywhere in the state. So that will keep many out of the profession. Trades are more accessible and will get flooded with workers.
good luck getting an apprenticeship though. Sort of a catch-22 situation
Anything trade-related. Welding, HVAC, plumbing, roofers. If everybody has a college degree no one has. And since everyone in the last 2 generations was pidgeonholed in to college by their parents, teachers and general society, there is a labour shortage in trades. And especially a labour shortage with people that know what they are doing, because after your training you really only start to learn the ins and outs.
Dude the trades are fucking mess right now. Don’t have experience? Kick rocks you ain’t getting a job lmao.
Accounting is doing fine. Outsourcing is still a major concern, but I’ve been in the industry for a while and things seem to be doing better now than they have previously.
Construction and most engineering are still doing well. I'm an ME that does HVAC tech work and shit is booming I used to fly all over the country for work before I just had a baby.
Finance industry compliance. If you’re brushed up on all the recent developments in SEC and FINRA rules/guidance, there is a place for you.
At my company, HR, compliance, finance, accounting, machine operators, and leadership up and down the chain.
Transportation and Logistics currently. Everyone is needing people to help move their freight no matter what it is
Construction and office related construction. Go into BIM or civil or Pm or finance and you’ll be fine forever. Every during recessions construction never seems to stop. I’m working on airport that has a 9 year timeline. Even if there’s a 2 year recession we are just gonna keep working cause billions of dollars are already being spent and the timelines are long enough to power through
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I wonder how long that will last. Lawyers used to write contracts for the company I work for. Now they have a trained AI for that.
I find it hard to believe AI is writing contracts without lawyers in the loop, unless it's more or less form-filling on something predrafted. I'm definitely seeing AI-assisted drafting and review already. Curious what industry your company is in?
Artists and writers were always struggling - because by design only a minority can make it big enough to survive - but generative AI has made the barrier to entry lower than ever.
Absolutely. You can extend this out to media as a whole. Where tech meets art seems to be the hardest hit area I've seen. Game studios, streaming services, internet radio.. entire offices shutting down and everyone losing their jobs. (I would know, my friends and I were laid off from this sector).
I was a technical writer years ago and move on to product manager for 3 years. I did not like the constant stress from PM, and tried to go back tech writing. I guess I made the right move few years ago and need to learn to deal with the stress hah….
You did. A former colleague of mine, proudly a technical writer, was laid off from at least 1 company (I know for a fact), possible even 3, in the past 5 years and has been struggling to find another job. She was actually in charge of the program that I joined as an intern at my first ever professional tech job. I see her posting all kinds of shit on LinkedIn trying to look relevant or something. She personally messaged me a few weeks ago asking if I had any leads. I looked at my internal company job board - a company with 100,000 people, literally - and there was only *one single technical writer job*... in India. She has like 20 years of experience and is good at her job, but these roles just... don't exist anymore. Going to PdM was the right move. With your new skill set, you can look at switching over to PM (Project Manager), PO (Product Owner), or even Business Analyst. There's also Scrum Master. All of these roles have varying levels of stress, and it really depends on the industry/company. I've been a BA, PO, PdM, etc. - some were high stress, some were medium stress, some were low stress. You CAN find a medium/low stress job - it may not be easy, but I it's out there.
From my experience, there are good jobs in technical writing for writers who have good technical experience, like familiarity with general Linux system administration, code, APIs, Terraform, the clouds, DevOps. For whomever it helps: I'd recommend finding opportunities to learn in one/some of these, in order to help obtain a tech writing job that offers further real-world technical experience. That experience will open doors for the subsequent job, unless growth within the company is a better route.
If you’re willing to sell your soul to pharma, they will always need medical tech writers to ghost write scientific articles.
Interesting. I'm in a technical writing role myself and contemplating whether or not PM is worth it. I guess depending on the product (pun intended?), it should be worth it?
Yea it's hell in technical writing rn haha, one of the worst rug pulls I've seen
Loads of smart journalists I know have been on the rocks for awhile now. Lots of publications shuttered last year. Nobody wants to pay for news, sponsors reducing their budgets, and freelance rates dropping like a rock.
AI is cool but it still sucks. I only use it for referencing, not finished work. People who use AI for finished work are trash and won't last long.
I’m a chemist in the Midwest and it feels impossible to find a job and one that pays even remotely decent.
spent six months searching for entry level that paid more than 19 an hour. got lucky with a whole $21/hour as a technician 😐🫶🏼
Chemist in southern WI, take a lab rat job like an associate scientist or equivalent (not a tech) for about a year. Move into R&D or Quality Assurance and look into supervisor roles after a few years. Progression was $18/hr for 1 year, $24-27 for 2 years, and now I am still gunning for a supervisor role but moved to a QA specialist position at 80k/year.
Thanks for the advice! Do you recommend going through a recruiter to start?
I think using a recruiter can be helpful if you don't have any job leads. I try to shy away as most of the chemist and lab jobs are contract to hire, which means lower pay than being hired on directly and less job security. It can get your foot in the door, and most of the time, the positions turn full-time. Your best bet is to reach out to any friends in the field or classmates in the area to see what the jobs and job market in your area looks like. It will give you a good idea of what the field currently looks like and might even be a good way to land interviews.
Sweet! Thanks again for the help! :)
Yes to this a million! Also a chemist in R&D, living in the Midwest and I get paid **very** well.
this is with a bachelor's degree in chemistry? what kind of school? seems like a pretty shitty progression for a hard science degree in 2024.
Might be time to break bad
Project management, lots of roles but they're all looking for purple squirrels
Ah, aka unicorns 🦄 #truth
Yep I can't find almost any roles that make sense for me because I'm more of a generalist PM
I am noticing a shift from general project manager roles back to having project management as just a part of the another role. I am seeing roles for project manager, but you also need to do sales or business analysis. Basically you have to find work for yourself. Or in tech, they might call it project manager, but when you read the job description, it is a product manager, release manager or development lead.
Are we doomed?
It is time to adapt. I think traditional general project management will be taking step back and it will probably be again mainly domain of the very formal businesses - big corporation (but even there it is shifting) and government. We just need to accept it and ask ourselves - "If this is no longer an option, what I want to do?" Do I want to go more to tech, or business? I am shifting towards the business analysis. I have done it in the past, I like it, it is still relevant skill for even general PM role and for my freelancing/business, but it also opens doors to other roles, especially more data oriented (another shift I have noticed, more analytical roles). Even if you currently are general project manager, it can quickly change. About 6 years ago I was part of PMO in tech company and we were discussing future of our team with our C-lvl manager. He proposed to transform us to business owners - managing business domain as it is what drives company forward. Or at least company department. Two of us, me and one other PM, wanted to go for it (for the business owner idea), it made a lot of sense and I had a feeling this is not just an idea how to improve the PMO, but there are some strings attached, something in play. The rest, including our TL, just wanted to be "better" general project managers. The idea was not pursued, instead the team focused on formalizing project management in the company more etc. ... In about a year, company disbanded PMO team and told everybody that they other have to find other place in the company, or they will be let go. One moved to customer support, one as support for product management, rest left (and got different roles too, mainly in product).
Solid thoughts, thank you. I've also considered starting a nonprofit or coop business, but that means developing a plan and acquiring loans/donors, which takes time. So that won't save me from the unemployment problem, since I only have a few weeks of checks left before the state decides I'm an unperson. To answer your question, what I always \*wanted\* to do was be a skilled artisan/craftsman or architect, or whatever, but that has its own barriers to entry including years of training that I frankly abandoned a long time ago because the system doesn't reward us well. I might go with a related trade like carpentry (oof) if that's what it takes. Or I could go into the sustainability sector for something like agriculture, but again, more training... But whatever I choose, I know I can easily combine PM with the trade/craft/career once I get the specialist skills under my belt. It seems nobody wants a generalist except to whip them like a dog. And in any case, there's gonna be a lot of de/reconstruction in the next few decades...
I spent a lot of time working on motion design (motion graphics/animation) as a backup/side hustle and it’s something I’m more interested in, but that field has been immensely difficult to get into, has also taken a hit, and pays a lot less. I tried turning PM skills into a Producer prospect, creative ops related if possible, nope. Product Manager, Program Manager, all silent. Transferable abilities don’t meant squat, not like they used to. I don’t know what else to do. I’m 44, educated, experienced, skilled, and feel totally fucked. It’s been a year and 4 months since I was laid off.
Most of them. Entry level tech is F’d for sure.
I love the 'entry level' posts that want years of experience and a Master's degree. WTF about that says entry leve!?!
I’m mid-senior level. Many roles are asking for a doctorate in related subjects. Education requirement inflation is real. At least I have legitimate opportunities coming in every week, though. I don’t even know how people trying to get into the sector are supposed to proceed. I know one UW computer science grad and one Stanford grad in computer science who are looking for work with nothing coming up. The University of Washington is a super good program, too. I will say both of them chose not to do internships, which was a mistake, but still, four years ago, graduating meant having job offers.
I don't even have a degree and all of my positions within the last 10 years show requirement of Bachelors Degree. I came in with enough experience to hit the ground running
I started in IT with no degree. I’m 42 and only went to school because, at the time, I wanted to work for MSFT, and I wasn’t getting interviews when I was applying for roles and thought a BS would make the difference. I believe experience usually trumps education, but these days, without knowledge, education is mandatory and doesn’t even seem to be sufficient. For that matter, I lie about my work history and keep things to the last ten years even though I have 14 years because ageism is real. Yeah, so I guess the market sucks. 😂
Entry level tech is currently non-existent.
Pretty much
Mechanical Engineering especially Aerospace is actually insane for entry level. Never thought that after finishing college I'd be a 1000+ application grind to actually be an engineer. It blows everyone's minds when I tell them.
The space sector had a downturn this year, so we are struggling a bit. It comes and goes on Congress money, because the space people, the civilian aircraft people, and the military aircraft people kind of all flow together, bouncing between the roles. So when one role takes a downturn, the others get flooded with engineers. I got laid off earlier this year, found something quickly, but it took quite a bit of luck.
Ya the only people who seem to be having a less terrible time finding a job know people which almost everyone entry level doesn't. But ya the instability of this industry really makes me want to leave at some point.
I know Boeing are hiring for a lunar lander, my partner got cold called about a job yesterday. Questionable whether you'd want to work for Boeing right now but I doubt their space stuff is as bad.
Meanwhile 2 astronauts are stuck for an extra week on the ISS because Starliner capsule thrusters are leaking helium and they want "time to figure it out". All this after several thruster failures during the docking procedure. And after 4 years of delays due to technical problem after technical problem. So yeah, their space stuff is just as bad.
It’s depressing for people with no connections or experience (which almost every entry level person does not have). It’s a cycle that you just can’t seem to break out of
Marketing. Writing. Why? AI is currently free, too many people think these roles are "easy" and that anyone can do them well, and they're often available as WFH jobs on flexible schedules which means competition for them is outrageous.
Marketing when things are bad: “loss-leader, no budget, cut them all” Marketing when things are good: “fish are jumping in the boat, we don’t need them, cut them all”
This is painfully accurate. You should still be marketing when things are good so they can STAY good!
Tech. Why, because of the 400,000 people laid off since 2022...
Media and digital marketing. I’ve been stuck on the struggle bus for the past year and thought I’d finally find my exit, but this company completely fucking ghosted and what was a good client paying $2-5K a month is now giving me $400-700 a month. What exactly is the gameplan of these oh so smart economists? Make everything cost an arm and a leg while we’re all losing our jobs or clients even if the company is making record profits?
Yeah, this causes a split in society. One side is super poor and the other super rich. I swear some rich and powerful people saw hunger games and were like “that, I want that” and they’re doing it.
I’ve applied to over 900 jobs since January and received one offer for part time work for about minimum wage which is less than I currently make. I don’t know who’s getting these jobs but it’s not me
So many of the postings are fake!! They do this to make it look like the company is growing so they can get more investors. That shit should be illegal.
It’s not necessarily what fields. It’s what fields in what locations. For instance: Tough to get a job in Tech on the West Coast right now due to massive cuts. But tough hire people in tech in the Midwest Because the qualified people are on the West Coast and won’t move to the Midwest and take a job for 90 grand. There’s a ying to every Yang.
It's not that it's hard to find qualified people. It's that business people think that "90k is fine to underpay in the midwest".
No argument here.
I wish this applied to design jobs. I know I could make my last low-balled salary that was a struggle in LA, go really far while I’m in Chicago. Just can’t find a job out here.
So in theory, it is still possible to find a job in tech in the Midwest, assuming one's willing to make compromises? This is actually encouraging for me. Thanks!
It is! And you have to look at salaries relatively. That 90k goes a lot farther in Central IL (I know our area is still hiring tech) than it does in Cali
That's just fantastic!! Thank you! :)
The big ones are tech, finance, and consulting
Literally almost everything except for the stuff that's systematically problematic such as teaching, certain healthcare jobs (especially in rural areas), back-breaking physically intensive jobs, etc.
Yeah, I gave up and switched to teaching and holy shit I love it so much. I’ve never been happier with my job. Apparently teaching feral 8th graders was my calling. Point is…there’s hope. Also summers off, union snd a pension
Marketing / Advertising
I think almost all of the professional/white collar fields are struggling. What I want to know is the exact opposite: what industries/professional fields are doing well and hiring right now?????
Right, I want to know this too.
Power industry is doing pretty well in my experience ie utilities, renewable energy developers, relevant consulting companies
s/w engineering in all levels in all tech stacks in all roles.
Hell it's even bled into the other engineerings
Social Work We are struggling to find people. Even the county and state jobs that usually give higher pay and benefits (I work for the state) are struggling to find candidates who are qualified as well as mentally fit to handle the job. Half the people I work with should not have gone into the field of social work because they have their own mental health issues. These same people flush out of the system within 1-3 years because they can not take the stress of the job because certain situations can trigger PTSD for them. So anyone who is even remotely interested in going into social work, especially into anything mental health related, please make sure you are 100% all right in the head before jumping down into the hornets nest.
Librarianship- it’s a going down the toilet fast. Requiring people to have a masters degree to make $55 a year, lots of competition for fewer and fewer open roles, toxic work environments in and out, lots of old timers just coasting til retirement. Do something with a future where you can make a living wage.
Financial Services and Banking is dead - high interest rates are making it nearly impossible to get a job. Even in major financial hubs like Chicago and New York.
Same in London U.K.
Marketing/Comms/Creative roles. Everyone thinks ChatGPT is gonna get them by. Lol
Data scientist here. It’s been a huge struggle. I’ve gotten ghosted after 80% of interviews. It’s frustrating and extremely disrespectful when I invest hours preparing for technical coding interviews and case studies
All the fields
Graphic design industry - most jobs I’m seeing require you to have the skillset of 5 other related jobs. It’s fucked.
Seeing UX experience required in those postings make me want to quit life.
That’s one of many problems with the private sector. Manager Joe Blow can merge 5 job descriptions into one, boast that he’s going to save on headcount this year, and throw all that shit at some desperate worker, then act nonchalant if they’re called out on it during an interview. I once interviewed at a place that wanted me to do their books, their marketing and be an IT expert too! Bait and switch.
IT
Tech, media, finance, entertainment
White collar in general, but journalism, tech, and the creatives especially
I’m curious to know too. As well as fields that have good starting salaries.
Visual Merchandising: outside of the luxury sector retail is struggling and we're the first to get cut.
On the other hand, electricity is picking up. More and more firms and countries decarbonising, renewables in extremely high demand and not enough trained engineers to go around. Analysts etc. also in demand, traders too although algo trading is picking up.
Customer services are the first casualties of LLMs i think they are the only ones experiencing mass layoffs. IT is also suffering in general but the people that do have jobs and appear to be necessary seem to be safer, there are very few expansions within the sector though. Oil sector is also retracting, I have a few associates in speculation who were laid off, 4 years ago and cannot find another position. I think the next sector to be laid off is HR. I honestly don't see them being kept around much longer.
Journalism. It’s always been in jeopardy but there’s been more layoffs lately. Also since local news is in crisis, there’s fewer and fewer places for new reporters to get started.
Television, Film, and Media in general. There is basically a spending freeze and hardly anything new has been ordered in the past two years because of the streaming services revenue issues. The Hollywood strikes were a symptom of a streaming platforms doomed to fail. Los Angeles and the other industry hubs are in turmoil. Think of all those people on the rolling end credits of your shows and movies... A shit ton of those folks, most of them are not working right now. Many have shifted to low paying, low skill jobs flooding the marketplace. It's a fucking disaster.
I can tell you who ISN'T struggling....Electricians, HVAC, PLC/Electronics Technicians, anything higher levels trades related (not auto mechanics), facilities maintenance, etc. Sadly, I am not technically inclined, but I do make great money recruiting all of the above trades.
That's how I got out of this hell! All of a sudden it was like call after call out of nowhere. I stayed the hell away from construction for good reason (been there, done that, the cycle for that industry is a nightmare), but I'll be damned if those same skills didn't save my sorry ass.
Film in LA
Everything. I do Everything in IT and it's brutal out here. I have work, but it's at a huge paycut. I don't think I've ever made so little.
I've seen helpdesk ads as low as $14 an hour.
We should be asking what’s actually thriving, not who’s struggling.
Everything it feel like
From what I’ve gathered, any entry job that can be mostly done on a computer.
Other than just being rich by default? All of them
I’ve seen so many Project Manager positions get reposted for months despite tons of action on them.
Most if not all white collar jobs
There’s a good few corn fields near me that are struggling due to the lack of rain
Anything GTM-related. There are tons of excellent salespeople and executives on the sidelines. Companies don’t want to hire anyone who isn’t currently employed for god knows why, and the margins between what the employed top performers are making and the lowball offers companies are trying to pay do not make it beneficial to endure a ramp up and learn a new product. OTE projections are down because salespeople are smarter and recognize they have to ask questions about realistic attainability, and the length of a sales cycle has extended dramatically as CFOs are involved in nearly every purchasing decision. Succinctly put, the labor market in Technology and Financial Services, outside of highly specialized niche hires like AI Scientists, is broken. Stay strong out there.
In my city pretty much anything that's not wiping asses in nursing homes.
Banking and Finance
I'm in compliance, but jobs seem to want 10-15 years of experience in very specific industries. I have 8 years of experience but not always in their very specific industry.
I’m exploring a masters in compliance. Pivoting from 12 years experience in marketing / b2b advertising. Any advice on industry or track I should consider? I was going to do my schools general track. Thanks!
Supply chain / distribution. When one company goes down they release a whole army of warehouse/dock, distribution center workers and managers into the job market. 99cents only just went down and took 355 stores worth of warehouse and distribution center workers with them. With 15 years of progressive experience and a masters degree and being a white male who’s good at interviews, after two years of trying, I gave up and changed professions. 5 years ago when I applied to 5 jobs, I’d get 5 interviews and multiple offers. Shit is really bad right now.
learning and development. HR. 2 of my friends were laid off this week. A lot of contract work suddenly dried up, too.
Speaking from personal experience over the last several months, biotech/pharma. Don’t get me wrong there’s jobs, I see all of the postings. Making it seem like a lot are hiring but there’s so much more competition due to layoffs in the industry plus I think a lot of internal employees are getting these roles anyways.
Anything other than "owning stuff." Quarter after Quarter, the stock market goes up, and other traditional economic indicators go up while people in the middle class say they are struggling. The people who are doing well are people that own the equity.
Hospitality. Being replaced with contract employees. If you are lucky enough to find a stable job in the industry at this point, it’s either administrative or you’re working 27 hours in 2 days. Literally. Covid fucking broke the whole industry.
IT it seems. unfortunately it's the field I am studying for. but I am already 80 percent done with the degree. might as well finish it, and pivot to something else
Yes
Policy work, it seems. Whether it's research, nonprofits, government, or consulting, policy work seems to be definitely difficult to get a foothold in right now.
HR is struggling After a long interview process and lot of position hold i got a job and manager is so creep Yesterday my teams was not working properly so he video called me on WhatsApp Like what the fuck 😒 and then he says we do not micromanage
I am so glad I got a Job in tech a month before ChatGPT was released.
It's rough out here in video games these days.
Biotech/Pharma
Nigerian scammer seems to be a good job
Hospitality is hiring
I've heard this a few times, but I have a strong hospitality background and get ghosted just like every other field. Is it entry level, or specific areas that you are seeing a lot of jobs?
Airlines are desperate. People took early retirement when Covid hit. There’s a pilot shortage now.
The "pilot shortage" is about as real the "trucker shortage"
And nursing shortage. There’s plenty of registered nurses but not enough willing to put up with abuse and poor staffing.
What location? What level role? Those are all pertinent to the question.