seeking advice about changing jobs

ted424 · 08-05-2008, 07:09 AM

I'm going to try to pepper this with all the information you could need in the first post so people can start offering opinions immediately.

I have been working in the industry for 3-4 years since graduating college, always as a web developer. I've had two "real" full time job positions, the most current one for 2 years. Last year I received a promotion and raise. I consider myself a mid-level PHP developer. Here's all the buzz words I have skills in and that I communicate to positions I apply for: Object Oriented PHP, MySQL, LAMP, XML, XSLT, XHTML, JavaScript, CSS, AJAX and various others like ActionScript, RSS, video editing skills, Photoshop. I think my resume and cover letter are put together well and I have a portfolio listing all the websites I've worked on.

I'm seeking to relocate to New York City on my own expense. I currently live and work in Seattle as a web developer for a firm that makes websites. I communicate all this information to jobs I apply to in the cover letter and phone interviews.

I have a job applying system where every Sunday I scan the job boards and apply to anything in NYC that seems like a good fit. I've been doing this for about two months now. I do get responses from the applications, usually within a week of applying. I'll line up several phone interviews that week and go through the motions. I tell them I'm currently working and I'd like to secure my next employment first, then move to NYC. I'm willing to come to NYC for an in-person if it looks promising (haven't made it that far yet).

I'm getting pretty antsy to make this move, but its taking longer than expected to find another job. I'm posting here to see if maybe I should do anything different. Is living in another city a problem? Should I move to NYC first and then look for a job? I would love to blame the market but I see articles like this one, that suggest things aren't that bad (at least in this field).

Thanks in advance.

Fou-Lu · 08-05-2008, 08:59 AM

I don't really know what to say except you're in the wrong forum, there is a career advice forum this will probably get moved to :P

I just recently graduated myself. I currently cannot find work even though I'm the top graduate with both academic achievement and distinction. I get the feeling people see me as being too 'over qualified' for a job. The market where I am is huge for technology. Plus I'm both picky and lazy on what I want to do, and how much effort I've been putting into my search. Money pool is getting a little shallow though, so I best start looking myself.

I would not move unless I have secured employment. I'm not a gambling man, and much prefer having the security of employment versus the hopes of finding something that is somewhere unfamiliar. I wouldn't move myself, but that's my 2 cents.

What I can tell you is perhaps the industry is looking for a more diverse skill set. Not to sound rude in the least, you appear to have great talents in web development and design. Consider learning languages such as C#, Java, and/or C/C++ to complement you're current skill set. PHP is stolen mostly from C and Perl, so procedural php is quite reflective of C. C# and Java are so similar you can learn one and pretty much know the other (Java being more wide spread, and C# being awesome just for having operator overloads). Both Java and C# will be a piece of cake to learn - their oo languages that will be easy to pick up for a OO PHP programmer.
Put priority into the C# since .NET can be used to develop websites. I find a lot of companies are shifting away from PHP towards C#, and I can't actually figure out why they want to do it (PHP IMO is superior to C#, except we don't have generics and class scopes (yet)).

As a final note: we will be of absolutely no help to you here. You have to follow you're instinct on something of this nature, and regardless of what is said from anyone here (except maybe a 'come work for me'), you will still do what you think is best - and that is exactly what you should do.

Good luck to you!

bcarl314 · 08-05-2008, 04:20 PM

Another thing you may want to consider is talking to your current employer about telecommuting from NY to Seattle. Really, in web design, I rarely have run into a situation that required face-to-face time. If you have good communication skills, you can always do a lot over the phone.

So, in theory, you could...

1) Secure a telecommuting role at your current job.

2) Move to NY

3) Find a job once in NY

My guess is there are a lot of companies you're talking to that, once you say you "want to move" all they hear is "he wants a $25k moving allowance" even though that may not be true.