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Im curious what peoples predictions for the coming demographic decline is for the US and other countries? Here is mine: An increase in healthcare related work, and a stagnation of other job sectors. Apparently, excluding healthcare, the amount of jobs in the US is on the decline or stagnating. Not such a fun job market, especially for someone like myself you falls in the "information" category. This will probably continue as the population declines and ages.
Its fascinating, because many people in the gen-z bracket were told to got to college, get a degree, and you'd have a nice cushy office job lined up. While this wasnt all the way bullshit, as i do actually have one of these jobs - as someone who is competing in the current job market, it is BRUTAL. I've had applied to a around ~ 50 jobs (All of these jobs that are at least close to my skill level & credentials, i live in florida for reference and its not the best market for tech to begin with, even though the tech sector is growing here according to the data). In total ive gotten about 3-4 call backs 2 - 3 interview. One were i made it to the final round after 3, and was rejected. Ghosted in another, and have one up and coming.
For more perspective here is my resume (& yes, im aware of the slight formatting error in the projects section). Multiple internships, degrees, & certificates, im trying my best to be competitive. More than one person in my friend group is happy to hear about this population decline; the job search is just so tough for them cant say id blame them, but what many dont understand about declining populations is that population both creates and takes jobs simultaneously. Sure if the population declines, you might have less competition, but you'd also have fewer openings as well. Hard to get hired when a lot of people are not around to create the job you'd be working to start with. The whole demographic decline is good because there will be less people to compete with strikes me as a shortsighted perspective - Humans make the wheels turn all the way down and less people being around isnt gonna create more opportunities for us as a whole.
Still, i can't help but empathize with the sentiment. Constantly apply to every job listing, going through multiple round interview, just to get rejected is so incredibly brutal. Many countries outside the US like china and italy have it even worse with high youth unemployment. It certainly doesnt feel like having more people would be a good from that perspective, even if it likely would. Aging populations mean that a lot of our future jobs and productivity is gonna be directed toward the health sector of our economies, inevitably taking away from or slowing growth from other sectors. I envy people who already have a strong career with high pay and benefits, its insanely difficult for the rest of us.
Wow, that kind of hit rate on interviews even with a CCNA?
I was in a similar boat minus the certs a couple years ago and after 6 months of looking post-graduation I took a job in a business tech support call center for an ISP. The pay absolutely sucks and getting screamed at by customers also sucks but it was one of two places that didn't ghost me out of 75ish applications, and the other place (an MSP) would have paid even less, comparable to McDonald's pay in a hcol area.
CCNA is not a very noteworthy cert, so I wouldn't be surprised. It doesn't hurt to have one, but it's not really going to help you stand out much either.
I'm in a similar boat to cablethrowaway. What things on a resume would help someone stand out?
Turns out I should've looked at thread context instead of replying from my notifications. If you meant what will help you stand out in terms of skills, unfortunately it's really hard to stand out early in your career. I got my break by working desktop support and learning as much as I could. Eventually (read: it took me 8 years at that job), I was competent enough that I made an impression on the server admin team and I got a shot at doing higher level stuff. From there it was a lot easier to get jobs, because I had legitimate sysadmin experience under my belt and could get into higher level sysadmin roles. I've also seen people just be in the right place at the right time and get hired as junior sysadmins even though they were really green, but you can't count on that.
Certs can help you, especially if you have a high tier one like CCIE (if someone is a CCIE and isn't at least getting interviews, that would be cause for surprise). But they are expensive AF to get on your own, as they are priced with the expectation that some corporation is paying you to get it and won't balk at a several thousand $ cost to get their guy certified. Because of that, I can't say I recommend pursuing certs as a way to get hired early in your career.
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I think the formatting tips @Yeet_far gave were good, but another good trick I've seen is to bring your resume to the interview printed on nice heavy paper. I remember a candidate doing that one time, and we (the interviewers) were super impressed by his resume because of that. It kept us talking about him and honestly, if he had the qualifications (sadly he didn't) I have very little doubt he would've gotten hired because that one thing made him memorable in a positive way.
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It teaches some useful stuff and probably means I can trust you with a crimp tool if I need wires run, but the higher-tech sides of it aren't very useful for the overwhelming majority of people and the useful sides aren't very high-tech. And like A+, it's been absolutely swamped with rubber-stamps.
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