Hacker Read top | best | new | newcomments | leaders | about | bookmarklet login

> The only risk you run is missing one year of income, typically. You can uh, usually just get another job.

I left a great job to strike out on my own. After years of effort, two business plans, one failed partnership and moderate success with the second attempt, I would much prefer to have a steady paycheck with good benefits again. It's harder to break back into my previous career path due to the gap this created on my resume. It's not safe to assume that you'll find work as soon as you're ready to switch back to a corporate gig.



view as:

Is there some way you can spin that "gap" as an advantage?

Indeed, "CEO of failed 2-4 person startup" got a friend of mine all sorts of opportunity, now he's CTO of a more promising startup.

And then "CTO of a failed 10-15 person startup" will get him an even better position.

Is your local job market that bad? I basically took a 1 year and a half break and I got a job within 3 months, after interviewing with 6 (I think?) companies.

And this is in a small (albeit rich) European city of about 400k people.


As fellow southern European, with regular trips to the Mediterranean area, I would say even here that would be quite bad for anyone on the south or eastern countries.

except Romania, you land a job in IT in less than a week if you have minimal experience. The OP can confirm, he lived a considerable time there ( not sure where? Bucharest maybe? )

So how to search for a IT job in Portugal, Spain, Italy, Greece, Croatia and get one in less than one week, specially when living outside the capital?

Because I want to share those tips with a few friends still looking for one after several months unemployment.


If your job market is really bad, not much you can do locally.

However, in IT we have flexibility:

* try freelancing

* create an OSS portfolio

* try remote companies

* try jobs for which you're overqualified

if it really is that bad.

And if it is that bad for IT folks, I pity most non-IT people, to be honest.


It is really that bad.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/268830/unemployment-rate...

Between 10 and 23% for the countries I mentioned.

Also getting an IT job currently might mean having to move into the capitals, as other cities have even less offers available and obviously there is not enough jobs on the capitals for everyone.


Let me reply to this too. The lands you mentioned are excelling at other things: tourism. Normally 10-30% of the workforce serves tourism in this countries. Romania, while being a gorgeous land, full of virgin places of untouched beauty, is more known of the horde of programmers ( and crackers, script kiddies too ) that are now earning a boatload of money because they are just that good. So in IT hubs like Cluj or Iasi ( even Bucharest ), they are always in demand.

I don't really suggest to leave that countries and move to Romania to pursue an IT career, but unless you want to waist time or move to tourism, it is an option. UK was an option, now is kind of gone. Germany is really in demand but the language barrier is really hard to pass, same with France and or Netherlands. Romania is wasy because you are expected to speak just English and for the daily life is a Romance language, you can learn it quite fast.


That is all fine and dandy when one is single, young and willing to leave the country.

Bucharest. What gave me away? :p

The city I was mentioning is in Western Europe, though. I think that if you have work experience and you're decent at presenting your skills, most employers don't really care about gaps in employment. Just have a good story ready for the gap period.


I'm not sure I understand your comment. Are you saying that finding a job in 3 months is bad? Maybe I need higher standards :)

Might be, depending on what savings one has and which running costs need to be paid each month.

In any case, maybe I expressed myself badly, however I don't know anyone personally, that was able to get a job in less than 6 months after being unemployed, some of them took even a bit longer than that.


I see that people downvoted my original comment, oh well.

I did find a job quite easily, IMO, after 1 year and a half out of the job market. Maybe I was really lucky or my local market is really robust. Dunno.


Legal | privacy