Comment by kevinastone | Hacker News Reader

Comment by kevinastone | Hacker News Reader

I graduated in the summer of 2001 (BS ECE). Many of my classmates had their already accepted job offers rescinded before graduation. I ended up working a non-degree job for a year before finding an internship that I worked into a full-time position. Finally found a more permanent career in 2004 when I was hired into an aerospace company (where most of the jobs were).

Keep in mind, besides the dot-com crash and then the sept 11th attacks, the real macro environment of the early 2000s was outsourcing. Everybody believed you could just hire a team in India or Russia for pennies on the dollar. It would take another 5+ years for that trend to reverse as companies recognized the challenges in moving their development resources off-shore.

As I stated, I responded to the off-shore movement by switching to a less-affected industry (aerospace/defense). Most "market corrections" really affect the most vulnerable segments of the job market: entry-level and near-retirement.

This is a really excellent point - it might sound xenophobic or ridiculous today, but in the 2002-2007ish timeframe, it was taken as a given that after outsourcing swallowed up US corporate IT, it would then consume the rest of the tech industry. Like many trends, it turned out that insourcing/outsourcing is entirely cyclical and gee wiz, there is only so much talent everywhere in the world and you do get what you pay for.

Similar, I graduated with a BS in CS in 2001. I was lucky to have finished my job search in the Fall of 2000. The market had still been hot in the fall, I received several (4-5?) offers for 60-75k (boston/nyc). Each seemed like they were on the "new, exciting" project at a company where their revenue came from elsewhere. I took a job with a company I'd interned at.

By the Spring things had definitely changed. First lots of hiring freezes and then offers to friends rescinded. (A few lucky ones got paid 50% to take a year off.) I think most of the offers I had were for projects that were likely killed since they didn't add anything to the top line. The did a round of layoffs where I was joining in the spring before I started. I remember anxiously waiting at my college apt to find out if I was unlucky. I wasn't affected, I believe primarily because I was "cheap" compared to the people making 2x or more than me they chose to let go.

I felt very fortunate to land on an interesting team doing real product development; others I know who graduated in 2002 had no option but the longer path through customer support / non-tech jobs for a little bit.

I finished school in end of 2000, when things were crashing. I only finished school that late because of thesis (didn't get through on first try). I had to compare my wage to lots of people who got hired 2-3 years earlier (which could have been me, of course, if I hadn't pursued an extra degree).

Not starting work in 1998, I've calculated, cost me me somewhere north of $250k in wages (over three years, this is Europe I'm talking about). It would have been exhausting but the company that hired me in 2000 would have hired me in 1998 and allowed me to work on my thesis on the side, and of course $250k would easily pay for a year's sabbatical afterward. Even better scenario would have been work until 2001, get fired with severance (usually not optional in Europe), then finish degree, miss the worst of the downturn.

Very frustrating to work among people who make double or triple you do just because of the time they were hired (this was a consultancy firm, more than relatively basic development skills were not required, or usually not even wanted). Very frustrating to come to the realization I finished my education at pretty much the worst time in 2 decades, and just how big the difference was with a more optimal choice of when to study.

Oh well, maybe the people in this thread are right, and I'll get the chance to get another (related) degree. Or maybe going for a full phd. I am planning to do that sometime in the future, definitely, I guess maybe it'll be next year.

Man, I remember graduating high school in 2006 and thinking Computer Science would be a bad career decision because of outsourcing. It seems insane now.

Haha I wanted to major in CS and my Dad persuaded me to switch because he was afraid of outsourcing of CS jobs. So I majored in math. Ended up teaching myself CS after I graduated and have my own company now.

Man, I remember going to the college job fairs and meeting the guys who had graduated 1-3 years before me also looking at entry-level jobs. Why hire a fresh graduate when you could get guys with 3-5 years for pennies. I also had friends have rescinded job offers.

It was terrible and the university was raising tuition each semester because of the decreasing state budget, weak endowment investment returns and alumni contributions. Some were going to wait out the job market by going to grad school, but didn't know how they were going to pay for it.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com