Billy Palmieri

The high-tech employment marketplace has been rocked by the failure of hundreds of start-ups and dot-coms. The stock market seemed to turn and attack the "hot" new companies that it celebrated just months ago. Analysts estimate that this past year in the Silicon Valley/San Francisco Bay Area 30,000 people lost their jobs; 15,000 of them are engineers and 1,500 are senior Java engineers. Similar metrics can be applied to other regions where dot-com fever spread like wildfire. How will all this market change affect engineering rates, salaries, and opportunities for the future? A lot depends on your level. Which level of engineer are you? Take a stab at these questions that are among those we use to qualify Java engineers and determine their level of expertise: Should a class file name appear in the classpath (e.g., should MyExample .class be in the classpath?)? Does Ja... (more)

The Paper Chase

As staffing professionals we read a lot of résumés. The most common problem is that they misrepresent candidates as being more skilled and experienced than they really are...or, worse, they misrepresent seasoned candidates as less experienced than they are. A good résumé is a clear, detailed visual representation of who you are, what you've done, and what you want to do. The key to writing a good one lies not in the beauty of your creative writing, but in highlighting how your skills and experience are relevant to the position you're applying for. Objective There are pros and co... (more)

The JDJ Salary Survey

More than 1,150 readers worldwide responded to the recent Java Developer's Journal Salary Survey. The respondents covered a broad spectrum of IT titles and levels of expertise from entry-level to executive positions. They shared information including city, state, country, title, current salary, previous salary, years of professional experience, years in current position, and years with current company. As you may already know, the state of the employment market for Java developers is one of our favorite subjects, which is why we write a monthly column for JDJ. From this wealth ... (more)

The Big Interview

In our May column we examined the résumé as that critical first step in the hiring process. The most effective résumés are filled with specific, relevant details about your skills and experience, what you've done, and when and where you've done it. It's common for your first interview to be a preliminary phone screening or a conversation between you and a third-party recruiter who's providing candidates for the position, a recruiter or recruiting manager within the company that's hiring, or the hiring manager. Be prepared to answer questions about your technical expertise and wor... (more)

Who Needs An Agency?

You're a skilled technical professional with experience that's in demand. Your résumé reads like a Who's Who of top companies and a What's What of top skills. So how come you're the one working 40 hours a week, but a chunk of the money the client is paying for your services is going or has gone to the agency that placed you? If you've been placed in a permanent position, why should the client pay your agency a percentage of your annual salary for just sending out your résumé and setting up an interview? Or if you're a contractor, sure, the agency sends you a timesheet and mails ... (more)