[Sigia-l] Lack of Opportunities for IA

[Samantha Bailey]

That does sound like a very demoralizing experience! A lot of other folks on
the list have already given good advice around networking, etc. but I just
wanted to add that being a new graduate is a very stressful
situation--you've just spent two+ years gaining all these new skills that
are supposed to make you employable and you probably have student loans;
either way you're likely sick of living like a student and are ready for a
steady income. The stress leads to wanting to get things resolved right away
and I think it can make it seem like there are fewer opportunities than
there really are.

This is a niche field, so there aren't going to be hundreds of jobs, and you
may have to start with something that isn't exactly what you'd hoped for,
but if you are persistent you *will* find work in this field. I'd recommend
that you be systematic in your search; but also realistic--plan for the
"long haul"; professional job searches routinely take 6 months and can take
much longer. You may need to do something in the interim to put bread on the
table while you search for your "real" job. If that turns out to be the
case, look for "pro bono" or volunteer opportunities where you can do IA so
that you can speak with conviction in your interviews. (When I graduated
with my MILS I took a job in something of a panic mode only to discover it
was a really bad fit--and I had to start the job search all over again. Even
though it seemed like a disaster at the time (and I felt like an idiot) the
next job I found was a much better fit.)

Good luck!

Samantha Bailey
samantha at baileysorts.com | http://baileysorts.com


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Hongming Leonard Liaw" <hmliaw at mail.utexas.edu>
To: <sigia-l at asis.org>
Sent: Thursday, February 05, 2004 12:47 PM
Subject: [Sigia-l] Lack of Opportunities for IA


> I just had a very unpleasant experience at a job fair and led me to wonder
if
> there's really any job opportunities out there for IA people despite all
the
> assurances we hear in the classes.
>
> I'm a grad student at the School of Information (UT Austin) studying
Information
> Architecture. Recently, our school informed us that since they can't seem
to
> put together a job fair on their own, we have to go to other schools' job
> fairs.
>
> So today, I went to College of Natural Sciences job fair. This college
includes
> bio, chem, biochem, physics, math, cs majors. I went there because I
thought IA
> is somewhat related to computer sciences however remotely it might be. And
I
> don't really have a lot of choices if I want to find a job.
>
> At the National Instrument table, I talked to their rep their and gave him
a
> copy of my resume. I also told him my main interest is IA and Usability
> engineering. After he learned that I do not program (JAVA or C++), he then
said
> "Well, you're probably in the wrong job fair." with a tone of slight as if
> saying "What, are you stupid! This is a CS only fair! Why are you even
here?!"
> I felt so insulted but yet I had to keep on smiling just to be polite.
>
> Other tables were at least polite and nice when they were trying to turn
me
> down.
>
> This unpleasant experience really made me wonder if there's really any IA
jobs
> out there right now. Of course, all of your jobs are IA related, but is
there
> any job OPENINGS out there for us the new graduates, and also if there's
any
> job fairs for IA people? I really don't want to go to another job fair
just to
> be insulted by an egoistic CS-centric jerk.
>
> Leonard
> -- 
> H. Leonard Liaw
> MSIS Candidate, May/Aug 2004
> University of Texas at Austin
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