Employment opportunities or the lack thereof

[btiffin]

Hello,

This message is a note to those in Co-op programs or graduating into the "job market" soon.

I can't say for sure, but I'd guess that co-op placements may be wayyy down this semester. Similar thing happened when I went to Waterloo. 1981 placements were in the 90%+ range. 9 out of 10 applicants got placed. 1982 (my year) that dropped off to 50ish percent.

So I suggest that you mover and shaker types get ready for this. Make your own work. Unlike 1982, the opportunities for most of you still abound. Open Source and the plethora of software development models means that small companies (one smart student small) can offer businesses cost saving choices.

OpenCOBOL can save a shop a whack of licensing fees ... more than enough to pay the student programmer that implements a conversion. REBOL can save small shops a ton of grief with tiny yet worthy one-off applications. GNU/Linux expertise could come in handy, again saving enough license fees, to pay a "company of one" to roll out the free operating system and train staff. The Grid is still new and from the right angle, I'm of the opinion that large companies could be convinced to fund a move past the web to the Grid. Mixed language solutions are another area where cost savings can be found. Most of the core business app in COBOL, some in Tcl/Tk, some ECMScript, a little bit in Python, maybe some Java or R or J or ...

Don't despair when the interview rooms at Waterloo are empty ... make shit happen instead. And don't wait until everyone else realizes that the interview rooms are empty. Be prepared with a back up plan of self employment, maybe two plans and have some blurbs to back it up before the interview season starts.

Sure you may have to take a McJob to fill in the entire 3 month co-op term, (as startups almost always have "dry days" in the beginning) but that's ok. Use the fry cook position to eat and pay rent and off hours to promote yourself and your plan. Even one month "in the career field" will make the next round of resumes look that much better and pad the tution money sack.

Self employment is fun actually. Scary sometimes (not as much if you are willing to pound nails or dig ditch) when the contacts don't line up properly to become contracts but that is part of being independent.

So do yourself a favour and register a business. Get an Ontario Vendor Permit if you plan on selling copies of something; a GST number (you should just have one of these anyway ... through the new Business Number government service) etc. The fees are relatively small, many folks will try and help and when the rubber hits the road you'll be in a position to move forward ahead of the pack. Don't fear or loath the paperwork involved. Learn to relish it as part of being your own boss.

Or not.

Best of skill and cheers,
Brian