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Four job-hunting tips for bad times

One very positive approach to an interview, and puts YOU in the driver's seat mentally, is to consider that you are interviewing the company to see if they are good enough for you. We have all been in offices (and I remember in another career meeting Tootsie Roll in Chicago) where the gentleman I was meeting interrupts the sales pitch and yells down the hall " HEY, ANYBODY GOT THE PRODUCTION NUMBERS FROM PACO YET???? DAMMIT BRAZIL HAS NOT REPORTED IN. CALL PACO RIGHT NOW!!!!!!!! " This is a bad place.

Same attitude, get a sense of their office, furniture, employee comments as you can hear them and keep note of it. Magazines on the table (Oh, alot of fishing magazines here. Boss must like fishing). As you walk past offices, notice the areas, are they a total disaster? Or a place you would like to work at?

Puts you in the drivers seat.

With hundreds of thousands of umemployed IT folks littering the streets and with thousands others trying to break into IT, it's an employers market plain and simple. Beggars can be choosers if you're looking for an IT professional these days.

If your resume lands an interview these days, that in itself is an accomplishment. If you don't get a call back, don't take it personal. Someone either came in cheaper or maybe they just forgot about you due to the sheer number of interviews. Just keep your chin up and keep looking. Every interview you leave, the better you're prepared for the next one. Everytime, they don't call you back is another chance you have to polish your skills.

Because of the rejections, one day you'll blow the sox off of the interviewer(s) and get an offer the same day.

And...NEVER, I mean NEVER cheapen yourself just to land a gig. If you can help it, negotiate a salary that you think you deserve.

Typical advice, nothing that stands out. Most of this is pretty common knowledge if you know how to make more than $10/hr. Good try, but this article should be aimed at novice job hunters.

There's a ton people out there with no jobs who are looking for solid employment. A lot of people struggle to place value on their skills. Employers always want the cheapest they can get so sometimes you may have to take a pay cut to put food on the table. It happens. You just have to make the effort to not stay long term while your looking for that better job. In the mean time; though, you have dinner on the table and might be able to pay some necessary bills.

I agree 100% on this. No potential employer wants to hear you bad mouth a previous employer, because one day you may bad mouth them.

Very important thing to keep in mind.
If you go to an interview, it is not to find a job but to explain the company how much added value you can bring to them.

If the salary they propose is not in line with the added value you believe you will bring, then you have to sort this out.

Salary is a negotiation, and if you start saying "yes" to all the contractual conditions immediately whatever they are, you will probably end up not signing the contract.

Don't use a failure as a model.

How many jobs really exist at Dice?