Out-of-State job hunting woes

[CarbideBob]

Try a manpower company like Aerotech, they fill positions from office to aerospace.

Do this only as a last resort.

 

[Mike1974]

I am on the other side of most of the advice given. I have been the employer for 30+ years.
If I got a resume with what you have listed and the way you have it written here. I would have just round filed it.
If you take your statement about welding cert. What kind of certs do you have? AWS walking papers? ASME ? What type? Mig, tig, stick? You need to state your capabilities.
When I read willing to relocate, first thing that comes to mind is a short term drifter **.
Technical hiring people are looking for specific things, usually they are trying to fill a specific position.
Don't be generic in your resume, if you are looking for a job in the shop of a oil refinery then make it apply to the job.
If you are looking at doing plant layout on a cad platform then they don't care if you can weld.
Almost every out of town person I have hire was introduced to me in person by a employee, customer, or supplier.
My best advice is go to the area you want to work in and knock on doors. & Skilled technical people are so rare today you will get a chance to talk to people. But be warned if you are claiming to be a machinist, they might hand you a drill bit and tell you to sharpen it for drilling brass or copper.
Good luck

** Ouch! I'm sorry, but from this post, you sound like the typical "I know everything employer so my way or the highway!!"

People relocate for lots of reasons. I have done it twice for a job (albeit same company/same job), and it has nothing to do with me being a 'drifter' LoL.

& Do you know how hard (and plain unpractical) that is when moving?? Seriously, unless you have maybe a years wages saved up or something, most people just can't afford that luxury of traveling around looking for a job while not earning a living. Even having my moving expenses paid, it was a major pita* to coordinate everything that is needed to move an entire household (if you are single, which OP is not, it might be different).

1st move-
We spent 4-5 days without household goods because the moving company screwed up our delivery date/estimate.
1) Start utilities- easy right? depending on location, some places either want your first born child, or paperwork you don't have yet (see drivers licences), or 3-4-500$ deposits.

2) Get drivers licensces- well, hard to do without a perm address (with proof!), circle back to #1

3) Get the kid(s) into school - see #1 & 2 above....

2nd move-
See all of above, except this time we had our stuff moved into storage because we were living in a hotel. Which meant we had to move our stuff from storage (I know everyone moves boohoo)... so company paid the moving expenses, which we got to move our stuff again at our expense and time.

Sorry went on a bit of a rant there, but just wanted to put that out there that moving for a job is not it's all cracked up to be AND we (the movers) are not trying to screw anyone over or whatever you are thinking*.

* side note, one job I flew for an interview went fairly well, except he did not want to pay what I wanted (fair enough, happens I know), but he insisted "I had no skin in the game" if he paid what I wanted and he would "get me up to that pay in no time".... How the hell do I have no skin in the game when I am moving out of state with my entire family?!?!

 

[Pariel]

My experience as an engineer is that until you have 3-5 years of experience you're basically looked at as a commodity. Once you've got that though, you won't be able to get people to stop calling you about jobs.

If you want someone to look at your resume, feel free to message me here and we can connect via email or LinkedIn.

 

[McClure Machine]

Sorry damn spell check, sorry for the crazy words

 

[ATI.Racing.HR]

I'm a Human Resources Manager, recruiting for a machine shop in Maryland. The number one thing we are looking for is experience--that is the tough luck of being in the manufacturing industry. For our specific type of work, we need folks who are autonomous working with tolerances in the thousandths, so the damper doesn't fly apart at 230mph on the racetrack and kill the driver. That type of expertise just doesn't come after 2 years of punching a timeclock.

Unfortunately, business owners--especially small business owners--have very narrow margins when it comes to the type of person and experience they are seeking. Years of experience tell them what kind of work they can expect from candidates before they even sign an offer. They are looking for a SPECIFIC person. If you are tailoring your resume to the specific job, being a proactive candidate, and applying for positions where you truly meet all the requirements, then you're doing everything right. It could be something else, though...

Here are some things that make us toss resumes:
-More than 3 jobs in the last 10 years
-No jobs in the last 10 years / only internships listed
-Any job with less than 3 months tenure
-Failure to list specific machines you've worked on
-Obvious Copy/Paste of a job description
-Skills listed that are irrelevant to work history
-Egotistical/Overgeneralized candidate overviews, profiles, objectives, etc.

 

[Mike1974]

I'm a Human Resources Manager, recruiting for a machine shop in Maryland. The number one thing we are looking for is experience--that is the tough luck of being in the manufacturing industry. For our specific type of work, we need folks who are autonomous working with tolerances in the thousandths, so the damper doesn't fly apart at 230mph on the racetrack and kill the driver. That type of expertise just doesn't come after 2 years of punching a timeclock.

Unfortunately, business owners--especially small business owners--have very narrow margins when it comes to the type of person and experience they are seeking. Years of experience tell them what kind of work they can expect from candidates before they even sign an offer. They are looking for a SPECIFIC person. If you are tailoring your resume to the specific job, being a proactive candidate, and applying for positions where you truly meet all the requirements, then you're doing everything right. It could be something else, though...

Here are some things that make us toss resumes:
-More than 3 jobs in the last 10 years
-No jobs in the last 10 years / only internships listed
-Any job with less than 3 months tenure
-Failure to list specific machines you've worked on
-Obvious Copy/Paste of a job description
-Skills listed that are irrelevant to work history
-Egotistical/Overgeneralized candidate overviews, profiles, objectives, etc.

Well that puts probably 50% or more right in the ole round file, eh? Sometimes there are valid reasons for having to switch jobs. I took a job out of state for one company that was partnering with another company. Well that dissolved in less than a year, so I went to work for the parent company which left me with 3 jobs (technically) in about a years time. Got laid off there last year, took a job because I needed a paycheck plain and simple. Well that wasn't a good fit so here I am at a new job, just had my 1 year about a week ago. So for me I've had 4 jobs in 6 years!*

* even though 2 of them were really one job, but different company names... which is on my resume so if I don't get a chance to explain what happened it looks bad.

 

[ATI.Racing.HR]

Well that puts probably 50% or more right in the ole round file, eh?

Sure enough! Trust: I am not without sympathy!!! It really sucks for job seekers-- we don't have time to read all 80 resumes we get for each position, and you don't have the time to craft a perfectly straightforward resume that leaves no unanswered questions. We had a guy in the other day who had 4 positions in the last 8 years, and had a legitimate reason for each and every place--so in that case, because we were able to talk with him, it didn't matter. But, I know, as a recruiter, there are times when I am tossing a resume that COULD be good, based on work history and "lack of tenure". I tell folks that it's okay to put "Company Filed Bankruptcy" or "Moved across the country for family obligations" or whatever else legitimate No-Fault reason exists for job hopping.

Another guy told us he was looking to leave his current place because they assigned new parking places and his was the farthest from the door so it cut into his break time and he was tired of "The Uppers" cheating him out of 2 minutes of his break.

We get all kinds

The trick for us is to find the balance between relying on the candidate to give us EXACTLY the right information we need, but not so much that it's too long to read, and also taking the investigative time to determine if a candidate is truly viable. No one likes wasted time, especially in a machine shop.

 

[SBAER]

I think the idea of concentrating on a couple places you would like to live and doing some on the ground research and door knocking has some merit. It is hard to find young people with the skills you have listed, if someone knocked at my door introduced himself and left a resume and general cover letter about relocating I would be curious. With your skill set I think you can afford to choose a nice place to live.

 

[Guest]

ATI Racing would have round filed me for 3 violations and I seriously doubt they run across people with my range of skills very often. I had 4 jobs in 5 years as I found job hoping early in my days as a machinist was the best way to quickly climb the pay scale and gain diversified experience. My second to last stop before self employment was at an OEM aerospace connector house, there were guys at that place with 25 years at the company that ran the same jobs day in day out for years and years, some of those 25 year vets didn't have the skills I had in 6 months.

One guy actually was in his 50's and had worked there since he graduated High School some of the jobs he ran on the Swiss Automatics were crimp pot contact pins of various lengths. The same family of parts ran for decades. One day I noticed Frank made repeated trips to our self serve tool crib, that was kind of strange so I investigated. Come to find out someone restocked the size in the drill cabinet Frank needed with left hand drills instead of right handed ones. Frank didn't know the difference and had already feed the machine a half dozen of them before I helped him out. Frank definitely wasn't a drifter, I was informed years later he retired after 40 years of dedicated service.

I also had a 4 day job which violates not lasting a minimum of 3 months. The owner of the small shop wasn't friendly and kept glaring at me. They did a lot of short run jobs, some ran out in hours. Not the shy type I asked the guy why he kept glaring at me. He said he didn't like my work habits, particularly how I did set-ups. I asked him if I got them done fast enough, he said yes. I asked him if they passed inspection and ran out without problems, he said yes again. So my set-ups were fast enough, plus my quality and production were good, but this prick didn't like how I worked. I just told him to get my check and I would be on my way out the door. Then the guy gets angry and starts yelling in my face. I actually thought he was going to take a swing at me.

I probably would have also failed at listing specific machines. I have ran so many different machines I would either have to generalize or list 10 pages of them. At that connector OEM I was the equivalent of a working supervisor so I often jumped in and helped out wherever there was a hot job no matter what it was.
I did everything from tumbling parts to swapping out servo drives. I did a lot of jobs beneath my pay grade when an area was short handed.

 

[sealark37]

The on-line resume flurry is a waste of time. Find a town or city that your wife likes. Move there, and take any job that looks like it might be interesting. Do a good job for your employer, and keep your eyes open and cultivate personal relationships. You are looking for a lateral move that is perfect for you, but that is a slim chance in that region. Try for a job that you can live with, and enjoy life. A wise man once told me, "Do what you love, and go where you have to go for it, or live where you want and do what is needed there." Life is short.

 

[Guest]

ATI Racing would have round filed me for 3 violations and I seriously doubt they run across people with my range of skills very often. I had 4 jobs in 5 years as I found job hoping early in my days as a machinist was the best way to quickly climb the pay scale and gain diversified experience. My second to last stop before self employment was at an OEM aerospace connector house, there were guys at that place with 25 years at the company that ran the same jobs day in day out for years and years, some of those 25 year vets didn't have the skills I had in 6 months.

And there Dualkit is your problem. You looked after you(so did I).There was no loyalty to a boss who didn't know the going rate,I moved on. I had a mortgage to pay,a wife and two young kids to look after. I chased the money and didn't always get it right. One company paid good money but the workshop wasn't fit to call a toilet,that lasted three weeks. Other companies I enjoyed working for,the money was good and I was loyal. Eventually you realise that you, should be doing this for yourself, I never looked back.
ITT connecters mean anything?

ITT Connectors? I never want to name names as there are two sides to every story, but I worked for ITT for 7 years and many of my working for the man stories in a large company come from working for them, how did you guess that?

 

[ShaunM]

Thank you all for the replies!
As a quick update I am happy to report that I did find work (finally) and finished up my first day today. A couple of you took a real interest in this matter and offered up some really good advice – long story short my resume sucked. After a rewrite/restructure I finally started to get some attention from companies and even landed a couple of offers from companies I had applied to directly. I found those openings by concentrating on areas we were interested in living and just looking for manufacturing facilities in the area.
Ultimately, however, the position I accepted was presented to me by a recruiter who found my profile on LinkedIn – go figure.
This was a very long and humbling process but there were a lot of lessons learned that I won’t soon forget.
Once again, thank you all very much.

 

[EmGo]

ATI Racing would have round filed me for 3 violations ...

That really is too bad, because with damper tolerances in the thousandths, I bet they have the nicest fireplaces on the track

 

[Street]

Here are some things that make us toss resumes:
-More than 3 jobs in the last 10 years
-No jobs in the last 10 years / only internships listed
-Any job with less than 3 months tenure
-Failure to list specific machines you've worked on
-Obvious Copy/Paste of a job description
-Skills listed that are irrelevant to work history
-Egotistical/Overgeneralized candidate overviews, profiles, objectives, etc.[/QUOTE]

Well you toss a lot of good people in the bin, i have had jobs that lasted for a year for whatever reason but in that year i learnt new skills i would not have otherwise gained working in one place for 20 years.
Moving around taking risks is a good thing for your skillset

Over here they just started bringing in training requiring ( external tafe) to have on the job component too bad if the current job does not have the piece of equipment needed or work to run it no on the job experience you cannot do the training. chicken and the egg scenario.
It will make it really hard for employees to switch areas within the trade without some really helpful employers which are short on the ground here.
So the next batch will not have rounded skill sets only specific skillsets so limit what they can do.

The longest time i worked for anyone has been six years and of course some jobs i only lasted a month as the place was a not so good with long hours bad pay and conditions. You don't know until you work there sometimes.
A change to a bad manager can also upend things. so you move on.
Listing specific machines you worked on can help but you also need to know if he's done x can he possibly do y with his skillset recruiters cannot see this and only look for keywords that the employer provides so most of my jobs have been direct hires off a particular company.
Recruiters i have found are a waste of the written word.
I have quite a range of roles over the years and can do many things, making me even more confident of doing something slightly different in the future if required