How is the IT Job Market? (Atlanta, Marietta: extended stay, apartment, home)

[MJimLay]

I'm not talking about high paying IT Jobs, I am just talking about $12-$15 an hour Help Desk/User Support type work. How is the market there?

I currently live in Pensacola and there are very very few IT Jobs here and always has been this way and cost of living has been rising. I've been thinking about moving to Atlanta and saying at one of those extended stay places ($149 a week) until I am able to locate an apartment (studio or 1 bedroom) and get on my feet there.

The main reason I like Atlanta is it's in a warm climate, it's close to home (6 hours from Pensacola, so I could come home on weekends if I wanted to) and I've heard that Atlanta does have a lot of IT jobs (CareerBuilder shows 600+ jobs there, but only shows 12 jobs here) I also really like the area as there seems to be a lot to do.

The biggest thing that worries me of Atlanta is the traffic... I drove through there once and had cars honking at me left and right. It was nuts!

Anyway... Suggestions?

[SAAN]

There are plenty of the $10-15 hr IT Help Desk jobs in ATL. Alot of them seem to be the 3, 6, or 9 month contracts though. You will see some full time ones, but they mostly pay $11-13 hr and have high turnover rates, but will always be available since Help Desk gets repetitive really quick when you have to deal with the general public.

[DennyCrane]

Can we broaden this question to include high-paying IT jobs, specifically in the area of development? I've looked at some of the job boards and IT seems to be relatively strong in Atlanta. But I'd like to hear from the locals. Also, where in Atlanta are the jobs? Are they all downtown? What about the suburbs?

[Mishap]

Originally Posted by DennyCrane

Can we broaden this question to include high-paying IT jobs, specifically in the area of development? I've looked at some of the job boards and IT seems to be relatively strong in Atlanta. But I'd like to hear from the locals. Also, where in Atlanta are the jobs? Are they all downtown? What about the suburbs?

A lot of the dev jobs are located out in Gwinnett and north Fulton County area. I won't sugarcoat it but the market isn't what it used to be. A coworker was laid off a few weeks ago and hasn't gotten any in person interviews yet. He's at 4+ yrs experience in mostly C/C++ Unix but we worked at NCR for a period in '05-'06 in Windows .NET. NCR has some positions out in Duluth but they pay crap for the most part and are very financially unsound outside of the 100M GA handed them to move here. My sister in law got laid off from a tech consulting firm in Marietta and is now at a large bank in downtown as a VP in charge of QA and I think they have at least some of their dev down there. She had to network quite a bit to land that job and some of her peers are still having trouble.

I am midway through my 2 weeks notice at my current job which is out in the Norcross Technology Park area and headed to a new slightly better paying (10k more) dev job in Vinings. From what I've seen, there are some tech jobs in the heart of the city but a lot more companies have chosen Dunwoody/Alpharetta and all the way out to Norcross/Duluth b/c there are plenty of half empty office parks. I was able to land my new job within about a week of starting looking but I have relevant experience w/ the company and currently have a job. The game is a lot tougher if you're out of work and w/o any leverage.

[DennyCrane]

Originally Posted by Mishap

A lot of the dev jobs are located out in Gwinnett and north Fulton County area. I won't sugarcoat it but the market isn't what it used to be. A coworker was laid off a few weeks ago and hasn't gotten any in person interviews yet. He's at 4+ yrs experience in mostly C/C++ Unix but we worked at NCR for a period in '05-'06 in Windows .NET. NCR has some positions out in Duluth but they pay crap for the most part and are very financially unsound outside of the 100M GA handed them to move here. My sister in law got laid off from a tech consulting firm in Marietta and is now at a large bank in downtown as a VP in charge of QA and I think they have at least some of their dev down there. She had to network quite a bit to land that job and some of her peers are still having trouble.

I am midway through my 2 weeks notice at my current job which is out in the Norcross Technology Park area and headed to a new slightly better paying (10k more) dev job in Vinings. From what I've seen, there are some tech jobs in the heart of the city but a lot more companies have chosen Dunwoody/Alpharetta and all the way out to Norcross/Duluth b/c there are plenty of half empty office parks. I was able to land my new job within about a week of starting looking but I have relevant experience w/ the company and currently have a job. The game is a lot tougher if you're out of work and w/o any leverage.

Thanks for the feedback. I'm sure the market isn't what it used to be. But that's true no matter where you go. Every city has experienced a slowdown, but some are worse than others. It's all relative. No matter what city I move to, I won't have any contacts to help me find a job. So I know I'll be at a disadvantage. All the more reason to move to a city where there's still a decent amount of jobs. I'm glad to hear that more and more companies are relocating to the suburbs. I've heard how awful Atlanta traffic is so if I do end up moving there, at least that should make my commute a little easier...I hope.

[rcsteiner]

Originally Posted by DennyCrane

Can we broaden this question to include high-paying IT jobs, specifically in the area of development? I've looked at some of the job boards and IT seems to be relatively strong in Atlanta. But I'd like to hear from the locals. Also, where in Atlanta are the jobs? Are they all downtown? What about the suburbs?

Our main development center is located in the Cumberland Mall area (30339) near Vinings, and I know there are other IT shops (e.g., Travelport, formerly known as WorldSpan) in the area as well. Don't know if their software development folks are living in the tall building visible from the freeway, though.

[TimelessClassic]

Originally Posted by DennyCrane

Thanks for the feedback. I'm sure the market isn't what it used to be. But that's true no matter where you go. Every city has experienced a slowdown, but some are worse than others. It's all relative. No matter what city I move to, I won't have any contacts to help me find a job. So I know I'll be at a disadvantage. All the more reason to move to a city where there's still a decent amount of jobs. I'm glad to hear that more and more companies are relocating to the suburbs. I've heard how awful Atlanta traffic is so if I do end up moving there, at least that should make my commute a little easier...I hope.

The IT market here is probably better than many cities, I think. But it's certainly not what it used to be.