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Old 07-06-2009, 01:23 PM
 
Location: San Ramon, Ca
72 posts, read 182,013 times
Reputation: 55

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Has Colorado always been a hard place to find a job? Here in the Bay Area I can pick and choose jobs in my field of construction management, but when I send resumes and talk with head hunters in Denver it is almost impossible to get ay replies, and I have a resume that dazzles most with what I have accomplished. Whats up? I know Coloradans don't want the trash from other states moving in, but how does someone like myself and my family seperate from the pack? My wife has her whole family in Parker Colorado and I don't want to bring anything from Ca with us. Trader Joes, Who cares. SF, not a city to compair Denver to, A city to forget about-homless, **** smelling streets, crime, gangs, filth all over. I wont be one of those complainng about what I don't have anymore. Hell I already have a Broncos license plate frame on my truck from my time with Elway at Stanford growing up. The long and short is that I am fed up with California and want to move close to family and quietly become Coloradans. My family, wife and kids 7 and 10 have no more family close in the Bay Area and I just don't think a good job should be an anchor? If you work hard and stay honest can a man provide for his family in Colorado? In my 40 years I have worked too many hours to get the big home in the nice area and the big paycheck that took time away from the family. I am and have been ready to trade the big house and paycheck for close family and quality time with the wife and kids. Can I do this and still put a roof over there heads and feed them? Everything about Colorado is a huge draw, but the job market has me frozen in my tracks. Has anyone else gone through this and are you happy you did?
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Old 07-06-2009, 01:46 PM
 
Location: Colorado
9,986 posts, read 18,665,225 times
Reputation: 2178
Holy cow!!!!! I am in medical and my husband is a Pm in both commercial and residential construction. We send resumes out, and nothing. It has been 6 months. One response I got was there were 300 resumes received in two hours. Hard to compete with that.. My husband has been doing odd jobs but it is getting hard to come by. We are now having to look elsewhere. Sad, we love it here. Job market is tough here. Too many people out of work for the amount of work. My son just graduated with a Bachelors, he is living with us, he can get no response either. Good Luck.
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Old 07-06-2009, 02:29 PM
Nav
 
346 posts, read 1,490,659 times
Reputation: 256
Construction is at an all time low right now in Colorado. There is still a lot going on, but it seems like the same company has all the contracts. One thing that may be killing you is the fact that you are not presently here in Colorado. With a population of over 3 million and a bad economy, a lot of companies are only hiring local candidates. You may want to mention that you are willing to relocate yourself in your cover letter. Its a bad time to be in construction in Colorado right now.

PM's in general are still in demand, as you can see on indeed.com and simplyhired.com. If you have the basic PM skills and can branch out from the construction industry, then you may have a better chance of landing something.

Nav
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Old 07-07-2009, 12:23 PM
 
Location: San Ramon, Ca
72 posts, read 182,013 times
Reputation: 55
Thank's. Yes I can morph my PM skills into other fields. I have managed many people under me and spent countless hours mentoring and team building. I have managed 80 M dollar budgets with sucess and answered to teams of Stanford MBA's durring owners meetings. I will do some sole searching and see what my heart tells me. Of corse I will make sure I can provide for my family whatever I do.
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Old 07-08-2009, 10:05 AM
 
Location: Sunnyvale, CA
6,288 posts, read 11,774,262 times
Reputation: 3369
Denver usually just looks at local candidates and ignores out of state candidates.
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Old 07-08-2009, 11:10 AM
 
Location: Foot of the Rockies
90,297 posts, read 120,694,120 times
Reputation: 35920
There have been times it was easy for people in some professions, e.g. IT to find jobs, and some where it has been very difficult. People choose to move here, so there is a surplus of many kinds of workers. Even the so-called "nursing shortages" of recent years have not been as severe here.

We came here w/o jobs, but did not have kids at the time. I don't think I'd do it with kids to support, unless I was willing to give up a lot of my savings (that could pay for their college education) to live on while job hunting.
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Old 07-08-2009, 11:11 AM
 
1,176 posts, read 4,481,594 times
Reputation: 470
Anyone else notice that jobs tend to pay less in Denver? More supply than demand.
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Old 07-08-2009, 12:00 PM
 
Location: Colorado
9,986 posts, read 18,665,225 times
Reputation: 2178
Quote:
Originally Posted by steveindenver View Post
Anyone else notice that jobs tend to pay less in Denver? More supply than demand.
Oh yea!! He has had carpentry offers of $12 an hour. For over 20 years exp. Scary.
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Old 07-08-2009, 12:09 PM
 
Location: Midwest
50 posts, read 156,392 times
Reputation: 38
Quote:
Originally Posted by steveindenver View Post
Anyone else notice that jobs tend to pay less in Denver? More supply than demand.
Compared to where I live now, Denver seems to possess an unfavorable relationship between pay scale and the cost of living. While the Denver pay scale seems to be at parity with Kansas City for my line of work, it's obvious the cost of housing is much higher in Denver. My 25 yr. old 3 bedroom/2 bathroom house in a quiet suburban area of KC would probably sell today for $150K, but in areas such as Littleton/Highlands Ranch an equivalent house (not fixer uppers) seems to be listed for $180K-$200K or (based on my research on realtor.com and cohomefinder.com). This excludes foreclosures and short sales, but that is an entirely different, complicated animal when house hunting. Property tax rates are mostly lower in Denver; however, this savings would not make up for the increase in principal and interest that I would have to pay for a more expensive, equivalent house there.

People from the coasts such as California or New York will generally find a lower cost of living in Denver; however, the pay scale would drop dramatically. I can't really say whether people from high cost of living areas would really be better off in Denver from a pay scale versus cost of living perspective (since I don't live in a high cost of living area). But, those people who sold their homes before the real estate bubble burst in east and west coast markets (formerly hot a couple of years ago) probably brought a lot of equity with them to Colorado. This would have generated a favorable situation for them in Colorado. Obviously, this situation does not exist anymore given the downfall of many formerly hot real estate markets.

Someone on CD referred to the relatively low pay scale and high cost of living relationship in Colorado as the "mountain tax". One way or another, you pay to live there. As Steveindenver put it, it's just simple supply and demand of people. Many, many people want to live in Denver for the obvious reasons, and there are only so many jobs to go around. This is one of the reasons I cannot bring myself to quit my job and move to Colorado, hoping I'll land an equivalent position after I arrive. The reason?? Everyone else is doing it. This situation favors employers completely!

Quote:
Originally Posted by Katiana View Post
There have been times it was easy for people in some professions, e.g. IT to find jobs, and some where it has been very difficult. People choose to move here, so there is a surplus of many kinds of workers. Even the so-called "nursing shortages" of recent years have not been as severe here.

We came here w/o jobs, but did not have kids at the time. I don't think I'd do it with kids to support, unless I was willing to give up a lot of my savings (that could pay for their college education) to live on while job hunting.
Even Katiana, who works in the medical field in the Denver area, mentions that the nursing field is not as favorable there. Here's another example of the supply/demand relationship of people. I've dated a couple of nurses in the past here in KC, and they can basically pick and choose where they want to work. They do quite well financially, and job security is generally a given. I don't get the impression that nurses can simply pick and choose where they want to work in Denver making $70K or more.

The job/pay scale/cost of living issue stinks, but it is what it is. There is a definite trade off between the benefits of having the mountains nearby and job prospects.

I've done some ranting about this topic in the past few days here on CD, but I guess I haven't lost hope that one day I'll live there. Peace out!!!!
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Old 07-08-2009, 03:55 PM
 
Location: Greenwood Village, Colorado
2,185 posts, read 5,011,721 times
Reputation: 1536
Quote:
Originally Posted by steveindenver View Post
Anyone else notice that jobs tend to pay less in Denver? More supply than demand.
Yes they do. Thats why we were forced to leave and move to Dallas. The pay is a lot higher and the cost of living is much lower.

We would go back in a hearbeat though if we could, But no jobs in Colorado.
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