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Many of those job postings are left open forever, even when they are not hiring. I know this for a fact. If you come here, either come with a remote working situation or plan to blow through a lot of money quickly.
if you're too white for the locals taste, you can camouflage yourself with spray on tan, then you look nice and brown for the interview. Additionally, on your resume, you can use your chosen Hawaiian nickname. For example. Mark "Kaleopipipono" Smith. Be sure to bring your best pidgin accent, and for sure you'll get the job!
Location: not sure, but there's a hell of a lot of water around here!
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Quote:
Originally Posted by rya96797
if you're too white for the locals taste, you can camouflage yourself with spray on tan, then you look nice and brown for the interview. Additionally, on your resume, you can use your chosen Hawaiian nickname. For example. Mark "Kaleopipipono" Smith. Be sure to bring your best pidgin accent, and for sure you'll get the job!
If you should follow this advice, use a different Hawaiian name. Mark 'Po'okukae' Smith might be more appropriate. As for the spray on tan, make sure it's waterproof, ESPECIALLY on Kauai, and mask off your eyes FIRST!!!
It's a mistake you won't make,,,, uuurrrrpppp, scuze me, twice.
Yes, and this is why our time is limited here. Each day we're on the Island is a day we're borrowing from our retirement future. I'm extremely disappointed in the I.T. job market in Hawaii; and unless a miracle happens where I somehow find an I.T. Department (or even a job recruiter) willing to talk to me, we will be moving back in 2018. I will then have to find a way to explain my long absence from I.T. and hope I won't be shut out permenantly like you mentioned. Or perhaps faced with starting over in my 40s in a tech sector thats easy to transition into thru some training (I already have a CS degree.)
Never in my wildest dreams did I think I'd find ZERO interest in my I.T. skills on this Island. Its a cautionary tale and after what I've been thru, I would never recommend anyone move here without an employment contract in hand for anyone expecting to work.
We will survive financially, but it has hurt our future for sure.
You might check out the "Engineered Truth" YouTube Channel. This guy does videos about different work careers. He claims to have 160K subscribers and make $10K per month on his YouTube channel, plus I think he is making money other ways. It takes time to build up the subscribers from zero, and most YouTubers don't make any money. He also talks about working remotely and interviews people who work remotely.
Here's an example of one of his videos talking about 4 careers that can be obtained with minimal training:
The longer your out of the IT working career, the tougher it will be to get back in. In several years, you might be almost locked out, or locked out. If you find that you're locked out of an IT career from a long absence from working in IT, then you might consider going back to school at a technical college for either training, certs, or a two year degree in a more current niche in IT.
If you got your IT degree decades ago, that technology probably isn't relevant today. Much of my IT degree was Novell, which is dead today. But at the time I got my degree Novell was used by companies. That got my foot in the door. Once you're working for companies in IT, it's your job experience with newer technology that pushes you forward. As your degree ages, it's just something you did in the past to accomplish a goal, and isn't very relevant, except to prevent you from being screened out of the hiring process.
If you can't find a higher paying remote IT position, try to get a lower paying position, such as some form of technical customer service that can be done remotely. It might be easier for you to get a remote job that pays $30K to $40K, which is a lot better than working for minimum wage, but a long way from six figures. I hope your future improves for you.
It sounds like you have it covered pretty well. Whatever you do, do not sell your place in LA. Your assumptions about job hunting from here vs. job hunting from there are spot on in my experience. I could barely get anyone to speak to me before I was here, and I had a job faster than I really wanted to after I was here. You may be overestimating on the amount of stuff a single person really needs to bring. Stuff like pots, pans and dishes are heavy and cost less to buy here than to bring. Max out on the amount of stuff the airline will let you bring as a checked bag. Big moving boxes can be checked as luggage. Also, I saw a lady at the post office with those big gray storage bins all taped up being shipped somewhere. I thought that was probably a good way to do it since some of the boxes we shipped via USPS got pretty smashed up. Nothing was really ruined, but the boxes looked pretty battered. I would guess that a huge moving box coming through the main post office doesn't get treated with the utmost respect. The color of your eyes and what it was like when you came on vacation is irrelevant.
Your assumptions about job hunting from here vs. job hunting from there are spot on in my experience. I could barely get anyone to speak to me before I was here, and I had a job faster than I really wanted to after I was here.
What kind of job did you find? The OP didn't mention what kind of job either. Most jobs don't pay very much, especially in Hawaii. I was shocked how little IT jobs pay in Hawaii, especially with the high cost of living. If you have to work 80 hours a week working multiple low wage jobs just to scrape by living paycheck to paycheck, you end up saving little to nothing for your future.
Of course, even if you make a high income, live in a lower cost area, you might not be saving much for the future. I know a lot of people who work in IT making six figures or slightly below six figures. Among the high income earners about half save little to nothing, yet they drive a newer luxury cars and spend a lot of money, probably to show off to strangers. They don't think about their long term retirement goals, living only for today. I think it would be very tough to impossible to save enough money for retirement if you moved to Hawaii during your working years.
Another haole wanting to move to Hawaii. I know, you hate me already. The good news is that I'm brown with green eyes and every single time I visited the islands, I was treated nice by the locals. Maybe they liked my brownness, maybe they were putting on a show. Who knows. One time when I visited Maui and spoke with a local on a boat for 2 hours straight, he invited me to BBQ with his family. Maybe I'm just a nice person.
Anyway, I have started putting on a plan to move out there. I'm a software engineer with 8+ years of experience. It's just me moving out there. If I were there already, I don't think it would be very difficult for me to find a job. I looked up jobs in several job search engines and there seems to be a good amount of tech jobs in Oahu.
Finding a job while NOT being there is the problem. This is why I think I'm going to have to make a move first. I know.
Basically what I'm planning on doing is this:
1. Rent out my condo furnished and leave anything small the renter will want (such as pots, pans, etc). Things he/she will not want to keep I will either throw away or put in storage here in LA (if it's worth putting in storage that is).
2. Take all the essentials with me. It's basically my computer, tools, clothes/shoes, valuables & some small bathroom & kitchen stuff. This will be two big suitcases, a small one, two backpacks and about 10 boxes that I will ship via USPS. It looks like if I were to ship 10 boxes at 50lbs each, it'll be about $99 each. So about 1,000 to ship everything. Shouldn't be too bad. I'll use the option to hold the boxes until I'm ready to pick them up (when my car arrives and I have a place to live).
3. Ship my car and then head out there.
4. Once there, I'll probably stay at a hostel for a month as I look for a job. I'm probably going to have to rent a car for a week as my car travels across the pacific. I already have connections with recruiters out there, by the way.
Question: What if I get a job and I'm still at a hostel? What address am I gonna use for work?
5. Finally get a job. Start looking for a room for rent. Will probably rent a room at somebody's house/apartment for the first year. This will save me tons of money and I have plenty of time to figure out what areas will be best for me. Although, I know the island pretty well and would probably want to live in Kailua. BUT! It's always good to live close to work so I'm probably going to end up living in Honolulu. We'll see.
My salary right now is around 125k/yr.
I'm well aware I'm going to have to take a pay cut for this. I spoke with the recruiter and he thinks I can push it to about 100k/yr.
As far as the money I'll spend on the move:
1. Shipping car - 1,100
2. Shipping boxes - 1,100
3. Sending myself - 800
4. One week car rental - 400
5. One month hostel - 1,100 (now that I think about it, it'll probably be cheaper to just find a room to rent for 6 months... it'll be much cheaper than the hostel option).
*6. IF I end up leaving a few things in storage in LA - $90 (per month)
Total: 4,500
Renting my condo alone will get me 3,000 (as security deposit).
4,500 - 3,000 = 1,500. So this will be my "out of pocket" expense for the initial move.
I have plenty of money in the bank so this should be a breeze.
The only thing I'm worried about is how long it'll take for me to land a job. Anywhere on the mainland it's easy to get an IT job but Hawaii is a lot different. I think I can go about 6 months without a job while being there. I think this will be more than enough time to find a job. Even if I don't find the "right" job initially, I can always work some crappy job so I have some type of income as I look for the real job.
Am I missing anything?
Wish me luck
Dear young traveller,
I'm really impressed at how organized you are. How did you figure out you only need 10 boxes to ship? Did you get any quotes from shipping companies that ship by container? I'm moving here too. I'm currently here looking for a place to buy/live cause I dont want to rent
But I dont know yet how I am going to ship all of my stuff. Is it really cheaper shipping boxes by the Post office? How do you get all you belong into only 10 boxes?
When are you coming here by the way?
I'll be going back to the mainland soon to begin the process of organizing my stuff and shipping it here.
Are they trying to find brown people? is that it? cause if that's why, then I'll definitely get it.
I could probably push it to 100k with my level of experience & communication/manipulation skills.
lolz
good answer, my braddah!
you are a breath of fresh air competing with all the hot air generated here..
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I'm moving here too
I know.
