Cobol - Over 50 MF Programmer seeking employment opportunities

Author

Over 50 MF Programmer seeking employment opportunities

Luis

2006-09-12, 6:55 pm

I am 54 years old. I lost my job to outsourcing after 19 years of
continuous employment as a mainframe programmer with solid skills in
Cobol, DB2, Cics, VSAM, etc. This happened in 2002 and after hundreds
of applications I am yet to receive an opportunity to get back into IT.
I am positive that I can still contribute, but now I am faced with the
"You have not worked in 4 years" dilemma. You mainframers out there
know that the MF environment does not undergo frequent changes and,
once you master the IBM mainframe environment, it takes very little to
become current again. So I ask, is it really that important to have
recent experience? I am positive that within a very short time time I
would be performing and contributing as if I never left.

I am hungry for another chance to prove that I can still be a valuable
asset. I have tried everything in my power to find an IT job, but I am
yet to receive an opportunity. I don't know what to do anymore. I have
even offered to take on a project for free with the understanding that,
once I complete it successfully, I would be given employment. I am
limited by location, as I am in the northeast, but I would entertain
telecommuting. I would also consider going to another location, if
accommodations are discussed.

Anyway, I will be appreciative of ideas from anyone as I am running out
of my own.

Thanks in advance and I hope to get responses.

hp3kpro

2006-09-12, 6:55 pm

Have you considered consulting(contract) work? There are a fair number
of opportunities
out there for people with your skill set. You might have to temporarily
relocate and there are usually no benefits but the pay is often
considerably better than FTE.

Robert Jones

2006-09-12, 6:55 pm

Luis wrote:
> I am 54 years old. I lost my job to outsourcing after 19 years of
> continuous employment as a mainframe programmer with solid skills in
> Cobol, DB2, Cics, VSAM, etc. This happened in 2002 and after hundreds
> of applications I am yet to receive an opportunity to get back into IT.

> Thanks in advance and I hope to get responses.

message snipped

I sympathise with your position. As well as considering contracting as
per the other poster, I would suggest learning several other computer
related facilities, in particular JAVA, Visual Basic, C and C++, the
NET family of products, UNIX, HTML and XML, PERL, PHP, Python, etc.
You may not get industrial strength experience from that but you will
be well on the way to expanding your portfolio to make yourselve more
attractive to potential employers.

You might also consider voluntary work with websites, etc to get more
practical hands on experience as well as putting somethiing into the
community, you might also gain some useful contacts.

Good luck

Robert

Pete Dashwood

2006-09-12, 6:55 pm

Luis,

you have my sympathy also, but I know that doesn't pay the rent. :-)

Expand your skill set (I know this is hard, but it can be done, - I am older
than you and I did it...- ) and consider contracting.

The advice that Robert has given you below is exactly on the button in my
opinion.

Best wishes and good luck.

Pete.

TOP POST - original unmodified post below.

"Robert Jones" <rjones0@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:1158093247.442943.263090@e63g2000cwd.googlegroups.com...
>
> Luis wrote:
>
>
> message snipped
>
> I sympathise with your position. As well as considering contracting as
> per the other poster, I would suggest learning several other computer
> related facilities, in particular JAVA, Visual Basic, C and C++, the
> NET family of products, UNIX, HTML and XML, PERL, PHP, Python, etc.
> You may not get industrial strength experience from that but you will
> be well on the way to expanding your portfolio to make yourselve more
> attractive to potential employers.
>
> You might also consider voluntary work with websites, etc to get more
> practical hands on experience as well as putting somethiing into the
> community, you might also gain some useful contacts.
>
> Good luck
>
> Robert
>

Robert Jones

2006-10-08, 7:55 am

Luis wrote:
> I am 54 years old. I lost my job to outsourcing after 19 years of
> continuous employment as a mainframe programmer with solid skills in
> Cobol, DB2, Cics, VSAM, etc. This happened in 2002 and after hundreds
> of applications I am yet to receive an opportunity to get back into IT.

message snipped

Further to my earlier response, I have since come across the following
link to a self-teaching course called software carpentry, which seems
like quite a good intro for a mainframe programmer to the world of
non-mainframe programming in a Unix environment, though the principles
are intended to be much more wide-ranging.

http://www.swc.scipy.org/

For those who haven't already got Unix, it involves downloading Cygwin
a Windows Unix emulator because though the course is intended for both
Windows and Unix development, there apparently aren't any good Windows
emulators for Unix.

I haven't done this course myself yet, but probably will when I have
obtained a broadband connection for the downloads.

Anyone else's comments on this course would be welcome.

Robert

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