Looking for a new job sucks

Due to unforeseen circumstances with my current employer I now find myself looking for a new job at the worst possible time to look for employment. Looking for a job has never been a joy for me because it is stressful, at least I think so. This time around though, I am even more frustrated and stressed out and here is the reason why:

Finding an available job is not a problem, there are a lot of IT jobs out there and I have applied to all of them that relate to me but I keep running into one particular issue. My salary. I have been told countless times that I have a unique set of skills that are hard to find. For some reason, IT pros with Citrix experience are rare especially ones that hold security clearances. One thing about me is that I am not specialized in one particular area and I have kept it that way on purpose. I don't want to be type-cast as an email admin or a DB admin or a whatever admin, I like being good at a lot of things, I think it makes me more valuable but whatever I digress.

The initial conversations with the recruiter always start well. They like my experience, they like my skill set, and I would be a perfect fit. Then the question comes about salary. The conversation ends. Unless I am being lied to, I have skills that are hard to find and I am awesome on paper but yet no one seems to want to pay for that. I talked to a lady the other day about a Senior Systems Engineer position that was over 30% below what I currently make. WTF? That is what they pay their senior people? Makes no sense to me. I'll admit that my salary is probably a little above average but I can't be that far above the average that recruiters run the other way when I mention my salary. It is just so frustrating. I do have two guys right now working on something for me and were actually fine with my salary and even said I have the skills to back it up. Hopefully, they come through as time is running out.

This whole process would be simpler if these places would put a salary range on the job posting. I wouldn't apply to them knowing that they wouldn't even be close to my current salary. I'm even willing to negotiate but for various reasons I can't take a 30% pay cut.

I apologize for the rant but I am so frustrated with this process. Any one else run into a similar problem? How'd you deal with it?

The positions that you are applying for, do these recruiters work for the actual companies? Or are they a third party recruiter. The reason I ask is a few years back my sister had a job at a financial organization and was paid around $30/hr for that spot. She received that job via a recruitment company. She eventually found out that the company was really paying $50/hr for her, and the recruitment company got their $20/hr cut, and my sister got the $30/hr.

Just something to think about and why it could be possible that these salaries are 30% less. If these recruiters do work for their companies, then not sure. Employers have all the power right now because the workforce supply is is way higher than demand, however, like you said you sound like a rare type of employee that might be hard to find, so that is your leverage.

I have been doing the hard work though a recruitment company and they are paying me on casual $21.94 for manual labor work and they are at least charging 30-35 a hour. They have to make their money but they are doing all the HR work getting it done.

If you really need work, empty containers and do warehouse work. hard work but good weight loss from too much time in front of the computer too.

But don't worry about the rant, we are all friends here and a lot of us can understand too. But mate you just need to hold out till the new year and jobs will go back to normal but if your really hard up on cash just go do some labor job. Still walk away with 600-800 a week on avg.

Could this salary gap have anything to do with why you're looking for a new job? I get the feeling someone where you were started looking into average salaries for your position (perhaps all positions) and that average has just gone down, perhaps due to younger, less experienced employees trying to get into the game.

Anyways, I hope you end up with what you need.

@bigweb - some are strictly staffing companies and some have been actual recruiters for the company, I have had a mix of all so far. I know how the recruiting/contracting stuff goes. I know at some point they need to make their money and people with high salaries are not attractive.

@zealous - I'm definitely not opposed to doing manual labor and it may resort to that if things don't start to pan out here soon.

@joebert - The reason why I am looking for a new job is because I was hired to support a 5 year contract with a certain government agency. Due to government budgeting practices and probably a whole lot of other bureaucracy the contract is now ending on December 31st. My parent company is telling me they don't have any other contracts they can put me on so I am looking for new employment. *plum* situation.

Salaries in the Northern Virginia/DC area are typically higher than average. I'm sure the "fiscal cliff" is playing a big factor right now which sucks for us who rely on big government contracts to survive. Like I said, I have two guys on my side at the moment, just waiting on some interviews and hopefully they work out.