Either the job market is good and people are lying, or I am getting really lucky.

Posted by heapsp@reddit | sysadmin | View on Reddit | 18 comments

After seeing my friends leave my org and get higher paying jobs (everything from network engineer to cloud administrator to cloud engineer) I decided to take a voluntary severance. I almost did not do it because I've heard so many doom and gloom stories from people submitting 200 applications and getting ghosted through all of them. I just landed a position in MA and went from 130k to 165k in my FIRST APPLICATION / RECRUITER that contacted me. I just cancelled the other 3 interviews I had lines up (6 applications submitted in total). Granted, im not a traditional sysadmin - more of an azure specialist that doesn't do much devops work with 15 years of IT experience.... My coworkers ranged in experience from 5-10 years and all landed awesome jobs as well. So what gives? The loudest voices are the ones with the bad resumes or don't interview well? I would assume with all the layoffs in tech that this wouldn't be the case. Area?

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18 Comments

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primalsmoke@reddit

The company you come from is important, certain organizations or even teams carry a reputation. Recruiters and vendors have inside knowledge. Word on the street might be that your company is a place ripe for poaching.

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heapsp@reddit (OP)

This is true, I switched industries completely but the WORK is very similar and the recruiter had lots of connections within my previous company.

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primalsmoke@reddit

I rode that wave when Windows NT 3.51 first came out. It was first adopted by a major financial institution, after that I could write my own ticket, having been part of that deployment. I went to another financial institution which was also cutting edge. The recruiter that you used is selling your company's reputation which is based on an excellent staff. Think it's a school. Organizations that have employees with bad attitudes can be the kiss of death for a career

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ManBeef69xxx420@reddit

Seems like you got lucky. I started looking for a new 100% remote job in Jan of 2022. I was a solo sysadmin for 7 years at my job at the time, but they decided to be dumb and order everyone on-site. I had done so much work to make WFH as smooth as possible and they had zero reason to make people come to the office. Either way, I was sold on WFH and stated applying. Had a few interviews, ended up taking a NOC tech role. BIG step down from the sys/netadmin stuff I was doing solo but damn.... I'm making 120k+/yr for babysitting servers and doing like 30mins of work per week. its amazeballs

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heapsp@reddit (OP)

> 100% remote job I forgot to mention i was ONLY applying for hybrid roles so i could be more competitive.

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TaiGlobal@reddit

As a person who has been in interviews hiring for several roles imo the ppl complaining just aren’t skilled. There’s a desperate need for talent and you have that in the right areas (azure) you should be fine.

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heapsp@reddit (OP)

I think that's the case too. I don't want to sound like an old man but it seems everyone who is complaining hasn't really put in any true effort. To hit almost 100% interview rate I was picking the jobs I applied to very carefully. I probably SAW 200 postings but didn't apply to them. They seemed like bait / low pay / bad companies / could tell they were looking for overseas or low paid immigrants. The 4ish applications i put in took a lot of work! Linkedin Premium Used an AI tool to generate 100s of professional looking photos and used the best ones for my social media profiles I took a resume style that could pass ATS and created a few different base versions (using AI) Then for each job posting I edited the resume based on the job description (using AI) Most required cover letters so i wrote them (using AI) And of course I had to make small changes so it didnt LOOK like AI. Then i had to keep up with recruiters and keep on them, acting like a salesperson for myself to the recruiter so they would open the door.

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obviousboy@reddit

It ain’t that hot - your small circle isn’t the bigger picture (which apparently is hard to figure out) https://www.cnbc.com/2025/08/01/jobs-report-july-2025.html

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heapsp@reddit (OP)

Right but its just a completely bogus number ANYWAYS. I've been around long enough to see GREAT JOB NUMBERS and the hiring market feel horrible, and vice versa.

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Aaron-PCMC@reddit

I just left a position because 2 recruiters reached out to me and it ended in 2 job offers. Took the sysadmin job for a multi-city hospital system making considerably more.. I think its highly dependent on where you are.

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moderatenerd@reddit

In 2021 I was making $15/hr during COVID due to the industry sucking at that time and me having to restart my career essentially. I just accepted a $120K job. That’s an 8x increase in just four years. I still can't believe it sometimes, but it's really just a matter of luck at this point in my career.

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jpnd123@reddit

I've applied to six jobs in the last couple years, got three interviews..one offer. Rejected the offer because they couldn't pay enough. Though I do have like 15 years of experience and not bad at what I do.

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rcp9ty@reddit

I think you have to look at your audience. Most system admins lack people skills. Most of them don't learn how to do their homework and learn how to blend into the company they are trying to work at. Most of them are just copy pasting their resume. Some will use AI to help them and then forget to remove the long dash. There are keyword tools to figure out what the company is looking for as well in the job posting that most people don't use. Lastly, taking a severance looks way better than someone who was just laid off. Employers want to take someone from another job because it means that the person is worth keeping. Being laid off just says the company didn't feel like investing in you. Even when I laid myself off from my last company it was still hard to find a job. I know that sounds weird. I was #2 at a MSP and money was tight because our clients were pulling budgets do to recession fears. So I told the owner if things get any tighter to let me go so they could put food on the table. So when our main client lied about increasing our budget they were forced to lay me off.

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LargeP@reddit

I have to agree, I have had 8 jobs in my career and I have always recieved an offer after interviewing. Not sure what cities are so hard to get a job in, but the west coast has been great.

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coldfusion718@reddit

You got lucky.

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HungryTacoMonster@reddit

Landing something on your first application is definitely super lucky. But 165K for 15 years experience is right about normal if not even a little under what you might be able to get with a little resume adjusting / network and interview schmoozing.

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RedShift9@reddit

During covid, companies would hire anyone who said they could type on a keyboard, but now we're back to pre-covid competency levels, so that leaves a bunch of people out. And then a lot seem to aim for these really big enterprises where hiring is a whole ordeal whilst in the meantime there are so many more SME's that are screaming to get IT people, and they are much easier to get in to.

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TrickGreat330@reddit

Cool story bro