Silicon Valley Business Ink

Milpitas resident Jerry Sy knows the challenges of finding a job these days.

The 38-year-old software engineer was out of work for 11 months. However, he appears to be headed back into the work force after receiving a verbal offer from a local tech company.

At the start of his search, he found that the method he used to find a job a decade ago -- the last time he was unemployed -- was ineffective today.

Sending hundreds of résumés to companies that post classified ads in the newspapers seeking someone with his skills has failed to land him a single call from a prospective employer.

After a few months, Sy's spirits sunk so low that he "felt hopeless." He adds that the most depressing part is "I know I can do these jobs."

But some encouraging signs for job seekers are beginning to emerge.

Employers in San Mateo and Santa Clara counties, one of the nation's hardest hit regions, are expecting double-digit increases in employment this fall, according to a survey of 16,000 employers in 400 U.S. markets by Manpower Inc., a New York-based staffing company.

Some of the sectors that are expected to see growth include finance, manufacturing and real estate.

One example is real estate firm Insignia/ESG Inc., whose San Jose office recently lured seven top agents away from competitor Grubb & Ellis and is still hiring.

"We're clearly growing," says Mark Schmidt, executive managing director for the Insignia San Jose office. "We're looking to hire an additional 12 to 15 brokers on our property management side."

The survey showed mixed results for San Francisco, where 43 percent of employers say they plan to expand, but 35 percent warn of job cuts.

Although in the tech sector, job opportunities still look bleak, as software and hardware sales remain flat, causing tech companies to be cautious about increasing payroll.

That leaves thousands of valley software engineers, like Sy, in a quagmire.

"This is the deepest, longest and hardest recession for tech workers in Silicon Valley that I've seen," says Patti Wilson, whose been a career counselor in Santa Clara County through the last three recessions.

But not all unemployed techies are discouraged.

Los Altos resident Maryann Hutchinson has been job searching since being laid off last fall as the information technology director at DHL Worldwide Express, a package shipping company.

"I am a determined optimist," says Hutchinson, who has taken advantage of her time off to help assist redevelopment projects for her homeowners association while also seeking a new job.

She says her positive attitude stems from something her father used to tell her: "[Life] is 5 percent what happens to you, and 95 percent how you deal with it."

In the past few months, Sy had taken a similar approach, figuring he can prove his worth to potential employers by developing software programs.

Once he completed a program for Interactive Brokers Group of Connecticut, Sy posted it online with his résumé.

That caught the eye of the head computer programmer at the company, leading to an interview. Sy says he later declined to pursue the job further because it would have required him to relocate to the East Coast.

But his program (available at http://sling.to/autotrader) has become popular among financial techies who frequent Internet chat rooms to exchange business ideas.

That has spurred global interest in his talents, he says.

"I've been getting e-mails from people who say they can get me a job if I relocate to the U.K. or Australia or the Middle East," he says.

Shortly after the Interactive Brokers interview, Sy landed an interview and a verbal job offer from a local tech firm that saw his program. He says he plans to accept the offer once it is in writing, which was expected to come after Biz Ink went to print.

Despite these signs of encouragement, Sy says the job market is still as bad as it was when he first started his search last fall.

"You just have to get more creative in your job searching and be more flexible," Sy says.