THINKING ABOUT MOVING TO Chicago (Lincoln: sales, find a job, neighborhoods)

[hbwoolf]

Hey!! I am a young, IT grad looking forward to relocating out of Cincinnati for an opening job opportunity and was browsing around some cities that would be a perfect fit for me.I am single, like to make money and have fun and was looking for some people in the Chicago area who can tell me what's Chicago like as a city? Is it more as an urban city, what's the nightlife like up there,what areas would you prefer would be best for a young professional, and would you prefer having a car to get around or can I survived riding public transportation a while say for like a couple of months

[Drover]

Yes, Chicago is an urban city. It makes Cincinnati look like a truck stop. No slam intended against Cincinnati, but Chicago is urban on a much larger scale. Nightlife has pretty much every variation from roped-off clubs with $500 bottle service to corner dive bars serving $2 cans of PBR and most everything in between. You'll also find nearly every type of cuisine imaginable at every conceivable price point.

There are a few neighborhoods where having a car is more of a pain than it's worth. There are others where having a car is manageable but still an unnecessary expense. And then there are are still others where having a car is a borderline necessity unless your hobby is scheduling your life around buses that arrive at their own leisure. The lattermost are not likely to be the sort of neighborhoods where a young professional would be looking to move. For the other two neighborhood types, car-sharing programs like iGo and Zipcar can fill in the gap between needing a car from time to time but not wanting the expense of full-time ownership.

The standard neighborhoods 20-something arrivals tend to flock to are Lakeview, Lincoln Park, Wicker Park and Bucktown. These are solid "young" nightlife neighborhoods that are safe by urban standards, and they're a good starting point for people getting their first taste of the urban life and haven't fine-tuned their urban sensibilities yet.

[chet everett]

The IT market for new grads is VERY tight. Even solid grads from respected programs (DePaul, UIC, IIT, UIUC) with long standing ties to the Chicago IT pipeline are getting no calls.

If you can get a good start LOCALLY with a name employer you will be much more likely to land a solid job down the road. If no on campus recruiters selected you for a job based in Chicago I would recommend agiainst you looking here until you have about a year or so with the kind of firm in Cincinati that IT managers in Chicafo would respect / trust. That means fortune 1000. Believe me if you don't have that you are going to end up with a job that high school GED could get you and if you like making money that won't work...

[Jandur]

I actually work for an IT staffing company here in Chicago, more of a sales oriented role than recruiting though. What is your technical background/experience?

[hbwoolf]

I have a good amount of experience with working with computers.I have recieved my associate this summer (June 2010). and is planning to take the COMPTia A+ cerfication this month. I also had did an internship as a desktop support troubleshooting Microsoft 2000 and XP.

[Jandur]

To be frank it will probably be a little while before you find a job. I'm not bashing your skillset, but there are lot more A+ people out there than say, .NET developers or Oracle DBAs.

If you do move here, bring enough money to live on for a few months, and ideally a car so you can take a job in the suburbs if you find one out there.

[hxcobd]

I don't know if I agree with people saying the IT market is rough right now.

The majority of my background is web development/linux system administration, so I don't know if I directly qualify as "IT," but after putting my resume online on a few Chicago-based sites, I got so many callbacks I was practically beating employers off with a stick.

I'm STILL getting responses to it, despite that I originally posted it over 2 months ago.

*shrugs*