Slashdot Mirror
Post-crash Salary Survey
MrRules writes "It's that time again;
the 2002 salary survey's are out.
This year there's an interesting twist:
SAGE,
SANS and Sun's
BigAdmin site have combined to run the largest global
participation sysadmin salary survey ever done.
What I like is that this is different to those surveys
done by HR departments -- this is real data on how you
spend your time, by sysadmins for sysadmins. It'll be interesting to see how things have changed over the past 18 months."
Well, I'm a systems admin for the army, and you know what? I am almost positive every sysadmin job's salary is higher than mine.
It's only money...
I am currently admin for my laptop "." And I have to tell you I dont pay myself squat. damn the management.
Don't know about you but I get worried that this is as good as it gets salary wise, after big jumps through the bubble it's quite possible that this is the pinnacle of our (techies) earning potential for a long time to come (I know boo hoo, but still a strange position to be in)
Any survey where the very first question is "What is your e-mail address?" makes me very very suspicious, especially when they collect all sorts of financial data as well.
Still, given Slashdot's anti-spam attitude, I thought that maybe they are a decent organization and checked their privacy policy. Vain hope, it actually bluntly says: SAGE might also use this email address to notify you of other related news and we all know what this usually means, right?
Now call me paranoid but I've been burned by much more innocent looking sites asking for my e-mail address.
When men used to be men
In my last job which I left a few months back there had been a pay freeze on for 3 years. Whilst the price of good went up our wages stayed the same so in essence we were taking a pay cut. Going from what I've been hearing frm other people who are looking is that people are offering pretty much the same of down. Thats the way I'm reading it.
The economy is down and as there are so many people desperate to get jobs companies know they can offer lower rates and there will normally be someone who will be able to do the job well and except whatever the company is willing to pay.
I would be interested to know if there were still any growth areas but I think not apart from prehaps skills in very specialised subjects
Rus
Cheap UK and US VPS
I had to take a position as Sysadmin, Oracle DBA, Developer (mostly java) in order to keep my phony baloney 6 figures salary when my dot.com went dot.bellyup. Are there still jobs out there where you're just doing systems administration?
(before you mod, learn to take a joke)
Religion is a gateway psychosis. -- Dave Foley
Over the same period I've had four ten percent "take it or leave us" pay cuts, leaving me with a huge dent in my take-home pay.
How are other programmers faring? What's your plan? I'm sticking where I am for the time being and DEFINITELY plan to move on as soon as the market picks up.
If the /.ed state of the server is anything to go by.. We just sit around /. all day and bring down servers collectivly..
oh well.. back to my coffee..
"Consider how lucky you are that life has been good to you so far. Alternatively, if life hasn't been good to you so far
Insightful. Informative.
I heartily agree with him or her.
It would be nice if my company (and my previous company) could afford a Sysadmin... Be happy if you can be in the Sysadmin survey cause every developer I know is in a "Self-admin" shop... where the network has 100 band-aids and nobody can quite remember all of the Root passwords.
Take my word, don't come to Spain
I'm thinking about moving to Germany or something like that to get a good pay
May the source be with you!
It won't suprise me at all if this survey shows negligable changes in salaries over the last 12 months - companies prefer to make redundancies to cutting wages as the effect on moral of those who are left is much less.
However, if the statistics were an equivalent of GDP for IT industry professionals (i.e. an estimate of the total take home pay of the profession) then the figures would almost certainly be utterly horrible.
According to www.jobsmeta.co.uk and www.jobstats.co.uk advertised vacancies in the UK are running around 50% of the middle of last year - in addition the hourly rate/annual salaries have also slipped (due to simple supply/demand). It wouldn't suprise me if IT-GDP (for want of a better term) was down 20-30% on the year.
Really this is just a way of saying things are tough all over - I'd like not to complain, but as one of the many people who are looking at the moment this market sucks and the reasons can't really be reduced to simple one-liners or attributed to anyone/thing in particular.
Right now a couple of months off to get some R&R thats been lacking over the last 5 years doesn't go amiss - but in a couple more I'm likely to get really flexible in what I'll look at just to avoid going mad at home. My main concern isn't a pay-cut (my essential bills are around 30% of my last salary) - but I don;t want to take a job outside of my key skills, people pay a huge amount of attention to your last role so it would be like writting off my career to date.
In the mean time I'm doing the odd day of freelance work - its not a lot but its covering the bills.
I guess we'll see where we end up.
Or are they just going to come in an email when they are done collecting data? It'd be nice if they had a current results page or something up.
A survey by Sans/Saga and no https for the forms?!
Houston, we have a problem.
OK, although many /.ers are out of jobs, THIS IS NOT A CRASH. It's a recession. Even Alan Greenspan, the 20th time winner of the Most Boring Person Award, says so. Also, although i hate to add a political twist to it, it's not the Republicans' fault: it started when Clinton was in office and exhibited itself fully when Bush took over. September 11th just 'broke the camel's back' so to speak.
If you want a system administrator job, look into the medical field. At least, if you're a surgeon, you won't have to worry about people installing new versions of their innards.
I'm the Devil the Windows users warned you about.
It looks like us geeks are bringing down the curve.
survey's? surveys!
Before:
Occupation: Student (K-12/Post-secondary) with a side dabbling of NT and UNIX administration.
Salary: After:
Occupation: Student (K-12/Post-secondary) with a side dabbling of NT and UNIX administration.
Salary: How many of you share my plight?
I'm the Devil the Windows users warned you about.
Maybe now Cliff won't have to work at burger king?
-- http://www.criticalassets.com
...the sysadmins that run the linked site in the article get a payraise for dealing with a /.ing.
from a Dell Tester Eng.- dell is paying pretty good right now
System Administrators Guild ?
Does that not spell " SAG " ? !
Funny how that became SAGE , I feel SAG is a much more accurate description of Sys Admins generally.
Love,
BOFH
Do not ignore the India factor. 38% of all IT jobs are now outsourced for minimal wage in India according to the garnet group. This was done not just for companies looking for cheap labor but also to keep the American market oversatuared and thus salaries go down to rock bottom.
.com era is diffinetly over. I saw an ad in the paper for a jr FreeBSD admin for only 20k a year!
Most admin jobs are typically in the mid 30's now for 5 years experience and if you have many years perhaps you can make as much as 50k. The
http://saveie6.com/
Given that they only started collecting the data at the end of last week I doubt the results are going to be in yet.
You may think me a tired, old, cynic. I'd have to disagree about the tired bit.
It was frightening to see how much I was down from 2001 to 2002 :(
You may think me a tired, old, cynic. I'd have to disagree about the tired bit.
sage.org@yourdomain.com
Then if you get a bunch of junkmail you can throw a fit and you can shut that address down.
The man who trades freedom for security does not deserve nor will he ever receive either. - Benjamin Franklin
So, excuse me if my heart doesn't bleed for you.
Government of the people, by corporate executives, for corporate profits.
And therefore would fairly quickly not own such a company.
HTH.
Government of the people, by corporate executives, for corporate profits.
Beta is broken and the link to classic doesn't work. Stop wasting our time or there won't be anybody left here.
That seems pretty damn stupid to me. I'd rather have a paycut then a lose my job, but then again england does seem to have a better unemployment system.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
Quick link to create your account.
What you are saying is that the last 4 years have created unrealistic salaries for people who skills do not give the business benefits those salaries demand.
Or to put it another way, if you plot the salary curve for the last 20 years and factor out the
An Eye for an Eye will make the whole world blind - Gandhi
They only need it because they're gonna give it to other admins that make more than you, so they can point and laugh!
"Headline at SAGE: every sysadmin makes more than targo! Click here to email and make fun of him"
I know Bush is the pom pom queen for the economy, but if his past successes are good predictors of future success, our economy is doomed.
The skeletons in his closet are busted companies and state shortfalls in the billions.
It's easy to cut taxes, but I'd like to see some cuts in spending too.
(end rant)
Sorry, it just ticks me off that the economy sucks and Bush is asking for more money to go piss off other countries.
On another note, if I was in Iran, I'd be worried. I can imagine how worried I'd feel if some foreign country invaded Mexico and Canada...
"Only one thing, is impossible for god: to find any sense in any copyright law on the planet." Mark Twain
Thats exactly why I am now in the PBX industry. I'm making $41k for a Jr. Nortel admin job, and the industry is even growing a little.
I'll just wait here until things get better outside. (I still freelance on the side to keep my edge.)
Or did his doubling of the a in "contraact" confuse you enough to not recognize the word?
If some moron had not been counting on a goddamn surplus in a time of economic stagnation maybe we would not be in this predicament. Bush is over spending and under taxing, especially the damn millionaires who have all kinds of crazy tax shelters, hmm small insurance companies as a vehicle for investment. Of course the economy could not continue at the previous rate but clear bush acerbated the situation.
I keep hearing (mostly on slashdot) some people complain that they are shut out of CS degrees because of an inability or unwillingness to get through the requisite math courses.
I must say that I have a very difficult time believing this, but under the weight of so many complaints I am willing to concede that my judgement may be off on this point.
However, the parent post's comment about "vb weenies who are gifted in mathmatics" has me intrigued. I've never seen one of these - what do they look like? I've seen vb weenies with a BA in Economics and even once with some sort of two-year accounting degree, but neither was what I'd call particularly skilled in mathematics. What mathematics they knew was rote memorization of the kind that can often get you through calculus (these days), but not far beyond.
So what does a vb weenie gifted in mathematics do? What is the characteristic of their programming style that one can point to and say "See, this bad practice? That's the sign of a mathematically gifted vb weenie." ?
I'm especially curious about people who fit this pattern with bachelor's degrees in mathematics, computer science, or one of the natural sciences.
if only u grammer nazi's wud just loose teh atittude, OK? ;)
Quick review:
The rules for apostrophes are fairly simple. Plural never gets an apostrophe. Contractions always do, and possessives always do except for "its". If you can replace "its" with "it is", use the apostrophe. If not, don't.
* Contractions:
he'd (meaning "he had")
it's (meaning "it is")
wouldn't (meaning "would not")
* Possessives
John's truck
that kid's shoe
all the dogs' tails (notice how more than one dog, so we put the apostrophe after the "s").
EXCEPTION: I patted its head
* Plural
hats
cats
surveys
Some are irregular (and you just have to know them), and sometimes you change the spelling at the end, but still no apostrophes:
octopi
deer
mice
theses
potatoes
Jesuses
puppies
What area are you in? None of the jobs i've been looking at with 5 yrs pay less than 45. I'm well over 50 (but under 60).
That's without a degree.
So like, maybe proven track records do help (there's a -reason- I have a 3 page resume, folks. fuck that 1 page shit).
Hell, I just give them Cowboy Neil's address.
WTF? Over?
The 'actual' tax rate is the marginal tax - that is to say the tax that is paid on the next dollar earned...
...
/rant off/ /Just paid taxes last night..../
For most high income earners the effective tax rate is closer to 40%
Taxes are the single highest and 'never ending' cost that will be / is faced by all workers and earners..
And boy just about now, people are beginning to wonder why the hell they outsourced. Slowly *very* slowly the penny is dropping with management that cheap != good.
Make no mistake, those that have been biding their time over the past 18-24 months are starting to see market improvements, and are in place to maximize this.
I've seen people that have been made redundant 12 months ago get re-employed by their ex-employers, and other people rewriting huge portions of overseas-outsourced work.
While taking the survey, I hit a "next"-type button and the page came up 404. I hit F5 and was taken back to the begining! I bailed. Anyone else have this happen?
Do I think the world would be all rosy and sunshine if the guy who was probably elected actually got into office?
Here is some information that might help you understand why Bush was, in fact, elected:
How the Electoral College Works
Hopefully, armed with that information, you'll be less likely to make yourself look silly in the future.
I have a question for the people who are mourning the decline in salaries. Have you considered moving to where the same job would be more profitable?
I ask this question because I am considering it myself. I am a programmer specialized on a platform that is practically dead. (Natural/Adabas, if you're curious.) A search 2 weeks ago on monster.com showed that there were more jobs for this platform available in India than in the rest of the world combined. Here, there were only 8 jobs posted across the nation. (Did I mention that this platform was practically dead?)
Yes, I realize that these Indian jobs are probably just contracted back here to the U.S., but I will apply next week for a passport. When I receive it, I will then begin checking on these Indian jobs. "If you can't beat 'em, join 'em." Ya know? I'm assuming that the relative pay in India will still be better than taking a lower-paid job here in the U.S. on a modern platform. I intend to talk with an Indian programmer soon to get his opinions.
Have other people pushed this option out of their minds? I just wanted to point out that it may still be valid.
"The directions are brief so you can read them all. Here they are:
If you worked less than two months during 2002, please skip this survey. "
I refuse to become just another statistic.
-- Each tock of the Planck clock is a new world and here we are still life. --
True, salaries are less compared to the US, but then the costs of living are less, so wouldn't your overall standard of living be similar?
/.ers care to comment about their situation?
I would be interested to hear what your Indian contact has to say about living and working in India.
Actually, I am more interested in Latin America. Any Latin American
Hostile fire zone? Let me see if I can get this straight: you are approaching Bagdad and you find the time to post on slashdot!?
What is this world coming to...
Deficit spending does not necessarily mean spending more money. It means spending more money than you have. The chart simply shows that Clinton was taxing the hell out of us and had more to spend, more than he needed even!
Sure GW could get rid of deficit spending the way the democrats do, by raising taxes. But if you guys are complaining now, I would hate to be around to hear you then.
This headline is misleading. I want survey results not to take a survey. I don't have one of the few remaining IT jobs. I want to know how much to ask for if and when the return and I can apply for one.
"You'll get nothing, and you'll like it!"
You ask how I fare? Friend, would you believe I am stoked?
I once had the kind of soul-crushing, life-draining job I see you describe: Cram-downs from the management, missed paydays, and a stunning sale announcement just before all the employees were handed their hats and rushed off at the end of a workday. This was back when the net was just emerging from itâ(TM)s embryonic form, long before Arthur Anderson and Enron. Harder to handle was the constant belittlement from management because I had funny ideas about this Internet thing, and it was something they knew little of and understood even less. I made plenty of big mistakes, it was my first âoerealâ job. I freely admit I was far from a model employee. Of course, I didnâ(TM)t personally raid the pension fund and try to screw my ex-employees out of their 401k money either.
In the ensuing years I found occasional work as a consultant, but couldnâ(TM)t seem to find the right environment to settle down in. Not to mention the trials and tribulations of independent consulting including nightmare environments, contract shenanigans, evil-doing clients, and the classic, âoeI never said that,â defense. While never soul-crushing per se, these engagements did range from hair-raising to nut-clenching.
Finally though, Iâ(TM)ve managed to come up with something that works for me in the sense that I get to control my own destiny, I do work that satisfies me creatively, and I donâ(TM)t have to add nearly as many people to my Book of Grudges. Being able to live with the person I see in the mirror each morning is also quite a bonus.
The first big question is what is your status as a business entity?
If youâ(TM)re employed through a contract agency, youâ(TM)re kind of stuck. They are effectively your bosses. You are their employee. As such your arrangement with the customer is constrained by whatever your company has set up with them. They charge the customer more than you cost, and keep the profits. Try to go to work for a customer and theyâ(TM)ll bitch up a storm. Still, this can be an okay deal, as long as you can find an honest outfit to work for.
On the other hand, if you have your own company, you have more flexibility. The customer contracts with your company to provide some service. Thatâ(TM)s your job. Of course, you also have to handle all the business development, billing, taxes and such that go along with having a small business. On the upside, you keep the profits that would have gone to the agent. The downside is youâ(TM)ll have to pay for any benefits like health insurance or retirement out of those profits. The nature of the arrangement with the customer is up to you. The trick is to manage it to your advantage.
If you think of the customer as the boss, or let them force you into the role of employee, youâ(TM)re out of the game before it even started. Theyâ(TM)ll treat you like a regular employee. They might even put you through their regular interview process. You get all the responsibility and headaches of being an employee, without most of the benefits. In the end, of course, you are only a contractor and not a real employee, and as such disposable and interchangeable. Geeksploitation, if you will. There are some places where being a contract employee (as opposed to a consultant) isnâ(TM)t so bad, but they also donâ(TM)t tend to have openings.
Alternatively, you can think of yourself as the boss of your consulting firm and your customer as your Client. By Client I mean not just the party by which your firm is being retained to perform certain services at some rate of compensation, but also the notion of a valued customer with whom your firm can form a lasting and mutually beneficial relationship. Contract negotiation is beyond the scope of this discussion, but it is critical your contract meets your needs as well as your clients. All too often the legal dep
"If you want to make a good living in Spain working on computers you have to start your own company, or have good friends in high places. That's why I moved to the US :)"
Actually I don't know if the "start your own business" is really any better. You're starting out at a big disadvantage, and then you have twice the work, plus the economy tanking means there's less customers. The only one's getting rich in that situation are the antacid makers.
Actually, what HR thinks is that people with computer science degrees have been able to acquire a set of analytical skills that you may or may not have. Besides that, people with a degree have a well-rounded education. In other words, they have been exposed to thoughts, ideas, and ways of thinking that are not just limited to "desktop troubleshooting and systems administration". They have taken courses in history, philosophy, sociology, psychology, and, yes, mathematics, all of which contribute to a more interesting and educated individual. Companies know that someone who is able to get through a degree has the ability to do more than just troubleshoot Windows on a daily basis. There are employers out there who are interested in long-term retainment of employees, and having those employees progress through a career path, instead of just being "coders" or "sysadmins" for the duration of their stay at the company.
I hate to be blunt, but any monkey can learn to pull the levers on a box in some arcane way; it's harder to learn what's going on inside the box, and even harder to learn what ideas and theories contributed to the box being built in the first place. The latter is what a degree attempts to give you. If you can master that, then you'll have the analytical skills to then learn how to "desktop troubleshoot" or do "systems administration". Yes, you can learn how to do those things without a degree, but there are two differences: with a degree, you'll know the Why, not just the How; and in obtaining a degree, you will have demonstrated that you have the communication skills and analytical abilities to excel at more than just pulling levers on a box.
Having said all that, there are certainly exceptional individuals who can go far without a degree, but I think those individuals are limited in number. They certainly are not among the ones who post messages saying "i can code circles around you" or refer to "vb weenies who are gifted in mathematics".
My 2 cents.
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the 2002 salary survey's are
Is Hemos going to go back to 3rd grade to learn how to use an apostrophe? Jesus, that's why nobody's getting hired - they all write and spell like 2nd graders.
Last time I checked, I never got a job from a poor person and *most* rich people didn't get rich pulling an Enron, robbing the banks, or pillaging the villages - they got rich because we choose to buy their stuff and use their services over someone elses. Now to turn arround and talk about how the rich owe us and aren't paying their "fair share" is sorta disingenuious - wouldn't you say. IMHO, it's like saying "well that gal got raped, so it's only fair that you do too - and more so because you're prettier". Look, if a rich person is doing something unethical to gain wealth, then fine lets address that action - but lets not attack everyone who happens to have wealth, that will destroy all of us in a hurry.
One more thing, if you gave a bunch of money to poor people, they would spend it and commerce would happen, and people would be engaged in work. But that won't help the economey one bit - just like we could also keep everybody actively engaged in making mud pies, and have the system pay them a good salary for it too - yeah everyone's buisy, yeah everyone's making money, but when you look at the greater picture - nothing helpfull is happening other than a bunch of shit.
Good riddance to those days. Worst thing about the boom was all the loudmouthed "web guys" in bars bragging about how much money they made. :)
:-)
Many of them paid in stock or promises of stock upon future IPO (that perhaps never happened).
You have to realize that Cash was *not* in style during that time. (And still not
Perhaps some people bragged about it, but that does not mean it happened. If they are liars, they can *still* brag I would note. They are now "anti-terrorism network security experts" or something else that gets the girls all hot & wet.
Table-ized A.I.
Northeast US, Consultant, NT/2000/Novell SysAdmin, 22% pay cut. 300 of us in a major corporation. It does beat being out of work so I am grateful, although I did have to adjust spending.
Relive the BBS Past - One Byte at a Time! www.ssabbs.com
It just means you have to work harder, and *gasp* be good at sales. IT folks are not usually sales-savvy, but being good at it is a must in this economy.
I lost my previous job about six months ago due to layoffs. I have friends who worked with me and are no less skilled technically than I am but who are still unemployed and have practically given up hope.
OTOH, I landed a gig within six weeks of being laid off. The only difference is that I taught myself sales as a survival skill, and I wasn't willing to settle for less.
Companies still need people, you just have to look harder and sell better than other people. Skills are out as a salary determiner, and sales/marketing is in. And yes, there are jobs that actually pay. I'm making about 10% less than I did in the boom, but I'm not making 50-100% less. I owe it more to my sales skills than my tech skills.
On a side note, you cannot be a poseur and still expect to make any money. I am a web developer, but I was deep into it well before the boom, so I do have the skills to back me up (although I do not have a formal college degree, I do have a lot of job experience).
If you are skilled and jobless, then most likely you have not learned sales. Sales is a learned skill, and while I don't enjoy doing it, it has saved my ass...it could save yours too.
As for my personal post-crash salary, I'm still making six figures.
I would be very interested in following up on this statistic you provide, however, raw searches are not turning up much for the "garnet group".
I find it interesting that those in charge of the network (admins) are often not those in charge of securing it. Those that secure it incidently aren't in charge of applying patches... what a fun little world. The point of that is the infoSec field seems to be picking up and lots of decent salaries out there for those that now their shit. It's not nearly as bloated as the dotcom bubble but it's interesting.
Gartner group. I made a typo. It was on zdnet.com about a month or 2 ago.
http://saveie6.com/
I like that usage of burned for a used up email address.
William S. Burroughs in _Junky_ used "burned down" for a pharmacy or doctor that could no longer be taken advantage of by a junkie. Burroughs was quoting an idiom already in use.
On the other hand, giving your address to SAGE is very low risk. This is the System Administrators Guild, and they're trying to increase professionalism of and regard for System Administrators. They're a very responsible organization.
If you are a system administrator, join SAGE, and learn, contribute, or both. I'm glad to be a member. It ain't cheap, ($135/yr?) but that survey alone more than made up the difference, and again when I advised a friend. They have a really good magazine, too.
Assembly is the reverse of disassembly.
...I'm at 75% of my salary 9 months ago. Six months ago I was laid off (from a dot-bomb) and I have now been working approximately 2 months at a full-time position.
Thanks to the largesse of a lot of people, we survived this lay-off and did not miss a house or car payment.
Raw statistics - In 6 months I applied for approximately 80 jobs, interviewed at 14, got 2 job offers revoked, and got 3 valid job offers (one of which was from a company I previously had a revoked job offer from). Of those 3, two were full-time position offers and 1, obviously, contract. The contract offer was for very good money; both of the full-time offers were 72-75% of my previous salary, however, they were both in job markets (regions) that normally only offered 80-85% of the salary of the previous market I had worked in (the SF Bay Area). So I would say my net pay decrease was about 10-15% if I had stayed in the same market.
All job offers gelled within a month of each other, but I wouldn't necessarily consider this a sign that things were good or getting better with the economy. I was, in fact, originally told I didn't get this position, but because the original person they offered it to didn't take it I took the position. So, I am second banana amid a competitive field - but I'll take second banana to no banana at all. The other position was at a public institution where starting pay is typically very low (woulda been the same even in a good economy), but benefits are excellent. The third position was great pay, no benefits, but in an IT dept. that had been decimated by layoffs over 2 years. And the commute woulda been HORRIBLE.
Anyway, I suppose my stats could be worse. I could have had far fewer interviews - a friend of mine has been out of work 8+ months and has had NO interviews. And, of course, I could still have no job.
Even at 75% I'm happy it's not 0%.
That's another reason I'm thinking about getting into the PBX industry. PBX resellers have been making way more money than they should for a long time. By now, they're all basically PC's anyways. I'd be able to sell IP phones for half the price of those stupid, impossible-to-program PBX's and still make as much as I do consulting.
"I assumed blithely that there were no elves out there in the darkness"
So, add $80,000-150,000 to your annual salary in your many responses. Thanks.
Look here. Not only is it at 38% today but its expected to grow up to %56 in a couple years!
I wanted to stay anonymous on this one. My company (telecom) is actually one of the very few that is doing better than better. We are hiring like crazy, we've bought new markets around the midwest, and I just got a huge bonus. I get paid very well ($75K/year w/o bonus), however, I am doing the work of two programmers, a manager, and a support tech. I'm doing extra work, but glory to God that I have this job!
The fact that you can find a $95K "senior network engineer" job on Monster doesn't prove squat, IMHO.
The field is hurting right now, as evidenced by the large numbers of talented individuals who can't find anything other than spotty temp. work right now!
I spent months chasing after promising-sounding jobs offered on Monster, and I've found they're almost a complete waste of time to respond to. Many times, they're posted by H.R. departments running "fishing expeditions" to see what comes back. (Managers are something just "thinking about" hiring someone, and don't have budget approval for it yet. They'll put these job postings out there just to see if they happen across some candidate w/resume so incredibly perfect, they can use it as ammo to try to get that budget approval for their extra guy.)
Many other times, companies already know full-well who they're going to hire for an opening. The job posting is a simple formality to keep everything legal. I.T. managers quite often hire people they know personally, or people who come as direct recommendations from co-workers they already trust and respect. As a nobody, blasting an email out because of some Monster.com listing, your chance of getting the job are 0%.
I'd say to those who can, get out of IT.
IT industry comparisons abound, and the one that springs to mind is the early 19th century Auto industry. This is the difference between those people who used to hand-build a few cars a year until Ford started the assembly line.
India is now your IT assembly line.
35k/yr or 50k/yr is peanuts. I didn't spend all that time and money(yes training/varsity fees) in IT to earn this sort of shit.
Career change for me.
I will grant you it is not coming up roses .
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out there, but things are not as bad as
some ppl are making them out to be
As for HR I have feelings of undying
resentment to some of the HR ppl I have
met and seen abuse and missue their positions
for personal gain, and under the guise
of "for the company"
If you are a programmer you could be in
deep $hit in more ways than one
Their are some skills that are sought
after right now, and some have gone cold
Too many H1-b's, to many L1 visas too
As for most of the work being contract,
yes you are right, during times of crisis
most new workers are contract
It is what I have been working since the
DOT BOMB BUST, and I make more now then
I did before it happened, but I have held
out for months for the good pay
Right now I have enough saved that I quit
my job and I am doing training full time
Too many jobs being farmed out overseas
their are sweatshop Contract agencys that
hire only Visa workers and cater to
corporations that want to pressure the
foreign worker to work hideous hours
for salary
A professor from UC davis norman matloff
went to congress about it raising all kinds
of hell, and has a website about it
Ok, what are your certifications ???
What degree(s) do you have amigo ???
How many years of experience ???
ARE YOU WILLING TO RELOCATE ???
As for nay saying, and shooting down every
comment I could possible post
I don't blame you for being depressed,
frustrated, and resentful
You have already given up, and it is going
to take someone other than me to get you to
pick yourself up and dust yourself off
and go back to battle the rat race
I am no more fond of it than you, I have
just reach acceptance if not grudgingly
Peace...
Ex-MislTech
google "32 trillion offshore needs IRS attention"
It is a very humbling experience to make a multimillion-dollar mistake, but
it is also very memorable. I vividly recall the night we decided how to
organize the actual writing of external specifications for OS/360. The
manager of architecture, the manager of control program implementation, and
I were threshing out the plan, schedule, and division of responsibilities.
The architecture manager had 10 good men. He asserted that they
could write the specifications and do it right. It would take ten months,
three more than the schedule allowed.
The control program manager had 150 men. He asserted that they
could prepare the specifications, with the architecture team coordinating;
it would be well-done and practical, and he could do it on schedule.
Futhermore, if the architecture team did it, his 150 men would sit twiddling
their thumbs for ten months.
To this the architecture manager responded that if I gave the control
program team the responsibility, the result would not in fact be on time,
but would also be three months late, and of much lower quality. I did, and
it was. He was right on both counts. Moreover, the lack of conceptual
integrity made the system far more costly to build and change, and I would
estimate that it added a year to debugging time.
-- Frederick Brooks Jr., "The Mythical Man Month"
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