Increasing the Value of the Domestic IT Worker?

KoshClassic asks: "To state it simply, in today's global economy, the IT worker in America is in direct competition with IT workers in countries such as India who are willing to do the same job for less. Much of this willingness has to do with standards and costs of living in these other countries, and without lowering ours or raising theirs, the American IT worker can not compete on even terms if the only consideration is cost. What should American IT workers be doing to differentiate ourselves from our overseas counterparts, to add the kinds of value for employers that will make them want to look beyond direct costs and see other benefits that will make it worthwhile for them to keep these jobs in the US? I'm not sure what the answer to this question is, but I am convinced that the answer lies in trends and industry wide changes, rather than just individuals polishing their own resumes. When an employer decides he needs to fill a programming position, what is going to make him want to fill that position in the U.S. rather than overseas, even before individual candidates are considered"

Comments

Bring management skills

[Pranjal]

.. if you bring management skills to the table you will be better off. The biggest challenge today is to manage projects across time-zones and successfully coordinating between the teams in US and India. If you can demonstrate that you can work in such an environment and can actually manage the tasks also you will be in high demand.

Take it to the next level

[BaronCarlos]

In my realm of IT, our technical support is outsourced to India. While we still provide limited support here in the states, our technical support unit is wary that their jobs may disappear.

My advice to them has been to establish yourself as indispensable. If that means bucking for the "promotion" to 2nd tier, or product contact, or product development, then do it.

Strategicly, the BEST place to be is the domestic Handler, or the technical liason of those outsorced partners. (It has the best job security, for now.) Organization will need someone to make sure that their oversea workers are remaining up-to-par, so they will need to:
A) Know what the right answer is.
B) Make sure that the outsourced workers are providing that answer.
C) Hold the outsourcer (and the geniuses who decided to save money with these outsources) are held accountable to their decisions.

Granted, this is a fraction of the jobs that can remain after being outsourced. However, in my personal example, we are now using our original technical support staff as a 2nd tier unit for our global outsource call centers. (Not because we can, but because we NEED to, as our outsourcers are not as adept in supporting our product as our veteran staffers here.)

Get a new Job?

[Anonymous Coward]

hm, maybe you should read some Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) numbers:
Here is America's job future for the next 10 years:

waiters and waitresses;

janitors and cleaners;

food preparation;

nursing aides, orderlies and attendants;

cashiers

customer service representatives;

retail salespersons;

registered nurses;

general and operational managers;

postsecondary teachers.
For further reading:
http://www.vdare.com/roberts/economy_off shore.htm
http://www.vdare.com/roberts/job_data.h tm
http://www.vdare.com/roberts/where_jobs_go.htm

Re:Vote!

[blincoln]

A little OT, but what is wrong with Walmart? I haven't read any bad crap on them.

You are joking, right?

In case you aren't:

- Many Walmart stores lock their night employees in. As in, they can't get out until the morning, even if their shift ends in the middle of the night. There was a story in the NYTimes (only available paid now) about how people who were injured on the job during those shifts were told that if they went to the hospital, they'd be fired.

- Walmart managers tell new hires that if they unionize, they'll be fired.

- Walmart stores put small local retailers out of business, and replace the jobs they offered with minimum-wage positions.

There's more, but those are the main reasons I won't shop at them. If you are honestly looking for information, just do a google search on the first topic and it should hook you up with a plethora of sites.

Know your user - know their business

[travellerjohn]

Most IT systems fail because they dont do what the customer wants them to do. (for whatever reason - design/technology/usability) Developers in the same office (or at least in the same city) who can walk over and chat to the users and solve their problems, have a much better chance of producing a workable system than a bunch of developers half way across the world. CIOs know this. Pity the poor Indian developer trying to develop a system for a business he knows nothing about for users he has never met. So get out there and listen to your users and understand them, and you have an advantage that no Indian can match without blowing 1000USD on an airfare each time. However if you are stuck in a server room, dont like talking to your users very much, and dont understand their business then you are probably in trouble.

Re:The Myth of Exploitation

[ziggy_travesty]

From m-w.com

Main Entry: exploit
Pronunciation: ik-'sploit, 'ek-"
Function: transitive verb
1 : to make productive use of : UTILIZE
2 : to make use of meanly or unjustly for one's own advantage


Clearly, this word has a positive and a negative connotation. Generally, when people talk about exploiting foreign labor, they probably are referring to (2).

Re:Vote!

[Rick the Red]

You got it wrong. The issue in Inglewood was whether or not to grant WalMart some zoning and building code waivers, including a waiver of the Environmental Impact Statement. WalMart said in advance that if they had to play by the rules, they wouldn't play. I won't speculate on why the voters decided not to grant WalMart their request.

WalMart's not disallowed from anything -- it's they who chose not to build in Inglewood under the same rules as all other businesses.

Wal-mart's doomed business model

[superflippy]

There are some reasons other than what you mentioned that I won't shop at Wal-mart:

1) Their business model is to always lower their prices - you've probably seen the happy face ads on TV. In order to do this, they demand that their suppliers lower their prices. If the supplier refuses, Wal-mart threatens to look for a new supplier. Because Wal-mart is so big, the loss of such a contract can be devastating to most suppliers. So the suppliers cut costs to meet Wal-Mart's demands, laying off workers or moving operations overseas. (There was a good article about this about a month ago, but it's expired.)

2) They no longer let me use my bank MasterCard as a credit card because they don't like the fees MC charges.

3) Their practice of offering lousy employee benefits is encouraging other retailers to do the same.