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Recruiting IT Students?
spacemonk asks: "I teach at a community college and our enrollment numbers are down in our IT programs. We have found that many have the perception that there are few IT jobs. We feel this is causing many students, who might be interested in IT, to enroll in other programs. There is obviously a lot of conflicting information regarding the impact of off-shoring, and so forth, but much of what we have found indicates that the IT job market is improving, and IT is still a career that can offer job opportunities to students. For example, we have had internship opportunities that we have not been able to send candidates to, simply because we don't have the students. Needless to say, this is very frustrating. How would you honestly describe the IT job market to students considering this major? What can be done to recruit more students into IT programs?"
The reason why there were so many IT students 5-10 years ago is because IT jobs were paying higher-than-others wages during the dotcom boom. So as you can expect from average students, they (or their parents) would be more interested in getting an IT job, even if IT wasn't what they wanted as a career.
Now, IT skills have been commoditized, and companies are paying standard wages for IT jobs. As a result, students are moving away from this ordinary job and either looking for something more lucurative, or simply choosing something that they are interested in (like Arts, History etc).
Since companies' needs ( as in wages, not the actual work demand ) for IT have been downsized, shouldn't colleges and universities do the same?
Cassette factory had its time, and it may still be producing cassettes, but it also has to make room for CDs/DVDs.
Rock that crushes, Paper & Scissors that don't matter.
A lot of people were pumped through technicial schools during the bubble. Many of those people were only chasing the supposed promise of big bucks in the IT field. Educational institutes make some pretty good money on their (and the tax payers') backs as well. I worked with enough of these people to become a bit bitter about the whole thing. If you're trying to drum up the same type of business from the same type of people, I can't say I wish you much luck. The world is always in need of throughly educated people who have a genuine interest in technology though.
Entrepreneur : (noun), French for "unemployed"
If it was me, I'd tell prospective students that prospects are really bleak, like north of England bleak. That way, they'd pick another field, the shortage of new recruits would continue, and wages might start to go up again.
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I own a web hosting company, and we've been going through major hiring woes lately. It's not that we can't find people to hire. Oh, there are plenty of people out there. It's just that we can't find qualified people.
It's unbelievable how little Linux system administration experience some candidates have. We're paying a low-to-mid-level salary, so I don't expect to hire a UNIX guru. But these people are failing even the most basic tests. One claimed "Senior UNIX systems administrator" on his resume, but when asked to SSH into a server from a Linux workstation, typed "telnet [server] 25".
Some of the questions we ask in an interview: "Why would you use SSH instead of telnet?" "What is port 25?" "How do you reset the root password on a server when you don't know the current root password?" These are really basic questions, and yet the majority of candidates have no clue how to answer them.
I have a feeling this is only going to get worse as fewer and fewer people enter the IT field. There seems to be a large gap between the entry level, where candidates know little or nothing (or they only know point-and-drool generic PC troubleshooting skills), and the upper end, which demands (but probably deserves) outrageous salaries for knowing how to set up routers and SANs. We're looking for the people fiddling around with Linux servers and setting them up in their spare time who want some on-the-job experience administering and maintaining Linux servers. However, even here in Silicon Valley, that's proven remarkably hard to find. We also keep having to increase our workers' salaries to find even moderately qualified people, which means our costs go up and we can't hire as many people as we need to.
My advice to college students: Go out there and get yourself some experience. There are plenty of jobs out there that you can get right out of college in IT. Sure, they may not pay 6 figures a year, but if you enjoy computers, they're fun jobs. As far as recruiting students into IT, it will probably take a few years before it becomes a popular field again, due to the fact that so many people entered it expecting high salaries several years back. My advice: Set realistic expectations of those entering IT (6 figures right out of college? No. A job right out of college? Probably), and convince those not in a CS/IT major to take elective computer classes in case they want to be in a computer-related field later.
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Today is my first actual day of jobseeking. I've just created an online CV at a job portal, and I'm looking through the list of job offers. .net and knows all kinds of Business-IT jargon.
The list does not leave much for an 18-year-old PHP developer with special interest in UNIX and overall network, web and server security. The list of job offers has more to offer to a person who can call himself a "Senior Software Engineer" who can develop in
I'm a little bit frustrated, but there are a few... a very few companies who are just looking for a good 'ol UNIX systems administrator.
...as documented here http://ask.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/11/19/02 28214&tid=149&tid=129&tid=4, exploit that trend to your advantage.
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Dedicated Linux servers (root access) $45 p.M.
My suggestion for getting a job in IT is to have a secondary skillset. I work at an audio post production house doing IT work. I have the job because I also know audio. If you can't apply your IT skills to what the business is doing, then you are not as useful to the company.
There are definitely jobs to be had for people who can support the infrastructure of what it takes to do business in today's world. You just need to be able to apply what you know to what is being done.
There aren't a terribly huge amount of IT jobs. I've been fortunate to find work over the past 5 years in a rather depressed city of Ottawa. I just shake my head when I speak to students who are taking courses in IT and IT related fields and people tell them there are lots of jobs out there.
;)
A lot of the people I went to college with are phone jockeys or aren't even doing what they were prepping for. Granted we all graduated at the WORST possible time in high-tech (2000-01), I was again fortunate to already have a few years under my belt before I started college.
About the only way for you to stick out from the croud of people trying to get the jobs is to take a co-op placement. It's how I started my career and what I reccommend to people wanting to get in to the industry.
Naturally I bring up the beer keg and free drinks at my work as motivation but not all of us are as lucky
Cheers,
I Like Pie...
What facet of IT are you talking about? Network Administrator? Systems Administrator? Help Desk? Software Developer? Conversations like these always suffer from a lack of clarification about what group of people are being discussed as all of the categories I listed above require more-or-less different skillsets.
I can't seem to hire 4-year college grads in any of my IT businesses -- they won't work for the base salary we offer. Most of my recent hires were fresh out of high school (doing a few CC courses) or older employees canned by cutbacks elsewhere.
I have 3 friends with college degrees in an IT field who took Geek Squad jobs after losing 6 figure jobs. I wouldn't hire them for even G.S.'s salary, I know they're lacking in business knowledge and skills.
It is far cheaper and more profitable to get a geek out of high school. I'm looking for a digital helper now, and I'll be looking to hire from people I meet in forums, not another kid with a useless piece of paper and 4 years of debt.
Want to get kids in? Scout at Best Buy and Circuit City this Christmas. Meet possible future students hands-on and talk about how they can work and attend a community college, a better way to further their futures.
Maybe it's time for some colleges to shitcan their CS/CIS programs. There's plenty of colleges with, shall we say, less-than-stellar programs, facilities and instructors. Maybe those schools should go back to what they're good at.
Like, say... philosophy.
I support the FairTax www.fairtax.org
No other industry I am aware of requires constant certification like ours, offers the lowest salaries for our skillsets, yet has the highest turnover rates.
To be quite fair, I couldn't recommend the industry to someone unless they really loved the work.
This has always been a problem in US. You see something like this and it get blown in full proportions. You will see Lou Dobbs on CNN talking about off shoring everyday and "experts" talk about losing jobs. While it's true a lot of people lose their jobs to offshore market the overall thing I have seen is actual improvement. As for example the IT market in Midwest is growing tremendously. I have seen more IT jobs been put out there than others. The thing is people will just believe anyone who is shouting and not try to find out on their own what the situation is. Call it a bad PR.
Having said that I have seen enough bitching in slashdot itself showing the general mentality of IT geeks. No offence guys but this can be really attributed to what you hear everyday. There is never anyone who analyzes the overall picture which would show that they would need more people to manage here even if they offshore jobs to foreign countries inciting more jobs. Have you heard that lot of software companies in India and China actually open up branches here in US and hire people here to meet the needs of US companies? What does that tell you? Economics at its best. Just because we are going through a rough period, this is the situation.
I guess it is time to analyse the situation and make most of it rather than just bitching about it. My 2 cents.
I can't, with any sense of responsibility to young people in the US, encourage them to study IT.
The jobs are going overseas, as investors are mandating it either for cost reasons or because they now have a stake in some offshore concern. The jobs are emotionally frustuating because management expects programming to work on time and on budget like other engineering disciplines, but in practice its still an academic exercise with little thought to design and expectations. And, increasingly the vendors have turned the jobs into a vocational trade and not the creative and intellectual exercise it used to be.
There are still good jobs out there, but you'll have to make them yourself and hope you hang in there long enough to run the company and outsource the work to someone else. Otherwise, your a network support guy or sitting at a help desk in some cubicle waiting for the phone to ring for a question from an idiot in Finance.
But I'm not bitter...
Sleep is for the Weak
http://www.webster.com/dictionary/enroll
It also has 2.
Thanks.
http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=enroll
http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=enroll
"Enroll" -> two -> most common spelling. One 'l' is also okay, but, not around where I sit.
I was going to be all snide about the lack of jobs and all, but how about this idea.
You could try and get the companies that have been hiring your grads to make a bit of a splash about it. Create literature to promote your school that contains testomonials from the companies that hire your grads. Have the companies come on campus to interview if you can and make it fairly high profile so that people notice. After that you'll have real proof that students from your program are getting hired and finding jobs.
Another path, not one you might like, but one nonetheless is to promote your school to foreign students. The local university in my town has quite a few foreign students and has traditionally had quite a few Indoneasian students. A lot of them come from word of mouth from other students. It another way to help your enrollment and from groups that are growing instead of shrinking.
and not be able to communicate with users or other developers, and you have a chance. that's all that american business seems to want in the operator/coder/bugfix categories. until business gets off its slide to the bottom in salaries, respect, and perks for employees, you are going to have a rotten yield both in enrollments and in placements at the associates' level.
the good news is, training "c" level corporate officers appears to be something that you can do in a semester, so you can crank out a lot of them. all the candidates have to be is bullheaded, obnoxious, steal from the safe on the way to and from the coffeepot, and have the ethics of a sick snake. and they don't appear to have to read history or corporate reports to make a living. so staff up for "c" level training.
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
I think the IT job situation all depends on your market. For example, I live in Wichita, Ks where there are currently very few available IT jobs. When I got laid off I did a survey and found that for every job listing in my area there where about 50-100 resumes per opening. In Kansas City, there are only 10-20 resumes per every 100 jobs. The jobs up there also seem to pay more. The bottom line is that there are IT jobs out there. You just have to be in the right location.
Statistics still show IT workers earning significantly better wages. Using my own anecdotal evidence, from the class of 2005 in my college, IT folks are earning at least 50% to 100% more than other majors. But this is NYC so things might be out of whack.
The recruits are showing signs of intelligence by finding another profession.
Most technical fields these days are seeing lower enrollment -- engineering, computer science, etc. The fact that the trend has come down to I.T. isn't really news -- it was bound to happen eventually.
Personally, I think part of the problem is that students now recognize that respect comes for jobs that have a lack of numbers. Who wants to work in a company where you're considered to be in a field where the people are "a dime a dozen"? A lot of managers in tech companies are taking this attitude towards technical problem solvers. As a result, those technical problem solvers don't get treated well, and thus they try to steer their kids away from the fields that they believe are getting a lack of respect.
And no, not every job is like that -- but it's enough of a problem that most of my friends in technical fields can never really be happy.
Editors (and submitter), enrol has one l.
Not in US English:
Dictionary
enroll |en?r?l| ( Brit. enrol) verb ( -rolled , -rolling ) [ intrans. ] officially register as a member of an institution or a student on a course : he enrolled in drama school. [ trans. ] register (someone) as a member or student : the school enrolls approximately 1,000 students. [ trans. ] recruit (someone) to perform a service : a campaign to enroll more foster carers. [ trans. ] historical Law enter (a deed or other document) among the rolls of a court of justice. archaic write the name of (someone) on a list or register. DERIVATIVES enrollee |?enr??l?| noun ORIGIN late Middle English (formerly also as inroll): from Old French enroller, from en- 'in' + rolle 'a roll' (names being originally written on a roll of parchment).
Are you maybe British, or from somewhere else in the Commonwealth? I believe Americans typically spell "enrolment" with two l's, and a Google search for each version supports this.
With the reality of outsourcing and the perception of IT as a cost that must be minimizws in all corporations (and taught as such in business shools) there is just the fact is that it will continue to be a bottom of barrel career choice.
There is no way I would try to recruit young people in to this field. Doing so would be a breach of trust.
I was in computer science and now do industrial engineering at a master's level. IT is a restricting field. If you do IT, people see you as an IT guy for the rest of your life. Other field will let you move to other types of jobs more easily. As someome above mentionned, wages have become ridiculously poor compared to other industries. the type of work has also become boring and repetitive. Another point is the stereotype associated with a computer science guy. Try telling a girl you meet at a party you study computer science. She'll have quite a disappointed look on her face. And this is just the tip of the iceberg. This attitude is heartfelt outside of the other sex sphere. No matter how much people love IT, they'd also like to have a fun life and this is what to change with IT before enrollment at schools increase. dot.com was glamourous, lots of money, exciting technologies, it was like a big mess. Now it's just a kingdom for nerds that will fix your computer or make the software decisions that will cripple your day because the update failed and the old system needs to be restored from tapes...
or at least, avoid the acronym "IT"
IT carries so much baggage these days. Phrases like 'data mining', user interface design, industrial design for example dont seem to have been hit (image wise) quite so bad.
I'm an embedded systems designer, and love the work.
Also, you might try and place someone like me - a professional with a passion for the work they do - in front of them during enrolment drives. I'm sure some 'real life' enthusiasm will rub off.
Open Source Drum Kit, LPLC deve board - mjhdesigns.com
Most of my professional experience is in software quality assurance (SQA) without programming. I started going to the local community college on a part-time basis for the last five years to learn programming and picking up certifications along the way. It was challenge as low-enrollments meant that a lot of classes were cancelled and classes needed to graduate were often unavailable. Some people thought I was crazy to continue working in software testing and learning programming when the market was so bad for many years. Things will turn around when all those Baby Boomers start retiring as companies will still need technical people and India won't be supplying all of them.
I will be graduating next semester with an associate degree in computer programming. I currently have certifications in A+, Network+ and Windows 2000, and will have the Microsoft Certified System Administrator (MCSA) next year. I'm currently working on the IBM Help Desk for a large company, working 40-hours a week and making the same amount of money that I was making working 80-hours a week as a lead tester at a video game company. The future will only get better.
This really is quite simple. Jr. Programmers aren't going to get more than minimum wage for the forseeable future due to offshoring. Short of doing federal work, 95% of everything else is offshored.
:)
If your students want to be able to get a job in IT right out of a 2 or 4 year program they need to focus on network engineering (CCNA/CCNP/CCIE), DBA skills (Oracle, SQL), Security (CISSP, GSEC), or web development (CSS/DHTML/Cold Fusion/ASP/.Net). Platform wise they need to be fluent in both Wintel and Linux.
Everything else (desktop/printer hardware repair, MCSE, helpdesk) is now a minimum wage job until the person has at least 5-7 years of solid experience.
Also emphasize they need to be working on language skills (Russian, German, French, Chinese) if they have any intention of working with international (Fortune 1000) companies. They should learn at least one of the those languages really well, besides of course English (British or American version).
Finally, make sure these damn kids have basic logic and problem solving skills.
And when all else fails, don't forget, the world needs ditch diggers too!
Thanks
I know a lot of students that are stuck in a chicken and egg experience problem: all the jobs they're looking require X number of years of experience on the job. Well, they haven't really had a job in their particular field (usually they've just been working at a restaurant, the college itself in non-field related work, or a department store).
I would bet you almost anything that you'll have students flocking to you if you state that you have entry-level/new graduate positions open.
// file: mice.h
#include "frickin_lasers.h"
Why not train a bright entry level person to be a Linux Admin? I don't understand this absolute refusal to train IT workers. If you're not willing to train somebody who has an IT background in a related field, how can you complain?!
What can be done to recruit more students into IT programs?
Advertise in India...
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
We have found that many have the perception that there are few IT jobs.
At least they seem to be very perceptive!
I am a 24-year-old IT/IS pro with 8 years of field experience under my belt, NT, UNIX, Linux, AIX and AS400 administration experience, built hundereds of workstations, worked with JPL, government, trained tech students and more. That being said, I cannot find a job to save my life right now. I'm actually thinking about falling back on my education in clinical counseling; there may not be many good tech jobs available, but there's always people with psycho-emotional problems. ;-)
Working in a DevOps shop is like playing in a band made up entirely of keytarists.
When I look at our current IT landscape. The only thing I see is that there is still a *lot* to be done.
I myself have considered abandoning the tech industry at times. Tech jobs are hard to come by in the midwest, this isn't Silicon valley. If anyone needs a qualified network engineer, by all means let me know, but for now I'll be hanging onto my mid-level tech support job because its all there is here. Now if you'll excuse me, I have a user to go tell to reboot. =(
Why work 16 hr days with only negative feed back, when was the last time you got a bonus because the network was working trouble free for a year?, for low salary? If I'm going to make Starbucks money I might as will get the normal hours, free coffee, and free wi-fi. And while I accept the "numbers" that IT jobs are increasing, that is only because the population is increasing as is the number of businesses; but I'd speculate that the ratio of IT jobs to other jobs is lower than it was 5 years ago. As for the guy who couldn't find people " you get what you pay for. " low wages == low skillset == low experience == low quality.
Its really hard and frustrating to get that first good job. After that its ok.
needs to
(a) watch office space
(b) ask yourself whether you want to give up nights/weekends learning new software versions or working through maintenance windows (if in tech field).
(c) be treated like crap by your employer.
in summation, ditch IT and do a trade like carpentry/house building etc where the skills you learn will last a lifetime, vs the vapourware knowledge of tech that will be out of date in 2 mths and require you to relearn it all again.
I have a 4 year BA degree in Digital Technology and I graduated 5 months ago and still can't get a job. The IT sector is shot or there is still a huge competition for the remaining jobs. I even have years of experience before school.
You're complaining that you can't get people to come pay you to take your classes so they can work for free for somebody else. Right.
The IT field is very segmented. Companies complain they cannot find the workers they need and senior developers like myself cannot find companies that will employ them. I have over 15 years' experience in the IT field with companies large and small. I haven't found any good jobs in the past three years and that situation hasn't changed recently. What I have found are a lot of companies and their recruiters who are overly impressed with some new buzzword (AJAX!, Ruby on Rails!, blah blah blah) and can't understand why everyone hasn't yet embraced that technology and is ready to be hired by them. Long term I cannot recommend the IT field to any student. As a previous poster alluded to, if you use IT as a part of your appeal to a company that might work better. But, and here's the kicker, there will come a day when whatever wonderful skills the company hired you for in the first place will be replaced and you will be as well.
I don't know about the available jobs on the coasts, so I can't comment on them. But in the Midwest where I am at, the only available jobs are for 30-40K with excellent benefits. That's great if you want benefits, but some of just want paid. It gets really ridiculous when you consider that the cost of living of most Midwestern cities is rapidly catching up to the coasts.
There are occasional jobs in the upper ranges, but no one wants to hire. It's even more ridiculous in the security field in the Midwest, as no one wants to hire someone with dangerously technical knowledge here, especially if they are young. There's a level of maturity that you just can't prove in a resume, and the more technical expertise you have, the more of a hiring liability you appear as.
I have told my younger brother's and sister's friends looking at IT-related jobs to look at other majors first. Just because they like their iPods and Bittorrent does not make them technically skilled to compete. I think the real problem lately has been rewarding "management experience" over "technical experience" by some of the major Fortune 500s.
You can reward your managers all you want, but if you aren't hand-over-fist for your geeky tech-types, you're just providing less incentive for truly skilled people to work at your place of employment. And you'll end up getting management-heavy, which ultimately will end up costing you money.
Let the Feds do it for you - http://www.bls.gov/emp/emptab3.htm.
Having, since 1988, seen 2 major down swings in the IT job market which have lasted several years; retained myself AT LEAST 3 times in order to have current marketable skills; twice had to take jobs on a lower salary than I was on 5 years previosuly; and lost a job recently due to it being outsourced....there is abolutely no chance in hell Id advise anyone to enter IT as a profession. Academia...fine. Profession. No way. If I had known what I would go through working in IT as a young man Id have done something worthwhile, well paid and easy in comparison ( like becoming a GP ). Instead...well lets just say Im retraining again (and it isnt in IT).
Would you want to have to put up with whiny, snivelling, incompetent users who refuse to read even the cover of a manual lest they be held responsible for knowing its contents for $40-50k per year or less?
You know... on MacSlash someone posted a scathing comment in the body complaining about the usage: "Apple are..." instead of "Apple is..."
It turns out that this was an American unintentionally complaining about proper British grammar.
People generally have stopped complaining about grammatical errors in the submitted texts on MacSlash now, because there's a realization that spelling and grammar rules can vary slightly between American English and British/ International/ Commonwealth English.
Seriously, it's not worth harping to the Editors about simple grammatical errors, unless you're certain that it's neither valid American nor Commonwealth usage.
I am unamerican, and proud of it!
In my experience, I've found that the majority of jobs out there are looking for senior positions with 5 or 10 years experience. The handful of jobs that are entry level are a joke when it comes to pay ($15k - $25k/year; I make more than that at Circuit City).
The other problem I find is that job requirements are really obscure (like DBase or FORTRAN). There are few, if any, companies willing to put in the time and resources for on-the-job training when it comes to these oddball items. The first poster talked about Linux administration, or lack thereof. Unfortunately, this requires previous experience which is not taught in a CISE curriculum. Basic use of *nix is something that can be gained just by using them, but true administration has to be done on-the-job.
The other problem I've faced in college is the utter lack of any professor to actually teach. Most of the classes I took were being taught by grad students who barely understand the concepts themselves and have no practical teaching experience. If there were any professors teaching, most could barely speak English. The other professors in the department were all too busy with research grants to pay any attention to their classes.
People in the education sector keep saying how IT jobs are bouncing back, but the truth is that they aren't. More and more, companies are increasing their use of outsourcing. More and more, layoffs in corporate America are dwindling down the number of available positions. More and more, colleges and universities make use of unqualified people to educate.
There are two reasons someone chooses a particular major most of the time:
1) They think they'll make a lot of money doing it.
2) They think they'd enjoy doing that the rest of their lives.
Seems like you're worried too much about group 1. Don't. Ignore them. You're better off if they major in business or Chemical Engineering or Sports Medicine or whatever else strikes their fancy. They're not really interested in the field. There are worse motivations, and many people are successful who are mostly looking for a payday, but that's not who you should focus your attention on.
For the second group, that are already interested, you need to convince them that they'll be able to make a living at it, and that this is more interesting to them than another field. I can't offer super specific advice, since I don't find IT interesting in the least (I'm a perl programmer) - but you probably want to give as much real world examples of what kinds of jobs people actually get in IT and problems they actually solve. The people who are drawn in, those are the ones you want to keep.
And really, above all else, treat the students with respect. This will be so strange and rare, you'll instantly be a step up on how most people seem to approach them.
-- Kate
I work for a growing Development firm. We have had open positions for over 6 months now. Its really hard to get the right people with the right skill set and a realistic pay rate. From QA people to Developers of all skill ranges. A lot of people we interview coming from contract work think that they are worth than there hourly / salary paid peers. Thus disqualifying the few qualified people we find. And we are paying 15% more than the standard going rates...
The students today are reading it correctly. While I wish it were otherwise, this is not a long term career anymore. If you hit a hot technology you can ride that for a good while but looking at the market in general few people I know will recommend IT as a career. IT has become the assembly line worker of the 1970s or the steel worker of the 1960s. While today, you can find fabricators in niche markets making a lot of money, the vast majority moved to other industries and professions.
I run an IT Consulting company and cannot recommend this to family or friends. I am not pessimistic about my company's ability to earn money and keep me comfortable, but in general it is an ugly market to enter.
Here is what the typical college graduate in IT will encounter.
. You will start at fair wages and long hours. Under difficult deadlines and penny pinching companies you will be squeezed for everything you can produce.
. You are considered an "expense" that must be controlled. More often than not you will get an "good boy" instead of a bonus.
. You are as respected and appreciated as a union laborer.
. There is a pervasive belief that you are interchangeable with any other developer at half the price.
. Unlike other industries where age implies experience (and we can all argue whether it should), in IT age is taken as an indicator of being "behind".
. If you do not work at a software company, you salary will top out around 35 and you will get slightly lower than COLA in subsequent years.
. There is always someone willing to do your job for less than. They will be in two categories Offshore or Fresh out of University. It does not make sense logically, but bean counters do not use logic of this type.
. Your experience is weighed against your age/salary and with few exceptions age/salary will do you in. I often (too often) hear people say for what they pay a 40 year developer they can get three out of college - and then they do.
. Churn is high, making job security low - It is a myth contractors are fired first.
As I said, I make my living on this and while I hire and pay well, most of my competitors do not. They often win bids because they can low ball me. I often win second rounds because the first round was spent with nothing produced and we put a team on the ground that gets results. However, success does not matter these days, its all about price. I can guarantee a project for $700,000 and someone with next to zero experience bidding $675,000 will get it. Most often they bid $250,000 figuring once they get in it will be hard to get them out. (There is a reason recruiters for programming shops are called pimps)
Well, now that I vented most of that, I feel better. I am guessing this will end up flame-bait or troll (of which it is neither). It is a reflection of my frustration as I watch good developers move into other industries so they can have a family and pay a mortgage.
If you really want to help your students, stop teaching regular IT and focus on niche markets - embedded systems, AI, robotics. Things that are bleeding edge. Make the course horribly difficult so only the best and brightest make it through. It is better to choose another career in college than at 40. Add project management courses and "learning to learn" because anyone entering this as profession will need to stay on the bleeding edge or be unemployed. The difficult part for you will be replacing the instructors you have with those that can teach these topics.
Now I am guessing people will reply to this with - "Hey - I am doing fine" and that's good for them. I see the industry as a whole, not just the individual programmers and it does not look pretty for a career. For the top 20% sure - the rest...
I wouldn't. At all.
If they are seriously interested in the field I would welcome them with open arms, but then I don't view education as a commercial enterprise or students as financial resources, even though I teach.
I teach because I like teaching.
KFG
I think too many qualified people found out there's not very much job security, esp. after all the demands made on them for qualifications. If you're not able to train from within, then chances are you will drop these "qualified" people at the drop of a hat. Good advice for college students is to stay the hell out of this field, or at least aim for management as soon as you get a foot in. You're pretending recent history hasn't taken place, and some of us remember all to well what's happened, and aren't eager to relive it. 6 figures? How about just 6 fuckin' years!
If you don't feel computers in your soul, if you don't NEED to be near computers as much as possible, you shouldn't be in this industry--If you don't feel a desire to tear through each new technology you come across, just don't bother.
The whole batch of people who came into it for the money just makes my job suck, and I am glad they are gone (Being replaced by consultants from India, but their time is limited as well).
Seriously, to me it's exactly like saying "How do great artists attract more apprentices?". They don't, those who have it in them come to the artists and fight for the position.
Really the best bet for our industry is to spend your time encouraging those who do want to enter--who can't help themselves--and strongly discouraging those who don't.
If you think this analogy sounds silly--you're part of the problem. Get out now and do us all a favor.
A couple of years back the hottest job you could have was it but not anymore. The pay has gone down and the work is pretty dull and booring in many places. Apply patches, watch the consultants do all the fun stuff, reinstall some broken app since its pretty impossible to find exactly what causes things to break in Windows and so on. Its really very repetitive work where you dont really learn anything in many places.
Luckily i work as a Linux admin and get to play with my precious linux all day long. For me the work is about doing my hobby at worktime. Hadnt it been for Linux i would never set my foot on an it department. The work as an admin can be very infuriating many times with PHP's making decisions so idiotic at the micro level you just want to slap them silly.
IT is just like any other job theese days.
HTTP/1.1 400
There is still plenty of good jobs for people in IT.. Here's a hint: don't work for tech companies. I work IT for a local community clinic and I am loved. When I worked for a tech company, I was just another geek in the geek room typing some code-type gibberish.
Because I work for one of the largest IT service vendors in the world and we can't move jobs there fast enough. Already our largest single site is there and in the next 3 years the total company employment will be the largest of any of ours in the world. And we are a US based company.
Although in the longer run we see Indian employers themselves outsourcing to Vietnam, Bangladesh and Malaysia. Not so much China though.
I am 20 making more now than most of my friends will be making two years from now when they get out of college...oh...and I don't have the debt.
All I have my A+ cert and a lot of experience. If kids don't think that getting an associate or certificate program at a Community College can get them a job then they are dead wrong.
The great thing is that they don't have to stop after that. After getting a lesser degree in comp. sci or a certificate through a program they can continue their education (what I am doing now). My company will pay for 100% of my tuition and any other certifications that I want to get. If I get my net+, security+ and CCNA then in another two years of experience here I can go out and get an even better tech job etc...
If they don't believe you - send them to Robert Half's Technology division. I gave them my resume on a Mon. and had two job offers through them by Fri.
We seldom regret saying too little but often regret saying too much.
Remember folks, ONLY THOSE WHO ARE DOING IT FOR THE LOVE SHOULD GO INTO IT!
Now you know why we want all you "Learn HTML for dummies, work for money, dot-busted" to leave. You're depressing the market, keeping us from doing it for "The Love of OSS".
You want them?
(You gotta go to "where they live" online, which is where they are mostly... learn more about your quarry so-to-speak, there!)
* Plus/&, of course, the "Holy Dollar/Dead Presidents" matter as well!
(Always comes into play doesn't it?)
I.E.-> What levels of compensation/future exists in it for them as well.
(That's the two things to have ready & gotta be your selling point I suppose from your perspective...)
APK
P.S.=> Above all, though? Well...
"To understand someone, you've had to walk a mile in their shoes"
(& once you understand them? You basically OWN 'em imo! (& to do that?) You've gotta either be one (geek type) yourself, & GOOD @ IT (or have been so once)... That way, nobody can b.s. you, or 'techo-marvel' you @ all. Helps with the sales "cool" & such))...
Of course, that's just my opinion! apk
Been there. Done that. Didn't work out. I'm going to teach English as a Second language and outsource myself! Seriously, if I'm going to be broke I might as well be broke in new and exotic lands! Bon Voyage!
Seriously, I've been involved in I.T. from a systems administration, PC Support and hardware repair/troubleshooting role for about 15 years now, and I've not truly seen a noticeable improvement in the sector since the bottom dropped out around 2001-2002. It's so bad for me that I've been forced to start working as a courier, doing package deliveries full-time, along with scraping by as a self-employed computer consultant - and that's just to keep my head above water. I'm still living in a very modest house in a not-so-great neighborhood and driving a 6 year old vehicle. So not exactly "living above my means" or expecting the world here.
Granted, I live in the midwest, where we're behind the curve a bit on employment trends. (I just saw a chart claiming that at least in the St. Louis, Missouri area where I live, employment rates have been changing about 10 months behind the national average. So if the economy starts improving, we won't really see it here for close to a year afterwards.) So maybe those on the coasts are seeing something better happening?
But no, as a rule, I can't see value in someone trying to just break into I.T. at this point, pouring thousands into a college education for the purpose. If your destiny truly is I.T., you're probably somebody that's been doing it since you could first hold a mouse and type on a keyboard - and you're going to completely ignore any advice to avoid it anyway. But otherwise, don't bother. My opinion is, there are far too many "guru quality" I.T. pros out there who can't even hang onto decent jobs - so why try to push your way into that whole mess?
I have just finished a BTEC diploma in the uk achieving the highest grades possible and was very disenchanted with the course. I blogged the shortcomings on www.brokenbulb.blogspot.com . Having finished the course I had the greatest problems finding a job/employer willing to offer me an oppertunity. Unlike many on my course I was [and still am] motivated to teach myself and always keep learning and improving skills.
;)
Due to the [apperant] lack of oppertunities I enrolled on a Computer Science degree at a university in the North East [UK] but might soon have to pull out for financial reasons and find a job at a local Tesco again.
Many employers complain there are not enough qualified students ready for the workplace. In my experience employers seem to demand almost every skill related to IT imaginable instead of fresh techies showing potential and granting them the oppertunity to create and develop skills.
There are plenty of students applying to vocational programmes such as the BTEC and university courses but I often have a hard time spotting potential sys admins from between my peers. This is becoming the generation that's used to auto update and letting the OS take care of itself. As far as installs go, wizards take care of the job. Config options are always provided in a nice dialog.
Sorry, that's my rant over. CV's available
Lower enrollment numbers at the community college level are due to career colleges, such as Heald and ITT Tech, heavy marketing. These colleges promise an earlier graduation than a community college IT program. The problem is that most of career colleges lack a quality program.
- "must have recent Netegrity skills, 3+ years of ERP on JDE, MCSE and Cisco certification, be PMI certified", ad nauseum -
Plueeze - As a 20 year UNIX, NT, business, and science sysadmin for very large organizations, analyst, and developer capped with a recent M.Sc. in IS (SE and Project Management), the locals here in Michigan are asking for the moon, and in today's market, they can. The tables will turn, they must.
If there really aren't a lot of IT jobs out there, should we really be helping a college sucker young students into an IT program? I mean, people spend thousands of dollars a year in tuition. If there's a really good chance that they won't get a job after studying, and we help a college convince them otherwise and blow their college fund on a lost cause, I'd say that's pretty scummy.
I'm sure I'm not the only one who groans at TV commercials for "massage therapy" and other bullshit programs at colleges (IADT anyone?) which are really just a means to exploit vulnerable students for profit. In fact, the only good job prospect for the program I just mentioned is prostitution. Let's not help these kinds of people.
occultae nullus est respectus musicae - originally a Greek proverb
The problem with the IT job market in the US is, in my view, that the days of being moderately competent and getting a good job in IT are over.
/must/ be at the top of your field. Anything less and you quickly become a commodity, which is very dangerous in this field.
/and/ be self-taught in state-of-the art programming tools before they graduate (universities are always /way/ behind the curve in the tools they use for teaching), to forget it.
/today/.
Back in the late 80's early 90's, if you had played with a TI/994A computer or took typing in high school you were probably geeky enough to have some computer experience. And when you entered the job market you entered into a place where most of the people doing the hiring were too old to know what computers were or how to use them. Basically if you had any computer experience at all the world was your oyster.
Those days are over.
Today, if you want to get into IT, make good money, and be relatively immune from outsourcing it is no longer sufficient to be a dabbler in computers. You
So I would tell students contemplating a degree in CS that if they are not willing to put 110% into their studies, graduate with a 4.0,
I suspect the market is far more tolerable of average business or law school graduates than it is to average CS graduates. Average CS jobs go to India. The day may well come when average business and law jobs go their, too, but this is true for average CS jobs
Steve
A work that expires before its copyright never enters the public domain and thus enjoys eternal copyright protection.
Let's face the facts -- school does not teach you enough to make anything of yourself in the corporate world. This isn't true only for IT, but also in Finance, Marketing, Sales, etc. School gives you a groundwork and when you start a job, you build upon that when you get out of school and start working.
Now if you agree with what I've just said, take into consideration the following: the private sector does not hire IT workers without experience. The notion that there are 'more jobs' available is probably true -- but look at the requirements. This is not the dot-com era any longer -- it's impossible for a no-knowledge, just out of school, wet behind the ears college graduate is going to get an awesome job without the skills necessary to help the company they work for achieve their business goals (and this is a large reason why the dot-com era went as bust as it did).
Pick up a paper, or check Monster, CareerBuilder, Dice -- all the IT positions are looking for *seasoned* employees. "5-7 Years experience." "Senior level position." These are some of the tag words that will put college graduates out of business when it comes to looking for a job. And *that* is the reason why nobody wants to get into IT.
There was a recent article in Information Week that explained the HUGE age disparity between IT workers. The reason is, that *most* companies aren't changing things around every day -- it's very cost prohibitive and it requires way too much overhead. They stick with the same technologies, so companies continue to run Windows NT 4.0 and the like -- and as a result, the same people stay in their jobs. This creates no openings 'on the bottom', and it's the most glaring thing to me in the IT world.
If you want to solve the problem of low enrollment in IT programs -- it's not to do with the job market. It's to do with the lack of INTERNSHIPS and REAL EXPERIENCE that employers are looking for. Unfortunately for me, the career services center in my school was useless, and I had a VERY tough time, and after lying on my resume about experience in years, I finally landed a crappy IT job. I'm much better off now, but the fact remains -- how can you expect students to line up for IT programs in a school, if you don't teach them what BUSINESS needs are important to keep met, instead of teaching them about "blahblah theory of x and y". Those theories make you competent programmers, but the 'quick and dirty' method of coding is often what's used and in business, it's what people want -- results.
So as a college professor, you have to work with major companies to get REAL internships to these students. They have to become PART of the curriculum. The idea of going to college, completing X number of credits, and graduating to a great job is OVER. The year is 2005 -- and money talks. Numbers are what counts, and if that number is how fast they want you to complete a project, how often they upgrade, how many years of experience you have, or the retention length on IT workers it translates into only ONE number -- the paycheck you're going to be bringing home. And if you don't have the skills from college to make it in the BUSINESS WORLD, then the doors that open so infrequently for entry level IT workers simply won't exist.
The price is always right if someone else is paying.
My mistake. I checked, but forgot to check for American usage.
And I wouldn't normally bother, but there have been so many errors in summaries lately that I felt the need to comment.
meh
Bit of advice. As someone who has been on the hiring in and looking to get hired end.
I certainly beleive you have 8 years of experience. But if you do the math, you show your professional career began at 16.
When someone sees this in an hr department this resume will immediately go to the bottom of the pile. It appears to have been padded.
I am 35, and have been working with computers since I was 12.
I start my work experience from age 18. By which time you are normally out of school.
A resume looks good with all of your skills, just don't say the length of time if it started in your teen years.
I had an interviewer call me on this a long time ago. Took his advice.
Another tip is your years in the business should be matched by job dates on a resume.
Puto
The Revolution Will Not Be Televised
Well currently I'm an Information Systems Major, Business Minor at the University of North Florida. Basically it's a watered down computer science degree. It's virtually all programming, something I do not enjoy. I've had some professional experience in the field and I realize that proramming is a small part of the IT field. I've decided to earn a business degree concentrating in economics and thinking about changing computer science to a minor. I'm planning on staying in the IT field, and earn certifications in addition to my Economics degree.
Tell them some big picture mumbojumbo about the future and how the company is really going places. Believe me, they will be in such shock when they actually find out what they do on a daily basis that things will fall into place right away. Every thing will turn out great, just watch them the first month and if they exhibit that scared/stressed tremor in the lower lip on a continual basis or even better the bored plodding expression (a little drool drippping off bottom of chin) KEEP them. But watch out, anyone who starts askings questions, fire them right off.
Hope this helps.
Faith: Belief in Truth. Superstition: Belief in Falsehood.
You seem to be missing the point. Using internships as a test of opportunities is inappropriate. Students are interested in moving into a career, not bouncing between internships and then moving from contract to contract. You need to address their concerns that they will be able to have a substantial career and not be a commodity.
Lie.
:-(
Tell them they'll be vaulued, their opinions valued and their employers will care how they feel. Tell them that some bean counter who has no idea of what's going on will ever cut their budget, staffing or supplies. That the Help Desk will have to never support 6k users with a staff of 2 or 3.
Sorry, that's not just IT anymore, that's everywhere
OR, tell them the plumber will make more $$ than they do.
That's exactly the kind of "qualification" that is irrelevant. Do you know the COM3 default base port on obsolete PCs (0x3E8, INT 4)? If not, you are an ignorant poseur who should go back to tending cattle in Elbonia.
I have considerable Delphi experience yet am passed up constantly for Delphi jobs because my experience is either too old, or TOO NEW, FFS. This kind of microfiltering of qualifications is bullshit. I'm a computer scientist. What I need to accomplish the task, I learn. I've written Perl scripts. Can I even write a simple Perl script during a job interview? No. Can I learn enough in a couple of days to hack it up like a pro? Hell yes.
I hate the programming field, it's full of paradigm-driven morons who are too busy playing with UML and "Design Patterns". You can have them.
I would give you my 2 cents, but I cant afford it on my IT salary...
.NET, cisco routing equipment, etc.. etc.. etc..
... most companies business models depend almost entirely on IT these days... take away everything but their phones... oh wait no take those too as they are frequently managed by IT.
No seriously... I am happy to see the student level job market drying up slightly. I am a person who has been working in the IT industry (mainly network administration and system administration with some helpdesk support recently). And a company I was working for previously turned down a job applicant whom was asking for $50,000 a year. To manage their web farm (150 or so domains), 2 e-mail servers, internal and external networks. And this was a hybrid ISP / business support retailer. They thought he was asking too much...
Their estimated salary they were looking for was in the 25k neighborhood for someone who is supposed to have experience managing Linux / Windows server 2000, 2003, AD domains, Exchange, IIS, Apache, IIS, MSSQL, MySQL, PHP,
I am glad the market is drying up so people stop having such "flooded market" salary expectations for the magicians / jesters we have to be...
After all
Leave them analog rotary phones... and then see how well they do as a business...
heh...
As an abbreviated point... if the student needs convincing to get into the IT field... they should not even be here... IMHO it takes a lifestyle choice to be an IT person that I expect to work with... go into business management or be a fry boy... but stop polluting my pool of work with useless lazy $#%##'s (and not lazy in a good way)...
Honestly, I never thought about the appearance of padding before. I actually have 18 years of experience in computing but only 8 professionally, which is what I list. I suppose I could shave off a few years to make it look less like a padded resume, but I am also looking for a reasonable employer who will understand such things. What a pity, I really love IT too.
Working in a DevOps shop is like playing in a band made up entirely of keytarists.
That, sadly, really is the case. To be good, to be really good - not just mediocre - you have to be well-rounded. That is true in any field. However, IT isn't just another field. It is a study of the application of tools to enable others to study the application of data in other fields. But if you know nothing about how the other fields operate, how can you know what tools are appropriate or how to apply them to enable others to do their work?
An IT person in a scientific environment should, therefore, understand science. An IT person working in a corporate environment should understand the basics of commerce. Don't expect to be told what is needed - the average dork in such places doesn't know the first thing about the underlying principles of technology, they only know about what is visible to them. The IT guys have to not only know their subject, they ALSO have to bridge the gap. And you can't do that from a position of ignorance.
So, what does a real IT person need? They need a wide selection of transferable skills, for a start. That is an absolute must. They should have completed at least one degree-level course in the discipline in the area they wish to target their IT skills. They should ALSO have three to four years of theoretical training in IT and one to two years of internship - but where the internship is solid work. I wrote a matrix-based filesystem for a nuclear research center for mine, and I consider that to be about the MINIMUM level IT interns should be exposed to.
A four-year degree program for IT really isn't adequate, if you want to get into sufficient depth in any of the subjects to do more than just confuse people. Six to seven years full-time (ie: 40 hours lecture time per day, 30 weeks per year) would be much more reasonable. It is also vitally important that lecturers be (a) on the bleeding edge - they should be doing research alongside their courses and should update the courses accordingly in real-time, and (b) good thinkers.
The second of those is important - too much theory is taught at University that has no basis in reality. Anyone using a "Fat Tree" for high-performance networks is a thrice-damned fool, for example. The moment anyone (lecturer, student, outsider) finds a flaw in any of the thinking, that thinking should be acknowledged as flawed immediately, and replaced ASAP.
Someone who had taken such a course would be qualified for work in many fields - not just IT - because they would have a great many transferable skills, a degree, some qualifications in other fields they could leverage and professional experience.
Someone who has a degree that is isolationist and dead-brained has no market value if their profession bottoms-out, no matter what that profession is.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
I do an AQA Applied Double IT Course, this is the WORST subject i have picked for GCSE. How do you managed to get a class of 30 people to all hate IT? It's simple give them a GCSE IT course to do, everyone in my school who does GCSE IT hates it, hell i was going to go into a career in IT after GCSE IT no way, my IT experience is better than the whole class' i program in more than one languages, the majority don't program and don't understand HTML... such a course has removed my enjoyment and everyone elses for IT. Looks like i'm down for a career in engineering w00t!
AQA if you read this i must tell you YOUR GCSE IT COURSES suck, predicted A* i have learn't bugger all on your course...
... with the general attitude here. I work for a large, well-known company (no, not Microsoft). The pay is good, the work is interesting, the co-workers are smart, and the management is reasonable. In short, I'm pretty happy with it.
Part of my job as an engineer is to do phone interviews with potential candidates. Often I do several a week - we get a lot of resumes. In my experience, about one in thirty knows what big-O notation is. One in ten has heard of a hash table. *Very* few can talk their way through a problem, come up with a few solutions, analyse their running time and storage usage, and offer a set of solutions with different benefits. These people we fly in for real interviews, and usually hire.
Even Slashdot would be surprised, I think, at how many people are unable to write C code to reverse a string.
In short, if you've got a decent CS background and know how to apply it, there's something out there for you. I hope the original poster can find some good students, give them a solid grasp of the fundamentals, give them reasonable internship/research opportunities, and send them straight to my recruiters.
The issue is jobs. So that is what you should try to overcome. Go to the people might would (hopefully) hire prospective CS graduates and try to recruit them in helping you get students interested.
This seems to be a 5-10 year cycle. I've heard this over and over again. Actually, when I was a student, this was the story. Then SLIP/PPP and the WWW were invented... So this is a good time to start an IT study. Things go up and down, same ol' story really. In the big picture we're only at the dawn of things to come. Global competition and slumps in the financial markets or economy don't take away that fact. It's like saying "there is no future in automobiles" in the 1930's, and I can come up with similar examples for steam, airplanes, etc. Only this one is much bigger... It's the most exciting time in history to enroll in ICT!
I wish you luck in your search, but I don't think you are going to find what you are looking for. A few classes in systems analysis and business systems can't hurt, if for nothing else than making it easier and less frustrating when you talk to other people in those roles.
Out of curiosity, how do you expect to log in (single user mode) without the password? Aren't you missing a step or two? Perhaps it's different with the flavour of UNIX that you use, but I've never been able to perform root activites (like editing /etc/shadow, or running 'passwd -r files root') on a system without knowing the root password [obvious exceptions include no root password, or booting from a different device].
Basically the students have it right: Low pay, high unemployment, heavily outsourced...etc.
.biz?
Sounds dot-lame to me.
"Let's face the facts -- school does not teach you enough to make anything of yourself in the corporate world. This isn't true only for IT, but also in Finance, Marketing, Sales, etc. School gives you a groundwork and when you start a job, you build upon that when you get out of school and start working."
There is one very inportant lesson you can learn in College that will help you emensly in the corporate world.
Learning to socialize. If you can walk out of college with nothing then a piece of paper and the ability to socialize you will have the upper hand.
Joid a frat/soriority so you have contacts latter on, perferable one that in in many colleges.
"
Now if you agree with what I've just said, take into consideration the following: the private sector does not hire IT workers without experience"
Another lie.
Unless you mean to say:
the private sector does not hire IT workers without experience and pay them 80K.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Ive worked for a college IT department and attended programs at two other schools in my time and it was the same story in each instance. They teach IT courses on specific pieces of software like office, a couple of networking courses - usually really specific to what the teacher likes/feels proficient and usually lacking in time spent on fundamentals of things like TCP/UDP. The kids come out of school knowing some buzzword terminology and how to install windows and office. This just isnt going to cut it in most instances. Part 2 of the problem is the fact that employers really hire people to run specific systems, not an overall general purpose IT person.
With the lack of required skills, no experience and, as stated in many other posts, too much debt to accept realistic salaries its no surprise to see IT get a negative wrap in that context. I would advise avoiding the field if your are not prepared to study on your own time to punch up your experience and accept a realistic salary.
I was crazy back when being crazy really meant something. (Charles Manson)
I entered (1993) comp sci not because it promised a high paying job, I entered because I was curious about the field and felt the need to expand my knowledge with some formal education (data structures, os theory. Assembly was learned only to apply the theory, not to learn the language for the sake of learning the language).
My parents were pushing for accounting and business. They were seriously disapointed when I broke them the news. My mother said "You do nothing but play games on that computer, that's not a career!" Back then getting the game to work required REAL skill and knowledge of computer hardware and OS configuration, remember them IRQ's and mem extenders?)Oh yea they got the computer because they wanted me to learn spreadsheets lol!
So long story short, if you attract people with promises other than for the subject itself, you generate crappy employees with no will to follow technology. Some of these people don't know how to extend their knowledge after school. Unlike other fields which with a basic foundation of skills can work serve the employer for a very long time without any "continuing education" (How many ways can you turn a screw anyways)
If you are not naturally motivated, technology and its ever changing playing field will serious crush a non-geek. So those that do enter, however little, are the right people to sustain and serve the field.
literally. First of all, I know that "statistics" show that IT jobs still pay high, but those "statistics" aren't technically accurate. The biggest industry currently in America is actually the "outsource" industry. The funny thing though, is you go to the yellow pages, look up "outsource" and you won't find anything. Flip a little further, into the t's and you'll find "temporary" - those are the folks hiring most of the entry-to mid- level IT positions. 3-year "temporary" workers.
So the statistics are already skewed.
But the other ugly truth of the IT Industry, is the turnover. Even the magical jobs where the IT professional is actually *gasp!* hired on by the company, given benefits, given sick & vacation days and has a 401K plan - half or more of these positions are glorified temp jobs for a specific contract. Only nobody tells the employees. They get an awesome 3 or 4 year contract with some bigger blue chip, do their job, then when the main contract is finished everybody gets laid off.
Now I know that a lot of current industry professionals are gonna protest, but let me just say - if you haven't had to deal with most or all of the above 3 or 4 times (or more) in the last 10 years, then you're naive. The fact is, this is what's happened to a large chunk of IT Professionals over the last 10 years.
To be fair, the Y2K Project and the Dot Com boom/bust didn't help things, but these historical facts are not very relevant to the perception game that Mr. Professor is battling. All the little brothers and nephews of stressed-out have been paying close attention. They watched Mr. IT Professional get a great job with huge pay, work way too many hours to enjoy the new paycheck, get fired and fall deep into debt, then struggle with like Manpower or some other temp firm ever since.
It would make more sense to attend management training at your local McDonald's. I'm definitely not the first person in my region (Portland, OR) to notice this.
IT *is* the new fast food industry.
It's horrible.
It's getting worse.
Unless you just love doing IT more than eating RUN AWAY now.
If you love it, you might get a no-respect job with no job security that pays well for 5 to 10 years before they lay you off.
Get any pay UP FRONT.50% of people in the field have trouble finding work after 45. 90% have trouble finding work after 55 (maybe 99%).
If you want to be happy, get a degree where you need to be physically present to do the work. Nothing that is pure thinking- because anyone- anywhere can think for 5 cents vs your dollar.
Ask me again in 20 years after worldwide wages even out and the answer will be different- but until indian, albanian, and chinese programmers are making $40k annually (at least) this job category is going to suck.
The ONE IT field you might make a go of is some kind of network engineer.
Ignore everything I said if you are a prodigy or genius- they are always hiring prodigies or geniuses. But if you are merely smarter than average (say 130 IQ or less) forget it and be smart enough to find another field.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
I'm in the "IT" field and am also pursuing a Degree because the paper is a marker of someone who supposedly is able to conform to a system and function within it. Apart from that the degree is useless. The classes in the program are largely irrelevant to real world applications and while I do get some great gee-whiz information from said classes by and large the curriculum is completely unhelpful for preparing someone for an IT field job. Theory, endless papers and presentations abound, but how do you actually DO something useful, like troubleshoot a malfunctioning network? Most classes beat you over the head with inane facts but don't do anything to actually help you achieve in the workplace. Want to make the classes better? Customize them into more focused diciplines, so the guys who want to grow up to be network engineers are not inundated with the history of database programming and the DB guys aren't pummelled with how a router works (again with nothing more detailed than theory). In short, make the classes USEFUL and actually teach something other than theory and factoids. My God, I feel like the only reason my classes are worth anything is the fact that I am getting some decent contacts at other companies just in case my current employer decides to restaff the department. Seems like a hell of a waste of many thousands of dollars to me......
I enjoy IT, but one needs to get as broad an education as possible. If someone is going to school to learn how to, say, write Computer Language X by memorizing a list of functions available in that language, it's just not worth it. I wouldn't hire them (not that I'm in a position to do hiring, though).
On the other hand, if you're learning general concepts that can be applied across the board (to a wide variety of systems, languages, et cetera), you're probably going to be able to find a pretty decent job.
The last thing we need is more people who don't know what they're doing working on software. It's hard enough as it is and when you get these people involved all hell breaks loose.
I'm not trying to be elitest here or anything, but some guy who goes and learns a little C++ and VB at the community college is not ready to design, develop and test complex or even semi-complex software. Even MIS students with a 4 year degree don't have a clue about these things, but trust me; they are everywhere.
All I'm saying is if they want to go to trade school and learn how to fix some computers, maybe do some admin work and set up networks in a business then fine. But stop teaching these people a little bit about programming so they think they can go off and code for a living. Some may have the talent but most don't.
"If you are a dreamer, a wisher, a liar, A hope-er, a pray-er, a magic bean buyer
News for (people who don't work in the IT industry). Stuff that (only matters to people in the IT industry).
/. is a forum, but you know what i mean~
I...um...think your asking the wrong forum--not that
<overrated>Insert Sig Here</overrated>
Google is not hiring smart programmers. Only extremely smart programmers.
Most colleges are just teaching smart programmers how to program- not extremely smart programmers how to do new unexpected stuff. The world market for genius programmers is probably pretty limited-- and even there indians, albanians, and chinese are geniuses at the same rate and a lot cheaper to hire.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
Parent says: can't seem to hire 4-year college grads in any of my IT businesses -- they won't work for the base salary we offer.
Then goes on to say this: It is far cheaper and more profitable to get a geek out of high school.
dada21: You're OK to hire kids who don't have any of the skills learned in college (and even think that a degree is "useless!") and yet you think that somehow that sort of pay warrants anything past a high school diploma?
The fact that your offers are being turned down by college grads and can be done by high school kids leads me to believe that you're either doing HTML work or your products are comprised of bad software.
Not to sound too nasty, but you're hiring for the little leagues. It sounds like you want to hire an MBA to run a lemonade stand. Sounds like you need to re-evaluate the calibre of employees you think you deserve.
Mod parent down Off-Topic, he's obviously not even talking about a real job.
The IT field sucks right now. Fun and/or interesting jobs all go to very experienced people, who have 10+ years experience. Meanwhile, salaries (if you're lucky enough to not have to work by the hour) just continue to drop because of the pressure of the off-shore economy. I wouldn't recommend anyone to enter the IT field.
You sound bitter... hard time getting a job? Given that you believe that there is a language out there called "Indian" - something that most people learn in 9th grade global studies - you do not sound like the smartest person in the world.
I'm currently an IT student, and I will be graduating in December. What I've found is that most entry-level jobs are in tech support unless I get lucky and find a small company that is looking to expand its IT staff.
Part of the problem that I've noticed with many IT students in my program is that they're not interested in computers. I've performed just as much (Windows) tech support for my fellow IT students as I have for students who aren't in the IT program. For our Senior "capstone" class, we were asked to give a presentation on a piece of software. Over half the class had to have one assigned by the teacher because they didn't know of anything unique that they wanted to present.
Look for kids that are interested in IT. They're going to be the ones who take what they learn in the classroom and try to extend it. They may even come back at you with more complex and complicated problems that they discovered while, learning on their own.
My Sysadmin Blog
No offense to Albanians, but are they big into IT? My limited knowlege on Albania tells me otherwise.
here is why kids dont do IT so much anymore: (this is what they think)
dotcom boom is over so wages are lower
work hours are horribly long
everyone and their mom is qualified so there is far too much competition
summed up in one sentence: its hard to get jobs, and when you do you will work too much for too little.
whether its true or not, thats the perception among my community.
I KUT J00 M4NG!!!
There are plenty of jobs out there that you can get right out of college in IT.
I've looked, and despite sending my resume for every IT opening located in Fort Wayne, Indiana, that I can find on CareerBuilder and Monster, I can't even get a ******* interview anymore. After having tried for 30 months, what am I doing wrong?
This an idea I originally had for highschool, but this could work for you. Use the class room to teach students how to solve the it issues of the campus. So in effect, you are giving them a temporary job, job experience, and a skill set.
As for marketing - you will probably have to get stats from the US gov to help you boost recruitment. Also advertise on sites like Dice.com for classes, certificates and credentials.
If you arent doing certifications already, you can get IT proffessionals to enroll by offering the training they need for their current jobs.
I can do all those things, write trees and balance them, understand Big-O, little-O, and omega, and can build a hash table and/or a btree. Yet, there is no place to say all of that on a 1 page resume, companies don't pay for academics, and doing it from memory, without refreshment, is near impossible, at least for me.
It is idiots like you that keep us all in the dark.
Yeah, I hear how that goes.
I sometimes use Commonwealth spellings to upset American Spelling Nazis when the spelling isn't something that someone would immediately recognize. "Honour" and "colour" they're likely to spot right away as a Commonwealth spelling, but "spelt" will usually drive them mad.
I am unamerican, and proud of it!
I'm working in the IT field since years and I can't recommand this job.
:
Reasons
-Underpaid for your qualifications (almost everyone in the IT industry is, except if you are working for the big ones such as Google or Microsoft)
-Lot of work(As soon you finish something, you have to start another something when you're not trying to do 2-3 things at the same time)
-Not many girls around(college/university classes and at work)
-Sitting a whole week, week after week on a chair, it is exciting ? Not only it's not, but it's bad for your health.
-Hard for your boss to evaluate your work. You can evaluate a hockey player based on his goals/aids and his +/- quite easy. You can not evaluate someone in the IT industry based on a specific factor.
IT is a matured business (all the hype is gone) and I think it is good that IT isn't so attractive too many. If people think for all kind of (mis)understood reasons it is hard to find a good IT job and see that as a reason not to study IT, let them please not study IT. IT is not for the faint harted. It's for people who have to adapt and learn with great agility, flexibility and dedication. If people don't have that, they better stay out of the kitchen.
During the IT downturn of 2002, I made the decision to go back to school. I already had a two-year CIS degree from a community college and was at a decent IT job. However, being 5 years removed from high school, I decided it was time to go back to my educational roots and learn a new subject. For me, that meant focusing on what I truly like to do. That subject was finance. Sure, I like IT, but much of the IT world (except some CS majors) is mainly "This is what I do, this is how I do it verbatim", not unlike other service areas like auto mechanics, plumbers, electricians, etc. Don't take offense to this, but most jobs like that are not creative and make you feel like what you do doesn't have a purpose. But if you don't feel this way, by all means in IT you can make a decent buck.
One could argue that finance is not creative. I could agree with that, but for me, dealing with numbers is what I enjoy. In other words, it's all about you and you alone. Chasing the almighty buck will only lead you down an empty path.
Bottom line: Do what makes you feel happy and purposeful. (PS: In my case, I've taken a strong interest in finance, and strangely, law.)
Maintaining a Linux dedicated server or a box at home gets you 90% of the way there
They can't maintain a Linux server on a home LAN because they don't have enough money to own more than one computer at a time, and this in turn is because they haven't been hired yet. It's a catch-22.
I'm perfectly happy to train you on our specific systems and best practices, but only if you're motivated enough to learn how to use SSH, what the 'df' command does, and how to boot into single user mode.
SSH: read the man page for the secure shell client on the system (SSH Inc version, OpenSSH version, one of the GUI versions, etc) then follow its syntax, usually providing the username and hostname on the commandline and the password when asked. 'df' command: displays disk free on all volumes. Single user mode: depends on bootloader configuration and security measures taken by the machine owner, but at one point the procedure was at the LILO boot prompt, type linux single and press Enter. So who's willing to train and hire me in Fort Wayne, Indiana, or to relocate me and pay me a living wage taking into consideration the local price of housing and transportation?
If the CC in your neighborhood is anywhere like the CC in my neighborhood, then I I wouldn't hire any of their graduates at all.
... They make an MCSE look great. We don't even give 'em an interview.
For whatever reason (yes, I'm in the state of Washington), the local CC teaches only Windows-centric ciriculuum, and only the minimum they think necessary to impart some knowledge.
Along the same lines, we view University of Phoenix the same as one of those "prestigious non-accredited universities": a diploma mill. We don't interview those either.
Unix/Linux + any of the above and a clearance. . . more calls than you'll know what to do with.
Of course, you'll have Government customers renown for their pointy-headedness. . .but you'll have a fairly well-paying, stable job. . .
Parent makes a great point. I got into computers because I found out I could make my own maps in Doom back in the nineties. A few years ago I fell into a job doing Geographic Information Systems work and now I make maps for a living! ;)
Seriously, it's a fun job, you get to do some coding regularly and do field work as well. Great IT job.
The barriers to breaking into IT are going to get higher and higher due to the ever increasing complexity of the IT field. If your only experience is college, you are a danger not only to yourself but to those around you, unless you came from MIT or UofM.
Colleges and Universities may need to start teaching an more integrated technology curriculum, instead of programming in a vacuum. In the modern world it is rare to create a standalone application. Most applications require connections to databases and websites over a variety of links which range from T1's to VPNs connected through firewalls.
Technology is a fun, yet at times frustrating career. We have come a long way since Kernighan and Ritche wrote "The C Programming Language." Education may need to evolve to help Computer Science grads be more marketable and useful.
Perhaps no one is enroling in your programs because these days you can't get a job without experience. I have found my IT education totally useless in regards to getting a job in the IT sector.
I jumped into web development quite late, and I only did it because I was interested in the possibilities. Years later, without any degree or institution-based qualifications supporting my name, I'm being paid $40 hourly (about $50CDN) to do web development work. And I don't consider myself lucky, I consider myself average compared to the rest of the field.
By no stretch am I an expert developer in terms of 'knowing it all'. What makes my hourly worth it, at least in my view, is that I provide fast and superb service. I don't mess around. I get the job done faster than my clients expect when I can afford to. And when I make a mistake with estimations, I correct it afterwards and give the client the honest break. And I spent a ridiculous amount of time paying attention to developing standards to ensure what I was writing was not a piece of crap.
To suggest the market is poor for job opportunities (for students or otherwise) suggests to me that people just don't know where to look, how to look, or they are too full of themselves and skip the opportunities. I'll restate it again -- if a young Canadian guy can score repeat, consistent work with companies across U.S. and Canada with no degree to his name (yet... final year!), anyone can.
For he today that sheds his blood with me shall be my brother.
How would you honestly describe the IT job market to students considering this major?
Go west, young man (or gal). Keep going until you hit a land surrounded by the Arabian Sea and the Bay of Bengal. There, you will find what you seek.
Back on the IT path, for those that are that worried about outshoring, aim for jobs in government or defence.
Luke, help me take this mask off
I don't think this is the case. You're not talking about just genius programmers when you mention "new, unexpected stuff" -- you're talking about brilliant programmers who happen to be creative geniuses. I think that the push away from CS as a major has to do with the exact thing that's wrong with your above statement.
Chinese, Indian, Albanian, ... any other programmer may be able to write computer code very well, but in both an anecdotal and (what I beleive to be) a measurable sense, the United States and specific European countries actually teach their students how to be creative and competent at their jobs. It probably has a lot to do with the learning culture, and a lot to do with how people from these societies learn to cope with risk.
In my opinion, what you will find is that many of the creative genius programmers sense that the software culture in the US is no longer very concerned with innovation. There is definitely a perception that IT salaries are lower, and that will change with time, but the more relevant perception is that (because of IP laws in the US, and coming soon to a government near you) unless you're working for a top-10 employer (Google, Microsoft, Sun, Apple, etc.) whose business is IP, they don't want you to be creative. And if you don't work for a top-10, your creativity may bring the wrath of litigation down upon your head.
People are more willing to take 'normal' jobs and use their free time to express their creative ideas. Individuals who are truly interested in expressing themselves creatively, often care little or nothing about monetary recompense. The individuals we really need in Computer Science, the creative geniuses, don't need the hassles of the IT industry to find a creative outlet, and I'm sure many of them are just as happy to write stories and design video game maps in their off-time instead of using it as a primary means of income.
The jobs whose salaries were referred to are just that -- jobs. They pay a salary, and they can find a foreign programmer who can code to spec faster and for more money. If you really love what you do, why would you want to compete on that level and concede the commoditization of your talent?
Jasin NataelTrue science means that when you re-evaluate the evidence, you re-evaluate your faith.
Great! Steer them towards science or engineering degree programs. Those are the areas in which we are falling behind - there is an overabundance of IT types anyway.
Hmm, well, I think it would be unethical to launch a recruiting drive for a declining industry. Students should have the right to sue the college if they can't find a job in a reasonable time after graduation. That will force colleges to train students in appropriate fields.
Oh well, what the hell...
It would be interesting to know more about your lead tester video game job vs your new job. What you like/dislike about the two.
It still sucks out here, and now with the continuing "do more with less or I ship your job off to the Ukraine" attitude, I wouldn't want anyone to go into IT, must less from a community college. And that's the key! I think that you'd have to be very, very passionate about CS, much less general IT, and go to a regular four-year school to make it right now. As many previous posters have said, they wouldn't give someone from a community college a second look; but I'll add to that if they got a certification in a non-CS part, like system administration, I might consider them for entry-level apprentice to someone that's been around a while.
I really hope that IT folks are not going the way of other perceived-as-commodity professions, such as nursing and K-12 teachers, where there's a huge demand but nobody going to pay a living wage. That would truly stink.
There are better places and ways to bust your butt than in IT right now.
DT
Is this thing on? Hello?
You could tell all the potential students about how IT is a long term stable career with good pay. That might get them interested. Of course, you'd be lying if you said that.
Yes, IT is improving. But it is still nowhere near where it was in the dot-com boom, or even in years leading up to that. A large percentage of older workers are still unemployed (in IT) for various reasons. And this is important to smart newcomers because that can see that as things change in the technology, they could end up being left out because someone assumes they can't continue learning and doing new things as the changes happen.
You see, it is the business managers that have the wrong perceptions about people, and assume that people cannot learn new things once past college. If someone learns Java today in college, where will they be when something new comes along and the usage of Java begins to decline? Companies will be hiring the future graduates that know the new language (despite lack of real world experience) and ignoring the experienced professionals under the assumption they can't learn a new language.
Many of your potential students are well aware that the IT career lifetime is shorter than the time between graduation and retirement. Instead of pitching IT as a career to students, you should be pitching this to business. It is business that, by treating IT workers as a commodity to be bought at the lowest price, has burned their own bridge.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
I would tell them that an IT degree from a community college screams to me short order cook. I would have much higher expectations from someone with a real degree or even someone who is self-taught but shows good skills over someone who expects a community college IT degree to open any doors for him.
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
I feel your pain. I'm a 23 year old web application developer, but I have experience deploying wireless internet access (for last mile and otherwise), building machines, and doing admin work under Linux, FreeBSD and 2000/2003. Five years ago my portfolio was enough to land an entry level job for a language I had no practical experience with. The company was willing to pay me to learn the language at my own pace before I even began real work.
When I came in, the company was restructuring and for all practical purposes there was no onsite suit-style bossman. After a while, they began to introduce new management types who were eager to turn our lax, productive creative environment into something that made us look more like telemarketers, so the vast majority of the IT staff left for a startup headed by the boss who had been fired just before I came on board.
Six months later, I had experience painting, carpeting, and installing racks, and no job to show for it. Our boss at the startup lied to us about why he had been fired, and ran the new company into the ground until he was hauled away in handcuffs.
Since then, I've done everything possible to expand my skillset, but even with my now nonexistant standards, I haven't been able to find a job. I live in a small market, but things seem so spread out it's outrageous--a few weeks ago there was an ad in the paper for a combination system administrator and mail clerk. It's unbelievably embarassing to go from being the most successful person you know back to mooching off your irritated parents.
My advice to anyone considering entering the IT field is to either find a foot in the door somewhere and stick with it, regardless of what better opportunities may seem to arise, or to find another field. Personally, I'm writing a book and doing occasional freelance web application development at rates that are more sad than a basket of dead puppies.
-----
jonathan barket
dont do anything. nothing at all. let the numbers drop to insignificant figures. then 3-5 years from now when there is a shortage of IT people again those who chose the field out of passion, rather than false hopes of richess, will be rewarded by doing something they love and earning a mint for it.
im sickened by the number of people studying IT/Comp Sci who i hear say "oh, I hate programming" or "These illogical engineering subjects are crap, why can we do something logical like management" (oh the irony). they're exactly the type of people who should push off and go do an arts degree, they have no place in this field so why do you want to encourage them?
TIAEAE!
Interns are another source of discount labor for many firms.
I wouldn't take a number of firms offering internships as an indicator that there are many high quality jobs out there.
I would tell them the job market is dismal and that they should find another career. If the market is flooded with workers, the mean salary goes down. If there are not enough workers, those of us who are already in the market command higher salaries.
... so what?
Yes, I am a capitalist pig
Try that in Solaris, smart ass.
At the community college I attend, we are made to take a little of every thing that is offerd as far as CIS goes, databasers take server managment, networking, and programming cources and so on. it is a lot better that way, becfause the student is open to more jobs (i.e. A student specializing in PC repair, should know how to deploy a basic server or load a config onto a router.) Most small to medeum sized business have one or maybe a few IT guys, but they all do a little of everything.
(Caveat: I have not read the other ten thousand replies that all say, "IT is a barren wasteland -- don't go there." I'm sure I can figure out where the gist of this thread has gone.)
...what does this mean? You literally have more internships than students? I find that very hard to believe.
That said, IT is a barren wasteland. Don't go there. The glory days are over, and if it is your goal only to get more kids through the system whether the market needs them or not, you are wasting everyone's time.
On another note, this quote struck me as odd...
"...For example, we have had internship opportunities that we have not been able to send candidates to, simply because we don't have the students."
Personally, I think the entire field is in a state of growing pains, much like an industrial version of puberty. I just got out of the Navy were I was a senior network security specialist. My job was to run the system level and network level security for the network, internal security more than external. I was givin the job because the person in charge of the department thought to take a risk on me because he liked my reasoning skills that I showed when I worked in the comm center. After taking the position I trained myself to fit the shoes, and in needing to learn the ins and outs quickly, I trained like I would anything else, from a logic perspective. I succeeded in writing an update to two Naval Operations policies and created a base model that is now being used as a baseline to compare other ships to. I also had a unique title of "disaster recovery specialist" because I knew how to recover systems that had gone down without loosing important files. However I got out and became a civilian. Now, I had the hardest time finding a job. I live in St. Louis and only expected 30 a year, and evidently this was too much money. I couldn't even get calss on the jobs that were of the same level as what I did. So I tried for lower entry level tech positions on the idea of working my way back up. I'm not opposed to this idea under the logic that at least I'd get to relearn the new stuff that's gone on since the last time I was a basic tech. I couldn't even get that even after I showed my enrollment papers for my night classes showing I was working on the degree that I lacked. So I started working for myself and only choose the hard problems. I take machines that are so virus ridden and repair them without loosing customer data. You'd be surprised how many people will pay my $25 an hour that I charge and it takes me a good long time, but I get it done. People are tired of going to best buy just so they can blow everything away, they don't think their getting their moneys worth. I also charge $45 an hour if they need recovery of lost files. Now here was the problem is as I see it. The one job that I almost landed was for an onsite tech support position. They wanted to pay 24000 a year and didn't reimburse milage. They also had an average work week for their techs of 55 hours, no less than 45 hours a week. That doesn't pay the gas in the car to get to the customers and pay for an apartment outside of the dirtier parts of town. When you break it down, I make more money doing odd jobs at 12.50 an hour that I do between computer work. It's about perception. I think that managers view us as nothing more than tools. Screwdriver for screws, hammer for nails kinda thing. That simply is not the case. I don't have many knowledge points memorized because they go obsolete too fast. The important part that managers are missing in the interviews is finding out if they know were to look on their own for answers to stuff they don't know fast. That's more important in my opinion, is analizing what to look up and were to do it for a problem you are facing that you don't have memorized. Doing that would insure you get someone who would be more valuable. They wouldn't need as constant of training on skill sets because they have to capacity to learn the day to day stuff and know what to do and were to go when the bad stuff happens. People who can don't want to live in crummy conditions. They want simple things, money to pay all the bills, to go home not stressed out, and to feel like a human, not an innanimate object. The fact that companies aren't willing to train someone like that just shows how little is thought of people in the field. So, until managers learn that their computers are just like everything else, "what you pay is what you get", then nothing will change. Do you trust someone so desperate that they will take something that doesn't even provide money for a social life really has the best interests of your system at mind, or do you think they are preoccupied with the thought of "Can I handle a second jo
"IT" used to mean sys administrators and help desk people-- sort of like the geeky AV-crew types we remember from high school.
These days, IT includes the entire software engineering department and anyone who has anything to do with computers (ie DBA's, modelers, network and security). WTF? This usage of terminology annoys more more every year.
I don't recommend IT to any young student. Instead, I recommend that they study computer science or some science/engineering discipline if they have a technical inclination.
I actually just switched my major from IT to business. There were quite a few factors; The first of which having to do with the quality of classes offered. I went through Cisco's CCNA pilot class in high school, and found that the networking classes offered at my community college are just plain boring. I seem to spend my time doing projects on things which I already know how to do. I also watched my dad struggle as a data-warehousing consultant. He's been in the business for 25 years, but more and more he's been struggling with large companies off-shoring much of the work which needs to be done. He can't compete with newer foriegn worker's wages. Watching an established IT professional struggle with these decisions makes me question the merits of persuing an IT degree. The last (and probably the most important) factor I considered was simply how much I enjoyed doing IT work. I've worked as a scuba instructor, and as a bartender, and I simply just enjoy either of those jobs more. I'm sure my goals will change as I look to settle down, but for know I can't justify trading 30k a year managing a restauraunt and bartending (which I enjoy,) to making 40k a year doing something which I don't.
I'm not an Ubergeek, and I've known this for years now. I enjoy the problem-solving of an IT job, but I need a more social role to play in my everyday work to be happy. Maybe the drop in enrollment comes from the fringe students (like me) who aren't really convinced that they can be happy doing IT work in the future.
Do what Swinburne University does, one year industry placement is a requirement to graduate. Consequently, industry knows where to get the upcoming bright young things and students+staff try very hard to place everyone.
I have about 10 years of experience in building PCs, servers, setting them up and admining them, but I can't get a job since I don't have those little letters after my name (MCSE). On top of that, why should I go back to school to learn programming or something similiar when any job I get can be outsourced?
To hell with that, time to learn something that can't be outsourced.
Computers are like Old Testament gods; lots of rules and no mercy.
It's a fact: IT in schools is already down and facing tough competition, particularly in healthcare. Points like the lack of quality graduates and slumping job market were raised, but the key thing here in my opinion is there is IT Schools must give the right training so that the graduates are, more or less, "real world-ready."
There are initiatives like the JEDI project that help schools improve their curriculum and training so that students are better equipped to deal with the industry demands.
IT Schools should take an inward look to know why enrollment is going down.
Need a color? Try 100 random colors
The classifieds in the newspaper wield no results as few IT positions are listed (in my town). So you turn to come places like Monster.com whom have plenty of jobs listed but the majority of them require 1-3 years experience. Sure as my H.R. Consultant from school said you can submit your resume and such to those companies anyway, but as all of them have told me, "you don't have the experience we are looking for". So you get stuck in this loop of having no work experience, or what little you do isn't enough.
And I know plenty of guys who went to school with me who have the experience (5+ years at the least) and they have a hard time finding a job as well. I mean for alot of us this is a career choice, what we'd want to do as opposed to say, construction work o_O The job's such as mine are a dime-a-dozen in my town. We aren't a small town, but we aren't a huge one either, just a medium sized area (mil+). A new company starts hiring those IT jobs are gone within a day or two.
The best I could hope for now is something like transcription or reception. Sure they only barely use a PC but they jobs in a somewhat related field (ok now so closely related but a distant cousin).
The worst part is, even most professors and such at college and H.R. people will tell you "If you are having problems finding a job in your field, take what you can get anywhere. Cause going long periods unemployed while looking for a job in your field can look bad on a resume. You don't want large gaps of time between jobs.". That's great...I mean I paid $20,000+ for my education, so I can go work at Wal-Mart while I find a job? Sure it's a job but isn't that kind of backwards? Societies standards today are after high school, go to college, possibly get a degree, finish college, find a job in a career you choose. Some just aint right about all this.
So here I am, finished school almost 2 full years ago, the few jobs I've found I don't meet the requirements on, the others that have been offered are totally out of my scope of doing (one was traveling the country doing free lance technician work on PC's for a company. I neither have the money or desire to leave my hometown). I honestly feel like I wasted all that time learning the ropes of IT/Tech and paying for it just to not even find a job in it, years later.
Aw Frell this
Unless you are top 5%, and have some evidence to back that up, I would steer you the hell away from IT into something else. You can make a living in IT, but is is currently a rough go. If you are truely passionate about that you do, this is obvious in an interview and instantly propels you ahead of the competition.
The trend of specialization upsets me though.
Jack of all trades and master of none is a pile of bunk. The key and reason I have been successful so far (knock on wood) is to take technical expertise and apply it to saving a company money, or making a company money. Directly. I do that by understanding what people need to use the technology for.
"A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects."
-- Robert Heinlein, Time Enough for Love
..don't panic
Why go into IT when you can make twice as much for half the work by getting an MBA?
"What can be done to recruit more students into IT programs?"
Open up some campuses in India.
Why would you even want to go into IT nowadays? If you're doing it for money, you might last a year at a low level position before they ship your job into the middle of nowhere to save a few pennies. If you're doing it for love, you might last a year at a low level position before they ship your job into the middle of nowhere to save a few pennies. If you actually wind up with a position that lasts, you're very likely to be managed by someone entirely clueless who thinks of IT as a sector that loses money, so he'll pinch pennies on everything. You'll probably be on call at all hours, expected to work ridiculous work weeks for a quarter of the salary of the executive who calls you to whine about the virus he got from the attachment he double-clicked, doing about three peoples' jobs because they "can't afford to hire anybody else" even though the sales staff is riding around in company cars that cost the approximate salary of one decent IT worker. If that isn't enough, you'll be Low Man/Woman on the totem pole to the rest of the company. At best, you'll be an annoyance for not letting them click on those attachments/answer the nice Nigerian man. At worst, they'll ship your job overseas and make you train your own replacement and you better like it or no severance for you, buddy! American business has decided that IT is the McDonald's of their work infrastructure. They want it fast, cheap, and done by people willing or desperate enough to work for a pittance. Do you know anyone who really wants to make a career out of burger flipping, especially when at any given moment, the restaurant may pack up and move to the Third World?
That said, in the particular case of ssh and telnet, you'd really have to wonder what kind of rock a candidate had been living under for the last decade not to have a basic familiarity with the two. I'd definitely probe deeply if a candidate had this deficit.
Mike
"Not an actor, but he plays one on TV."
I see more demand.....well expectation.....if multi-hat people. They want hardware whizzes and software whizzes all in one. Specialists are having problems.
Table-ized A.I.
Sorry to be a troll, but I would not recommend IT at a community college to anyone. IT is an odd mix of morons and truly remarkable people. None of the good IT people I know ever went through the thought process of, "hmm...what should I do? IT!" It was their hobby until enough money was thrown at them to make them do it for a living...and, some years later, they sit back and think, "hmmm...I guess this has become my career." I could not envision any of them ever attending a community college--they would go crazy with boredom and probably leave IT then.
I don't think you can just "choose" IT the way you can choose to become a doctor or an electrician, because each of those have clear paths to joining the profession and a clear standard for what it means to be in the profession. It really has to choose you, or you will not succeed.
char *mySig;
"There is definitely a perception that IT salaries are lower, and that will change with time, but the more relevant perception is that (because of IP laws in the US, and coming soon to a government near you) unless you're working for a top-10 employer (Google, Microsoft, Sun, Apple, etc.) whose business is IP, they don't want you to be creative. And if you don't work for a top-10, your creativity may bring the wrath of litigation down upon your head."
:). Even filing for an application is seen as a big thing, as it shows you are concerned about increasing value (of yourself and the company you work for). I am enjoying IP and all the monetary goodness it brings with it right now (a number of offers, but I'm looking for something to retire on (i.e. live and be rich)).
.COM boom V2.0 are synonymous. They do go hand in hand, and while technology is seen as a great way to increase stockholder value, IP is seen as even better (like a 10X modifier for the stock price).
Hmm. Perhaps. However, in my experience, companies DO want you to be creative. Telling a group of stockholders that their company has secured a handful of new patents tends to make the stock price rise. If the company is a startup, it is also an excellent way to secure much-needed capital.
Securing IP as an individual is seen as an excellent way to increase your perceived value. Companies tend to sit up and listen when someone is holding some potentially valuable IP (and it gives you a serious edge over other applicants). Score high enough on the IP scale, and the job interview will change to IP negotiations (screw the job, lets talk money
Think about it. IP is the big thing right now. I think the IP and
A friend of mine, who was a long-time OSS advocate called me the other day. He joined a startup, and the only reason the company is surviving is because of IP. He's slowly coming around to the new way of doing business, and the possibility of making out big if he's willing to put aside the OSS religion for a few months. That his company is well on its way to being bought out, and they are looking to increase its value even further (and he has stock options) makes the decision rather simple.
So, in short, if you want to increase your candidacy for a job, or make money, or both, file for IP. Anyone can do it (provided you are half as intelligent as you think you are), try it. You can cry about IP law, and what its doing to this country after you secure a good living.
As an added bonus, it's one area which can help you compete with outsourcing.
I am John Hurt.
With all the outsourcing of key programmer jobs to India, I'm not surprised that ANY self respecting student is not going to consider a career in programming. Americans have to consider lowering their pay scales or more jobs will be lost.
Companies that work with programmers should also consider telecommuting... if programmers in the US can move out into the country, and yet continue to work online, and their employers endose this, then American programmers can accept lower paying salaries making it more attractive to hire "local" talant, perhaps this trend would actually take place. Housing in country is heaps cheaper, so American programmers would need less money.
By expaning your search to the whole contry instead of a small local area, the company is more likely to find a good match. It's just that they need to consider if it's possible for the programmer to work online. Obviously situations arise where the programmer has to be on-site if special hardware or security is a concern.
I consider myself fairly successful education wise and professionally. I went to a major school for undergrad and have B.B.A. Tried finding a job, and no luck. Trust me, it wasn't from a lack of effort or not trying. So I went to graduate school and now have an M.S. I spent close to 6 months at my part time job while I was looking for a full time IT position. My part time job was doing 50% IT work and 50% business work (can you say lucky for not getting a CS degree). They eventually offered a position but they had no clue what the salary was, or what I would exactly be doing. Luckily, I then had two job leads thanks to Monster.com and my graduate school's career office.
During those 6 months I went to over 25 interviews, some of the same companies and others different. The guy/gal they picked always had more experience, hands down. I remember one guy who interviewed me was so cocky and was wanting to shoot me down that he asked me all kind's of questions. TCP/IP ports, I believe one was 443 (SSL) and 21 (FTP) and 139 (one of the many Windows IPC ports). Suffice it to say when he I was asked what an OU was. I drew a blank. He then had a great smirk on his face. I swear I felt like I was taking a final exam. (OU = organization unit in active directory lingo) This is just one example. There were many a time that I was interviewed by very arrogant and obnoxious people. Most of the positions I applied for were for entry to mid-level positions so it should be expected that I don't know everything there is to know.
I noticed someone mention that the quality of IT people has gone downhill. Well if you go to school you learn very little of this. I learned theory, business, how to program, managing security, general management techniques. Learning Oracle, Access, SQL server, Windows 2000, Windows 2003 Server, Active Director, Linux, TCP/IP implementations, networks and other software/hardware was left to the jobs I had during college such as computer technician and web designer and administrator. It boils down to in order to get experience you must be allowed to pass the door. If you don't pass the door then you don't get the experience. This becomes and ugly and nasty cycle which many of us do not have any control over. Whatever happened to being hired on the ability to learn versus what you knew. After all this is IT, we are always learning.
I was finally given a chance by two companies that I got past several rounds of interviews. One they hired the guy with more experienced and the other took a chance on me. The job pays well, a little less then I would like but way better then the part time job. The benefits rock and the people I work with though they are not thrilled working with a college newbie, are rather pleasant and willing to assist in any gaps in my knowledge. One thing that I did learn was that they were glad an American was hired versus a contractor and/or H1B visa.
Here are some of the lessons learned:
IT is no longer the field of choice for many Americans
Little job stability
In some cases lack of pay
In some cases overworked
In some cases age discrimination
Experience requirements are insane (12+ bachelors or 4 years masters, no room for entry level)
Contractors take all the jobs, some lie about what they know and then learn it in-house. (blame the contracting companies who instruct them to do so)
If you get a good job, make sure to stick with it and acquire as much knowledge as possible so that if something bad does happen you can recover easier.
People seem to think that just because there are a billion people in India, it can easily churn out 200 million programmers. It can't.
Realistic. IT jobs are not what they were in the bubble days. Its not like it was when any young buck with a days worth of experiences could get a job pulling 100k. It is much mroe like any other growing knowledge field, the better paying jobs are more competetive but there are plenty of entry level oppertunities. And its not like the IT industry is going to disappear anytime soon. Sure, some IT companies will outsource, but most IT workers are employed by non-IT industry companies. And your average medium sized company isn't going to trust their network systems to a remote admin company in Pakistan. Your local leasing company isn't going to trust a company from India to get their custom application fine tuned to their specific needs.
-Rick
"Most people in the U.S. wouldn't know they live in a tyrannical state if it walked up and grabbed their junk." - MyFirs
My company is still in the process of hiring another network admin. We got probalby 20 resumes total, and of those we in-person'd 3 of them. Of those three we had one clear choice (who turned us down, we suspect his current company threw more money at him), and the other two were OK, but not strong enough that either is an obvious choice.
Granted I work for the state so the salary isn't going to bring in the rockstar resumes, but it's pretty clear there is a need for good, experienced admins, at least in my area. This is the kind of job that's never going to be farmed out to India.
Typical Recruiter Statement: "Make sure to check out the IT programs, as they prepare you for a career that is demanding, ever changing, and has endless possibilities." True Statement: "Make sure to check out the IT programs. They will prepare you for a career of long evenings, high pressure deadlines, catering to higher-ups, and never getting the budget you need to get the job done. Oh, and 5 years after your graduation, we'll still be here to advance your skills! For instance, our MCSE program changes every time Microsoft changes their tracts....you can keep up just by taking classes with us!"
So what's the future like in IT without any IT qualifications and minimal experience? I ask, because, I'm in that sort of situation. I have a degree in a retard science (s p a c e sciences), which had some elements of IT, but not much. Graduated this year at the ripe old age of 25. Should I just consign myself as an office administrator?
:]
I've worked as a programmer (VB6/SQL) for a few months in the past before i went to uni, but didn't like it. I know the usual general stuff about computers. Oh forgot one thing, I also dropped out of a Computer Science degree before I was a programmer!
Please be brutally honest
(I'm also 20K GBP in debt, do you think it's worth it?)
They are absolutely correct. IT is a horrible place to be. Everything is getting outsourced and there's no future in it. Study Household Appliances or something. Take Hotel and Casino Management at UNLV...... just stay the hell out of IT....... then maybe I can keep my job.
It is extremely important to weed out students who
1. come into IT for money
2. come into IT because their friends are doing it
3. come into IT for money
I wish more schools were like my school, i won't mention it so that it doesn't seem too braggish. but alot of other schools, i would say state and community college level schools give diplomas to students who are not qualified to be in the IT field. PERIOD, I have witnessed this everyday of my life in the real working world.
You would not admit some shoddy money hungry wannabe into the civil engineering or medical world. Stop doing it for the IT world.
More IT jobs are opening up, but we can not take the risk again of flooding unqualified individuals into the IT world again. I recommend hiring only the students who have made it out of hardcore CS degree programs from very highly ranked schools. If companies did that they would not have to worry about having all these low performing IT workers who busted the industry in 2000.
Again I must emphasize, weed out the students who are not smart and do not work hard and most of all, do not love the career. You will be doing everyone, companies, employees and their families, an abundance of justice. It will work out better for everyone in the future. Please - weed out the students - only give us the best.
On an aside - the perception of an IT person has been extremely diminished because of the unqualified individuals who got jobs during the 90s and caused the dot com bust. We have these people to thank who just chased money around for causing our image to plummet into a lowly worker.
When someone asks you what your job is, and you say, computer programmer. does that even sound good anymore? it almost sounds like their is a stigma to it. Like oh no-- are you going to get laid off anytime soon? or i hear the industry isn't doing that well are you looking at a career change, what are you going to do?
It's absolutely horrid what the dot com bust and the heaps and piles of unqualified individuals have done to this industry. If this was medicine we would have sued the hell out of the people who screwed it all up.
Nobody gives a shit about IT workers, you are basically under the boot of retarded marketing executives. Even when the actual implementation of the "brilliant" ideas by the people that actually do the job they are the bottom of the feeding chain. Promotions take forever and have all the responsability.
On top of that you're just sitting there to waiting for somebody to outsource your job to wherever the heck they think is better, no money for the overtime, your ass gets flat and forget about any kind of contact with any attractive women around you.
Year and a half ago I worked for Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy (IMSA), one of the guys in the main guys from Mosaic studied there, we had a conference by the ex-CEO of a big Telcom in Illionis and after continuously outsourcing their development the question he faced in this conference was the same as this one. They have seen their enrollment decrease in the last years and students are worried about their future in the real world. The answer this guy gave was "it's all about accountability". Yes, the big ex-CEO had this answear implying that the people that made his company big and successful was as amainzing as you can hear.
I'm Student of Masters in Computer Science and as soon as I finish plan to move to MBA or something similar, people can pay with no hessitation tens thousands of dollars for a flash animation or a page design but for backend programming they think is not worth to pay for. I'll better go for the easy life of business. Good luck with finding new people for your program. I never heart of management being outsourced...
IT as a field is in a really bad place right now. It hasn't been around long enough to become a traditional institution, but it has been around long enough to go through a major labor glut. People still don't take IT seriously, and actually considered the 2001-2002 collapse to be come-uppance for a profession they always hated and feared. Get a job where you will be more liked, such as lawyer, IRS agent, dentist, or dog catcher.
do we really need any more individuals in IT. the more you saturate the market, the lower the pay scale goes. on top of this, i've worked with quite a few college grads (majoring in CS) that didn't know anything. i got into the field as a hobby/love and it just grew from there. this new college grads get into for the salary and then are not putting their all into it.
Doing IT for a living is a mistake.
All good jobs are gone and the ones that remain suck.
I have friends with MCSE, CCIE's, A+'s all that crap and there no slacker.
They also have 6 years of experience doing the work.
After the crash you know what? one is working as a "tape backup monkey"
The other is working at "WalMart".
They at one time had great paying jobs. $10,000 dollar bonuses and there $90k a year jobs all gone.
That story repeats itself all over the valley.
IT bah!!!
Who in there right mind wants to be on 24 hour pager call?
Who wants to work in hosting server or worse yet and ISP!
Most companies are cheating IT workers because they can.
Putting them on "temp to perm" contracts month after month, Cheating them out of health insurance.
People are not going into IT because there talking to there friends who are IT workers. Ya those friends who are working and living like bum's.
IT is a suck job and the only thing that made it worth doing in the 90's was the big dollars Those dollars are gone and not coming back.
Do something else.
I teach at a community college and our enrollment numbers are down in our IT programs. We have found that many have the perception that there are few IT jobs.
With a tip of the hat to Alan Kay and the greats who made the IT industry, maybe you should teach your students that the best way to perceive the IT job market is to create it. One of the best things about the IT field, at least the software development side, is the low barriers to entry (a computer, internet connection, and willingness to experiment), and the relative ease and lack of startup capital required to make a good idea into a viable business. Try appealing to your students' idealistic side, get them to experiment with coming up iwth ideas and then prototyping, and encourage them to run with it.
Flying is easy, just throw yourself at the ground and miss. -Douglas Adams
If you work for a major corporation, whose business is not software, sox now has a 100% overhead of management/procedures/verification to coding. I have literally gone as long as 4 months without touching a line of code while preparing 160 hour projects.
.5, 1 (usually), 2, and 3 times as long. They really like the control more than the productivity.
I used to do creative things- they liked it. But now we are increasingly locked out of the boxes and only approved projects are approved to check out/ in code. Again, I've literally made the change and waited a month so I could get approval so I could check it out and then formally install it.
To be fair, in a corporation the stakes are very high. If I'm creative and wrong, I could cost the company more than my annual salary. And that's before any lawsuits.
Plus, I've come to the conclusion, managers would rather it take 3 times as long but have a clear idea of when it is going to go live vs taking between
Then they cut costs by outsourcing the incredibly controlled work in tiny chunks to teams.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
Well, FWIW, I live in Chapel Hill, NC and work in Cary, NC... and the job market for IT folks here is what I would describe as "solid." No, it's not anything like it was when the dot com bubble era was raging, but there are plenty of jobs. My company is looking for two senior level Java developers and we've been interviewing for 3 weeks and only found one guy so far who was really qualified.. and he took another offer. Also, rumor has it that Motricity is looking for about 80 developers in this area, and at the Tri-JUG meeting on Monday night, Redhat announced they were looking for 17 Java developers. The monster.com and dice.com listing for this area have new jobs popping up daily.
I don't know how representative this area is to anywhere else, but around here there seems to be plenty of demand. As far as I can tell, all of the really good people are working. The candidates being sent to us by the recruiting companies are generally pretty much all what we would consider junior developers or just not very good. Unfortunately we don't have any budget for junior developer positions now so we can't hire some of the smart but green folks and "groom" them.
// TODO: Insert Cool Sig
When it comes to CS, College offers nothing that cannot be learned by a dedicated individual on his own time.
Every single one of the best people in CS that I know spends large chunks of their own time learning more about the subject. Open source development, reading books, reading online content, whatever. Their work is not a 9-to-5 job to them -- it's a hobby and a fascination to talk about at lunch and after work.
You *cannot* go to college, open your mouth, and expect the professors to just cram everything you need in. That might make someone competent, but no more.
I think that this is true of other fields too, but I don't have the experience to absolutely say yes or no -- I've certainly found examples that seem to support this.
One correlation I've found is a strong one between use of Linux and/or hacking OSS and in capability level of the person involved. This has very little to do with using Linux in and of itself -- sitting down and using a different command set to do your tasks is no big deal, and isn't going to make you a brilliant developer. However, *many* or *most* of the people out using Linux (especially when the learning curve was steeper) and writing OSS are doing so not specifically to build a resume (though they may use this as a mental justification), but because they find the content interesting, and because they are the kind of people that seek out challenges. As a result, they keep learning about the material, and learn on their own time. No matter how hard you work, putting in four years of sucking in enough material to get good grades on some exams gets completely trounced by anyone that's doing work on their own time. Those people care about what they're doing, and are learning at their own pace (and hence get a full, deep understanding). As long as they can view their professional work as an interesting intellectual challenge, they will do phenomenal work.
I know a couple good people that like to hack on interesting projects under Windows too -- the correlation is not 1.0. Heck, a few years back, that person might have been doing hardware modifications to Apple IIs, and a few years before that building radios. There's nothing inherently special to Linux and/or OSS -- it's just where most of the really talented people are currently spending time.
Any program relying on (nontrivial) preemptive multithreading will be buggy.
Plumber Average Salary.
Sera
Slashdot, where armchair scientists get shouted down and armchair theologians get modded up.
The first issue I see reading though these comments is that people consider IT and programming the same thing. This is incorrect! One is a dude who sits around, answer phones, fixes user problems the other is involved in transforming natural language into something that can be used by the IT guy. These are very different skill sets.
ANother thing I would like to point out is that CS degrees mostly suck crap. Teaching a kid how to do Java will not get him employed. These so called RAD tools are the bane of CS degrees. Despite popular believe Java is *not* a valuable skill. Every C programer of reasonable skill can pick up Java over a weekend; same is true for C++. The thing that is killing the CS degrees is their focus on new buzz technologies (Java, XML, insert_other_bullshit_marketing_term_here). People need to know the fundamentals before moving on to higer level languages. Assembly, C, OS programing, firmware programing, driver programing etc, those are real skills that will transfer to anything else. Java programing is completely natural to a real programer. OS programing on the other hand is completely alien to a Java monkey.
Universities are cranking out people with worthless skills, businesses complain that they can't find technical people. Anyone see a patern?
Want a good skilled programer with actual skills? Hire a EE or CE graduate. They might not want to program but they are by orders of magnitude better at it than CS folks.
Outsourcing is killing the carreer too. WHy would you go do something that is a dead end? So the clever students stay away.
Oh and an observation (not meant ugly!) is where are the open source developers in these countries where we outsource to? WHy is just about every indian that does open source development employed by a US company? Where are the people that do it for the love of it?
BTW, whenever I say Java I also mean shit like: PHP, Python, XML, HTML, SOAP etc etc
The Wallstree Journal has an article titled "Google Ignites Silicon Valley Hiring Frenzy".
I don't know why so many people want to work at Google. It confuses the hell out of me. Okay, they're in the news a lot. They currently have some people that produce a good product. But, you know...those people didn't say to themselves, "Damn, Microsoft seems to be the hot place to be today! I should go work there!" They just decided what they wanted to make and started making it.
In the software world, you need very, very little capital to do incredible things. Talent is the limiting factor, not how many investment dollars you need. You don't need heavy machinery or bands of Korean workers. You don't even need that many people.
Now, it may be neat to work at Google because you have some people who can carry on interesting conversations at lunch...but it's hardly as if tying yourself to Google's rising star is the fastest and best way to do anything. Google is just a bunch of guys (some of whom, in the past, hacked some neat code). You're just a guy, too. You can hack some neat code wherever you are, too. To make great stuff, you don't need a a trademarked sign out front that the Wall Street Times says is a really hot investment opportunity.
Paul Graham has written a good deal about this (and his essays are well worth reading, IMHO). His writing has some stuff that I don't like much -- he's a bit elitist, kind of Orson Scott Card. He tends to push the idea of starting a company to get bought out (which he did, and then griped about what Yahoo did to his company). He gets incredibly defensive about Lisp. However, reading his essays is like reading a solid string of +5, Insightfuls on Slashdot.
Any program relying on (nontrivial) preemptive multithreading will be buggy.
I don't know if I'm misreading your post and maybe I'd read something different into it if I was working at your company. But I react to two things:
/. post you say that you pay low salaries and you don't expect gurus. So the "amazing" support team is a marketing term. This is fine. Except, don't write about it in a public forum.
1) I followed the link to your companies web site and you speak of your amazing support team, yet, in your
2) With the reasoning in item 1) it seems as if you are stabbing your existing employees in the back. You are saying that they aren't very good.
Now, I realise that I might have misunderstood your post and if that is the case then please set me straight. But even if I did, I'm thinking others might also have misunderstood.
The Internet is full. Go Away!!!
I've said this before in similar threads, and you're hitting on the same point. The key to not getting your job outsourced, or not getting yourself replaced by someone else at half the cost, is to be a ground-pounder.
I did it for a little over a year. It's not glorious work, and the pay isn't great, but... there will always be people (end users, small business, and corporate users) who will be willing to pay to have someone else show up physically and either install new stuff or correct screwed up existing stuff. If you're that guy, you're not replaceable with someone in Korea or India - because you have to be *there*, physically, and anyone else they bring into the area is going to run into all the same cost of living problems that you and everyone else there has - you're going to have to pay your Indian (dots not feathers) guy $50k, too, so he can afford the same apartment as everyone else in a 30 mile radius.
Not to mention: Building relationships with your corporate consulting clients is about the best job security. Even if your employer can find someone to work at 1/2 the rate with 2x the experience, they don't have the hands-on and face-to-face with the current customers. Sometimes those trust relationships take years to build, but lead to very profitable contracts or sales; that's a good thing for everyone involved - the customer gets someone who he/she trusts implicitly, with reason; the company makes money; and the tech gets job security.
It ain't great, but if you're desperate for work, you gotta do what you gotta do.
~W
sig?
I suggest hiring people to telecommute.
We are *so* behind in this area.
Yes, there are still some advantages to face-to-face meetings. However, as the of OSS projects (usually produced by geographically distributed people that communicate only electronically) busily stomping closed-source products can attest to, you can do great work without all coming in to sit in the same gray box each day.
If you can hire telecommuters, your pool of potential workers suddenly expands by a factor of maybe a hundred thousand, to the entire globe. Your telecommuter doesn't have to spend 30 minutes each morning and evening driving to and from his house -- just think about the amount of resources we blow on shipping sacks of meat back and forth each morning, mostly so that they can sit in front of a computer.
For the employee, one *huge* restriction on where they live has just been eliminated -- you want to live out in the middle of nowhere in Nebraska, but still want to work for a compiler company? No problem! Flexible schedules are a *lot* easier to swing for telecommuters, because you don't have to ensure 24/7 availability of office access -- if someone wants to hack code on Saturday instead of Wednesday, it's not a huge deal. Worried that you won't have quick access to people? Any of the many IM systems are *far* quicker than walking over to someone's cube a floor down to ask them a question. Plus, you can copy and paste content, which can be really nice for technical writing (try describing commands or code without typing...gah).
Any program relying on (nontrivial) preemptive multithreading will be buggy.
Let me tell you something,
I'm an IT project manager with a prime Wall Street financial company and I'm now writing this comment from a chair in Mumbai, India, surrounded by my new team of a dozen developers. I'm here for a month to inrtoduce myself and show them how we do business in New York. All of them are qualified and super-cheap.
I can't tell you how hard it is to find qualified people in the US, and when I did after months of searching, they all had delusions of moving into management (hypocrite that I am given that's exactly what I did after my dot-com developer days). Over here, I can have the req filled almost immediately with people who know what they're doing, can communicate well, and want nothing more than to be good software developers. It's true some of them smell a little and there are cows (and malaria) in the streets outside; but the code is good, the bottom line is happy, and that's all I care about.
I'm never hiring another developer in the States again.
I've seen a number of exchanges like this in the past. I've often wondered if Slashdot and similar forums are better mechanisms for finding people to hire than, say, dice.com. At a dedicated job forum, both the employer and employee are stiff, formal, and cautious, whereas on Slashdot, people are talking pretty honestly and frankly about something they need done/work they need.
Any program relying on (nontrivial) preemptive multithreading will be buggy.
This whole article was pretty depressing. It had about twice the comments of the other articles - simply because there is a ton of dissatisfaction to go around. Everyone is saying how IT is a terrible field to go into - so what would you guys suggest a student who likes IT do? Not a genius, but, yes, I do want to have some job security.
But most of the time you have people that are at the bottom of the experience ladder eager to learn and apply their skills or folks who are tenured and expect higher pay for their years of experience.
You can't train a guru. Gurus are self-made.
Any program relying on (nontrivial) preemptive multithreading will be buggy.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Generally, learning in a formal system has benefits to it - you get to see what a good answer looks like, even when your answer doesn't work. Further, if your instructor is a researcher, you get the benefit of learning where technology is today, not where it was the last time the accountants coughed up cash to buy some cheap COTS solution because they liked the color of the box.
Furthermore, having been educated in Britain, I have the benefit of having had grant-funded education. If your parents pay directly for you to learn, don't expect to learn very much. For a start, parents don't have the kind of hard cash needed. Secondly, unless they are exceedingly generous, there is zero incentive for them to pay for more than it would take to get you out of their hair.
Education benefits the whole of society - directly, by boosting what the skills available to the industry, indirectly by raising both the quality and the value of what is produced and so benefiting both the economy and the consumer, and even more indirectly by earning more thus paying more in income tax thus providing more funding for communal services. BECAUSE it benefits the whole of society (even those who are never able to go to school), it should be paid for 100% by the whole of society. If you or your parents have to pay for the priviledge of benefiting others, then you live in a sorry, ass-backwards society.
(Sadly, since I finished at University, Britain went down that road. Many of us, as students, tried to stop that. The National Union of Students did everything short of declare war, in an effort to keep grants and stop loans. Even before the loans, the grants were suffering badly from not being kept in line with inflation and only helped in reducing the initial deficit those who went into postgraduate work had to suffer. Still, even today, I believe Britain has more University graduates per capita than the US, and if higher education targets are reached, will have more University graduates in absolute terms than the US.)
But getting back to my main point - I care that people learn, not how. If some hermit from North Dakota, with nothing to do all day but beg for food and make crop circles, uses their time to learn something theoretical from first-princples - hey, it worked for the Ancient Greeks! - then they deserve every ounce of credit for learning that. In America, where awards are everything and skill is nothing, it might be tough, but that's just a broken system. It has nothing to do with knowledge, education or ability.
If someone were to learn in industry (as per Einstein) or as a hermit in isolation (which is what some of the Ancient Greeks did), it is still learned. It is still knowledge. It is still education in the purest sense. There are many fields of endeavour where learning in the field is the ONLY viable way to learn - nobody ever became a chef, a painter, a racing driver or a deep sea diver by reading a textbook. Education is qualitative, not quantitative and it is by trying to quantify the unquantifiable that civilization is crippling itself.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
Stop pushing thru idiots to fill 'IT' positions.
Seriously, most people in any of my pass classes didn't have a clue. I'm kept thinking to myself, IT is for idiots. All of the courses are based on memorization, not actual problem solving.
The answer to your question is complex. There are structural changes going on in our economy, and a lot of people will be hurt by those changes. Yet at the same time, change creates certain opportunities.
The key to benefitting from the changes is to understand them and position yourself accordingly.
Steve Larrison
http://www.surviveoutsourcing.com/
...because it isn't lucrative any more. It used to be a quick way to get $$$, but since IT is pretty much a commodity, you end up stuck with an average-paying job that really isn't all that great. IT just saps the life out of you. Weird hours. Any hours. Want to sleep? Tough shit - an important client's server went down. Highly stressful environment, although, it is not a /competitive/ environment, so I suppose that keeps the suicide numbers down. I highly suggest forgetting what a human female looks like if you chose IT 'cause you're sure as hell not going to see any. No life. No girlfriends. No going out. In some sense, an IT job is like an extremely high maintenance girlfriend, except you get none of the possible benefits, and it's not a bombshell either =(.
IT employees are a cost, that's the bottom line.
Every company I have worked for has always viewed the IT department as an unrecoverable but necessary expense on the balance sheets. We don't directly increase gross income, we only detract from it as a necessary evil.
Therefore, companies are all hot-and-heavy about outsourcing overseas because it's considerably cheaper. What they are now starting to understand, and perhaps too late, is that this only works well for telephone support type jobs and nothing else. As a Unix Admin I see this all the time with our customers.
I got really sick and tired of wondering every day when I got out of bed if this was the morning that I would be outsourced. So I started looking overseas. NO, NOT in India!
I accepted a job in Germany and now that I've been here for a year I see open positions all over the place in Europe. The Europeans are plenty happy to pay fair, and maybe even uberfair, wages to talented IT professionals. They are even more excited about American IT people because we are quite simply the best. Europe is always playing catchup to the US but I get the feeling that's changing now.
My advice to IT students:
1. Only study IT if that's what you really want to do.
2. The IT industry IS the socalled "Global Economy". Don't limit your job hunt to only the US. There are some really great opportunities elsewhere.
3. Generally, European IT shops work from 8am to 6pm. Anything outside of that doesn't generally concern them until the next morning. There are of course exceptions but they are rare.
4. Heavy Linux, moderate Unix, light Windows. Um, for the guy that said very few companies use Unix anymore, do some reading.
5. Don't exagerate on your resume! Your company will eventually find out and term you on the spot.
6. IT is a Catch 22. HR types want real experience but you can't get experience without a job but you can't get a job without experience. etc...etc... Once you do get in, don't get pinned into one function. No one wants an Exchange Admin that can't manage DNS. No one wants a HP-UX Admin that doesn't understand how to make it talk to Windows and so on.
My 2 cents
Wages for U.S. IT workers will rise 300% in the 15 minutes after Bangalore is smoked and another 300% in the following 6 months as the world realizes that recovery is impossible for 100 years.
Yes, I concur. The IT industry is bad for community college students. There are several reasons for this; one being that IT is drying up, and community colleges lack prestigue -- Speaking generally, The job market is not near what it used to be -- now you're lucky if you find one; whereas, back in the day, during the boom, you'd be grabbed up with a signing bonus. Me personally: Employers would not even look at me after I had graduated (fairly recently) with a 2 year diploma in Computer Systems Technology from a community colege. -- seriously not chance -- at a grad ceremony, I was stunned to hear 80% of grads had not found a job after 6 months. Thank god I transfered into university to go for a Bachelor of Science in Computer Science --==-- Now I have co-op job offers coming at me left right and center -- and now have over 11 months of paid work experience. Had if of stuck with my community college diploma, I'd be digging ditches now -- like the rest of my class mates. Had I had the opportunity to do it over again, I would never have gone to community college.
I apologize for my frustration rant in advance. The IT industry in general has taken a huge crap. 10 years ago I was considered highly skilled labor and highly sought after. Now IT workers are a dime a dozen and it makes things for people that really know their stuff almost impossible to get hired on because they've hired so many jerk offs that didn't know what they were doing. I have been through almost 50 interviews in the past 6 months for various help-desk and systems administration careers, and let me tell you personally, it's not worth it. I'm not happy in my current environment and haven't been able to find a good environment in almost 4 years. I'm sick of career hopping through the IT industry. There is so much red tape and too many a** h*l* IT managers out there that really don't give a damn. As soon as I find a niche or career that brings me as much enjoyment as IT used to I'm going back to school. This industry is not worth the stress. I wouldn't encourage students to follow this career path. Let these corporation ship all their labor overseas and see how much stuff actually gets done. I think it's funny that these offshore companies use "Call-Flow Diagrams" to diagnose and troubleshoot your problem. Ever get a technician or customer service rep on the phone that has absolutely no clue of what you're talking about? Guess what? They really don't. If your problem isn't listed on their script diagram their brains go nuts.
The link gives the following error:
Maybe they need to hire a good IT student? :-)
Use 'slashdot stuff' in the subject line in any email you send me if you want to get past the spam filter.
The IT IMHO is as important anymore as any other "utility" job. Fortunately we are quickly becoming more of a need than a want. As more companies need a higher degree of technology in the workplace the need for an in-house IT guy is important.
Rarely do you see a plumber or electrician in a small business, but the small businesses need the IT guy and are willing to keep one either on call, contracted, or a part of the permant staff.
As technology advance, and Microsoft shipping out buggy software, there will always be a job for the IT guy. If small businesses find the value of open source, then we'll be needed that much more.
Just my $0.02..
Jimi Spier
www.jimispier.com - My tunes
There may be many IT jobs, but most of them are totally uninteresting. In most companies I see a few hundred people troubleshooting PC problems, reconnecting network drives, reconnecting printers, reinstalling drivers, correcting Word/Excel macros that where broken by the last Office update, reinstalling the same software over and over again all the time, while some 8 people manage the 4 or 5 Unix-, Mainframe-, AS/400- (or whatever-) boxes that actually run the business, and some 15 programmers design, implement and test the software for those machines...
I, like so many others, chose computer science as a major mainly because of the money that was being paid for the jobs. Looking back, I was so deluded. I knew with all certainty that I would end up with a job in the field, become a manager, and make enough money to have expensive toys.
... my focus of study has changed. I was foolish for choosing my path the way I did. I was so stupid. I've never been the type of guy to learn from other people's mistakes.
I ended up performing poorly in school. At the time, I brushed it off. Of course, there were other things that attributed to my poor performance, but my complete and utter hatred of code did NOT help. I liked playing with computers, building systems, buying games, learning the newest thing. Somehow, this hobby I had, along with the pie in the sky dream of money, put me in such a terrible, terrible position. I did not like it, Sam I Am.
So now, three years after when I should have graduated, I'm working on getting into college again. My goals have changed, my values have changed, and
Anyway, IT demands a specific type of individual. Can it be trained from a entry level position? Absolutely. Can a fashion merchandising major be a great sysadmin potentially? Yes. Can I do something that gives me constant headaches for a living? No. It'll slap me down and jack up my life.
I guess the moral of the story is that success is more easily reached through professions that don't feel like "work" to the one involved. Common sense right?
God I'm dumb.
And what makes it even more sad is that I don't even know exactly what it is that I'd like to do now. All I know is that a bachelor's degree will make it easier to get there.
Having lived through the crash of 2001 in IT, the answer is obvious. In Southern California people work to better their lifestyles. The people that are prospering, for example, have import/export companies, mostly with the Far East. They speak the language, can go to the countries they do business with, get the goods for cheap and sell them to our consumer society. They live in fancy houses, drive fancy cars and put their kids into the best schools. So who would aspire to get a job that pays under $130K/yr when that's the minimum needed to buy a house in So Cal. Why waste your time on an IT career? What sort of future is there in that job? How secure is the job? What is it that the people of the U.S.A. are supposed to do in order to make the $130K/yr in order to qualify for a mortgage? People should find professions that will allow them to make enough money to live in a house and not be a poor slub driving 4 or 5 hours a day on the freeway. Things have to change. IT belongs elsewhere. We are merely the consumers and we must broaden our consumerism. This includes our dependance on pills, lawyers, fast-food, malls, cars, etc. etc. etc.
when they read the news every other week about major tech companies laying off 10k or 20k employees. Same goes for airline workers; it's a volatile market and not a good choice for one who is seeking stable employment and wants to build or support a family.
I was laid off in 2002, after I made (in hindsight) a stupid decision to go to work for a small tech company in 2000 when things were looking really good. Although I have an outstanding resume, it took me more than 5 months to get a new job because absolutely no small companies were hiring and nearly all of the large companies had hiring freezes in place as well. Finally, I got hired by a large company into a specialty field which not many people understand well. I was lucky.
When was the last time you read about a hospital or a fire department laying off 10% of it's staff? Career choices such as IT, which do not offer very good job security are not very attractive choices for most folks.
The ratio of the probabilities is of the order of at least 1:100,000,000
For the 'rest of us' it is a virtual certainty that you will be 'spat out' at the age of about 45, or if you are very lucky you might just last until you are 50ish.
My advice to a youngster is to avoid the IT business as far as possible. Whilst it can be fascinating and profitable work for a while, any form of rewarding family life is out of the question. Basically the industry treats its personnel like many organisms treat their food.
I think that everyone would be better off if you closed your IT department all together. It's no use giving students false hope that they can attend a community college and learn how to develop successful enterprise applications. Oh wait, just rename the course to 'How to remove spyware certificate IV' or 'Yay I can write a program in javascript'.
Get an office on or near a campus. Works for us
-if you have a Master's and several years experience in all the entrprise-level software, hardware and procedures that the company that you're applying to already uses. Otherwise, it's all rather a waste of effort on your part.
I worked at a grocery store while I got an associate's. After I graduated I couldn't afford to go on to live and go to a 4-year college on what I earned at the grocery store, and couldn't find any IT job that would pay even near what I was making at the grocery store.
This isn't a sob story, just a warning to prospective CIS students: the entry-level jobs you might have seen five years ago aren't "paying less", they are "mostly non-existant".
I got off rather easy, I paid cash for my measly sheepskin. I know a lot of people who jumped right in to 4-year schools on student loans; they are not in the field as well and are financially doing even worse.
I really like the "guys" in the office, but interacting with a woman once in a while sounds like a novel idea!
Sig Hansen?
work with businesses to establish a dollar above minimum wage job for a high school student and make part of the requirements taking classes in the field, then teach them, and if they don't have the apptitude fire them.
If they really want it, they will work hard to do whatever it takes to be there. I worked in minimum wage jobs moving sacks of grain but continued doing open source projects and learning about linux on my own home box... Eventually I got in, and got the degree a long time ago.
If they want it they will go into it. The ones that don't care deserve to be replaced by someone from another country. Working with something you love is a privelage not a gimme or a right, and those that enjoy doing it will do whatever it takes to get there.
So my advice, don't find them open something small and cheap and let them find you.
If you do an ordinary-seeming thing in a new and better way only a few geeks who read your code will know, if anyone. If you invent a new thing to do and execute it adequately then you might get recognition.
And some coders are geniuses at thinking up the dumbest (simplest) way to do things so that they look so simple they get no recognition. I've seen guys quit over this.
Half the time somebody writes patentable code they don't even know it.
Nevertheless, there are people who turn in working systems on time and under budget consistently. Unless you read their code you don't always know what class of coder they are. And quite often nobody reads working code. Especially not IT managers.
If you want to encourage people to study IT: Quit firing the ones you've got! And stop with the crap about only hiring young people. People don't go to college to get a 10-year career and burn out.
To any young person entering college I'd say: Major in CS or IT only if you also plan to get another degree -- get an MBA or go get a PH.d and be a researcher. A BS in CS/IT/SE isn't worth a warm bucket of spit. Okay, I'm being a little extreme. A degree in CS/IT/SE is worth a high school diploma.
And to the guy who was complaining about not being able to fill internships: That's because these are unpayed jobs, you dolt! Internships are appropriate for jobs that have a good future; you get paid in your future position as a judge or manager or senator. Internships in software development make only a little more sense than internships in street sweeping. That's because most techies are treated like street sweepers.
I18N == Intergalacticization
Exactly, Amen, you've hit the nail right on the head. An IT/CS degree by itself doesn't cut it. Experience may do it, depending.
I18N == Intergalacticization
'licence' is also a good one.
It's a market. Markets on average are always smarter than "gurus". You've got a large number of independent evaluators, all of whom are motivated to understand the industry and all of whom have access to information. You've got a very effective mechanism for aggregating their answers: count student enrollment. And the market is telling you that either (1) you are not offering a useful education; or (2) the field isn't worth being in. If you don't agree with (2), then look at (1). Or design a market based experiment to differentiate the two.
At some point the IT industry is going to move beyond Java and it will be the COBOL of the IT industry. Your current boss will hire a new grad to replace you when he wants to use it (or when he is replaced) instead of giving you a 3-month course in whatever the new system is.
However, there will be a warning: When they start to teach the new system in CS courses and it begins to edge out Java then the handwriting is on the wall. A year later there will be an avalanche as the CS and IT courses all race to the new system. Java jobs will start getting scarcer.
The new system might be any of:
- Verificationist math or correctness tech
- Ruby
- .NET 2, 3, or 4
- Something else
Listen for the buzz. It might be the buzzer signaling the end of your career.I18N == Intergalacticization
I can relate to the person with the web company having troubles finding good employees. Training is one thing, but the people you train should at least show some promise, no? If you consider training someone who can't even tell ssh from telnet, then you might as well walk up to any random person in the street and offer to train them.
"it's just that for the practical purposes of your hiring interviews, the difference between Telnet and SSH is $30,000 on your payroll."
You expect an $30000 extra just because you managed the incredible difficult, almost humane impossible task of understanding what ssh does???????
Maybe outsourcing to China and India is the way to go, if everybody else is so arrogant.
You can substitute "IT" for any other branch. Every branch or profession has its ups and downs and choosing something else isn't going to give you more security.
8 of 13 people found this answer helpful. Did you?
These students are very bright, they know the history. Most IT Pro's are "to expensive" after 10 to 12 years and then let go (the "information poor"). Good luck finding another job in the same field. Human resource people will $$assume$$ that you are too experienced, therefore you "will want too much money" (they don't bother to ask, they just assume and file that application). These students also have spreadsheets--can they afford a decent home, and paying for college and university (you remember, those student loans that can take 30 years to pay off) and car payments (remember insurance for that new car) and things like food and clothing (and you know, maybe children too--a very popular item that most people want)? Where will they have to relocate to find this job? Use your spreadsheets, you will really be amazed at the answers far as money is concerned (like-NO, it is NOT possible #NOW#). Remember to include the future value of money in you calculations.
John W....
I did not go in computer science/IT like I wanted to. I had a full ride to Denison University and passed it up due to the slowing of the job market. I want above average salaries, so for me to put up with ignorance and stupidity for a living of mediocre pay is my definition of insanity. It's not worth 36-42k a year to deal with the numbskulls of the world.
Here in Finland it's not really the salary that is the problem (most companies are willing to pay more than enough), the problem is getting into the field fresh out of college/university. You see, most companies want people with "minimum 5 years of experience in the field". And when 99% of jobs have that requirement, it makes you wonder where exactly you're going to get that experience from.
Bit of advice. Firstly, don't start your comment with a sentence fragment.
Also, try to use paragraphs. Don't group your sentences into ones and twos and call it a paragraph.
By doing this you are wasting the useful distinction between the sentence and the paragraph.
Sentences are grammatical collections of words that are easily digested by the human brain.
Paragraphs are collections of sentences that together build a picture and address a given communication task.
By abusing the language in this way you are making your comment difficult to read.
The brain falters on each new paragraph. It's a miracle if anyone gets to the end.
Countzer0interrupt
I'm a software developer with no prior experience as an "HR" type guy, but I recently stepped in and assisted my employers in hiring for a bunch of new positions. Together, we read over 2000 resumes and filtered them, did 80 interviews over 5 days to fill five positions, including a software development position, and a variety of other high-tech engineering positions.
The general level of lying on resumes was abysmally high. People claimed routinely to be expert in things, and when interviewed, they would know nothing about them. Imagine claming you were an electronics designer, and you don't know what a diode, a capacitor, or a resistor do, and you can't explain the relationship between volts, amps and watts. I am not an electronics engineer, just a software developer, but I knew more than most of the "electronics engineers" I interviewed. When it came to interviewing software developers, I expected to meet a few competent developers. I met exactly two. One had relevant experience, and we were able to hire him. One was a smart person with no relevant experience, and so we didn't hire that person. My standards are that I'll hire a smart person, with little relevant industry-sector experience, provided they have been around, and have demonstrated their ability to produce reasonably good results.
Now that I'm no longer a complete HR virgin, I won't be so surprised next time, to find that there are a tonne of people who are willing to work for me who know nothing about IT, nothing about software development, nothing about electronics, although according to their resume, they are multi-talented multi-disciplinary impressarios. In fact, now that I'm calibrated to the prevaling conditions of the job market, I know I can streamline my resume-scanning, interviewing, and hiring practices to save me 50% of the time I spent last time. I have learned, when an interview has gone off the rails, to end it quickly, and in a way in which everyone's dignity is preserved. This saves my time, and saves candidates who know nothing at all, from further embarrassment.
So, while we haven't exactly had trouble filling our positions, we've found it takes a lot of work to weed out unqualified people.
Warren/Franciscan
I worked in the manufacturing end of technology for 13 years - building hard disk drives and then semiconductors - after those jobs dried up and went overseas I went back to school for my associates in computer information systems; worked hard and maintained a 4.0 average. After finishing, in 2003, I have yet to find work in the IT field. I fully expected to come in at the bottom - doing anything a company would let me do, just to break into a field. I also fully expected to continue my education - I just hoped that I'd be able to work in the field while doing so. Now, I'm not so sure if getting a bachelor's in this field is still the "smart" thing to do - or if I should consider some other field altogether. I'd be interested in hearing from anyone that's actually been able to get a job within the last couple of years with an AS or AAS degree and find out what their secret was.
IT jobs are going to be very scarce in those countries.
/. crowd delude themselves hiding in a latent racism. Indian IT people are brilliant, well prepared and clever. But living in denial is very cosy I am told.
China and India are pumping 1 million IT people each a year and all companies are either outsourcing, relocating or hiring from there.
Now half the people I interact with are of Indian origin.
Many in the
Chinese and Indians are going to be replaced later by Vietnamese, Malaysians or Indonesians (or Africans in the countries where they get their act together, Botswana is beginning to integrate to the globalized economy for example).
Did I mention that half of my shop was relocated to Eastern Europe from London?
Sorry but it is a no win situation for IT new students. It is though and is going to get even worse.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
I'd agree completely, and also add that outsourcing in the case of IT isnt to other countires as much as it's to other firms on the area who can handle many IT tasks that would otherwise be very expensive to build from the ground up. There are many small businesses in my area who dont hire IT guys, they hire small firms that they can call and have someone at their door in 15 mins. For many of these businesses, there simply isnt a need, and the very large firms... well, they go about things in their own way. Large firms' IT departments are more like beehives where there are queen bees, and then many many many worker bees. Nothing can be as boring as being an IT worker bee, a lot of people recognize this, and thus, try to avoid it.
Hmmmm lets see. GP, plumber, electrician, roofer, train driver, dentist, veterinarian, accountant, lawyer, academic, teacher, psychiatrist, taxi driver etc etc.
;) Considering the work that is required to maintain ones ability to compete within the marketplace, the profession tends to suffer disproportionately to others during a downturn. Dont get me wrong, for the most part Ive enjoyed the last 15 years working in the industry. I just now believe that there are many other professions with better job security, easier requirements to maintain ones ability to do the job, similiar (if not better) levels of pay and perhaps most importantly, will still be around in 20 years. With hindsite I wouldnt have touched IT as a profession and would have kept it as a hobby - hence Id advise others to do likewise.
Yes, most industries suffer during economic down swings but when was the last time a company decided to lay off 1/2 its lawyers during one?
In the mid '90s, many people would get out of college and take an entry level IT or tech support job as their entry-level job. There were plenty of start-ups, not just in the San Francisco Bay area, but all around the country. It wasn't hype, or a bubble, it was a sudden recognition that computers were the direction things were going in. As a result, there were plenty of jobs to be found in most areas of the country where technology use was expanding.
.com crash in the stock market(which was seperate from the crash in the overall tech sector itself), the venture capitol money went away, including money that would be needed for GOOD ideas. Many of the smaller companies, both with great ideas and products, and those without a product that were started as a result of the hype, went under due to a sudden reduction in customers. Remember that many companies made and sold products for use by other companies, not just trying to sell to end-users.
.com crash, we need to convince companies that use computers and pay contractors to hire people for full-time positions. Here on Long Island, it seems that there is a higher than normal reliance on contractors. Instead of paying someone $40,000/year to be at the company fixing problems, many companies end up spending $40,000/year to have someone come in from the outside to come in on demand. The result is a smaller number of IT jobs. Note that a contractor can come in and get paid $40,000/year by more than one company because that contractor can do work for multiple companies, and gets paid more per hour than a regular employee.
The new companies that were founded were the source of many of the tech jobs that were out there. The problem is that after the
With the reduction in the number of companies came the natural reduction in the number of IT positions. With the reduction in IT positions came the reduction in spending on technology, in addition to the loss because people who work with computers spend money on computers for themselves, not just their companies.
In order for IT to recover, we don't need to return to the days prior to the
There is plenty of work out there for those in IT, the problem is to make companies realize that having someone on-staff to keep things running well is better than waiting for things to break before bringing someone in. If people didn't change the oil in their car/SUV/truck, they would end up paying more in repairs than it costs to get regular maintenance. It's too bad that many companies don't seem to understand the similarities.
Well, in my previous job, a merger happened with another company. No lay-offs except... in staff functions like PR, HR and yes, company lawyers.
I just now believe that there are many other professions with better job security, easier requirements to maintain ones ability to do the job, similiar (if not better) levels of pay and perhaps most importantly, will still be around in 20 years
Yeah, but tell me: do you think you'd have felt that same passion? I know a lawyer, an auditor, et cetera, but they always fail to convey that passion for their business that I find in the average geek. You're right, there is a price for a profession in IT, but it's not much higher.
8 of 13 people found this answer helpful. Did you?
I've worked in IT for 25 years.
What I have found is: no matter what experience you have, employers want something else.
If you have cisco, unix, windows; they want unix, citrix, windows, tivoli. If you have java, php c++; they want java, visual basic, c#.
When you consider how many technologies there are, the odds that any one job will actually match any one person's experinence is astronomical.
It seem to me that every IT is completely different animal. There is no established set of skills that prepares you for any IT job. There is no established career path. This is very different than other other fields like law or medicin.
If I could go back, I'd avoid IT.
1. LAMP, open source
2. Microsoft shop, ASP, SQL server
3. Java, Oracle, UML, design patterns.
Cat 1 and 2 you can get away with little or no formal degree. Cat 3 employers are looking for the degree, the experience, but these jobs can be offshored because these jobs are in fortune 500 companies that can afford to do such things. There are so many specialists involved in bigger organizations like QA, system engineers, test engineers, configuration management, security, etc. Big field, there is more than just programmer/analyst.... you should always keep a paper trail of your work experience.
Payslips, performance appraisals, raise of salay communications, anything that helps you to probe you were there.
When I leave a job I always ask a letter explaining what I did, for how long, etc.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Good luck to you in your new field of endeavour!
While a plumber (or electrician or carpenter) job cannot be offshore outsourced, it can and will (eventually) be taken by one of that vast horde of illegal immigrants that have entered this country. It has been more than a decade since illegal immigrant labor was synonymous with migrant farm labor.
Employer hiring of illegal aliens may be illegal, but the government at all levels (and your politicians) have given that practice tacit approval by failing to control the borders, and by failing to enforce those laws.
This is a Prisoner's Dilemma problem, in that advantages of training someone up are spread over all of society (more qualified people to choose from), but the disadvantages are personalized (the company would have a definite dollar cost to pay). So not paying for training is personally beneficial and logical, but generally destructive and short-sighted.
If you know how to fix that problem, let me know.
Despite what globalized exploitation brings in possible benefits, all it really does is bring them to the top 2%. What this means, is that it might be a bit better to line things up in politics, and start thinking about how to stop the trend, if not just to slow it down.
Even if you're going to stay in IT, supporting any measure of offshoring/globalism is making the bullet that will be used to kill you, even if you're the rarity coder at Google that is State educated, or otherwise educated that got a slot meant for a domestic person *cough*MIT*cough*. If you're neither, and you have no way of getting there, get into politics, and get to a point where you can undo the damage globalized exploitation started in 2003 (and possibly earlier).
Also, with the combination of job theft and rising tuition, it's more or less that one would have to bring protectionism and force universal open, cost free admissions to higher education. This would have the purpose to remove the cost out of the decision, as it would equally be shared - and there would be no need for selective admissions (what is really meant by the euphemism of "competitive admissions"). If anyone with a diploma can enter and get the same advantages and connections as the ones in an Ivy without the unrightful power derived from refusal, there would be a lot more than just IT receiving the benefit.
The "free-in-theory market" system had its day, now it's just churning out cheap, low quality equipment at the cost of many jobs on a global scale, with the output being no "equality" but a further entrenchment of the top 2%.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
OK, Believe in Software Freedom is a "religion". SO why not sell your sould to the Devil outright? Why bother with stocks and priming your company to be bought out?
US-UK-Israel: The real Axis of Evil
You said everything I was thinking. Nicely done.
I'm up against that 10-year-plus wall right now. Not a coder, never was a coder. Just a good sysadmin. Paid slightly better than average as I've gotten older, and always worked hard at knowing my stuff.
But, knowing that the company would easily hire someone for half my salary to do my job is a bit of a downer and motivational problem.
The replacement wouldn't do as good a job, but the managers don't know that -- anyone above our supervisory level doesn't understand even half of what I work on today anyway.
The older you get in IT, the more you have to "sell yourself" and look like a complete ass-kissing schmuck to the younger guys/gals who are wondering why you're always doing it, as you attempt to add value to your position.
(Well maybe with most employers not giving even cost-of-living raises anymore, perhaps not.)
In most industries, elders are respected and allowed to slow up a bit when they've been at something for 30 years. It's even institutionalized. Think Sr. Partner in a Law Firm, for example.
In IT, you'd be gone long before 20 years was up, and someone less experienced, less careful, and more costly in terms of mistakes, will be doing your job. But only a very few companies keep engineers around long enough to see the benefits from their life-long experience. (HP is a good example, probably IBM too.)
I started as one of those bright-eyed, cheap, 20-somethings who was clueless but had a chip on my shoulder and something to prove. Now heading into my mid-30's I realize that my knowledge and experience won't mean shit in ten more years.
Lovely career path.
+++OK ATH
I headhunt high end developers for banks, and the salaries are really not that bad, even at entry level. But having been a developer myself (C++, OS/2, Windows etc), the thing that's wrong with developer careers is that they are nearly all dead ends. There is a widespread perception that IT types don't have management skills, compunded by the fact that few firms actually train poeple in any meaningful way. But I have to say the killer is IT people. It's easy to complain about society, and how arts graduates are in positions of reponsiblity beyond their competence, but I see a huge absence of assertiveness from IT people. I see blokes who will argue loudly and passionately and at length, about the real or imagined defects of Java, say "Oh" when they find out that someone else is going to be promoted. IT people are too loyal, and it is used against us. That's not to say every conversation need to be of the form "I get 20% more money or I walk", but you need to make it clear what your expcectations are. You are an important an expensive bit of the firm, (usually) they do not want to see you go. You need to ask confrontational questions, like when you can expect to be on the next level, raise etc. You need to be in the loop, and if you are not, pin people down. Not complain, simply engage them, so that it is less effort to keep you up to speed than leave you out. Many IT people do this, once. The trick is to persist. If you see other IT types being treated badly, take your manager aside and say that makes you wonder about the strength of your own position, and say that you've not felt very appreciated. The discipline should be easy for programmers. Most firms are like buggy data structures with bits of code shoved in them. The first thing to realise fromn this model is that "should" as in the moral imperative is not a valid operator in this domain. A company has no more morals than Excel, and it won't calculate your salary to a higher number because you did "good", but only upon it's inputs and set of bugs. We live by manipulating systems, yet we have been conned into not using our abilities upon the fleshware systems that affect our lives vastly morw than O/Ses.
Dominic Connor,Quant Headhunter
"But, then, I'd make that statement about any career. Careers should be chosen by what you like to do - which relates directly with what you have a natural aptitude for - and not just because you can make a certain salary."
Well there must be a lot of people with a natural aptitude, and desire for "Would you like fries with that?", and "A size 8 shoe will fit." forgoing the big salary they could be making working "training my replacement" IT.
"Basically what I'm saying is that the majority of jobs do NOT require a degree, nor will a degree really help them."
Ah, but the REAL question is not whether a particular *job* will be helped by a degree, but whether a *person* will be helped by that degree.
Maybe his particular job flipping burgers/digging trenches/toting barges/lifting bales won't be helped much by his education - but I think it's a stupid attitude to think that we require people to do menial tasks and therefore shouldn't bother letting them waste their time educating themselves. I think society should be based on individuals, not on classes, and I think that any individual is better suited for.. well.. anything, if he has #1 most importantly, the idea that work begets prosperity, and #2 that work is both mental and physical. And sometimes if you do a little bit of mental work, you'll save a lot of physical work.
For the reader's benefit, it might be helpful to envision a soap-box preacher foaming a the mouth and red in the face during the next paragraph or so.
It all comes down to attitude. And this attitude that jobs are a depleteable comodity is the STUPIDEST BURGER-FLIPPING IDEA I HAVE HEARD IN MY ENTIRE LIFE.
The only point at which there are NO MORE JOBS TO BE HAD is when EVERYTHING THAT IS POSSIBLE TO BE DONE IS DONE. I.e. when everybody is fed, clothed, sheltered, watered, entertained, etc etc. So.. if you're starving because you don't have a job to pay for food, the PROBLEM is not a lack of a job or lack of money; you HAVE a job - the job is to get food. The PROBLEM is a lack of FOOD which can be remedied by DOING YOUR JOB. And no, stealing food from somone who currently has it is not doing your job. All you are doing then is shuffling around a limited comodity - that of food - instead of introducing MORE of that comodity into the market. I.e. GROWING MORE FOOD. Or, paying someone else to grow more food. Or something. but the problem is NOT A LACK OF JOBS AND NEVER WILL BE SO LONG AS WE DON'T LIVE IN UTOPIA. There will NEVER be too few jobs. If stupid people would stop thinking all about what their neighbour already has, and how it would be less work to go and steal their neighbour's food than it would be to grow their own, or spend all their time and intellect thinking of ways to swindle "money" i.e. food and goods, in an indirect fashion, out of other people, and instead SPEND THEIR TIME PRODUCING SOMETHING WORTHWHILE, then 'society', along with all the individuals in it, will be a lot better off.
Early bird may get the worm.. but the second mouse gets the cheese.
Which post house?
Libertas in infinitum
As a lead tester, I have a video game that I'm figuring out why it's not working, entering reports into the database, and responding to questions from people on my team, developers and management. As a help desk specialist, I'm getting tickets about problems I'm trying to figure out what the solutions are, and responding to people and management. The two are remarkably similar in this aspect.
:)
As a lead tester, I have to put up with management threatening to fire me to cover up their mistakes, producers trying to blame me to cover their mistakes, and team members transferring to other projects to avoid taking any of my blame for mistakes that I admitted that I did. As a help desk specialist, I get phone calls from executive assistants threatening to call in a vice president if I don't do something for them RIGHT NOW even though it's not my responsibility and a vice president should step in since their approval is needed anyway. I think it's easier to live on the help desk than be a lead tester hiding underneath the desk.
I like working on the help desk because it's remarkably similiar to working as a lead tester but with fewer negatives. Working 40 hours a week at $21/hr is also nice.