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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?"
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.
Simpli - Your source for San Jose dedicated servers and colocation!
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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).
Why recruit people who will be your competition?
I hate to break it to you, but if you want to be a Linux admin, you need to be able to answer entry-level questions like the ones I listed in my previous post. Yes, we are willing to train, but the people we hire need to show the motivation to at least get those basic skills themselves. Maintaining a Linux dedicated server or a box at home gets you 90% of the way there, but very few people actually do this.
I've met 18-year-olds who were geniuses and who knew way more than the above. We can and do hire them. The training they require is more along the lines of "Call when you're going to be late" and "How to deal with customers without sounding like an arrogant kid." That's stuff I'm happy to teach, and they enjoy getting real-world experience and having an office to work in.
But I'm not going to train someone to be a Linux admin when they didn't have the initiative to go out on their own and learn the first, basic set of skills required. It works both ways. 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. If you think you can just walk in with a basic set of PC skills and get a Linux system administrator job, forget it.
Simpli - Your source for San Jose dedicated servers and colocation!
It is true, this industry sucks. Sometimes you are lucky to string along 3 to 5 years in one company before they fold or get purchased. There is little job security even if you are really good at what you do. You will find yourself traveling city to city for work. That is great if you are single, but as soon as you have kids or *gasp* a girlfriend, going from company to company will get really old really fast. If you are going to invest the kind of time and money to come out of school with a 4 year engineering degree or a masters the grass is definitely greener on the other side.
Saying Java is nice because it works on all OS's is like saying that anal sex is nice because it works on all genders.
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.
Sure is. A University close to here with similar problems to the headline, has a newspaper print ad series running now (not on their online edition, blame the paper for that
Immediately the bleat went out "Why weren't we included?" from Arts and Fine Arts for Media Production Systems, and yes, for Gaming.
Some years ago our "IT" systems were restructured by a bright eyed and bushy tailed consultant who decreed that all our audio-visual systems were IT, and we would be subject to the same management regime. He came to look at what we actually did, found nothing ran MS Windows, and there weren't even many keyboards or mice. He went away and left us alone...
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.
I can comment on a coast... 12 years experience in IT, with the early years as computer operator and tech support guy, the last several years in network engineering (that's network engineering as in I can do everything from vendor eval to price and contract negotiation with telecom and equipment vendors, to network design and implementation, to fixing it when it's f****d... NOT .. "I'm a Network Engineer because I can run a small Windows Active Directory domain without major FUBARs"... I updated and posted my resume (CV for you Brits) and had a call within a day, and interview within a week, and a second interview scheduled within 2 weeks, .... this is without any applications etc... I've received countless emails from headhunters for jobs of lesser level than I am looking for or not in the right niche exactly... (why is it that headhunters don't know the difference between HSRP and Oracle DBA?)... left coast is pretty good I'd say. I'd also say current time period... when companies are looking at budget allocations and projects for next year is the best time to be job hunting, with an eye at a Jan-Mar start.
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 think you've got it right on.
I wonder though, that this is just a trend that spans all disciplines. The argument holds sway (to idiots) in the same way: get someone younger for cheaper (they're nearly as good); get someone out of the country for cheaper (they nearly speak English, but, close enough); get anyone cheaper who's willing (they're not as good, but, hey, they're cheaper).
I think these are some very wrong attitudes, probably coming from some business curriculum. Lots of ideas that look good on paper, but don't translate well in real life. Unfortunately, the net results aren't evident until well down the road and the people who were hurt by the philosophy are long since permanently damaged, and the ones who made the decisions are long since promoted.
I don't think you're trolling, nor should you be modded so. I haven't gotten mod points for well over a year (long story, see this journal entry.) So, the best I can do is proxy-mod your comment "insightful" +1. Good post.
Me? I'd say get your degree in whatever you want - unless you're going to a top 5 school it won't matter what it's in. If you *want* to be a programmer, then you don't need college to be employed, and academic programs are turning into vocational ones under pressure from industry. Something about managers who want their new hires to show up already knowing everything about everything or work for less than you need to pay your loans. Note that this is a failure of the educational institutions for not telling industry to go to hell and industry for having managers who don't know the difference between a monkey and somebody who can learn.
Whatever you do, unless you move up the ladder, is going to be toast in 5 years or less. Count on it. Then you'll be stuck trying to learn a new skillset so that you can get a new job doing the next hot thing that will be gone in 5 years.
But somebody asking for advice? If you've got a degree or job or are mostly through, get your job, do what you can, but set yourself up to LEAVE IT AND DON'T COME BACK for after your industry collapses or shrinks. If you're just starting, do something else. The promise of CS is ash. If the technical side appeals to you, go into engineering and if the reasoning side appeals, go into math. If you're looking for something other than these, please for the love of god get your degree in something appropriate like psychology or art or english rather than creating little bastardized fields that will leave you unemployable and CS with a bad name.
Amen!
I would add that HR automatically filters out anybody that does NOT have a 4 year degree, thereby immediately disqualifying some of the finest candidates.
I work at a fortune 500 in IT. It's so true it's sad.
Heard in a meeting this morning: "The reason why companies use EJBs is because some developers wanted to have that to put on their resumes."
It took us 1 year to fill 4 positions, and 3 are H1.
"Piter, too, is dead."
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!")
I don't want to subsidize 4 years of partying. One of my partners is a college grad and he knows he wasted all that time.
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.
Or our company works in a non-software industry handling bids and B2B management for billion dollar construction projects. HTML?
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.
Our market is international and I need hard workers who don't have indoctrinated business skills but self-discovered ones. As we expand to Poland, Czech Rep and Dubai, I don't need some snotty "the U.S. is best" kid dragging the entire team down.
he's obviously not even talking about a real job.
Right. I'm quoted in recent (and a far back as 2001) print issues of Electrical Contractors Magazine and other contracting journals with my push for more business-savvy IT employees. I'm seeing literally millions lost in Chicago work for lack of good employees. I can't go through another round of interviews with people who don't understand simple profit statements.
Give me a DRIVEN H.S. grad who I can train in good business practices and I'll turn him into gold. I want all my employees opening their own business in 5 years, not leaving to make money for someone else.
You live in Indiana.
I can't control where I was born and raised. I want to save money to relocate to another town if necessary. Problem is that stores at the local mall don't want to hire me, not even temporary, part time, minimum wage. (Is that $5.15 an hour, or am I pricing myself out of the market?)
AC wrote:
Look for the kind of jobs that *are* available in your geographical area and adapt those skills?
By the time I've gone to school to learn those jobs, they won't be in demand anymore.
Work on some homebrew projects with an interesting idea focusing on the above skillset
I already have worked on homebrew projects, but despite my homebrew projects, employers don't want me.
adding a few more projects to your resume even if these are your own ideas that you have or will implement (think java, j2ee, c++, large scale systems, sql, oracle, async messaging etc.)
How can I work with enterprise level projects if I don't already have an enterprise level budget to buy a single-user license for some of these? I can afford PHP and MySQL but not Oracle. What exactly are "large scale systems"?
Get published, initially a few articles here and there would suffice, this gets you noticed better than anything else.
What subjects? Print or online? I've already written a few articles about GBA sprite memory management and present and future Nintendo DS modding methods. And if you count everything2, I have nearly 400 articles posted.
Move to a better and more technology friendly area, if you can.
Moving costs money. My job as a clerical volunteer for the VA hospital in Fort Wayne pays $0.00 per hour. Even minimum wage employers such as restaurants and mall stores don't want to hire me. What should I do?
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.
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"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.
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
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.
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
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.
You asked for advice, so here is my to pennies.
You might try putting in an objective section.
You might also spiff up your resume landing page.
One, question. Why are you looking for an "entry level job"? Your resume speaks that you might be able to handle a little more than that. "junior programer" might be a more apt description of what you are looking for, but I can't really tell from your resume. A problem with looking for saying junior programmer is you might exclude yourself from companies that want someone around for small jobs, but can't justify paying six figures. Your resume hints that you might be able to handle that.
If I was looking for a web programmer, I'm not sure that I would ask you, instead I would ask one of the people that said that they are interested in being a web programer, just because they would be more likely to be enthusiastic about the job and I could stop the hiring process.
True story, at one of my jobs, I was opening a box of my new business cards, IT was installing my computer on my desk, when my boss came running over with a job application saying "Fill this out quick, HR is throwing a fit." The moral, ask for a job in person if you can, and ask other programmers who is hiring.
Good luck
Work bio at MMWD