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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.
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.
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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.
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
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.
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.
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 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.
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.
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).
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
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 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!
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.
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?
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.
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
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.
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.
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)
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 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
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?
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.
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.
"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.
I completed the same course 9 years ago and it was enough to get my first programming job and move up. A degree wasn't essential, but I'm sure if I hadn't had that first opportunity then a degree would have been "essential". It's all luck of the draw, I was employed by my IT lecturers who were setting up a startup. That kept me very occupied for 7 years and gave me some great experience in IT and management. I've now hopped over into local government where I'm Security Officer.
I'd thoroughly recommend getting into local government IT in the UK as they are usually underfunded with poorly trained "lifer" staff, yet have stupidly large WANS and a ridiculous amount of different applications to develop and support all with a relatively small actual user base (150 locations/offices, 150 servers, approx 300 applications, 2000 users, Cisco, Windows 2003, Solaris, SCO, Linux, BSD, SQL Server, Ingres, Oracle). It's certainly worth keeping an eye out for even very poorly paid low-level jobs in your local council, just be sure that they are within their IT department and not an Information Officer in an actual department. It would be very worthwhile taking on summer / work placement type stuff and I'm sure they would be receptive to this.
If you are still not getting anywhere I'd suggest getting your tesco job back and perhaps follow up with a part-time HND, make sure you take the CCNA exam if it is also offered. Also while your doing that try and get some sort of work placement.
Good luck!
Jason.
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.
Look, I know what ssh does, and you know what ssh does, and we think nothing of it - I use it every day, and you probably do, too.
But, the fact remains: If you're willing to hire someone at $30,000/yr, and you require them to know how to use SSH, and people who know who live in San Jose require $60,000/yr, you're not going to get anyone. The practical matter that it isn't a hard concept to understand doesn't negate the fact that it differentiates column A from column B.
The obvious answer is to find a bright kid willing to work at $30k, and teach them.
If you require A qualification at B payrate, and people who have A qualification require 2xB payrate, you're not going to get a lot of quality people, and the ones you do get will leave quickly for better jobs.
~W
sig?