Lowering the Odds of Being Outsourced

Lam1969 writes "Computerworld points to a study by the Society for Information Management, which concludes that the best thing young IT workers can do to avoid being outsourced is beef up their management skills. The article quotes Thomas Tanaka, a recent computer engineering graduate, describing a recent job interview: 'While the Santa Clara, Calif., resident has generally been looking for entry-level software jobs with IT vendors, he recently had an interview with a financial firm looking to fill an in-house IT position. That's where his lack of business background was exposed.'"

Comments

My professor has been saying this for years.

[rob_squared]

Professor Weinstein, if you want to know his name.

And a lot of people listened to him and minored in business. The problem is, when companies require x years of experience managing or in engineering/IT to get a job, where will we get those people?

Quick Answer: Get an MBA

[Marxist Hacker 42]

No- really. For anybody who has been out of college for more than 2 years, that's what the article recommends. No advice if you're not a people person, hate people, and went into computers to avoid working with people. No advice if you're not a natural entrapreneur running your first ecommerce site before you've left the dorms in college.

So they really think

[Maxo-Texas]

That we are -ALL- going to be managers.

It is really sad to see them lying to us (and maybe even themselves) so blatantly.

Many of our outsourced positions now include outsourcing the project lead level as well.

The only thing that is going to save our jobs is higher wages overseas.

Why should you spend $50 grand and 4 years of your life to get a degree with NO FUTURE?!?

Sure if you are a genius- go for it. But if you are joe average "B" / low "A" type person- there are many easier degrees with better job prospects than IT. IT SUCKS.

No respect, no pay, no security, rampant age discrimination, constant retraining- and even then you have to be "lucky" to get experience at the hot new technology or you are out on your kiester in as little as 2-3 years.

Don't listen to the propaganda/lies that are suddenly being pushed over the last few months (in conjunction with the H1B issue oddly enough... HMMM!).

Lots of poeple can be hard workers.
Not many people can be good manager types.
Not many people can be hard workers for -LESS- than minimum wage when they are trying to pay back a $50 grand debt that they -CANNOT- declare bankruptcy to get out of when they get the shaft.

Be well rounded.

[Be Well Rounded]

Check.

False

[WindBourne]

Everybody did notice that they study was for Information Managment, no? People think that we will keep managment here, while sending the tech jobs elsewhere. Not likely. In fact, as the tech jobs go, so will the managerial jobs. Anyinterface position will be those that can live in both cultures easily.

Personally, I would argue if you really do not wish to be outsourced, then become a marketer or become the company owner.

So the best way to avoid being outsourced IT?

[rsilvergun]

is to get into management? doesn't that kinda defeat the purpose of getting into IT? That's kinda like saying the best way to avoid losing your job in the steel mill is to get a degree in medicine.

Re:So the best way to avoid being outsourced IT?

[Irish_Samurai]

It sounds that way, but it isn't entirely. From what I have experienced, the suits have a real problem getting an IT guy to see their point of view, and the same is true in reverse. Someone who has the experience to understand why some of the ridiculous things managers ask for aren't as foolish when looked at from their perspective also knows how to employ the inverse.

That is a person who can lead a tech team from the frontlines and then come back to the Meeting Room and be an evangilist whos opinion carries weight. I view it as a redefinition of what a "project manager's" responsibilities and place in the corporate structure are.

Sometimes it isn't about a business wanting you to add up time cards and crack the whip. I think any geek would bend over backwards if it meant they could show some young turks through all the mistakes they had to figure out alone. Maybe business are learning that PHB's screw the IT shit up, so they go to their fall back option - can one of these geeks speak our language and will he wear a suit twice a year?

Re:So the best way to avoid being outsourced IT?

[Javagator]

The best IT managers tend to grock technology.

Here are the attributes of the best managers I have had (in order of importance).

1. Actually listen to the people they manage.
2. Have good social and communication skills.
3. Have some domain expertise..
4. Have some technical expertise..

And my best managers have usually been women.

Re: One source for his statement

[Xeger]

Not to pick nits, but a lakh just means 100,000 of something. So the girl in the article, being paid "Rs 4.8 lakh," was being paid 480,000 rupees per annum.

At about 40 rupees to the dollar, you can see that her pay in dollars -- $12,000 -- is quite low. Even though salaries in India are rising dramatically, they've still got a long way to go before they close the gap with US salaries (especially in fields like tech, which are on the rise even in the US).

And now for my spot of commentary:

In the long run, those jobs that can be outsourced effectively, *will* be. The corporations that form the basis of our free-market economy are compelled BY LAW to reduce costs as much as possible, in order to increase margins and enhance shareholder value.

As one would expect, not every job can be outsourced efficiently. At the moment the pendulum is swinging TOWARD outsourcing, as greedy CEOs experiment with new ways to lower the bottom line. However, there have been (and will continue to be) numerous incidents where jobs are inappropriately outsourced. Given a few decades, the economies of "insourcing" countries will rise as money floods in, corporate types will learn which jobs need to stay in country, and the system will reach equilibrium.

Those who don't like what the future has to hold can choose to move to a country with a controlled economy, or find a protected niche such as health care, palm reading or burger flipping -- none of which are amenable to outsourcing.

Differentiators

[uqbar]

I interview lots of tech folks. The things that set the best of the best apart are leadership skills, ability to think in a deep analytical fashion that starts with looking at the assumptions, curiousity and ability to communicate with good, articulate answers and thoughtful questions.

Very few techies have these skills - anyone that does is so amazingly useful to us that we'd never be able to oursource what they do.

The problem is that I don't know if these skills are the sort of thing you can just learn. I've seen plenty of techie MBAs that have no aptitude for leading.

Can this stuff really be learned?

Three steps to job security

[wowbagger]

• Rohypnol in the boss's drink: $50
• 1 goat - $100
• Instant camera with film: $25
• Eternal employment: Priceless

Some things in life are free. For everything else, there's extortion.

What happens when engineers go managing

[moochfish]

"Well-well look. I already told you: I deal with the god damn customers so the engineers don't have to. I have people skills; I am good at dealing with people. Can't you understand that? What the hell is wrong with you people?"

It defeats the purpose for a lot of

[Captain Tripps]

Like say, those of us who went into the field 'cause we liked it. If I wanted to be a manager, I'd have gone to business school in the first place. I hate when people just automatically assume that if you're successful, you'll inevitably end up in management. It's even in TFA: "The time period one spends as a programmer is becoming compressed." Like it's just a natural stepping-stone.

I'm a programmer, I'm proud of it, and I'm glad I can make a living at it. The head research programmer at my last job was 40, and still hacking Scheme and C. I hope that's where I'll be when I'm 40. Maybe it won't be possible, but if I have to go back to school to retrain, the last thing I'm getting is an MBA. I'm gonna look around for another career I like.