Tech Workers in Higher Demand

mjdroner writes "CNN has a story on an employment consulting firm report showing job cuts in the tech sector are down 40 percent." From the article: "Despite the inevitable job-cutting that typically follows mergers, the job market picture for the nation's tech workers is definitely improving. Many job seekers in high-demand fields such as storage systems administration and information security are probably finding themselves in the driver's seat when it comes to negotiating employment terms"

Comments

This is sort of like...

[EmagGeek]

saying "they're cutting medicare!!" because they are increasing spending by 7% instead of 9%..

The fact that they're being laid off at simply a slower rate doesn't make me feel like they're in higher demand. It could just as easily mean that they've run out of people to lay off.

From an employer

[dada21]

I've run my IT consulting business now for almost 20 years, a succesful business in the Midwest that has extended past. We ignored the dotcom boom (and bust), we grew slowly but surely, and we focus on showing our customers a profitable return on every investment they make in us.

We can't find good workers. I've interviewed repeatedly and found the new talent is terrible -- it seems that has technology becomes more "known," the amount of GOOD talent is dropping. I've interviewed some people from top colleges that just don't know their way around a business at all, and I have no desire to train them in exchange for a high 5 figure salary.

The only way I seem to find valuable employees is by picking up the real outcasts from the larger consulting firm -- outcasts that have great insight and work ethic but are too far outside the box to fit in any MBA-run company. Every time a consulting group goes under, the same morons get new jobs with the next company that won't exist in 10 years.

For those in the same position, what are you doing for hiring? I don't see talent coming out of college and moving to the Midwest (a very profitable IT sector), most are instead moving to the west coast, taking a big salaried job, and finding themselves stuck in a very expensive area where the high salary doesn't seem to overcome the overhead of living there (stress, costs, traffic). I'd love to find a resource for good employees, but I guess the answer is right there: good employees don't get fired. The balance between efficiency and knowledge and salary is not something I worry about -- if my customers realize a gain on the money they spend on us, I have no problem paying the person right. For those who know, most of my employees work at minimum wage with a large project bonus (up to 80%), and I have enough people looking to work for us that it isn't the pay structure that isn't helping me find good help.

Also, it seems that many people going to college for computer science/engineering aren't even learning the basics -- what colleges have you recent graduates gone to that have taught you real consulting skills, business sense and responsibility?

Re:From an employer

[Badgerman]

Here's a bit of a contrast from what I've seen - I left the midwest for the west coast (IT Project Manager).

The big problem is getting people to move. Regions change and shift and grow, and one of the terrible problems is that to get talent, you may have to get it from somewhere else. I worked with one company who, essentially, raided a neighboring state for talent. Even if the job count stays the same, the type changes.

And it'll all shift again. Five years ago, pre-9/11 my home state was hopping. Post-9/11 it never fully recovered, several changes affected the job markets, and people began leaving - me with them. Now, having moved, ironicaly, I'm gettng leads. Maybe it'll change in a few years, or maybe I'll end up having my company move.

Another friend who's a storage expert in my old home can't find anywhere to go with his career, and has no choice to go to the coasts with his level of expertise. But again - what happens in five years? In ten.

As my current boss put it, "Not everyone is brave enough to move" for a job. It's a helluva risk. And I think the changing demographics of need, combined with the fact some people don't want to move, create areas with talent gaps.

This is all on top of the fact that a lot of IT people are damn bitter, and understandably so.

Re:It is our responsibility..

[sbrown123]

a) They are thousands of miles away.

Wait till the new guest worker program goes in to effect. Yeah, you probably thought it was all about Mexicans picking potatoes out in some farm out west, right? Wrongo. With the new guest worker program, H1B visas are no longer required. Employers can just ship in boatloads of Indians and Chinese to do your job for about 1/4 of the cost. I don't care how skilled you think you are, theres someone who will jump off that boat and say they can do the same job for much less.

President Bush will try to make you think this is all about people working jobs that Americans won't do. He's right. We, as natural born Americans, find it hard to work at wages way below the poverty line.

What can you do to stop this? Write to your two senators and tell them to put a halt to the "guest worker" program. Sure, we have jobs to do and can't go marching around the streets today like the immigrants, but we need to find the time to stop this before it gets out of hand.

Re:Customers care about results...

[sapped]

Customers care about results. If they guy of the boat can't speak english, can't interpret requirements, and doesn't know the clients business it won't matter that he works for $2 per hour.

Really? Why don't come and peddle that crap to my current employer? They obviously didn't hear about your theory before embarking on their current slapdash offshoring initiative.

We are talking here about sending our entire IT dept to a company which doesn't even have PC's for their employees. My numbskull employer agreed to buy them all laptops (at approx 1.7 times average market price).

Currently we are doing knowledge transfer via conference calls. The lines and the accents are so difficult for both sides to understand that we may as well be talking in different languages for the amount of knowledge that is being transferred.

Each time I mention the problems that are going to come our way as a result of this ridiculous approach I am told that I cannot see the "big picture" from my lowly "techie perspective" and these guys are really cheap. I wonder why.