Not Your Daddy's IT Force Anymore

Quill345 writes "The days of high-paying technology-based jobs right out of highschool are over. As writers for ACM report, the skill-sets required for jobs have grown over time. Academia has responded to the evolution with novel programs recruiting women and integrating IT into MBA programs. And as technology finds its way into every aspect of business life, the NSF is creating a grant program to fund service science, a blend of IT into other industries. Researchers at City University of NY are working on an NSF-funded project to infuse technology into Liberal Arts courses taken by students who are in primary tech-producer or tech-consumer majors. What are these crucial modern skills? Knowledge of laws like the DMCA? Interpersonal and group work skills? Experience with different technology platforms? The ability to discriminate between useful and useless information sources?"

Comments

I got a suggestion.

[AltGrendel]

How about "Listening to the Engineers, they may actually know what they're talking about."

That would be a great course to offer "potental" managers.

Re:I got a suggestion.

[Retric]

"Engineers and techs are hired to perform some technology-related task. They are responsible to complete these tasks."

False.

Projects could work this way if they started with extremely clear goals but most Managers are unable to provide sufficient detail. In the real world Engineers are often asked to provide the idea's, estimated completion time, wait for Management to decide what to do and how many resources they have to work with, and then Engineers to start creating a product. However, the goal keeps changing as new ideas show up so Engineers are often asked to adapt something designed to do X and get it to do Y and Z using old time tables created around different projects.

Most Engineers understand you need to have marketing sell products and it's a good idea to have the public input on what are important features but filtering public desires though a marketing department decreases the accuracy of such requests. AKA instead of we will only buy it if A..N and we want M..Z marketing says they need A..Z.

IMO. The most efficient method of managing teck projects is to have teck people, working all other departments involved in the project, create a detailed plain of action which is then vetted though upper management to align it with overall strategic planning. Management then oversees this project to keep things going and keep Engineers focused on creating adequate if not perfect solutions to the problems at hand.

PS: This is not to say need the same Engineers working at each of the projects stages. The problem is management is unable to determine how complex changing "small details" is so they need to be given the choice between different plains of action instead attempting to micro manage said projects.

Personel Skills

[Registered Coward v2]

While technical skills are important, the ability to work in groups, follow orders, and eventually lead groups are what will advance a career. Communications skills are a key component as well. Unless you want to stay a programmer / admin forever, and always be at risk for being replaced by a newer / cheaper model as your skills decay (or are perceived to no longer be up with the latest or simply too expensive); people skills are what will advance your career.

Re:Personel Skills

[bladesjester]

The life is over developer-wise at 30 mentality makes no sense to me. It's about that time that you *really* start to actually know what you're doing and stop making so many stupid mistakes.

I just don't understand why so many places want to start back at square one every 9 years (if that long) and make themselves completely out of people that are fairly new to the game and make the same mistakes as the people who came in before them when they were their age. There really should be a mix of older and younger people on the team if you have much of a choice because there's a heck of a lot to be said about experience (and I don't just mean experience in a language, but rather in the industry as a whole - knowing what works, what doesn't, and how to get around it)

Too mature of an indrustry.

[jellomizer]

The days of any hack with computer skills are welcomed to Fortune 500 is long gone, or at best is going away quite quickly.

Companies don't want people who can get the work done, they want people who can get the work done professionally. Well Documented designed to work with their buisness needs, not change their buisness requirements to fit the computer. There are a lot of Highly skilled and well trained college educated Technical Professionals out there. There is little reason to really hire an out of Highschool Techy guy just because he know how to program the buzz words.

A college degree at the very least shows a minum level of self control and professionalism. At least the person got up most every day to go to class and pass the exams. Vs. Out of High School who just went to school because they were required by law to go. Or a College drop out who just couldn't fit into an environment. Getting a Degree shows the company you are more then just what you want to do.

Re:Too mature of an indrustry.

[cavtroop]

A college degree at the very least shows a minum level of self control and professionalism. At least the person got up most every day to go to class and pass the exams. Vs. Out of High School who just went to school because they were required by law to go. Or a College drop out who just couldn't fit into an environment. Getting a Degree shows the company you are more then just what you want to do.

I'm in a different boat - I have twelve years of sysadmin/networking/security experience, but I can't get large companies to bite as I don't have a degree. What I DO have is 8 years of military experience out of high school. By your logic, that should count, but according to the larger companies, it doesn't.

If the military doesn't show 'a minimum of self control and professionalism' and required me to 'get up most every day to go', I don't know what does. :)

Barrier to entry

[texaport]

What are these crucial modern skills?

Uhhm, aptitude tests in the first place? You want someone with 20 hours a week experience for three or four years while in high school.

What you don't want is someone who reads a 1" column in Money Magazine of the top growth fields by 2011 and just throws a dart.

I've seen where nearly 40% of the incompetent tech staff that I worked around in 2001 jumped right into the field of health sciences.

They shouldn't have been in IT, and the nursing profession (and patients) deserves better -- these folks never "heard their calling."

Does it follow?

[Distinguished Hero]

As writers for ACM report, the skill-sets required for jobs have grown over time. Academia has responded to the evolution with novel programs recruiting women and integrating IT into MBA programs.
Is it just me, or is this quite the nonsequitur? I can see integrating IT into MBA programs as a potential solution, but how does recruiting women into IT adress the problem? Clicking on the "recruiting women" link leads to an article titled "CMU uses game maker's characters to interest girls in computer programming" which is one of the most condescending ideas I have ever come across.

Re:It really isn't just Tech...

[gad_zuki!]

"Graduate high school, get a couple certs "

That's pretty lousy advice. Considering you're basing this on your gf's story, maybe the lesson is don't specialize in something you think you don't want to do. Quitting your career because of uninsured people is a silly reason to piss away your experience and education. Who's going to hire someone who willy-nilly has random ethical problems? She comes off like someone who refuses to be part of the environment she chose to work in. What employer wants a flakey person like that? Here's some real advice:

1. Finish school.
2. Don't be a martyr.
3. Become flexible to adapt to different environments.
4. Have fun and make connections.
5. Remember a job is a means to an end not an end in itself.

Also, I disagree that the market is flooded with useless degrees and certifications. Its flooded with people competing with her for that payroll job. The person with payroll experience will win. This is nothing new. Whether or not they have degrees or certs is merely incidental. The entitlement attitude you and your gf have because you just have some degree isn't going to fly. Advising people to stop going to college because of your bad attitude is pretty ignorant and petty.

Unreasonable expectations.

[B5_geek]

Things will only get worse for compaines untill they realize that they can't get something for nothing.

I have been out of work for 6 months, this is an example "Help Wanted" that I recently read:

Minimum MUST HAVE requirements:
5 Years Oracle
5+ Years Windows System Admin
5 years Help Desk
5 years Citrix
7 Years C++, VB, (and a few others)

Salary Range: $20,000 - $25,000/year (Canadian)

They are trying to fill 4 jobs with 1 person who would work for $10/hour!

Computers are my passion, but with many places pulling shit like this I think I'll keep it as my hobby and go look for another career.

Missing the point

[MountainLogic]

The real change in the IT profession is that it will go away. In the early days of electrification, if your company used electricity you would have an electrical engineer on staff to design the system, update it and keep it working. Today unless you have a very unusual need, such as an aluminum plant you have no need for an EE on staff. Same for the early days of the phone system. IT as an internal service must mature to that point. In the mainframe days a whole army of systems analysts were kept busy converting paper spreadsheets into one-off programs. Modern spreadsheet programs have killed that need. Not every company needs a custom accounting program. Sure, if you have a very unusual need there would be no market for someone to write it as a commercial product, but is your company really that much different that you have to write a custom spreadsheet program? So why do you need a custom accounting or MRP program? The business world needs canned programs that the MBAs or logistics folks can use just as well as MBAs now drive spreadsheets. What does IT bring to the table other than overhead? What domain expertise do they bring? The most competitive companies will spend the least on IT.

The whole wave of off-shoring shows the first phase of this maturation process. If you can spec it you can out source it. If you can our source it then someone can generalize it. Once it is generalized then IT as an internal service goes away. In the not so distant future, IT functions will be turned over to the facilities department and the maintenance folks - same as heat, water, electricity, phones, etc.