Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

How Will Recent Financial Downturns Affect IT Jobs?

Posted by timothy on from the queue-management-gets-new-significance dept.

An anonymous reader writes "So, with the financial crisis and loss of jobs everywhere, what are the chances of getting a good IT job? I'm going to graduate this year with a BS in Software Engineering majoring in Network Security. I'll be looking for a job as a penetration tester eventually, but I hear that is hard to get right out of college so I'll be looking for a job as a Junior Network Admin or similar type of job to start off in. Is there a lack of jobs in this field? I figure computers always need fixing so they have to have some sort of IT personnel on staff to maintain the core of their business. Anyone have a good insight on this issue?"

6 of 372 comments (clear)

  1. Best Advice is to Stand Out by alain94040 · · Score: 5, Informative

    I was a new grad once. It was horrible: it took me 10 months to find my first job.

    I'm sorry to have to be the one to break the bad news to you, but your grades in school don't matter anymore. What recruiters look at is your experience. Which, by definition, you don't have. So your resume ends up at the bottom of the pile.

    As soon as you have some kind of job, then companies are much more willing to take you seriously. It's stupid but it's true. I make the same mistake now when I am the one hiring.

    Now I'm happy to also give you some good news. You're probably not graduating until the summer. That's great. First of all, the economy will be just about to turn around (the media won't tell you, but they also didn't tell you one year ago that we were in a recession). Second, it gives you some time to add experience to your resume: internships matter a lot, volunteer for an open source project, etc.

    Don't have the time? You really have two options: play by university rules and be a bland student, or stand out and go the extra mile. Guess which ones gets the job?

    --
    FairSoftware.net -- the community where software developers start fair businesses

    1. Re:Best Advice is to Stand Out by Swizec · · Score: 4, Informative

      I've always found it incredibly stupid for a person to just go to school without doing anything on the side. First time I started working on projects on the side was in first year of high school when I played around with phpBB and later on started working on some of my own stuff. Of course during the summers I've had programming related jobs all through high school, makes sense really since there's heaps of empty time.

      During last year of high school I also started working lightly during regular school months and it's really paid off. Two years into college now and I've already got a few years of real-world experience under my belt. When I get out of college ... whenever that happens ... I'll be far from an empty slate and it thus shouldn't be too difficult getting a job. If all else fails I can just continue working for the people I'm already working for since we seem to be getting along well.

      Seriously, any still-schooling people otu there reading this. GET A FUCKING JOB because grades DO NOT MATTER!

    2. Re:Best Advice is to Stand Out by kaiidth · · Score: 4, Informative

      I'm going to have to third/fourth/fifth (depending on comment lag) the 'Get a job whilst you're still in school, experience counts' viewpoint. It really does help. And if you find yourself jobless even temporarily, make sure you do something with the time. Ideally, that would be the internship that has been mentioned here, but sometimes it'll have to be even less formal than that - this is where networking comes in. Unpaid/very minimally paid work on something isn't as great a CV bullet as an actual job but it is a lot easier to come by. Any connections that you have may come in useful; any college professors/researchers you might know from your university career may be able to provide you with something, although they're less likely to be able to pay you.

      Open source code may arguably count in this, but it's very dependent on what the project is. If I'm hiring I generally look for something that I can find, download and see working. If, like so many projects, it turns out to be an itch that got scratched and then immediately placed on line with no testing or docs, I'd be impressed that it was placed online at all but wouldn't rank it very highly as experience. If on the other hand I can see evidence of what you did during your work on the project I might rank it somewhat higher, assuming HR ever let me see the CV (they have their own viewpoint on what 'experience' means).

      I know this sounds obvious but it's very important to actually get around to applying, to do a little research before the interview, and to turn up to job interviews when the date has been agreed. Last hiring session I went on, only half of the people I invited for interview turned up. One of those who didn't emailed and apologised, so I sent him another interview date that he failed to meet either, which was facepalm-worthy and rather sad... two of those that I did interview hadn't bothered to look up the software packages mentioned by name in the original advert. And that was in the midst of the credit crunch.

      Good luck to the OP and to all in their position, and if you do end up medium to long-term unemployed my advice to you is to keep busy and make sure you keep using your skills and abilities, find something you want to work on - I went back to studying when jobless after the dot-com boom, and one friend of mine wrote a book whilst unemployed! Also, get out of the house on a regular basis, even if it's only to yoga class or something. Unemployment is a nasty state if you let it get you down and is very likely to leave you feeling depressed and worthless (for no good reason - unemployment can happen to anybody), so keep your eyes open for that and find strategies to keep your spirits up.

  2. Sorry but... by clickclickdrone · · Score: 4, Informative

    The economy globally has tanked. My firm has just shed *another* 400 IT jobs. I know many people who got made redundant just before Christmas. Firms are collapsing left right and centre and those left are cutting right back to keep afloat.
    Personally,I'd take pretty much any job you can get right now,IT or otherwise. It's not a time to be picky.

    --
    I want a list of atrocities done in your name - Recoil
  3. Re:not specific to "network admin" by pavera · · Score: 4, Informative

    Uh... how so? The article cited studies by Standford and Harvard economists who studied the lives of graduates during the 80-82 recession the 90-91 recession and the 87 market crash... In all 3 cases graduates of those years significantly under earned graduates with similar degrees from the years immediately surrounding the recession years for example the graduating classes of 78,79, and 83 all earned significantly more over the next 20 years than their peers who graduated during the recession. Same for the market crash in 87, classes of 86 and 88 earned much more over the next 20 years... obviously 20 years haven't elapsed yet on the 91 recession, but the trend is still in place through 15 years graduates of the classes surrounding the recession are much better off.

  4. People hire People by persaud · · Score: 4, Informative

    1. Experience: self-educate in an emerging technology in your chosen field. You have the advantage of being unbiased to legacy practices. With an emerging technology, no one has experience. In today's world of cheap hardware and open-source software, it has never been easier for motivated people to find a way to contribute. Treat the learning process as an extended interview, including your project emails and contributions.

    2. People: you're already at the bottom, nowhere to go but up. Don't further handicap yourself with low expectations, reality will be happy to reduce your expectations for you. Aim as high as you can imagine and work down as necessary. Rank the top ten companies or organizations (globally) with people who are experts in your chosen field. Identify some of these people by name and learn about their career path and current projects. Find a way to contribute to similar projects. Work backwards from their social network to your social network and try to have F2F conversations with local contacts who are best-of-breed.

    3. Budgets: use your F2F contacts to obtain intelligence on budgets. In a poor economy with layoffs, the remaining people often have too much work to handle. Creative volunteering and compensation ideas can get you involved in real-world projects where the experience is worth 10X the dollar value comp. It all starts and ends with people, be they HR, managers or customers. So focus on being useful and building relationships with people. The most valuable information is often very transient (e.g. time sensitive hiring opportunities) and communicated only by word of mouth.

    4. Recession: some of the best engineering creations have come from highly constrained environments. If you can be successful in an environment of fiscal discipline, you will only be more successful when boom times return. The same cannot be said for those who begin careers in boom times and are shocked by their first major downturn. There is no better time to start working than now. It doesn't mean you'll find a job quickly, but you will learn much more than by staying in school (which also costs money, even if deferred).

    10 years from now, business schools will have course material dedicated to the lessons of these unprecedented economic times. New grads have a once-in-a-generation opportunity to experience the kind of business environment where fortunes will be lost and won, as economic hierarchies adjust. Don't miss the excitement by hiding in school!