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How Will Recent Financial Downturns Affect IT Jobs?
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?"
internship internship internship.
take a 3 month - 1 year break and do an internship. with a big corp. sometimes you get hired direct from the internship.
As the CEO of a small IT company in the US (mostly Midwest-focused), I'd say we hire more out of experience than education. We're consultants, though, but we have helped hire full timers for our customers who want someone there manning the stations all the time.
For those in college now, GO INTERN. It doesn't matter how much you make, but how much you can mark up that portfolio. If you're graduating and can't find work, then WORK SOMEWHERE. I can't begin to tell you how many people I've interviewed who are 5-6 months out of college but aren't working anywhere, even Starbucks. The lack of showing responsibility by not doing something is a turn-off.
For us, business is way up. Clients are keeping their hardware longer, which means more maintenance work. They're getting more focused on information security (external and internal), as well as keeping what they have in tip-top shape. We're turning away work.
Here's a big part of being a successful IT employee: be mobile. Fully, if possible. Try not to sign any long term leases, and DO NOT BUY property even if mom and dad or the grandfolk offer to get you something. I took on work in LA in 2008 because they couldn't find a decent consultant locally, even paying for my flights and hotel stays. If you're mobile, your chance of getting work goes way up. Once you move, stay mobile-capable if other jobs pop up. Don't just look close to home or close to school, look everywhere.
One area that is seeing rapid growth is in health care clinics (not big hospitals). I think we field a few calls a month from possible clients who have to maintain a large infrastructure and are sick of high priced consultants. That's when we usually try to place full timers rather than work a contract out in an environment that really needs full time management of IT.
I personally would stay out of software development if you don't have any real portfolio of work done, but in terms of maintenance, the job market looks pretty reasonable in the 4 markets I monitor. It's just a matter of that dreaded experience that most college graduates have none of. It would be very hard for me to hire someone on degree alone. My last 3 hires didn't even graduate college, but are phenomenal at showing up on time, doing their job right, and giving our clients 150% of themselves when needed.
Get involved in some open source project, not just as a peripheral person but **really** get engaged and make a very useful contribution. Show that you can word with others, solve problems (the fun technical stuff), help finish off documentation (shows you can also do the boring stuff that is important) and get some references from the project leads.
What most employers really look for is the "bushy tail factor": people who are flexible, practical and can learn new stuff fast.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
For now, your best bet is to stay in school and ride out this downturn. Expect the market to be soft for the next 2-3 years. Even if you can find a job now, it is likely to not be a very good experience. With the number of people out of work now, and the number of potential employers small, those that are hiring are paying low wages for very long hours. Don't expect any on the job training these days either. Most IT departments are shrinking instead of expanding. If you get a job, you will be expected to hit the ground running.
This happens every few years - last time was in 2001 - 2003 or so. The market was down for a couple of years and grads couldn't get jobs. The smart ones stuck with school and got better or additional degrees so when the market turned they ended up with better starting salaries that will allow them to pay off their student loans sooner.
Hang in there, there will be plenty of jobs again soon enough.
IT, because it's generally had it so good over the last couple decades, has never developed the notion that you have to "pay your dues" at the beginning, meaning working crappy jobs to build experience to get a better job. Other, more competitive fields, have long had this aspect, so the idea is more familiar.
With the economy in the toilet for now and the next couple years, new IT grads have to pay their dues. Grab the best job you can, which won't be great, do well in it, and constantly look for ways to move up the ladder. The first few years will probably suck in one or several ways, but you're suffering will be rewarded later with better positions. The days of college hotshots walking into six figure jobs are over. Get a job, learn your craft, build your resume, and always watch out for your career.
Bonus advice: the days of socially inept geeks are also over. Social skills are as important as programming skills. The geek who can make friends easily, express himself clearly to non-technical people, and generally get along with everyone else, will always have an advantage over the aspie nerd who can quote machine code but doesn't know to shower every day.
Anyone who loves or hates any language, platform, or manufacturer, doesn't know what they're talking about.
You ask if jobs are available, and of course they are, its just that every job (theoretically) goes to the most qualified person. Experience is key to that, but you don't even have to find a job to get it. I spend all kinds of time poking around on google or hackaday finding neat things to learn about. I'm a mechanical engineer but i taught myself C# recently (hey, it works) and i can write some pretty useful apps for work now. I taught myself CNC programming because i didn't want to wait to take it as a grad student (and i never ended up graduating). I spent many hours in high school learning how to use basic stamps and build an omni-directional hexapod before i even got to college. My high school was a podunk mountain school with wood shop being the most technical class, but i went out on my own and learned what i need to know.
You should do the same, whatever field it is you want to learn, go practice it as much as possible. Be able to wow interviewers with your knowledge of things that you could only have by trying it, not by hearing about it in a classroom. Of course getting a job will teach you that stuff but a lot of things can be learned at home too, before you have a job. As someone else said, even starbucks is good because it shows willingness to commit, but if you do end up there, you can still get experience at home. Hell, freshman year in college i didn't drink, so most of my friday and saturday nights were spent programming. I eventually got a good social life (yay booze!) but i learned a lot that year.
My junior year i heard about a local place that needed a mechanical engineer, and even though i hadn't graduated, all of my personal experience is what got me the job. I ended up finishing my senior year but i still needed a lot more credits, and i was so burnt out i said screw it, started full time at that job, and now have excellent pay, flexible hours, and a sweet job in general.
Now i have even more experience from what i've done at this job, but i wasn't just sitting around before that, and you should make sure you don't either.
-Taylor
Worldwide Military budgets: $2100 billion. Worldwide Space Exploration budgets: $38 billion. Really, world? Really?
I worked as a pen tester a couple years ago. Some may not agree, but go for one of the Big 4 accounting firms or their sister companies. The company name is huge on resumes, you learn lots of business stuff. Knowing how to properly document, follow procedures, create repeatable tests is extremely important. You can learn this in both sides, either audit or implementation. I started in implementation. Knowing how to build something makes it much easier to take apart (pen testing). You learn how the technology is implemented and what mistakes are normally made. I went from there to auditing and pen testing. I was immediately the top "tech" star (which was sad), but I didn't know how to properly document. Audit firms are masters of documentation. From there you can jump into full on pen testing. People that don't have a rounded background are not good pen testers IMO. If you are in DC area, you have many options. Audit has sox and fisma, fiscam and a boat load of others.
Major hiring industries for the next few years, are going to be anyone, directly or indirectly, who receives a slice of the pork pie that the US government will be distributing.
Follow the news, and prepare applications for any industry that is looking for government money. If the industry gets rebuffed by the government, oh well.
If an industry gets some pork, send them your applications immediately.
Good, healthy companies are just going to ride out the next couple of years with the folks that they have, and won't be hiring.
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
I can second that. I'm older than most of you here, and have up through my life held a variety of jobs -- for the last couple of decades mostly in the Unix/networking areas. And I have never been asked for my grades. Not once. Not when fresh out of school, and not later.
Experience, flexibility (bendability, really -- in many cases the ability to grab your ankles is considered a plus, but I digress...), experience, problem solving skills, experience, likability, and, did I mention experience?
Unless you have had an employer who works in those fields, your experience will be considered "hobby" and won't count for much, if anything. Every other applicant claims that they run linux servers and advanced networking at home, and have done so for a long time, but very few of them tell the truth. Some claim to have done so for an employer, but won't state references. An interviewer will generally disregard claims like these, unless they can be backed up.
And yes, these days, interviewers /will/ call your references and check. Saying that you were responsible for X or contributed to Y if you weren't will be a bad move. If it just can't be verified, it's likely a waste of good CV paper.
To recap, experience will in most cases mean having been employed for doing, and with references to back this up.
I can't begin to tell you how many people I've interviewed who are 5-6 months out of college but aren't working anywhere, even Starbucks. The lack of showing responsibility by not doing something is a turn-off.
That's YOUR opinion.
There are folks who worked their asses off in school and decided to take a break. Which is a good thing because, I don't know about you, I wouldn't want someone who hasn't relaxed a bit; otherwise, they have a tendency to burn out.
Many of those places won't have anything to do with someone with a BS or higher because they're "over qualified".
There could be family issues that is none of your business. Just because you're an employer doesn't mean you need to know every little thing about their life.
That's the trouble with employers these days, they have all of these "shoulds" and "oughts" about what makes a good hire that's based on nothing or worse, experience based on a previous hire or two.
And the trouble is, if there's the slightest non conforming aspect of someone's work history, they're marked for life. And yet, American business wants folks who "think outside the box". No they don't. Because folks who really do are rejected out of hand because "they're irresponsible" or some other asinine label.
Usually the definition is "Whenever we can't hide it anymore and even the best excuse won't even impress the most government-friendly network", IIRC.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
FAs the CEO of a small IT company in the US (mostly Midwest-focused), I'd say we hire more out of experience than education. We're consultants, though, but we have helped hire full timers for our customers who want someone there manning the stations all the time.
For those in college now, GO INTERN. It doesn't matter how much you make, but how much you can mark up that portfolio. If you're graduating and can't find work, then WORK SOMEWHERE. I can't begin to tell you how many people I've interviewed who are 5-6 months out of college but aren't working anywhere, even Starbucks. The lack of showing responsibility by not doing something is a turn-off.
I did the Internship thing. Back when I was looking for my first job I was lucky, the .com bubble was still inflating so the internship helped me get a job. In this climate I don't think it will get you very far. By the time the .com bubble burst I had over 2 years of experience as a developer. It still took me months to find a crappy new job as a system administrator since the market was flooded with developers who had much more experience than I did. Every advert for developer jobs specified at least 4-5 years of experience, specified a list of MS, Cisco, SAP etc... certificates as a must-have and half of those adverts specified that people without University degrees need not apply. Everywhere in the region companies had gone belly up, others had started massive layoffs which were aggravated by a string of mergers with the resultant extra layoffs. In an economic climate like the current one, I wouldn't want to be an engineering graduate with only a diploma and an internship; even if I had a little OSS contribution to my name. Thankfully, I now have 10 years of experience which means that my CV stands a good chance of getting me to an interview even in the current economic blood bath. I do agree with you that it is better to work at even Starbucks or McDonalds than to sit around doing nothing and collecting unemployment benefits. As for experience, it is easy to harp on about business realities, how they force one to only hire experienced people. The problem with everybody only hiring only experienced people is that graduates still have to get experience somewhere, somebody has to offer entry level jobs, that's where experience begins. It is a bit farcical that governments (at least in Europe) have begun to legislate and offer tax breaks to encourage companies to offer entry level positions for the engineering graduates that the local universities are producing.
Only to idiots, are orders laws.
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That is not true. Speaking as someone who ran a search for employees, I can say categorically that "hobby" work that was interesting, and could be described to an adequate level of detail, directly counted for a couple of people we hired. In one case it was work that wasn't on the resume because "it was just a hobby".
As an interviewer, I certainly expect claims to be "backed up", but this means that the interviewee can talk in great detail about what exactly they did, not that they have it attached to a job. I've seen far too many resumes that said something like "developed network protocol using C" only to have it turn out that the guy worked on a team of fifty that did that, and all that he actually did himself was read the docs for ten minutes.
In my mind, hobbies count double, because if someone is doing technical work in their spare time, it shows a deeper interest in technology than someone who does things only for pay.
The cake is a pie
I agree with the parent and almost all preceding comments above +3, but I feel the need to clarify a little bit.
Currently, the merits of higher education in the job field are:
1. Job listings often specify a particular degree as a MINIMUM requirement. So you got that one.
2. Completing a degree proves that:
a. You can fool someone into accepting you into their program based on High School merits, which are universally flimsy.
b. You can make about 80% of your contrived deadlines, or more.
c. You took a test on relevant subject matter at some point, so interviewing you shouldn't be a complete waste of time.
d. Despite dealing with all the complex life questions that come about when leaving home for more than a couple of months, you managed to get something done, or at least fool your professors to their satisfaction.
e. You got over fending for yourself. Your new employers don't have to act as if they're your new parents.
3. Job experience you managed to pick up while paying your expenses. Hopefully by now your new employers don't have to show you how to fill out an employment eligibility form, or handle a checkbook.
4. You meet new school friends, many of whom are smarter than you, who can help you out.
Anything else your education establishment claims is B.S. Sometimes, really friendly professors that like your work can arrange contacts, especially if they decide to be your mentor. This is rare, because professors can only handle becoming a role model for a small fraction of their students, and usually that's because they are trying to push more undergraduates into higher degree programs, or underpaid academic work in general.
So your best bet, in general, is to concentrate on item 3. You can also compete on low price/hour.
If you managed to get all the way through a degree without ANY relevant work experience, that usually means you were a spoiled trust fund baby brat, or at least your parents are rich enough to pay off your major expenses. Such brats usually spend most of their degree program partying, cribbing off their smarter frat/sorority friends, or paying for cash-strapped smart people to do their work for them. Tests can be crammed sufficiently otherwise. In this case, you will be dependent on your Greek friends to arrange for jobs for you, or on nepotism of some form. This latter option also precludes needing to post a question on Slashdot.
You are simply wrong. Schooling does matter and grades do matter. I would hire a Classics major with a 4.0 from a good school over a kid with shitty grades and some half-assed open source project who had the arrogance to tell me that grades don't matter.
I know 1) the 4.0 is smart and works hard; 2) He understands deadlines, and when presented with a context of artificial and seemingly arbitrary constraints and rules he can work within them and succeed; 3) He is curious about the world; 4) He'd be far more interesting to talk to than the other kid.
So, do I care if he can translate the Illiad? No. Are grades a signaling mechanism for other traits? Absolutely.
And the trouble is, if there's the slightest non conforming aspect of someone's work history, they're marked for life. And yet, American business wants folks who "think outside the box". No they don't. Because folks who really do are rejected out of hand because "they're irresponsible" or some other asinine label.
I'd like to point out "behavioral interviewing" and "personality tests" in this category too.
There are federal laws banning the use of polygraphs in interviews, but this type of thing is VERY similar.
I'm a pessimist and an introvert. This does NOT interfere with my ability to put on a professional face and be friendly to clients, but it does cause a great deal of stress when a potential job is at stake. Further, being a pessimist, while many people frown on it, has many positive qualities in a work environment, such as a propensity to properly assess and prepare for likely hurdles on a project.
This doesn't matter though, as the slightest sign of discomfort is construed as some kind of black mark.
The academic equivalent would be someone being passed up who knows their stuff but doesn't test well, while an incompetent who's good at telling people what they want to hear gets top marks.
What really irks me though is when people give you tests or as questions on internal company policy. These are things you should be told in your training or in your interview by the HR staff; you should not be chucked out of the hire process because you are being forced to guess and you guessed wrong.
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This is the absolute truth. I've been a hiring manager for almost two decades now. The most important question I'll ask you is what you've done as personal projects in the area of computer science. This is our career, right? This is our passion, right? Obviously, we have done stuff out of curiosity, opportunity, and/or need for entertainment. Right?
Sadly, so many people fail that question. At this point, I absolutely refuse to hire anyone that hasn't done a thing outside the academic setting. They are posers, as far as I'm concerned. While I haven't held a 'technical' position in years, rest assured I spend at least a few hours every week working on technical things on my own. I think it is reasonable to ask a young, ambitious starter in this field to do the same.
As one of the primary technical interviewers at my company, we've never been interested in grades. Rather, we're more interested in someone that can jump in and be productive quickly.
I don't suppose it has ever occurred to you that not everybody is in *your* situation? Maybe you should try reading the news? Massive layoffs announced constantly, new records of unemployment set every month. Major business failures all over the place. Record foreclosures, and so on and so on.
This might be hard for you to understand, but if *you* are employed, that does mean the entire world is employed. If you are getting interviews, it does not mean that everybody in the world is getting interviews. Understand? Probably not.
Your unverifiable, arrogant, bragging, does not change the current economic situation. And the current economic situation is easily verifiable.
BTW: I am gainfully employed myself. But I am not so stupid, uniformed, and arrogant, as to assume that because *I* am employed, then everything must be just dandy for everybody else.
for a person to work while they were in school.
Bar need (I come from a country where University education is almost free) if you are a student your work should be to study. Anything else is an unwanted distraction.
Once you have graduated you will have plenty of time to start from the bottom, but you will have learned all the tools that you need to have a successful career.
Plenty of friends that thought were advancing their prospects by doing menial IT work eventually could not complete their education (work trumps school work any time). They remained in low level positions while people that obtained good degree grades went to obtain good jobs with better prospects.
This is not a universal rule of course, but it stands to reason to think a good education is not worth having.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.