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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?"
I'll be looking for a job as a penetration tester
You want a job masturbating?
Anybody want my mod points?
When lay offs come, assuming you don't have the connections/get lucky and get in to one of the diminishing supply of equal or better jobs, what do you do?
Do you hold out, unwilling to sacrifice any of that seniority on your resume, hoping to get just as good a job - but losing money and gaining a big "unemployed" hole on your resume while you do?
Or do you suck it up, take whatever's paying, cash in some of your seniority for easily out competing everyone else for a more junior job that pays now and doesn't leave that hole?
Or there's always the third option: Leave the industry.
Quite a lot of people do leave. Quite a few have enough savings that they'll try holding out for as long as they can. But a lot will be taking that step down in exchange for still being able to make their mortgage payment, keep their kids in school, pay rent, etc. That means, in any recession, you're not just competing against your fellow graduates, you're competing against last year's graduates who can't get out of the positions and are still clinging on and the more experienced folk who're doing whatever it takes to survive.
So, yes, there are always some jobs - but less of them with dramatically stronger competition.
So, bad news: It's going to be tough.
Good news: In five years, we'll be out of this slump and the opposite circumstances will apply. There'll be less qualified people and anyone with qualifications and experience, being in desperate demand, will profit hugely from it.
Honestly, there's no better time to be poor than as a recent graduate. It sucks, sure. But it sucks far less than being poor again once you've got used to money and have a wife and kids who expect you to support them too plus a mortgage you now can't pay.
The trick is to weather the next several years as effectively as possible. No, you almost certainly won't be as well off as you imagined when you enrolled in that course. But, if you suck it up, if you do whatever you need to now, you'll be exceptionally well placed when the industry recovers.
Along those lines: Get that experience on your resume. If you can't get it as paid experience, donate your time as a sys admin to a charity, a community group, whatever. You want to know what's worse than being a graduate with no experience? Someone who graduated a year ago and still has no experience. If you can't sell your time, donate it - in exchange for that donation, you're getting experience that you can parlay in to a paying job later. Do whatever it takes, keep working even if it doesn't pay or doesn't pay as well as you like. Because, five years later, when the economy does recover as it always does, those few with the experience get to make a lot of money again.