IT Job Market Is Tanking, But Not For Everyone

CWmike writes "Shortly after the COO of Automated HealthCare Solutions learned that Microsoft planned to cut 5,000 workers over the next 18 months, he and another employee of the medical services provider flew out to Redmond. AHCS now has more than 100 resumes, some of them from Microsoft employees, for about a dozen open positions. That's how the tech job market is these days: there's no doubt the market is tanking, but not for everyone. While numerous IT vendors are laying off workers, and corporate IT jobs are being lost as well, plenty of companies are still hiring. Microsoft's careers site lists more than 700 open jobs in the US, both technical and administrative positions. And IBM has about 3,200 jobs and internships listed worldwide, more than 550 of them in the US — even as it cuts thousands of workers in a move that it is describing not as a layoff, but an effort to 'match skills and resources with our client needs."

Comments

No surprise

[AuMatar]

If you're good, you can always find a new job. Smart companies always have exception programs to let in talented individuals. Layoffs tend to be a way to get rid of a lot of the sub-average to average performers. If anything, finding good quality people is even more important after layoffs are announced- the good ones have the ability to get hired easily, so they'll hedge their bets by looking as soon as layoffs are announced. Its not uncommon to see an exodus of them before the layoffs actually occur. Plus you can typically hire one of them to do the work of 3 or 4 of the people you just fired.

Re:No surprise

[vux984]

If you're good, you can always find a new job.

It feels like you are invoking the fallacy that most of us think we are above average. Most people aren't significantly above average.

Layoffs tend to be a way to get rid of a lot of the sub-average to average performers.

You are telling this to the people who just got laid off!! So if they were laid off and looking for work, you are essentially telling them that they are probably on the lower side of average. And yet "if they are well above average they will have no trouble finding work". This doesn't bode well.

Plus you can typically hire one of them to do the work of 3 or 4 of the people you just fired.

So these people are both head and shoulders above average, and are willing to do the work of a small team to boot? Oh and they'll accept the same wages of the semi-morons he replaced too?

Yes these mythological creatures will always have jobs.

Technically, yes, you are right, Microsoft lays of 5000 people, and the top few percent will land new jobs right away.

Do you have any advice for the other 80-90%? Those are the ones that need it. The top 5-10% probably won't be unemployed long enough to have to start dipping into their savings anyway.

Re:No surprise

[vux984]

Not the OP, but my advice is that you should get into a profession where you can be in that top 10%, or re-educate yourself in your current profession until you are top 10%.

You realize of course that it is mathematically impossible for more than 10% of the people in a given profession to be in the top 10% of their profession. And further, that if everyone tried to follow this advice it is a mathematical certainty that 90% of them would fail.

Re:No surprise

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

Well, we can just build a society where only 10% or so have any real hope of success or stability, what could possibly go wrong?

Re:No surprise

[module0000]

Your answer, it's called "welding school".

I can't be the only person hanging from a crane welding in new support beams on a bridge...also reminding myself to submit my kernel patches when I get home.

The pay by the way, is about the same. (30-50 for nubs, 50-100 for traveling pros)

Re:Machiavellian strategy

[qbzzt]

Not that smart. If I see too many people around me fired, I'll look for a new job before you get around to firing me.

If I'm good, and you want to keep me - I'll find another job.

Re:Machiavellian strategy

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

The "fire 10%" strategy has the interesting side effect of ruthlessly exposing the quality of your performance metrics. If they are quite good, it might actually work. If they are indifferent or worse, you'll cut your own throat in short order. Nothing like an office full of people gaming the metrics and covering their asses to get things done.

Cue the macho posturing

[jeko]

Oh, here we go, cue the chorus of "Dude, if yer the best you can alwayz get werk..."

Listen up. You have to look at this systemically. If there are a thousand people willing to do your job for less, it doesn't matter how leet and brilliant you are. You are an expensive widget, and the business side will always sacrifice quality for cost. Do you really think the suits upstairs can tell the difference between Linus and Zaboomafoo the Typing Lemur?

My phone rings daily with scared-crapless kids whose networks are falling apart because they don't have the experience the position requires. Every one of those kids replaced some grey-haired 40-year-old who would have avoided the disaster months ago, but was let go because Billy the Paperboy braindumped his certs and offered the do the job for less.

No one, No. One. Ever connects the million-dollar disaster with the now-incredibly-cheap-looking salary that would have saved the company untold amounts of money.

So, for the Beavis-and-Butthead crowd sitting around crowing about how they're the best, look at it this way: The surplus resumes flooding the market may not cost you your job, but they will cost your your raise, as well as any leverage you might have had to push back against bad ideas. They'll cost you in the midnight calls you get and the tribute of overtime demanded because your boss knows you don't have any other options. And if you really are that good, it still might not save you.