Well, let me start off by saying that I was previously an IT in the Navy. I advanced pretty fast and was ahead on my qualifications schedule. I got out thinking "well, I'm not the best, but I'm far from the worst". I was leading IT's for more of my time in than what I spent as an entry level tech. I read all over the internet and on the job listings sites that there were more than enough jobs that I was qualified for.
So I got out. I'm almost at my one year mark of civilian-hood. What do I have to report? I've spent more time with freelance construction than on a computer. All the positions that I was qualified for denied me because I didn't have a degree. I had 4 years of 80+ hr work weeks in some of the most stressful conditions, were calling in a Cisco tech was never an option if our router failed. If we didn't know how to fix it, we had to figure it out on our own with a quickness.
So I started looking at other positions. First I went up one level. Not even an interview. So I went down a level, and down, until I'm at the point of applying for entry-level positions. All of these people are telling me I'm "over-qualified". Now maybe it's just the St. Louis market, because each city is different, however several buddies who've gotten out and gone home report the same thing to me.
The one greatest example I have is one position I was being considered for. First off, I was asking for 35,000 a year for a LV2 systems technician for a consulting and outsourcing firm. They wanted me at less than 25,000, ideally 18,000. They expected 9-5 with 24/7 on-call and no reimbursment for travel expenses like gas to drive my vehicle to and from their office and the client locations. Med/Dent? Nearly non-existant. I came out of the Navy as a Sr. Security Specialist and not only can I not find anything on my level, but I can't get higher or lower positions either.
Lesson to be learned? Unless you have 10 years, papers do matter. I'm in school now going for my comp sci and MIS, and can't even find part-time computer employment. This market sucks, and while I'm not an expert, I'm pretty sure outsourcing doesn't help people that honestly WANT to become IT professionals. I'm still going to fight the good fight and go into the field that I WANT, but it's not easy, and I highly doubt that it will ever become as easy as other fields to crack into. I can say that it's not a good selling point for a career field if out of my group of comp sci majors only 3 of them spent less than one year unemployed after getting a BS trying to find an entry level posiion to start in. If you can't start, how can you move up?
Yes, but the purpose of the study wasn't the measure of 3rd party software, but of the OS. So OS times only mattered here.
What I've found that is really the measure of how well your machines run is not just the software, but the people running it. Generally speaking, Linux people perform more maintenance than Windows guys do, so it's natural that Linux would have more uptime because they take care of things before it brings the system down or even becomes a problem. I've seen a few of our Windows boxes compete with our Linux boxes for uptime, and other times lag behind. It always corralated to the admin we had for each box how well it stayed up. Linux people love to baby their boxes, and Windows guys generally ignore them till there is a problem.
Personally, I think the entire field is in a state of growing pains, much like an industrial version of puberty.
I just got out of the Navy were I was a senior network security specialist. My job was to run the system level and network level security for the network, internal security more than external. I was givin the job because the person in charge of the department thought to take a risk on me because he liked my reasoning skills that I showed when I worked in the comm center. After taking the position I trained myself to fit the shoes, and in needing to learn the ins and outs quickly, I trained like I would anything else, from a logic perspective. I succeeded in writing an update to two Naval Operations policies and created a base model that is now being used as a baseline to compare other ships to. I also had a unique title of "disaster recovery specialist" because I knew how to recover systems that had gone down without loosing important files. However I got out and became a civilian.
Now, I had the hardest time finding a job. I live in St. Louis and only expected 30 a year, and evidently this was too much money. I couldn't even get calss on the jobs that were of the same level as what I did. So I tried for lower entry level tech positions on the idea of working my way back up. I'm not opposed to this idea under the logic that at least I'd get to relearn the new stuff that's gone on since the last time I was a basic tech. I couldn't even get that even after I showed my enrollment papers for my night classes showing I was working on the degree that I lacked. So I started working for myself and only choose the hard problems. I take machines that are so virus ridden and repair them without loosing customer data. You'd be surprised how many people will pay my $25 an hour that I charge and it takes me a good long time, but I get it done. People are tired of going to best buy just so they can blow everything away, they don't think their getting their moneys worth. I also charge $45 an hour if they need recovery of lost files.
Now here was the problem is as I see it. The one job that I almost landed was for an onsite tech support position. They wanted to pay 24000 a year and didn't reimburse milage. They also had an average work week for their techs of 55 hours, no less than 45 hours a week. That doesn't pay the gas in the car to get to the customers and pay for an apartment outside of the dirtier parts of town. When you break it down, I make more money doing odd jobs at 12.50 an hour that I do between computer work. It's about perception. I think that managers view us as nothing more than tools. Screwdriver for screws, hammer for nails kinda thing. That simply is not the case. I don't have many knowledge points memorized because they go obsolete too fast. The important part that managers are missing in the interviews is finding out if they know were to look on their own for answers to stuff they don't know fast. That's more important in my opinion, is analizing what to look up and were to do it for a problem you are facing that you don't have memorized. Doing that would insure you get someone who would be more valuable. They wouldn't need as constant of training on skill sets because they have to capacity to learn the day to day stuff and know what to do and were to go when the bad stuff happens. People who can don't want to live in crummy conditions. They want simple things, money to pay all the bills, to go home not stressed out, and to feel like a human, not an innanimate object. The fact that companies aren't willing to train someone like that just shows how little is thought of people in the field. So, until managers learn that their computers are just like everything else, "what you pay is what you get", then nothing will change. Do you trust someone so desperate that they will take something that doesn't even provide money for a social life really has the best interests of your system at mind, or do you think they are preoccupied with the thought of "Can I handle a second jo
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Well, let me start off by saying that I was previously an IT in the Navy. I advanced pretty fast and was ahead on my qualifications schedule. I got out thinking "well, I'm not the best, but I'm far from the worst". I was leading IT's for more of my time in than what I spent as an entry level tech. I read all over the internet and on the job listings sites that there were more than enough jobs that I was qualified for. So I got out. I'm almost at my one year mark of civilian-hood. What do I have to report? I've spent more time with freelance construction than on a computer. All the positions that I was qualified for denied me because I didn't have a degree. I had 4 years of 80+ hr work weeks in some of the most stressful conditions, were calling in a Cisco tech was never an option if our router failed. If we didn't know how to fix it, we had to figure it out on our own with a quickness. So I started looking at other positions. First I went up one level. Not even an interview. So I went down a level, and down, until I'm at the point of applying for entry-level positions. All of these people are telling me I'm "over-qualified". Now maybe it's just the St. Louis market, because each city is different, however several buddies who've gotten out and gone home report the same thing to me. The one greatest example I have is one position I was being considered for. First off, I was asking for 35,000 a year for a LV2 systems technician for a consulting and outsourcing firm. They wanted me at less than 25,000, ideally 18,000. They expected 9-5 with 24/7 on-call and no reimbursment for travel expenses like gas to drive my vehicle to and from their office and the client locations. Med/Dent? Nearly non-existant. I came out of the Navy as a Sr. Security Specialist and not only can I not find anything on my level, but I can't get higher or lower positions either. Lesson to be learned? Unless you have 10 years, papers do matter. I'm in school now going for my comp sci and MIS, and can't even find part-time computer employment. This market sucks, and while I'm not an expert, I'm pretty sure outsourcing doesn't help people that honestly WANT to become IT professionals. I'm still going to fight the good fight and go into the field that I WANT, but it's not easy, and I highly doubt that it will ever become as easy as other fields to crack into. I can say that it's not a good selling point for a career field if out of my group of comp sci majors only 3 of them spent less than one year unemployed after getting a BS trying to find an entry level posiion to start in. If you can't start, how can you move up?
Yes, but the purpose of the study wasn't the measure of 3rd party software, but of the OS. So OS times only mattered here. What I've found that is really the measure of how well your machines run is not just the software, but the people running it. Generally speaking, Linux people perform more maintenance than Windows guys do, so it's natural that Linux would have more uptime because they take care of things before it brings the system down or even becomes a problem. I've seen a few of our Windows boxes compete with our Linux boxes for uptime, and other times lag behind. It always corralated to the admin we had for each box how well it stayed up. Linux people love to baby their boxes, and Windows guys generally ignore them till there is a problem.
Personally, I think the entire field is in a state of growing pains, much like an industrial version of puberty. I just got out of the Navy were I was a senior network security specialist. My job was to run the system level and network level security for the network, internal security more than external. I was givin the job because the person in charge of the department thought to take a risk on me because he liked my reasoning skills that I showed when I worked in the comm center. After taking the position I trained myself to fit the shoes, and in needing to learn the ins and outs quickly, I trained like I would anything else, from a logic perspective. I succeeded in writing an update to two Naval Operations policies and created a base model that is now being used as a baseline to compare other ships to. I also had a unique title of "disaster recovery specialist" because I knew how to recover systems that had gone down without loosing important files. However I got out and became a civilian. Now, I had the hardest time finding a job. I live in St. Louis and only expected 30 a year, and evidently this was too much money. I couldn't even get calss on the jobs that were of the same level as what I did. So I tried for lower entry level tech positions on the idea of working my way back up. I'm not opposed to this idea under the logic that at least I'd get to relearn the new stuff that's gone on since the last time I was a basic tech. I couldn't even get that even after I showed my enrollment papers for my night classes showing I was working on the degree that I lacked. So I started working for myself and only choose the hard problems. I take machines that are so virus ridden and repair them without loosing customer data. You'd be surprised how many people will pay my $25 an hour that I charge and it takes me a good long time, but I get it done. People are tired of going to best buy just so they can blow everything away, they don't think their getting their moneys worth. I also charge $45 an hour if they need recovery of lost files. Now here was the problem is as I see it. The one job that I almost landed was for an onsite tech support position. They wanted to pay 24000 a year and didn't reimburse milage. They also had an average work week for their techs of 55 hours, no less than 45 hours a week. That doesn't pay the gas in the car to get to the customers and pay for an apartment outside of the dirtier parts of town. When you break it down, I make more money doing odd jobs at 12.50 an hour that I do between computer work. It's about perception. I think that managers view us as nothing more than tools. Screwdriver for screws, hammer for nails kinda thing. That simply is not the case. I don't have many knowledge points memorized because they go obsolete too fast. The important part that managers are missing in the interviews is finding out if they know were to look on their own for answers to stuff they don't know fast. That's more important in my opinion, is analizing what to look up and were to do it for a problem you are facing that you don't have memorized. Doing that would insure you get someone who would be more valuable. They wouldn't need as constant of training on skill sets because they have to capacity to learn the day to day stuff and know what to do and were to go when the bad stuff happens. People who can don't want to live in crummy conditions. They want simple things, money to pay all the bills, to go home not stressed out, and to feel like a human, not an innanimate object. The fact that companies aren't willing to train someone like that just shows how little is thought of people in the field. So, until managers learn that their computers are just like everything else, "what you pay is what you get", then nothing will change. Do you trust someone so desperate that they will take something that doesn't even provide money for a social life really has the best interests of your system at mind, or do you think they are preoccupied with the thought of "Can I handle a second jo