Tech Workers in Higher Demand 325
mjdroner writes "CNN has a story on an employment consulting firm report showing job cuts in the tech sector are down 40 percent." From the article: "Despite the inevitable job-cutting that typically follows mergers, the job market picture for the nation's tech workers is definitely improving. Many job seekers in high-demand fields such as storage systems administration and information security are probably finding themselves in the driver's seat when it comes to negotiating employment terms"
This is sort of like... (Score:4, Interesting)
The fact that they're being laid off at simply a slower rate doesn't make me feel like they're in higher demand. It could just as easily mean that they've run out of people to lay off.
From an employer (Score:4, Interesting)
We can't find good workers. I've interviewed repeatedly and found the new talent is terrible -- it seems that has technology becomes more "known," the amount of GOOD talent is dropping. I've interviewed some people from top colleges that just don't know their way around a business at all, and I have no desire to train them in exchange for a high 5 figure salary.
The only way I seem to find valuable employees is by picking up the real outcasts from the larger consulting firm -- outcasts that have great insight and work ethic but are too far outside the box to fit in any MBA-run company. Every time a consulting group goes under, the same morons get new jobs with the next company that won't exist in 10 years.
For those in the same position, what are you doing for hiring? I don't see talent coming out of college and moving to the Midwest (a very profitable IT sector), most are instead moving to the west coast, taking a big salaried job, and finding themselves stuck in a very expensive area where the high salary doesn't seem to overcome the overhead of living there (stress, costs, traffic). I'd love to find a resource for good employees, but I guess the answer is right there: good employees don't get fired. The balance between efficiency and knowledge and salary is not something I worry about -- if my customers realize a gain on the money they spend on us, I have no problem paying the person right. For those who know, most of my employees work at minimum wage with a large project bonus (up to 80%), and I have enough people looking to work for us that it isn't the pay structure that isn't helping me find good help.
Also, it seems that many people going to college for computer science/engineering aren't even learning the basics -- what colleges have you recent graduates gone to that have taught you real consulting skills, business sense and responsibility?
Re:From an employer (Score:5, Interesting)
The big problem is getting people to move. Regions change and shift and grow, and one of the terrible problems is that to get talent, you may have to get it from somewhere else. I worked with one company who, essentially, raided a neighboring state for talent. Even if the job count stays the same, the type changes.
And it'll all shift again. Five years ago, pre-9/11 my home state was hopping. Post-9/11 it never fully recovered, several changes affected the job markets, and people began leaving - me with them. Now, having moved, ironicaly, I'm gettng leads. Maybe it'll change in a few years, or maybe I'll end up having my company move.
Another friend who's a storage expert in my old home can't find anywhere to go with his career, and has no choice to go to the coasts with his level of expertise. But again - what happens in five years? In ten.
As my current boss put it, "Not everyone is brave enough to move" for a job. It's a helluva risk. And I think the changing demographics of need, combined with the fact some people don't want to move, create areas with talent gaps.
This is all on top of the fact that a lot of IT people are damn bitter, and understandably so.
...but for less money (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:When will facts match reality... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:From an employer (Score:4, Interesting)
So
Get the attention of the person in question
Make sure that your hiring story is really going to be solid with respect to what the midwest has to offer. Make sure you can tell a candidate about all the great activities locally that compete with what the west coast has to offer. I'd have pictures on hand from a recent open house showing what a fantastic house they could own in your area, for what price, and how long it would take them to earn that with your job (also documenting things like what a good neighborhood it was in, with such great schools, no commute, etc.) I'd particularly make sure your story on how your company is never going away is strong
Other than that I haven't much in the way of ideas for you. I would expect it to continue to be challenging to find good IT people in the midwest.
Re:It is our responsibility.. (Score:5, Interesting)
Wait till the new guest worker program goes in to effect. Yeah, you probably thought it was all about Mexicans picking potatoes out in some farm out west, right? Wrongo. With the new guest worker program, H1B visas are no longer required. Employers can just ship in boatloads of Indians and Chinese to do your job for about 1/4 of the cost. I don't care how skilled you think you are, theres someone who will jump off that boat and say they can do the same job for much less.
President Bush will try to make you think this is all about people working jobs that Americans won't do. He's right. We, as natural born Americans, find it hard to work at wages way below the poverty line.
What can you do to stop this? Write to your two senators and tell them to put a halt to the "guest worker" program. Sure, we have jobs to do and can't go marching around the streets today like the immigrants, but we need to find the time to stop this before it gets out of hand.
How about posting a job ad here for us... (Score:1, Interesting)
That way, we can what you're having a problem finding.
I don't beleive you that you're having a problem finding the talent that you need and I don't beleive you that people coming out of school don't measure up. I think your "standards" are unreasonable.
Do you demand that your programmers have an engineering degree to write business apps? Or a MSCS?
Do you look at the resumes directly or do have a clueless HR person "screening" the resumes?
Are you offering a competitive wage? Or in your case, is your bonus system fair? (I've seen bonus systems that dry up when it's time to get paid - even though the boss says I deserved it.)
I think if you look at your hiring proactices a little more carefully, you'll see that there's something wrong on your end. There's so much talent out there that's having problems because of unreasonable requirements. If you want a developer with the needed business kowledge, you're going to have to steal him and pay him BIG bucks to move out to the Midwest. I for one, will not work in a one shop town. Been there, done that, and got fucked.
Re:From an employer (Score:2, Interesting)
I'm 28 years old and in college right now. (I dropped out during the
I can honestly tell you that I built some of the best training, skills, & experience from a combination of on the job, self study, and peers. So what am I seeing at my well respected university? There are a lot of great professors... But I'm not learning anything relevant to the real world. In fact, most Sams & Wrox books would give you a better understanding than the courses I'm taking. Most of my professors went from college, to grad school, to teaching.
My point: College isn't going to teach you "real consulting skills, business sense and responsibility?". College will (at best) lower the learning curve for the real education when you hit the workforce. If I were you, I'd encourage more on the job training.
Re:From an employer (Score:3, Interesting)
Yep. I've been interviewing people for a Unix systems administrator position for our group where I work, and I can tell you that while the vast majority of candidates can probably poke their way around a Unix box from a users' standpoint, actually understanding the toolset from an administration and debugging standpoint seems to be a rare skillset. I can't tell you how man people I asked about various simple day-to-day Unix administration operations who couldn't tell you how they were done because they followed some "procedures" that someone else wrote up or "it's been too long", or "we used [buzzword product X, Y or Z]" or other such nonsense. For instance, many so-called "Linux experts" did not know that the command to list the kernel modules loaded into a running kernel is 'lsmod'. Most thought you could find out that information by reading
Re:Looking for VB.Net developers! (Score:2, Interesting)
Kris
Re:When will facts match reality... (Score:2, Interesting)
The gravy train ... (Score:3, Interesting)
I got advance notice in late January that I would be laid off 3/31. Went into panic mode, started looking and all I could find was
For every call I got about php I got 20 for asp.net. I even learned that one of the biggest recruiting companies in the Washington DC Metro now recruits for
After two months, my number came up and I got laid off effectively 3/31. I got two offers on 3/31, one to work like an animal in a php/Oracle shop for a huge company, one to work like an animal in a tiny shop that only does
Apart from the near saturation of
Another problem I saw with the very limited supply of php jobs is that the people that are hiring are absolutely disconnected from the salary curves for this market. They want you to have 10 years of experience in C, C++, PHP, Ansi SQL, JSP, HTML, CSS, XML, etc. then they want to hire you for $50K or less. And they get offended when you laugh in their faces. I noticed this is only a problem with the open source type jobs, the
Re:From an employer (Score:3, Interesting)
Moving can be economically risky. If you own a home in your present location, say you've been there for ten years, and now relocate to a new state and a new home, you're likely back at the beginning of a 30 year mortgage. It seems to me the way to primary way people accumulate personal wealth is in their home, and that means staying put until you make real progress in paying down the principal on your home loan, which means the later years.
I've moved three times for my career, and actually lost a little money on a home sale when the Long Island economy collapsed in the mid 90's, and despite a decent income my personal wealth ain't much to brag about. I suspect that had I been more reluctant to move and found a way to stay put, I'd be far better off today.
Granted, my one experience may not be extendable to you. What do others think anout this?
Re:Wages Are Still Down, We Need MORE H1-Bs!!!! (Score:3, Interesting)
According to other studies, CS major enrollments are WAY down...so, not that many new tech people coming into the market...the big, easy $$'s of yesteryear aren't there anymore. And, a lot of the people that flocked to IT that weren't really good, got caught in the bubble crash..and are gone.
So, that leaves a lot of good, older IT people out there...with less competition from new grads...so, with the pool drying up a bit, it looks like IT may have a slight comeback.
At least..if it keeps that trend...and the IT person can call the shots more, it IS an ideal time to incorporate yourself, and hit the consulting/contract circuit...good money to be made, and lots of jobs out there.
My Dad always told me to 'make hay while the sun is shining'....
Re:Customers care about results... (Score:5, Interesting)
Really? Why don't come and peddle that crap to my current employer? They obviously didn't hear about your theory before embarking on their current slapdash offshoring initiative.
We are talking here about sending our entire IT dept to a company which doesn't even have PC's for their employees. My numbskull employer agreed to buy them all laptops (at approx 1.7 times average market price).
Currently we are doing knowledge transfer via conference calls. The lines and the accents are so difficult for both sides to understand that we may as well be talking in different languages for the amount of knowledge that is being transferred.
Each time I mention the problems that are going to come our way as a result of this ridiculous approach I am told that I cannot see the "big picture" from my lowly "techie perspective" and these guys are really cheap. I wonder why.
Re:Ask Slashdot - (Score:3, Interesting)
I would leverage your CS skills with a non-CS degree. That way, you've got a biology degree and you rock with computers. That way, you've your computer history, and you're available for any jobs that require a biology degree, and you have a college degree.
By doing pure CS you're limiting your prospects.
Re:From an employer (Score:3, Interesting)
In relation to IT and moving- and really moving in general- I have heard too many stories about moving for a job and then getting laid off 3 to 6 months later. Suddenly in a new city with no resources and no job. Great way to be destroyed unless you have significant savings.
Re:How about posting a job ad here for us... (Score:3, Interesting)
i don't dispute anything you say (Score:3, Interesting)
why?
because there's simply nothing better
in other words, people rail against nike sweatshops in indonesia. ok, fine. so what's your superior solution?
the problem is that getting rid of the nike sweatshop does not mean the slave labor workers are suddenly released from their shackles into a beautiful egalitarian world of middle class bohemian western lifestyle
no, rather they go and starve on the streets. so if the choice is between slave labor and starving, they, you and i would choose the slave labor in the blink of an eye
see the real problem now?
so please: i applaud those who decry slave labor in the third world. but please recognize reality: to properly destroy the slave labor conditions YOU HAVE TO PROPOSE A SUPERIOR SOLUTION
it's the difference between positive criticism and negative criticism
because a lot of people are empty idealists: they criticize the negative evils they see in this world
yeah! good for them! do you know how fucking easy that is to do? "that is bad, this is bad, boo hiss" do you know you fucking obvious and useless it is to just say these empty words that everyone ALREADY KNOWS?
omg! some stupid 20 year old rich western college student prick just told me slave labor is bad! oh my god! what a thunderbolt! I NEVER REALIZED THAT BEFORE! how could i miss that!? where would i be in this world without idealistic rich western simpletons!?
but if these empty headed shallow idealists would like to take a healthy dose of reality for once, and realize that in this world, solving problems is actually a game of choosing between two negatives, only one slightly worse than the other, in order to pursue progress, the slow, backbreaking thing progress really is, then maybe all of their criticism WOULD ACTUALLY MEAN SOMETHING FOR ONCE
and when i say positive criticism with positive alternatives, i am talking REALISTIC positive alternatives. you know, like respecting the countries invovled? you can't march into foregin countries and dictate to them how to run their countries, right? and yet these same idealistic retarded simpletons act like these companies control all of the cards. um, no. the source of the real problem? not some evil multimational corporation. it's the LOCAL CORRUPT ASSHOLES. and if you cricize the local corrupt assholes? what do you hear from them? "ARROGANT IMPERIALISTIC NEOCOLONIAL PATRONIZING WESTERNER!"
see how the problem is a little more complicated than you simpletons suggest yet?
saying "slave labor is wrong" is easy, useless, and obvious. yeah, clap clap, clap! you win the prize! you're a simple minded retard, you can regurgitate what everyone knows already!
saying "slave labor is wrong, and here is my solution XYZ to remove it" is HARD
so welcome to reality. now try to say something useful, not regurgitate the obvious and think you're actually contributing to solving any problems in this world
my solution? LET PEOPLE HAVE THEIR JOBS. LET MULITNATIONALS BUILD FACTORIES IN THE THIRD WORLD. then WORK with the slave labor employers and force them improve work conditions, and insist third world countries show more transparency, so we know any money is going to the actual poor people, rather than building the next edition on the warlord's villa
i know, it's mundane, simple, slow steps. it lacks revolutionary zeal. except revolutions often just lead to a lot burned buildings, and less work for everyone involved
my solution is slow, unsexy, and uncool. but i'd like you to propose something better
Re:From an employer (Score:3, Interesting)
So you're interviewing fresh grads and not finding them to be experienced, right?
And you want to pay them peanuts and not invest in them at all, right?
Wow, why would they ever do that?!?!
So, we're talking up to $4.20/hr bonus on top of the $5.25/hr base pay?!?!? These guys have to be crazy to pass that up!
My guess is that they went to the University of Unrealistic Expectations.
Regards,
Art
My two cents... (Score:2, Interesting)
different technique (Score:3, Interesting)
There's the inverse fast foot indicator:
if I get really sucky service at a restaurant, the job market is good. When restaurant service is great, the job market sucks.
Then there's the pimp index:
Number and frequency of calls from recruiters
And finally, the swag factor:
When my employer feels the need to increase swag, I know the job market is getting better.
YMMV
Re:"proactive" and "flexible" sound nice, but . . (Score:3, Interesting)
Maintaining a defeatist attitude is the single biggest deterrent to career advancement.
In order for anyone to find happiness in the workplace, you need to do some soul searching, as well as discovering some things about the real world:
- What type of work makes you happy?
- What type of industry needs someone that can do that type of work?
- What do I do now that I can apply to that industry / job?
- Are there any intermediary steps that I need to take before I can get there?
- Do I need to move to a larger centre (or smaller centre) to get those opportunities?
Very seldom to people stumble into their dream job. You have a job now, and that's a good thing. Look at what you can take from this job and apply to your next job.
When you are job hunting, you should look for jobs that:
- are willing to provide training related to what you wish to do*
* This does not mean that they will train you for 100% of the job, but would be interested in teaching you as much as 30% of what they would expect you to do.
- have a broader scope - allowing you to learn more about how what you do affects other arms of the company
- have more responsibility - providing you with some management skills (project or people)
- will provide you with experience related to where you are going.
Be prepared to relocate for the right opportunity. Understand that the right opportunity is less about money than it is about experience.
Remember that you always have a choice in your career direction. Choosing to do nothing is still a choice.
Re:It is our responsibility.. (Score:3, Interesting)
Ignorance must be bliss. You ever hear of a company called Tata? It's probably the largest Indian outsourcing firm. Seen them contracting at a medical company once. They brought in 20 guys on H1Bs. Guys. Not women or families. Their wives and children stay in India. Anyways, they bunked up at six people per apartment. They were paid $500 a month each.
Okay, I have a wife and two kids. Say I offer to do the same job these guys are doing, but like you said demand lower wages so I work for $400 a month. Apartments where I live run minimum of $750 per month. What were you saying: no more million dollar mortgage or luxury car? Your right, at $400 a month it's impossible to have a car or a house and still eat!
But being a techie, you might understand the laws of nature.
Nature and Techies? Your not from around here are you?
You can lobby as much you want and have protectionist laws passed.
Protectionist laws? Did you know there have been laws about ILLEGAL immigrants for years? Who would have thought that ILLEGAL immigrants would do something ILLEGAL. Why don't these people go back and LEGALLY apply for citizenship like thousand of LEGAL immigrants do every year? There is a process and a LEGAL way for citizenship that they are refusing to abide to. What next? Pedophiles and murderers go on marches because they feel that their crimes shouldn't be crimes or punishable? Yeah, I don't know what country you are from but here in the U.S. we try to abide by the laws of the land.
Similarly, as long as there's work here in US, people will come down here.
Thats easy to correct: you jail Americans for hiring ILLEGAL immigrants. Watch those jobs disappear in a hurry.