I've had interviews where I'm asked all of those questions, and then some. I've been propositioned on interviews. Asked to give up bodily fluids and hair. I've had interviewers slander me for no good reason. Or worst of all of them, I can't tell you how many times I've showed up for an interview and the person who I was supposed to talk to was "too busy." Or simply not there. Hasn't been so bad over the last ten years or so, but during the
On the other hand, I've also had some pretty decent interviews, and I like to think that when I interview people, that my process is fair, legal, and honest.
Razor is a great little technology. It reminds me a lot of the old asp classic style of coding.
So you get all the awful practice, and a much deeper level of system access. On the up side, it does make
Good stuff.
The field totally crashed in 2000, and before it recovered, there were more massive layoffs in 2009.
Today, IT jobs are offshored at a furious rate. And the few IT jobs that cannot be offshored, are being filled by foreign visa workers. The IT field may be okay for those who got in at the right time, and now have 15 years of experience. But I think other Americans may be well advised to avoid the field.
Just because something worked for, at a very different time, does not mean the same strategy will work for others.
Honestly, it depends on what sized company you're working with, and what their philosophy about outsourcing is. Some companies do outsource everything, but they have been finding that the quality of work hasn't been as high, and that they're not really saving enough money for it to make a difference. H1b visas are in short supply these days, and only the big players have a lot of sponsored workers. Meanwhile, ICE has been cracking down on companies that are hiring foreign workers for common skillsets. Most companies still have a few guys, but the overall percentage is less than 20% of the total workforce.
Then there's all this talk about the 2009 bust. You knew, 2009 was just the most recent. We had one in 1999, another in 2001, one after that in 2003, another in 2005, and then that one. That said, it looks like the market has been stabilizing for awhile now, and the experts are saying we're expanding at a rate faster than the national average for the other sectors of the economy. So that's a good thing. I wouldn't tell anyone to avoid the field, just to make sure that they join it at a time when they're sharp and prepared for challenging work.
I don't even use the degree when considering someone for a role at my company anymore. There's no difference between schooled/unschooled candidates that have been doing this for awhile, and a huge difference in the ones out of school. If you're fresh out of school with an Information Technology degree, it's going to scare me a little. Some of these fresh grads know less after four years of school than the guy who spent six weeks in his basement obsessing about a new programming language. A lot of them don't have the skill or the experience, and they all feel like they should be able to command top salaries while they "learn the ropes." There's a difference between learning the ropes, and building a skill set which they should have been able to develop in school.
Also, I wish people would stop using the terms "self taught" as though you could magically just know something. There's no such thing.
Only through hard work and perseverance can one truly suffer.