The State of the IT Field (please read)

I see alot of people that are frustrated about getting a job on this board, so I wanted to start a thread where we can all discuss why it is so hard getting a job, the syptoms that caused this, and possible solutions to help people find jobs. Please respond with ideas and suggestions, as all my belows ideas are thoughts on what I have seen myself in the 4 years I have been doing IT.

First, let's look at some reasons why people are having trouble looking finding a job:

1. The internet boom of the middle 90's
This market was a barely developed market when the internet explosion of the 90's hit. When this trend first started hundreds of over night companies popped up out of no where doing startup IPO's on the stock market which was another reason of the huge stock market rush of the late 90's. With this on slaught of companies pouring into the market these people needed qualified computer and telecom adminstrators to come in right away and keep things up and running. Due to this field not being a large field there were few qualified people out there to handle the jobs so the prices being offered for positions were ridiculous. People seen these prices and flocked into the field instantly grabbing up any certification or degree they could to hop on the bandwagon. This caused thousands of new job to be made in less than 3 months, and the field was looking terrific. What most people did not expect was that the bottom fell out on most internet based companies and all those jobs fell through in less than 2 years. This caused the field to be instantly flooded with thousands of available workers.

2. The flood of people in this field
This is in relation to #1 in alot of ways, the collapse of the internet sector caused this. Not much else to say here, there is just alot of people that are in this field, but even though is true there are still alot of jobs available.

3. Companies are picky now
Many companies are now very picky on who they choose and what qualifications you need. 5 years ago a CCNA certification landed you a 50k job with no experience, no it lands you a 25k job.

4. Experience is a must
Most companies require about 3-5 years minimum experience....well, how can you get experience if all jobs require it???

5. Alot of IT jobs need to be filled so quick you never know they were available
Alot of IT jobs now needed to be filled so quick that when they do come available they are really never advertised. This leads to alot of people never knowing a particular job was ever open.

6. Outsourcing (read this one, cause ima get flamed here
Ok....this is the #1 complaint I hear now, but in all actuality I believe this is the least important of all the above. Why, well let's look at outsourcing and what is mainly being outsorced. The primary job being outsorced right now is callcenters. Well, I don't consider IT to be a tech taking a call, I consider IT to be the 2-4 people working at the callcenter over all the actual data equipment in the callcenter. This means that if a callcenter of 1000 people shutdowns then only 2-5 people at the most are losing their job from IT. The people losing most of their jobs are lower or middle class people working for the callcenters. My company has 1 Network/Telecom (me) and 1-2 systems administrators per 750 seat callcenter. That is about the average for a callcenter, so if see 25,000 jobs moving overseas only about 100 of them are IT specific or less than 1%. Any this will also cause a few more IT jobs to be available here as most calls have to be routed overseas so someone has to be local at the datacenter to be hands on with all the equipment responsible for all the call routing. So no, I am going to disagree with everyone and say outsourcing isn't the true problem.

I believe the primary issue with this field was caused by the internet boom in the 90's. The reason is this caused a great misconception on how jobs in this field should be filled and pay. Pay back then was so over grossed it wasn't even funny. The real jobs in this field aren't with large scale companies like everyone thinks, the real jobs are with your smaller companies. Your local law offices, hosptials, courts, etc. this is where the jobs are. All these places are the ones just now catching up to what alot of the larger companies are doing, and in doing so they are offering jobs now. Most of these jobs are specialized to what they need, so you need to find a niche in the market and capitalize on it.

So after all of the above, let's look at some ways you can help better your job searching:

1. RESUME RESUME RESUME RESUME RESUME RESUME in case I didn't say it RESUME
This is the #2 most important way to find a job (#education is #1 but this needs to be stressed more as we know education is #1). I don't care what anyone says, ALOT of companies look at the way you write your resume and can judge what type of person you are by the style of it. If it's sloppy they will think you are unorganized. I actually suggest our adminstrator here starts a resume post with guidelines (such as posting your resume but removing your name and address material and you reference name material). This forum is for helping people, we need to help each other build a proper resume so we all have a better chance at a job.

2. Your education
This the the most important thing we all need for any field. Get as much as you can. Any degree or certification is one step closer. (I missed a job about 6 months ago because I didn't have my CCNA yet doing VPN Tunneling for doctors offices to this company doing medical billing, I would of got a $15k increase in pay for driving an extra 20 minutes a day)

3. Send your resume everywhere
Go down the phone book, most places have an email address in the phone book now, and send your resume with a little note as to why you are sending it. Go visit companies in your town, law offices, hospitals, everywhere. Most jobs won't be open when you apply but if you wait awhile it's a good chance you will get a call.

4. Technical school training is suppose to be listed as experience
If you went to a technical school for say your CCNA certification and you did labs for a year, this is a years worth of experience working with CCNA equipment. List the routers you worked on and what you did. This counts for any certification or degree you did labs on.

5. Apply for anything IT related
If it's in your paper or listed in monster.com for your area apply for it no matter what even if you aren't quailified. Why, alot of companies will take under qualified people if no one meets their criteria, plus alot of companies will just put your resume in their database for any other jobs that come up.

6. Put an ad in your local paper to work on computers
If you have a degree or have a certification don't be afraid to put a local add in the paper about working on computer, especially if you live in a small town like I do. Word of mouth will do wonders for you if you do a good job trust me.

7. Be open to relocation possiblilities
If you are able be willing to relocate. I have already discussed this with my wife and if the price is right we are moving. If you do relocate be sure to look at the cost of living and make sure it's worth it, plus if your spouse works make sure she can find a job also. (my wife is a nurse so she has a job where ever we go). Ask the company if they offer a relocation package, most companies do but won't advertise it unless you ask.

8. Don't give up
Honestly, I think any job that pays well and requires more mental abilities than physical will require had work to acquire than your average job does. If you arent in the medical field then it will take some work to find a job. You just need to stick with it and stay confident. I believe that this field like most requires the person working in it to have a certain love of the trade to truely succeed in it, and if you truely enjoy the work you will get your chance.

My hope is that this thread can be a help to other people to learn what to do to help themselves get a job. To do this you need to understand both why jobs are hard to come by and how to get one. I would like to see many suggestions and ideas that all the newcomers to this forum can use to help themselves in this field come out of this thread. Let's keep the negativity from a "This field sucks and jobs suck" perspective out of it. If you are having a problem finding a job share how you have been going about finding one and maybe we can give some advice to help you. (sorry for any spelling errors to lazy to go back and re read

)

Thanks,

Steven

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Comments

2lazybutsmart

Well Steven, thanks for the insight: it was cool and obviously in need of some "table of contents"

(cuz of the length).

I agree with the majority of your points, but let me ask you what caused the 'flooding' in this field to actually happen. I mean... every flood in our life has a cause: extreme rainfall is one obvious cause for most floods.

OK, my point here is: shouldn't we really ask ourselves what caused the 'ITpersonnel-flood'?? (I'll leave this for u to answer).

You mentioned a very interesting piece in your writing: I quote

5 years ago a CCNA certification landed you a 50k job with no experience, no it lands you a 25k job.

Why is this so??? I'll answer this one because it's certainly obvious. 5 years ago, the number of people who could pass the CCNA test was limited and that gave them value in the eyes of the employers. Remember: employees are really not different than ordinary products we buy from the grocery stores (soap, food, dairy...etc). The market keeps an updated supply and demand graph for them. The more the supply exceeds the demand, the more the value of the product goes down. And the same is true vice-versa.

Now we know the 'supply' of CCNA's has increased astronomically, but how did this happen?? Did an unknown genetic mutation take place in every new born child that turned it into a genius; I really don't think so. What I think, however, is that there are 2222222 many people getting a shortcut to the cert; obviously shortcuts to "Certifications" are always bad and unethical:::: Here are some of them:

1-sending money to third world countries and having someone take the exam for you without you having to read a line or sit a single class (which happens very very frequently),
2-Using braindumpzz to prepare for the exam (this is the most common shortcut), and
3rd but not really common: buying a fake certificate from some companies online. Mind you these certs look really real.

And so, I think we should all focus not on why the good people are "not" getting the jobs, but why the bad guys are getting the good guys' jobs.

Remember: shortcutters don't always have problems "prostituting". Some of them go for a job that really pays big bucks but are forced to work for a few nickels because deep down, they know they don't really deserve this job anyways..

2lbs.

Webmaster

Thanks for spending the time to write this Steven! I've made the topic "Sticky" as I'm sure it will be of help to many. It would be great if you could maintain the topic, as in update it when you think someone replied with a good addition. Maybe the topic subject can be change to "HOW-TO Find a Job in IT" eventually.

Some comments and opinions from me:

Reason 1 (and hence 2). Don't forget the 'millennium bug'. I think the boom was at its peak around 1999, and things really started to settle down in the couple of years after 2000. I think it is partly because most companies spent an enormous amount of money on getting their software up to 'date' and ensuring a smooth transition to the new millennium. After that, the average budget for IT decreased drastically.

(reason 4, suggestion 4 and 5).
I disagree with "Technical school training is suppose to be listed as experience", although it depends on the structure of your resume, and the job your applying for. Usually, when you list experience, you list 'work experience', experience as an IT professional. I have sat on both sides of the table during many interviews when I worked for a large outsourcing company. I 'experienced' that when you list or imply things like lab training, simulators, home labs, etc., as being work experience, you risk not being taken seriously, especially when the person who'll read and judge it is not a techie.

Surely, you should mention the 'experience' you have with certain hard and software, but I really suggest to list it seperately from any experience you actually got paid for. This is entirely different if you don't have any work experience at all. In that case, as you mentioned in suggestion 5. apply for anything IT related, if you aren't qualified, but also if you are over qualified. Don't expect any of the popular certifications to lead directly to a job where you can actually use the skills and knowledge you learned. In most cases you'll have to start at the bottom. Try to get a job at a local PC store, call center, anything. Even if you think the salary is bad, and the work is dull. Quit after a couple of months, and get the next available job. If you're ever asked why you quit the job after just a few months, tell them you wanted something more challenging.

I actually suggest our adminstrator here starts a resume post with guidelines (such as posting your resume but removing your name and address material and you reference name material).

I think the resume post with guidelines is an excellent idea. Although you should be careful with things like resume templates and make sure yours is original (as in your own words). HR people tend to recognize similarities rather quickly.

halflife78

Here is the way I see that it happened. (timeline thing here

)

Before the 90's there was not really an IT field. The computer industry was a new field, it wasn't really a well known field as the technology vs. cost factor was not beneficial to start off with, this caused alot of companies to look into technology upgrades then dismiss them.

In the early 90's the computer industry started taking off. The growth rate of the tecnology was almost doubling per year (CPU speeds, memory amounts, etc.). If you look at a graphical rate of growth in the computer industry vs. any other industry it will be at almost triple the rate of growth of any other industry tecnology wise.

In the middle 90's the internet boom hit. People started realizing that you could access a valuable truckload of information by pressing a few keys and hitting enter. No more going to the library for information, going to JCPenny's for clothes. You could now research buying a car from home, how much the dealer really paid for it, and what they had in stock.

Companies realized the potential bombshell they had at their disposal with the internet, so many existing companies started hiring webdesigners to make websites, system adminsitrators to program servers and setup systems at their offices, telecom people to monitor and install data exchange equipment, etc.

Along with existing companies you had all these new companies pop up that were totally internet based. They were selling everything and anything from the internet. These people also needed webmasters, systems admins, telecom people, LAN engineers etc.

All of a sudden a field that was trickling along suddenly opened the flood gates. Thousands of jobs were needed to fill spots that were needed instantly, as companies did not want to miss the opportunity before them. This created a tempory shortage in the industry as all qualified people were being swep up daily. This started creating cost wars, companies started upping the prices to bring in new people to support the field.

People saw the massive (trust me it was more massive than people think, I am a stock market person and the amount of companies doing IPO's at this time would amaze you) influx of companies + jobs + pay and flocked to the industry. Thousands of newly certified people were being pumped into the industry monthly. Things were great for everyone.

About 2-3 years after this massive shift came the bottom fell out. Most of the internet only based companies went bankrupt. All these jobs newly filled were gone. Normal companies saw the rise and fall of the internet boom so they were able to lay a portion of their IT dept. off to scale down for proper need.

So now you have thousands of IT people out of a job in an industry that just fell out (it didn't actually fall out, it corrected itself to the proper relation when the internet boom dropped off).

All of this contributed to the initial flood of people. The second phase was that people were still coming into the field at a high rate. This coupled with hardly any jobs being offered made it worse.

Fast forward to today. You now have alot of people without jobs. But as technology races forward new opportunities are being offered. Small businesses are realizing the cost savings potential of having their own high speed internet connections, websites, networks. This is creating a trickle effect of jobs being offered into the industry from these small businesses.

With this comes specialization. Small businesses need certain qualifications depending on their business needs. Some need Citrix, MCSE, CCNA, A+, Computer Science, etc. This broadens the job field and offers more opportunities.

The downside to all this is like 2lazy mentioned, you have alot of paper people now that can't do anything. I have a perfect example myself. Our site recently hired a new systems adminstrator. She has an Associates degree in Networking and Computer Programming. No offense but she is as dumb as a rock. I have no degrees and just got my CCNA cert and I can run circles around her in equipment I have never worked on. 2 of her most memorable questions were "How do I slave and master a hard drive and CDRom on the same cable" and "I need to fill out this form, is 1.7GHz 1700MHz"? She can't troubleshoot, she doesn't show up for work 2 days a week because she is hung over from getting drunk, she can't be reached for outages, the list goes on. Now I don't have a problem in the world working with someone who wants to learn, but since she has got here she has refused to learn anything, she just doesn't care. It's people like her that put a black eye on this industry.

Companies need to have better interview processes, use the official certification trackers that companies like Cisco offer, and do better background checks on people with degrees to weed out the imposters. This will help weed out people who don't know what they are doing.

In conclusion, I think the computer technology and internet boom between 1996-1999 caused the flood. The adjustment after the bottom fell out (or it corrected itself is a better term) is what left so many people looking for jobs. That coupled with the amount of people still going into the field plus the fake certs and paper degrees is the primary problem now.

Mwgamer

You know Nurses used to make chicken feed wage years ago? Now a good experienced nurse in California can make around 40.00 dollars an hr. It seems to be all about supply and demand.

Its extremely difficult to break into this field with no experience. Ive seen 8 to 10 dollar an tech support jobs requiring an A+ certification and 2 to 3 years experience.

2lazybutsmart

Wow. Thanks halflife. That certainly was cool.

I certainly agree with you on that part where you said the flood was caused when the bottom fell out. Companies certainly over-reacted and hierd more than their capacity called for. And when they realised they can't do with the "herd" anymore, they chose to cut down the number.

Now there's this other dimension worth exploring. Now that the sector has a 'chemical' mix of people of all different sorts and IQ's, don't we need different type of HR managers to deal with the new problem.

It certainly is plain that companies are getting their share of loss. A lot of companies (like your company) hire people who don't have an idea about thier job and then the companies have a hard time getting rid of them when they realize their value. (this said: did u guys fire that employee).

And what do you think is the best method HR managers can use to hire the "right" person in this current situation of chaos (In fact, the sand is settling down: but it's still lot's of chaos for many people).

....

2lbs.

Sartan

*AWESOME* suggestions, halflife.
Your advice in this one post is more informative than the career directions course I have at my tech school.
I especially like the experience with routers for XXX years. It's definately true, you'll never touch a router in university.
I've been admin'ing networks for 4 or 5 years (Much to a few people's disbelief) , but I've never throught of putting routers on there for lab environments.
Thanks!
Our HR coorespondant here at SAIT suggested that we don't apply for every posting on the internet, because it simply tires some HR folks that have to sift through resumes that have nothing to do with the job posted.
She told us to target our resumes...
Now, I've got the idea, who cares if I make the HR's job a little more tedious by placing my resume in the "not applicable" pile, but it still becomes part of a searchable database.

Excellent advice, I will take this liberally.
Theres a few websites for startup companies in Alberta, and nearly every company will have an IT department, and I'll be available for sys admin or net tech there. They don't have to have a posting, because as you said, most IT positions are not advertised.

Although, one more thing I would add to your excellent list: Cold Calling. It actually works. I've gotten a number of interviews (albiet underpaid sweatshops) through this.

2lazybutsmart

Sartan: There was this other good point some one mention in this thread (don't remember who it was though

) about taking a job (whatever it might be) then quitting after a couple of months so that you can put it in your "experiences" bag. Now what would an HR guy think about your experiences if they were always only a couple of months in duration?

And Johan: What did you mean by taking "paid-for" experiences and others apart? And are you suggesting that people include "un-paid" for experiences (which are usually either pro bono stuff or things u do at home) in their resume's as actual experience's the HR shoud take into account?

shawnpullum

Most of the insights here are excellent.......

I do have some responses to your last comments 2lazy

2lazybutsmart wrote:

Sartan: There was this other good point some one mention in this thread (don't remember who it was though ) about taking a job (whatever it might be) then quitting after a couple of months so that you can put it in your "experiences" bag. Now what would an HR guy think about your experiences if they were always only a couple of months in duration?

This is not a good idea....It will look to the HR person scanning your resume as if your job hopping...and a lot of them now are looking for a "stable" work history. Defining stable becomes tough I think. 1-3 years per job is probably the standard for stable (IMHO), 2-3 months looks flaky. That tells the HR person, if I hire you, 3 months later, I may have to go through this process again. However, the humourous converse to this is after 10 years, you may be considered overqualified for any other position in the entry level markets (my current situation).

2lazybutsmart wrote:

And Johan: What did you mean by taking "paid-for" experiences and others apart? And are you suggesting that people include "un-paid" for experiences (which are usually either pro bono stuff or things u do at home) in their resume's as actual experience's the HR shoud take into account?

My understanding of their statement was that if you have some paid-work experiences, you should list those separately from un-paid experiences you are familiar with, because business people tend to only see value in what was paid for. It's not that the experience itself is any less legitimate; if you've been maintaining a network in your home for 3 years, or a personal website for 2 years, you have the experience, it can be seen by prospective employers as a hobby, or that you were not good enough to get paid for it, so why should they pay you for that skill. Not a correct mindset in my opinion, or a fair one, but one you face as an IT professional, nonetheless.

Rebound86

2-Using braindumpzz to prepare for the exam.

Forgive my ignorance but what is Braindumpzz????

Further what is the point in doing something like paying someone to sit the exam for you or buying it of the net sure you can put it on your resume but when it actually come down to doing the job you are nto going to no what to do.

SniperHunter

What a great topic, I was looking for something exactly like this. I am 19 yo, in a technical school for IT going to graduate in october. When I get out I will have my MCSE and CCNP completed and hopefully go after the CCIE. Looking for a job is depressing sometimes, companies either want a) experience b) or even now they are starting to look toward college degrees. It's a catch 22, no one will hire you without experience but you cant get a job to earn experience.

I love what this field has to offer and enjoy it on a personal level, people who use brain dumpz and other means of looking for a way to get a cert fast piss me off. For one thing it devalues the cert, when a company hires a person who only used braindumpz to pass his certs and is able to talk his/her way through an interview, gets hired and messed up, the company who hired him/her starts wanting more education *college degree* to get the same job.

I know for one I have to work on my people skills, I tend to get very nervous around new people I dont know and knowing me ill be so nervous I will mess up on my interview questions and not get the job. Meanwhile if you sit me in front of a computer I'll be able to set up and configure anything my employer would need. Right now im just moving foward, getting my certs done and aiming for as much experience as I can, hopefully ill be able to pick up an internship of some sort.

-Anthony

gmdepp

Never forget that ALL computers and technology is overhead. Say I've owned a 7-11 for 20 years. Everything we did was manual and stored in file cabinets. All of a sudden we started introducing computers, and they had to be constantly rebooted, or rebuilt everytime a secretary unzipped a file they shouldn't have, just a constant pain. Plus the techs who work on these computers are young cocky punks who roll their eyes when I don't understand how to double-click a mouse. And now we have to update software, and buy newer computers, and hire more cocky punks to run the new servers we installed, and hire security people, and the whole reason we started using computers was to save time and money. As a non-technical manager, this is out of control, and I long for the days of filing all day long. There are a lot of managers out there with this mentality.

Add that with the fact that computers/technology doesn't contribute directly to the bottom line. At my 7-11, I sell Slurpees. So whenever there is a downturn in my business I do everything I can to cut overhead, which means reducing staff, getting rid of the computers I hate anyway, or at least telling HR to freeze all hiring of young cocky punk techs.

In addition to the slumping economy (and IT jobs will always have problems every time there is a downturn in the economy, so get used to it if you want to be in IT) here are my thoughts on why things are the way they are in IT.

1. 90's boom - Everyone wanted in on the IT trend. I call it the If-only-I-could-be-a-secretary-at-Microsoft-and-turn-in-my-stock-shares-for-a-Ferrari syndrome. Not happy flipping burgers, hauling trash, or getting your boss coffee? Take our classes, get into IT and you too can have a 6 figure salary. This threw tons of people into the IT field who shouldn't be there, and it created all the hoopla about getting certs, faking certs, and other shortcuts. Nevermind the fact that through most of the 90s most companies had no idea how to hire technical people, and no real way to test their knowledge. If the HR guy knows nothing about computers how is he going to know if an applicant really knows VB or just took it as an elective class?

2. Y2K - Companies had no clue what to do, so they stopped layoffs, retirements, etc. Basically they froze all personnel moves in case the world would end. I remember no one could take vacations around Xmas or New Years and everyone was on-call (paid by the way). This created (in addition to the TON of people out there already) many more people on the payrolls than were needed to do the job. On Jan. 2, 2000 there were a lot of people that were no longer needed. Heck, they created entire Y2K departments, there were tons of people and all they did was Y2K. Lots of upper management felt cheated by the young cocky punks that they didn't like already who made up the Y2K hype about the computers they really didn't like already.

So now companies have laid off or otherwise gotten rid of a lot of extra people. A lot of good people lost their jobs. Most of the good ones got picked up somewhere else, but a lot of local economies couldn't handle the immediate flood of people looking for IT work. Companies could now afford to be picky and lower salaries. They hired contractors where they had employees before. They increased responsibilities of the existing workforce, converted secretaries to Help Desk Analysts, and are continuing to play with what size workforce is really needed. And don't forget the companies that adjusted their workforce to make earnings estimates each quarter because their business was doing so bad.

Finally, the turnover rate has really gone to zero. Jobs are tight, and no one is leaving unless they have to. I know of several people who could retire or move into other positions. No one wants to make waves or attract attention to themselves. So there are less jobs available then there has been in the past.

There are several things we can still do to get a job, halflife78 touched on a bunch. I have some more, but will post them in a few days, getting a bit late here.

Greg
Former Young Cocky Punk

2lazybutsmart

Nice post Greg. that was cool. If you don't mind answering your own question....

If the HR guy knows nothing about computers how is he going to know if an applicant really knows VB or just took it as an elective class?

becuase many HR people don't know the stuff. Some of them don't even have an idea about how moving a small machine causes a small arrow to go back on forth on a TV screen. hehe.

Rebound86 wrote:

2-Using braindumpzz to prepare for the exam.

Forgive my ignorance but what is Braindumpzz????

Further what is the point in doing something like paying someone to sit the exam for you or buying it of the net sure you can put it on your resume but when it actually come down to doing the job you are nto going to no what to do.

Braindumpzz is a stupid form of cheating for a technical exam, I think that should suffice as a description.

The purpose people pay someone to write an exam for them is becuase they want to get a job with those false credentials. The same reason why people use braindumpzzz in order to get the credentials that'll bring em cash easily. Most dumperzz end up not knowing what to do when they're presented with hands on stuff.

JOblessELement

2lazybutsmart wrote:

Nice post Greg. that was cool. If you don't mind answering your own question....

If the HR guy knows nothing about computers how is he going to know if an applicant really knows VB or just took it as an elective class?

becuase many HR people don't know the stuff. Some of them don't even have an idea about how moving a small machine causes a small arrow to go back on forth on a TV screen. hehe.

I think you missed Greg's point. He's referring to the HR's credibility in being able to make the *right* selection for an IT candidate as, you mentioned, the HR people themselves have ZERO knowledge about IT. What gives them that right to select a candidate?

halflife78

Well, alot of companies now hand over any IT type applications to the IT department. My last interview I did the HR department setup my interview, she asked me some questions, and then handed me over to the head of the IT dept. for the technical aspect. That seems to be the trend now with bigger companies that have levels of IT. That's the way my current company interviews, HR takes the applications and passes them along to IT, and then we do the interviews.

Rebound86

The purpose people pay someone to write an exam for them is becuase they want to get a job with those false credentials.

Thats all well and good but what about when it comes time to doing the job ....... eg
Ok say im a "silly person" and spent $20 and now have a CCNA cert cos of that cert i have landed myself a $120,000 a year job (I WISH) 1st day of this brand new job i have to program a router. due to the fact that i got my CCNA for $20 from Jo Blow on the Internet, I dont have a clue what a router is let along how to configer it. Due to my extream "badness" at this particular job i am fired.

OK this is taking the idea to the extream but you get my point?

2lazybutsmart

You did take it to the extreme edge

; I agree. But in a practical situation; many people who use braindumps opt to use it as 'filler of the blanks".

e.g Suppose a person takes an MCSE cert but only studies the core exams. He then uses dumpzz to pass the electives. This type of person is just as bad as a person who uses the dumpz for everything; but the difference here is that this person is not "stupid" after all. He knows what's going on; but his certificate (accomplished by means of braindumzz) could be clasified as a paper cert nevertheless.

joblesselement: didn't miss his point; just wanted to zoom into that one point. I know of many companies (including my own) who have HR dudes who don't know a damnnn interviewing people applying for IT jobs. Like halflife said, if companies could be just like that and have their IT departments interview IT related job seekers, then that would be great.

janmike

Well, I'll jump in with my 2-cents worth.

I applied for a job and a few weeks later was called to a meeting with one of the IT deparment heads and another lady who would be my immediate supervisor. We met and talked for about 30 minutes. I was told that they would interview for "a couple more weeks" before making a decision. I later heard through channels that they had hired someone else for the position.

A couple weeks after that, I received a call from a person in HR that said that the position was open and asked would I accept the position pursuant to an interview. Of course, I would. (She did say that they had hired another person for the job and it "didn't work out". I later heard through channels that he had "done something bad".) After this interview, I was called through a mutual friend with the immediate supervisor I had met with before, to come to a meeting with departmental staff! About 2 weeks later I was hired.

This fits the pattern of safety that you folks are presently discussing and achieves good things and begs consideration of the following.

1) Even with this 3-layer filtering, you're still gonna get people that "do something bad". However, I don't see how you could have a better HR filter. Also, the system will deal swiftly with criminal or unethical behavior.(What did he do? I don't know. I'm not asking. And I don't care--I have the job now!) I'm sure that in 99% of hires, this works quite well.

2) Even though I was very frustrated by the fact that it took them better than 2 months to hire me(It is an employers' market), and I worried more about my meeting with fellow staffers than with HR or supervisors, I feel secure in my job because evidently no one on staff had any reservations about hiring me and, so, the staff feels secure in trusting me.

Now, mind you, this is a part-time, third-shift position that requires no certs. I believe that this fits the pattern that the above posts address. And it does achieve good things. I don't know what they'd have done if it had been an engineering position that they were considering!

pad10029

I'm currently in the job market , and i've noticed a trend for almost all the positions that i am applying for. companies are looking for people who can do as many tasks as possible. some of the expected (or wished for) skills sets that companies are looking for are almost insane. they want a IT person that knows about 4-6 different areas.

i think that IT jobs are getting more scarce and more demanding because companies want to save money. why hire 5 people at 40-50k (excluding benefits) a piece when you can hire 2 people at 75k a piece to do the job of the 5? (and this scenario is not so far fetched).

so now instead of having someone who does desktop support and someone who does routers, companies want someone who can do both.
so of course that's going to decrease the job market for IT jobs.

technology is also more improved than it was in the 90's. most software companies market their products on the platform they can increase productivity with a lower cost of ownership. many products, including Windows come with more tools to centralize administration, and that decrease the need for several people to manage.

so i think that's it's just a natural move towards effiency... employers want it so that they can save money, and software/hardware companies what to give more of it so that their stuff will sell.

of course the economy has a hand in everything as well... for the past year or so, things have been uncertain for the world.... now it seems that companies don't really want to spend unless they have to.

well, whatever it is, i hope that the demand for IT personnell will increase greatly.

everyone has made some great points.... thanks for starting the topic.

coax

PAD10029,

You are so right, I was hired on as a level 2 tech and I do a lot of different tasks. They even have me setting up phone lines and voice mail.
I support hardware,software, and network issues. I do back-ups, account maintnance with AD and Exchange 2000, image creation, etc.. I also create procedures and a do little project management.

rossonieri#1

well, let us be honest. after several years working on an environment we might think that we should get a specialization field, right?? although we could say we can do anything that we used to do in the past - the current situation is that we grow older and our brain doesnt have a memory space anymore to remember all that command

let say we used to have a very nice programming capability, we do networking, etc - but now its all in a question, right?? when the younger come to our field we could say wooowww - you are good. and nowadays let us not to forget that HR guys only seeking those with superITman with the lowest price.. incredible... i think that we should tell them that HR guys to do our job theirself, hahahahaaaa....

pso phar

Yes it is true the self corrective action that we call the IT implosion of 2000 left us with a glut of IT asperants. There has been an exodus of those who like the gold rush miners of 1855 or there about experienced. This is a field for those in love with computers science and its' incarnations. The folks in it for the money are ill prepared and add to the misconception of what true hacks are. IT is about finding solutions to interesting problems. It is about using the tools, creating the tools and sharing with one another to advance our knowledge and application of said knowledge. I am a Software Engineer now in a marginal market doing "Tech support". I find myself doing a lot of different tasks. I support hardware,software, and network issues. I do back-ups, account maintnance with AD and Exchange 2000, image creation, etc.. I also create procedures and a do little project management. The list goes on but, it is what I love to do. Anything IT is a labor of love. I of course make less than I have in a long time, but I am working in a field I love.

It is sad but true fact of life you must learn. Hard work via education can never be taken for granted. In the long run it all comes out in the "Wash".

As was mentioned above those with 'paper cert/degrees' will OUT themselves when the $%*T hits the fan.

garv221

I read a lot of the replies above. It seems a lot of people are hung up on how things "use to be, and how high the pay use to be" Well lets face it, all good things come to an end. The IT industry is not dead, it just finally panned out. There are a lot of high paying jobs in IT. However, you can now major in IT at almost any University now. IT is a mainstream profession now, which ultimately cuts down yearly wages (Supply and Demand). This profession WAS the number one reason to quit your current job as an accountant, get certified and get paid more. That idea is DEAD not the IT field, things change. A Systems Administrator is as common as a Project Engineer. In a flooded market, that equals fewer jobs. So you need to separate yourself from everyone else. I believe the key to success, just like any other profession, starts with an education. An education shows the ability to learn, to achieve goals and that you do have an all around education. IT is not about the computer geek anymore. It’s about the guy who diversified himself and is all about business. The guy who comes into an environment to up production, and cut costs all by technological advances. This guy is adaptable to any type of business setting, gets along with employees, is easy to talk to, knowledgeable outside of IT too and backs it with a college degree and certifications. As the economy and technology grows, there will be more jobs for IT guys in manager positions overseeing network and information systems.

ne0-reloaded

2lazybutsmart wrote:

1-sending money to third world countries and having someone take the exam for you without you having to read a line or sit a single class (which happens very very frequently),
2-Using braindumpzz to prepare for the exam (this is the most common shortcut), and
3rd but not really common: buying a fake certificate from some companies online. Mind you these certs look really real.

what percentage of certification holders do you think are going this route? It seems you're making the assumption that the majority of cert holders are using th above methods. Braindumpz, unfortunately are used extensively, but buying certs and having a company send you a fake i think are highly sparatic ocurrences in the IT field. I may be wrong tho, if u have some stats, plz post.

2lazybutsmart

3rd but not really common: buying a fake certificate from some companies online. Mind you these certs look really real.

I think you must've overlooked the "but not really common" part. I put that in because I know that's the last method one would opt to use; however, I can tell you there are many people who do use it, nevertheless. The first and second method are largely is use by braindumperz. I think there was a topic about that stuff somewhere here on TechExams too. Search for it; it certainly is worth the reading.

2lbs.

knowlwk

I think the braindump/paper-cert argument is over-used. The reality is, in any field, if there are fewer candidates, the paycheck goes up. As soon as the paycheck goes up, the lure of that field goes up, and suddenly there are more candidates, driving the paycheck back down. The $60k MCSE job, no experience required disappears as soon as an MCSE with 5 years experience becomes available.

When I graduated highschool... the world needed engineers. By the time I got through college... there was a glut, because everyone who graduated highschool with me, went to school to be an engineer to get one of those high paying jobs... well, my buddy was one of them, and he started off at about $7/hr with an engineering firm, because that was all that was availble. Several years later, the cycle came back around and he now has a decent paying engineer job.

Yes, there are many paper-cert knuckle-heads out there, but I have a hard time believing that they survive very long. Your cert is going to get diluted... its the nature of the beast.... if its valuable, it becomes a goal for all the hungry up-and-comers... you just have to stay hungrier than they are.

cnegrad04

I'm not sure if this has been mentioned yet, but experience seems to be the most important attribute that organizations are looking for. It seems that every company wants someone with the average 3-5. So it is hard getting in the door when you don't have this. So what I did was volunteer at a local hospital's IT dept. This was the only way that I could gain any experience. Another thing was that many places that I have applied do not and will not accept work done in the school environment. I thought that was part of the schooling was to include hands on training so as not to enter the work field with not a clue....I don't just a suggestion....

MacSysOp

In March of this year, my job (along with 50 others) was eliminated and the manufacturing facility closed. I had 25 years seniority. I was a Production Artist / Prepress Operator / Mac Network Administrator (1995 to 2004), and *acting* Network Administrator for a Novell / Windows network - with 3 years experience - *acting, because they used me without a title or wages, because of my knowledge*

My responsibilities included everything related to IT: LAN and WAN connectivity, hubs, switches, routers, account management, setup / repair, troubleshooting, Website administration, purchases, etc., for Mac and Windows PC's and the network.

I returned to school in 1998 (Kent State University) to get an Associate's in Computer Technology, Networking. It went hand in hand with my job responsibilities. I completed the degree this May (just after the plant closed). Following the degree, I completed the CompTIA 2003 A+ cert., and just passed Network+, last week.

Even with the above, I was passed over several times - when trying to get a position in a corporate structure.

I just landed a job with a small computer repair company. The company supports other local small businesses - not corporations. It's fantastic experience. So far, I've worked for Insurance, Law, Mortgage & Loan, Auto, Real Estate and Funeral businesses - each with a different problem or need. In addition I've worked 'on the bench' fixing the average person's PC - normally full of spyware and crap - with the occasional hardware replacements / upgrades, etc.

At the same time, between working - I'm still taking classes.
I'm in a 6 month training program that will train and help me earn the MCSA, MCP, Server+, and Security+ certs.

I'm 45. I've been working with Mac's and PC's since 1992. I have experience in a Networked, corporate environment, and have a couple certifications, and I have an Associate's degree.

But it still wasn't enough to land the job I really wanted.

So, now I'm working on my own 4 year plan (or sooner) to get (back) into a corporate environment as a Network Administrator.

Wish me luck!

You'll need it!

janmike

Best of luck, MacSysOp!

james3302

Wish I had that kind of determination. I just can allow myself to spend 50,000-100,000 for classes and college, then volunteer freely for 5 years to get a $30,000/yr job. I understand that IT is a ever changing field, so the idea of getting a job then going back to school to update my skills doesn't bother me.

qsub

This thread is awesome. Although I don't look down on the IT field. I think it will definnitally help those who do or are debating if they made the right decision stepping into the field.

Just remember, there are people out there who do get paid VERY WELL. Don't be mediocre. If you really want that good paying job. Work hard, try hard, and it will all pay off.

That's what drives me. I tell myself almost everyday, and the fact that I want it so bad is what makes me succeed in the things I'm doing now.