Overqualified and lowballed into Help Desk Position

Two of my friends have been downsized during the Great Recession. Both of them have over 10 years of experience in IT as sys admin/managers, 4 year degrees, however no certs.

They have been getting interviewers for positions, however it is being pointed out to them that they don't have any certs. And it seems that they are only getting job offers for help desk type positions, even though they have experience outside of this type of position. Plus, their pay is going to be way lower then what they were making. On top of being very overqualified for the position.

My question is, has anyone else experienced being lowballed liked this? This seems to happen often in my part of the US.

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eMeS

Turgon wrote: »

There's room for the good stuff. Im talking about ineffective process, auditing or bean counting. I have seen a lot of it about and it certainly drives technical salaries down.

Got it...and agreed there's no shortage of such....

MS

cisco_trooper

With Omaha specifically you'll find that Omaha companies are increasingly pulling talent from the Kansas City Metro area. I have been recruited by multiple companies in the Omaha area over the last two years. The relevance here is that the Sprint World Headquarters is in Overland Park, Kansas and several thousand IT people lost their jobs..trust me on this. The day after I left Sprint my entire group was fired. With lots of unemployed IT people in Kansas City and Omaha not too terribly far away, Sprint has screwed both IT markets. Now, when the economy gets hot again, and it eventually will, both IT markets will be great from where we IT folks sit.

JockVSJock

Even though I am employed, I've updated my resume online and I am having recruiters offer me help desk jobs that pay very little...

qwertyiop wrote: »

I know what you mean, im a network admin making a little more then $20/hr and I keep getting calls and emails for help desk positions that pay about $9/hr. This really pisses me off.

JockVSJock

One of the guys is a Linux sys admin, the other guy was a help desk manager, who has really good people skills.

I've had another friend who moved here from a way bigger city. He has advanced certs, experience, and degrees. And companies tried to low-ball him as well. He did land a pretty good job and moved up fast. However he commented to me that everyone kept trying to low-ball him.

apd123 wrote: »

What type of skills do they have? I know a lot of characters that fit the above description that I wouldn't hire into a help desk and others that I would recommend for senior level positions. Experience of more than 10 years just tells me they have been employed for a length of time.

HeroPsycho

JockVSJock wrote: »

Two of my friends have been downsized during the Great Recession. Both of them have over 10 years of experience in IT as sys admin/managers, 4 year degrees, however no certs.

They have been getting interviewers for positions, however it is being pointed out to them that they don't have any certs. And it seems that they are only getting job offers for help desk type positions, even though they have experience outside of this type of position. Plus, their pay is going to be way lower then what they were making. On top of being very overqualified for the position.

My question is, has anyone else experienced being lowballed liked this? This seems to happen often in my part of the US.

If you were the person in charge of hiring, which would you take: a person with 5 years of IT experience as an admin with relevant certs for the job versus a guy with 10 years of experience as an admin without the relevant certs, all other things being equal.

I'd take the guy with the certs.

I don't want to dog experience. It's very important. If I had to choose between a person with just experience or someone with just certs, I'd take the person with experience. However, I've worked with guys with more years of experience than I with 0 certs, and some of them (not all) are dinosaurs who failed to keep up, and their experience is becoming so increasingly irrelevant that they struggle to do their jobs. Conversely, I've rarely met someone with maybe not as much experience but is certified who can't get the job done.

I don't see this, I hate to say it, as lowballing to the point it's appalling. Sure, they probably should be able to get better jobs than that, but this is a tough economy right now, and they failed to obtain any certs in the years they worked, while many others did.

Tell them to go get some certs! That's the nice thing about certs. No one asks you how long you've had the cert usually. Simply having it is enough, and it makes the experience you do have look even better.

msteinhilber

HeroPsycho wrote: »

However, I've worked with guys with more years of experience than I with 0 certs, and some of them (not all) are dinosaurs who failed to keep up, and their experience is becoming so increasingly irrelevant that they struggle to do their jobs. Conversely, I've rarely met someone with maybe not as much experience but is certified who can't get the job done.

HerePsycho brings up a good point. Certifications along with years of experience will show to prospective employers that you have made an effort to keep up to speed with technology as things progress, assuming the certifications are recent ones in the case of those that don't expire (perhaps you have an MCITP:EA) or are those which require you pass additional exams periodically or they expire (Cisco).

Otherwise, candidates might be more likely to be like a co-worker of mine. They can B.S. and make it sound like they know an awful lot about technology to backup their 8-9 years experience. But they are ultimately just a guy who has remained stagnant over those 8-9 years and has only learned just what was needed to be able to perform (barely) his job.

Turgon

HeroPsycho wrote: »

If you were the person in charge of hiring, which would you take: a person with 5 years of IT experience as an admin with relevant certs for the job versus a guy with 10 years of experience as an admin without the relevant certs, all other things being equal.

I'd take the guy with the certs.

I don't want to dog experience. It's very important. If I had to choose between a person with just experience or someone with just certs, I'd take the person with experience. However, I've worked with guys with more years of experience than I with 0 certs, and some of them (not all) are dinosaurs who failed to keep up, and their experience is becoming so increasingly irrelevant that they struggle to do their jobs. Conversely, I've rarely met someone with maybe not as much experience but is certified who can't get the job done.

I don't see this, I hate to say it, as lowballing to the point it's appalling. Sure, they probably should be able to get better jobs than that, but this is a tough economy right now, and they failed to obtain any certs in the years they worked, while many others did.

Tell them to go get some certs! That's the nice thing about certs. No one asks you how long you've had the cert usually. Simply having it is enough, and it makes the experience you do have look even better.

I agree with this. You can't stay current easily unless you are thrown in with the latest things and even then some certification training will at least provide some structure to how all that stuff actually works. The rest is then down to how seriously the certification process is taken.

Agree with the Nietzsche comment. That which does not kill us could drive us quite mad

Hyper-Me

HeroPsycho wrote: »

However, I've worked with guys with more years of experience than I with 0 certs, and some of them (not all) are dinosaurs who failed to keep up, and their experience is becoming so increasingly irrelevant that they struggle to do their jobs. Conversely, I've rarely met someone with maybe not as much experience but is certified who can't get the job done.

Precisely.

This is at extremes where i work (people claiming 30 years "experience" but can even reset a password using ADUC, etc)

I feel like everyone in IT has had a chance to hear about certs and there benefit, and anyone who doesnt partake in at least SOME certifications doesn't take their career seriously, in my eyes.

undomiel

During my recent job search I actually had a number of prospective employers ask when I had received my certifications. Even the previous government job I had did ask about that. Perhaps it is just a Phoenix thing.

nice343

Not having any cert in your field of expertise in 2009 is a dangerous thing because even though you have a degree someone can convince the hiring manager that they can do the same job for less.

I have a CCNP and no college degree and almost 5 years of experience. I was competing for a job with this guy who had a masters degree he was going for 40/hr I was gunning for 30/hr long story short don't act like you don't know who got the job

I save most of my paycheck (about 55%) because I will definitely go back to college sometime in the future.

Plus having 10 years of experience doesn't make you an expert at it. I have been to many networking/Cisco/Linux interviews where the so called IT gurus didn't know anything!!!!

I even lied to one Interviewer about the OSI model and most Cisco technologies seeing if he was going to catch me. He didn't!. He had 20 years experience. At least that's what I was told

tpatt100

undomiel wrote: »

During my recent job search I actually had a number of prospective employers ask when I had received my certifications. Even the previous government job I had did ask about that. Perhaps it is just a Phoenix thing.

For my government jobs to maintain DOD 8570 compliance your certs were only good for three years from the date of issue. This is what I was told. Certs like CISSP which require you maintain a certain amount of training and it renews every three years as long as you train and pay the annual fee is a cert that keeps current.

Hyper-Me

nice343 wrote: »

I even lied to one Interviewer about the OSI model and most Cisco technologies seeing if he was going to catch me. He didn't!. He had 20 years experience. At least that's what I was told

Thats a hell of a gamble, dont ya think?

nice343

Hyper-Me wrote: »

Thats a hell of a gamble, dont ya think?

well the moment I started answering the interview question I could tell right away the dude was a joke

AlexMR

As the Oracle from Omaha would ask "do they have 10 years of experience or 6months 20 times??"

It is not the same and if I had to gamble, i would bet most people with "10 years experience" have actually 1 year 10 times or something around there.

Experience is overrated.

snadam

undomiel wrote: »

During my recent job search I actually had a number of prospective employers ask when I had received my certifications. Even the previous government job I had did ask about that. Perhaps it is just a Phoenix thing.

odd, in my 3 interviews a year ago, I wasn't asked at all...strange, this Phoenix place

msteinhilber

nice343 wrote: »

I even lied to one Interviewer about the OSI model and most Cisco technologies seeing if he was going to catch me. He didn't!. He had 20 years experience. At least that's what I was told

Just curious, but did you get the job?

The reason I ask is because if I was going to ask you questions about technology, or if you just made comments about technology pertaining to your job and you answered incorrect I wouldn't call you out on it - I would weigh it in on my decision to hire you or not. Was that his core area of his professional career as well? It could be that he simply did not know because it did not pertain to his area of work.

I wouldn't really condone lying like that regardless of how low you feel of the interviewers capabilities. The fact of the matter is, you can never truthfully know and you are there to convey the fact that you know your stuff and are a good candidate - regardless of what the level of expertise is of the interviewer.

crrussell3

I agree with most here saying that years of experience don't necessarily mean they have the skills to do the job. The Senior Help Desk Tech where I am working a contract position has been there for 20 years, starting out in the Server Room doing backups, and I wouldn't even consider his level of skill equal to a power user. With him, its more like 6 months of experience 40 times over.

But this can be said about three out of four of the other full time techs there. We have another tech with a senior title that never heard of the Task Scheduler, nor knew how to access it. The only full time tech in the help desk that has a cert is an MCP from NT 4.0.

The sad thing is they make extremely good money for help desk ($28-38/hr) and I am working there as a contract employee making $11.50/hr and can do the job of three of them without breaking a sweat.

nice343

msteinhilber wrote: »

Just curious, but did you get the job?

The reason I ask is because if I was going to ask you questions about technology, or if you just made comments about technology pertaining to your job and you answered incorrect I wouldn't call you out on it - I would weigh it in on my decision to hire you or not. Was that his core area of his professional career as well? It could be that he simply did not know because it did not pertain to his area of work.

I wouldn't really condone lying like that regardless of how low you feel of the interviewers capabilities. The fact of the matter is, you can never truthfully know and you are there to convey the fact that you know your stuff and are a good candidate - regardless of what the level of expertise is of the interviewer.

I got the job but turned it down because it was too far away from me and I was not ready to move.

UnixGuy

AlexMR wrote: »

As the Oracle from Omaha would ask "do they have 10 years of experience or 6months 20 times??"

It is not the same and if I had to gamble, i would bet most people with "10 years experience" have actually 1 year 10 times or something around there.

Experience is overrated.

I agree

JockVSJock

We all agree, IT is crazy.

I have another friend who has alot of experience, and CCNA/CISSP, and he moved back to Omaha.

He gets alot of interviews, however they tell him he doesn't have a 4 yr college degree.

Crazy...

HeroPsycho

What do you think accountants with CPA but no college degree are told?

Hyper-Me

JockVSJock wrote: »

We all agree, IT is crazy.

I have another friend who has alot of experience, and CCNA/CISSP, and he moved back to Omaha.

He gets alot of interviews, however they tell him he doesn't have a 4 yr college degree.

Crazy...

I hate that junk. Where I work nobody with a 4 year degree or better is actually better at the actual job than I am.

If an employer ever declines me and says its because i dont have a 4 year degree and someone else did, I'm going to tell them thanks but no thanks, because they obviously dont invest in actual talent but rather meaningless paper.

That being said I will be getting a B.S. due to stupid HR requirements. Hmph.

JockVSJock

In this case, believe that would need the 4 yr degree in Accounting in order to get the CPA. Never really heard of a Accountant without the 4 yr or 2 yr degree.

HeroPsycho wrote: »

What do you think accountants with CPA but no college degree are told?

4XJunkie

Hyper-Me wrote: »

If an employer ever declines me ... I'm going to tell them thanks but no thanks, because they obviously dont invest in actual talent but rather meaningless paper.

I think this would be rather hard considering they told you "no thanks" first