Influx of IT people because of Wall Street

Talic · September 2008

http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9115616&intsrc=hm_ts_head

It seems like a lot of people jumping the Wall Street ship now and a lot of them are going in IT.

dynamik · September 2008

I don't know if I'd call it an influx. This is speaking about future students, not people currently on Wall Street switching over to IT. It seems like CSci is just getting back to where it should be. Those programs have been suffering for quite awhile, and I think it's good that their numbers may benefit as a result of this.

Kaminsky · September 2008

Realistically they could be right although when you are in the industry and looking for work it can seem to be getting ever harder with recruiters demanding all sorts for ever lower pay. However, the good thing about IT is that the technology is constantly growing which bodes well for those that grow with it. However tight it gets, it will not get as tough as say the current building trades are having it. No matter how bad the job market gets, you know there will be an upturn as the technology and the industry as a whole are still in their infancy.

There seems to be more of a move to outsourcing companies these days meaning fewer jobs and lower pay and crises like the current one make companies want to hold off on that next project. The outsourcing companies offer customers simply more for their money than they would get trying to achieve the same levels of systems and services in house themselves when you take into account training to very high technical standards and keeping pace with technology. Let's face it, in the end, money talks and being able to save it talks even louder. I am not talking about outsourcing to places like India, etc as this seems to be in a serious decline right now due to the levels of support and many of these seem to be returning.

In the UK, it has been reported that many of the banking fraternity are getting into teaching as a safer, more rewarding option. This would scare the beejesus outta me. Give me a load of computer devices to string together and I will gulp and get on with it. Put me in front of a classroom full of kids and I would jump out the window. But I guess, if you were used to dealing in the finance industry with stock markets etc, a classroom full of kids would be a cakewalk.

IT and teaching would be a great combination. IT trainers can make a fortune at the high end. Those that teach certs especially.

I would like to say if I could start over I would choose a trade skill but I doubt I would achieve the same level of job security as I do in IT and I doubt I would achieve the same money for the same amount of physical effort as I do in basically a 9-5 office job. A lot of IT roles are not paid the sums they are for the average day to day though. They are paid for what they can do when things go wrong.

zen master · September 2008

dynamik wrote:

I don't know if I'd call it an influx. This is speaking about future students, not people currently on Wall Street switching over to IT. It seems like CSci is just getting back to where it should be. Those programs have been suffering for quite awhile, and I think it's good that their numbers may benefit as a result of this.

I think the industry is flooded as is. Half the folks I graduated with couldn't find jobs in the field and ended up doing something else. The result of the higher numbers is that IT professionals became HUGELY undervalued as there was a glut of us on the market. This caused lower salaries, longer hours and general poor conditions for those in the field, as workers became more and more desperate for the few available jobs.

Daniel333 · September 2008

Lack of qualified candidates is what I have noticed. No lack of applicants. And any search on monster.com will reveal there is plenty of work out there in IT.

Pash · September 2008

I keep reading that by 2010 in the UK market at least, there will be huge IT skills shortage due to 100's of industry vets retiring or going to retire near to then. I am not sure if the markets will have an effect on this prediction as well. IT will always be the budget to be squeezed first. Some of our customers are having a hard time with budgeting, but the thing is......they have to spend their annual budet or risk it being cut next year. Finance is a horrible thing

Influx of IT people because of Wall Street

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