Your thoughts on the Job market this last year and next year.

Now that the end of the year is almost here how did you seethe job market for 2013 in
Cisco
Microsoft
Desktop support
Juniper
Feel free to add to the list.
Talking with an acquaintance of mine he said 2013 was toughfor networking. I did find it that bad here on the West coast but he’s on theEast coast
And what do you think of the job market for year 2014?

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Comments

DoubleNNs

There have been a ton of MS jobs in my area - including everything from Win 7 migration, win-based help desk, and Server admin/eng positions. Not so many positions on the networking side.

I'm new to the IT field tho, so I don't have any other year to compare it to.

Bryan0530

First year in and I think the job market is stable. I currently work in desktop support

darinkhath

This year is also is my 1st actual real Support Desk job. I would definately like to know what others (seniors tec) think of how the IT job marktet would be like in the next couple of years.

Being that so many things are now moving over to the cloud, will helpdesk / desktop job be the same /secure in the next coming years?

I’m very interest to find out what is obsoleting and what new changes will we see / expect.

kohr-ah

2013 here:
Networking - great for senior positions, otherwise rough for lower level
MS Admins - always postings always looking for them.
Virtualization - huge in chicago
Help Desk - average

jvrlopez

Got 1 security related job offer in January, another in August, about 8 or so from October to now.

The market was good to me. Was a little bummed I couldn't take all the jobs.

Iristheangel

I haven't been actively looking for a job but just in having my resume posted here and there from 2 years ago and having a Linkedin and VisualCV, I've had a lot of pings in the networking field. I'd say 75% of it is contract-to-hire and the other 25% is direct hire. Of course most of those are recruiters and various contract companies. While the pay looks pretty decent (70-80K), it's a lot less than what I make now so I wouldn't consider them.

I have heard some people say they have difficulty getting their foot in the door in networking jobs or saying the industry has just dried up. I haven't really had that experience so it makes me wonder what their resume looks like, how many jobs they are applying for, where they are located and what sites they're looking for jobs on. I imagine the job opportunities in Florida are a lot different than those available in New York City but it doesn't mean the East Coast job market is dried up because the guy in Florida can't find anything local to him. The job market in IT can vary so much by the location.

FloOz

The market in the NE has been great! Especially in the networking realm. I not only landed my first networking job about 9 months ago but also left that job for a new networking gig with a much higher pay. I can't really speak for the other IT fields in the NE area since I do not actively look at them on the job boards.

About7Narwhal

Knoxville area has been dry, as per usual. I expect the start of the year to boost listings then a steady decline through the rest of the year.

Seems like all I see around here are Service Desk positions requiring 5 + years of experience with horrible pay... clearly written by people who don't work in IT.

gorebrush

I always keep my eyes on the job market "just in case"

Seen a handful of CCIE level posts all for £55K+ upwards which is a LOT for this area ($80K+) - average salary around these parts is more like £19K

So, that's what I'm aiming for the end of next year once the IE is done and dusted.

gadav478

DC area is fine. Plenty of jobs here in the networking and admin realms. My only hangup is my experience and my qualifications but that says nothing to people with the proper credentials and experience. I'm working on that though

deep_logic

It seems to me that security sector (in general) is where the demand is going. I'm currently not in the field (will take Net+ in January), but just a cursory view of dice, linkedin, monster, etc.

Z3-Masterd

About7Narwhal wrote: »

Knoxville area has been dry, as per usual. I expect the start of the year to boost listings then a steady decline through the rest of the year.

Seems like all I see around here are Service Desk positions requiring 5 + years of experience with horrible pay... clearly written by people who don't work in IT.

Yep, that's Knoxville, alright! Local recruiters contacted me three times since July (once for a teaching position). Sometimes it seems that there are only two extremes east of Nashville: do tier-1 grunt work and hope to break even after the commute, or hope to meet every bullet on the list w/ +5 years as a network admin/engineer. Great place to live, horrible place to try to find I.T. work.

matt333

Market is great in Boston. Tons of jobs. If you can handle the cold, I'd recommend it

petedude

My thoughts from SoCal--
Much more opportunity than 2012 all over the IT spectrum, except that pay is generally lower. Economy is better, but still in recovery mode.
As far as 2014, wait and see. We could be headed back into (moderately) good times, but who knows. I think health care will be the next big driver of job growth, but we'll have to see if the ripple effect extends far enough out to help anything else or worse. . . if additional health care expenses for businesses inhibits the economy.

N2IT

I've seen networking jobs trending downward in the St. Louis area, however system positions have picked up from my perspective. It seems project management has trended downward a little (due to SCRUM and Agile IMO), yet business analyst and data analyst are climbing. Development is still really sought after and database developers and admins are maintaining if not slipping a little. Management hasn't been as prevalent lately. Service management jobs are still there but seem to be losing traction. I really think System positions are picking back up again, I have noticed a bunch lately. That and data jobs are HOT. Dev is very warm, but last year was scorching so it's still in major demand. Linux is gaining traction as well, I have seen a bunch of Linux admin jobs.

Networking in these parts really died down the last couple of months.

If I had to guess for next year I would attempt go with

Hot - Data, Business Analyst, Systems, BI

Cold - Project Management (With Agile and Scrum hitting the scene hard, for good cause, I see the old school PMP PMI/Waterfall methodology phasing out eventually). Even PMI is doing a MAJOR PR campaign to realign their material with Agile and Scrum. PMI - PMP is boarder line ridiculous and even a joke. No one runs projects like the PMBOK suggest unless you are going to the moon. SCRUM/Agile is real world. Companies are aggressive as ever and will not wait for planning, it's initiation slammed right into execution. Project team members are assuming/sharing the responsibility of the PM role. I think in our lifetime you will see a the PM role go extinct. BA's will assume the initial part while the team members will manage the project through execution.

About7Narwhal

Z3-Masterd wrote: »

Yep, that's Knoxville, alright! Local recruiters contacted me three times since July (once for a teaching position). Sometimes it seems that there are only two extremes east of Nashville: do tier-1 grunt work and hope to break even after the commute, or hope to meet every bullet on the list w/ +5 years as a network admin/engineer. Great place to live, horrible place to try to find I.T. work.

Glad it isn't just me seeing the trend. I would love someone to throw a Jr. Admin position out there.

earonw49

I am moving to Knoxville after my wedding this year and was hoping to land another helpdesk position after my current one here in Nashville (new job in 3 weeks).

I hope the market isn't that dry...

About7Narwhal

Sitel and SAIC in Oak Ridge are pretty good for jobs. By that, I mean they have some... usually (I have worked for both at a Service Desk level). Keep your eyes peeled and you will find something at SD. The issue is usually moving past that..

earonw49

About7Narwhal wrote: »

Sitel and SAIC in Oak Ridge are pretty good for jobs. By that, I mean they have some... usually (I have worked for both at a Service Desk level). Keep your eyes peeled and you will find something at SD. The issue is usually moving past that..

Thanks! I see them now however I will be moving at the end of next summer, so I am not sure how the entry level IT market is/will be by then. Its good to see some spots open though...out here in Nashville, entry level is crazy abundant.

earonw49

About7Narwhal wrote: »

Sitel and SAIC in Oak Ridge are pretty good for jobs. By that, I mean they have some... usually (I have worked for both at a Service Desk level). Keep your eyes peeled and you will find something at SD. The issue is usually moving past that..

My lovely future wifey (the one you see on my avatar) is going completing her junior and senior year in Aerospace Engineering at UTK. She already has many aero/aviation companies looking at her apps, experience etc. Needless to say, she and I don't plan on staying in TN after she graduates.

The majority of the Aerospace companies in this country (Boeing, NASA, Spirit) are in states and cities that have some of the highest IT job ranges (Washington, SoCal, Georgia, Texas, Parts of Kansas). Hopefully I won't have to worry about "moving up" in the IT world in Knoxville because she and I will be moving away, hahaha.

tprice5

Virtualization, specifically VMware (Not Hyper-V), appears to be the current trend.

At my current position and in my previous, virtualization positions have been the highest paying and most sought after gigs. Storage Engineers also seem to be in demand. Whether you view storage engineers as an extension of virtualization engineer is your call. By storage engineer I am referring to NetApp/EMC.

devils_haircut

I've only recently been really looking into field in my area, but it seems that the lower realms of IT like Help Desk and Desktop Support positions are all over the place here in Indianapolis, although it's mainly contract work. There's also quite a bit of mid-level System Admin job posting here, too, but very few networking-type jobs. Indy seems to be a growing tech hub (years behind everyone else, but growing nonetheless). Probably has a lot to do with the extremely low cost of living for such a large-ish city.

Snow.bros

Many of my friends got their degree's earlier this year and have been looking an internship ever since so i don't think the market is doing well this year.

the_Grinch

Networking in my area Jersey/Philadelphia has been stable. Lots of people trying to get in, not a ton of jobs, but chances for those who want to learn. As for the future:

Desktop Support - Definitely going to be big this upcoming year. XP is out in April so you'll see a lot of migration and that means contracts.

Cloud - If you haven't been involved in anything cloud related I'd suggest you start reading up. AWS, Salesforce, etc will only keep getting bigger and there aren't a lot of people who know it. Coursera just setup a free course on Salesforce programming so nothing holding you back from starting.

Security - Got my first security gig this year and now I'm getting contract offers like they're going out of style (happy where I am though)

If you want a job in this industry you can get one, but it all comes down to thinking long term. I was lucky in that when I got my first job I was desperate to take anything. Looking back, had I done that earlier on I would have been much better off. So what's the sure fire way to get a job? Be willing to move or be willing to take a job that will get you where you want at some point. IT is about experience and any experience is better then nothing. If you can survive in low pay for a year then take the gig, do a year, and then leave for more money else where. Want to work in networking? Desktop support will get you the end user mind frame and the skills to later say "yes this is a networking issue" or "no it's not". I've seen plenty of techs (myself included) call the network guy and say it's the network when it wasn't. In turn I've seen network people say it's a desktop issue when it wasn't.

Life and jobs are what you make them.