IT jobs

Post Reply New Topic

Changing locations is too big of a change for me. I despise traveling. I despise moving even more.

I worked for a while via telecommuting, but these days, there are so many IT guys out of work and willing to show up in person that nobody even considers telecommuting as an option any more.

But the main point is that while there are a few hot spots around the country, the majority of the country is not hiring anyone in IT.

That does stink. And going back to college, paying tens of thousands for another degree that will become useless sooner or later is a fairly bad deal too.

One thing for sure is that you should go to a good Community College or other inexpensive college and get a 2 year degree. It gets you in the job market faster. You can always go back and take online courses to get the 4 year degree on top of that.

It really doesn't matter what school you graduate from either. As far as the employers go, they have never seemed to care. My school, UCF, was ranked #1 and #2 in computer science several years in a row. Employers never gave a squat about that.

So basically, what I'm saying is that if you decide to get a degree in CS, then do it the cheapest way possible because nothing else really matters.

Sorry for the late response.

Huntsville, Alabama

I've been an IT consultant for a while. Normally, I tell people that certifications are useless. But since you're just starting out, it would probably be useful if you don't have a degree. If you have some money, taking some courses that prepare you for the cert tests can be a great way to learn the material. I'd also recommend downloading whatever tools you want to use in the workplace and start playing with them at home. Some will tell you it's wrong or illegal, but downloading and installing an operating system, database engine, or development tool is the best way to learn. Download and install a bittorrent client and use isohunt.com to find the software you want.

Figure out whether you want to program or do admin work. Admin work can pay well and is probably easier to get into. For me programming is more enjoyable.

You could also go back to school and get a BS in computer science. Be prepared for a hard mathematical theory degree because that's what it is.

brian

Ug, where do i start?

It was bad during the dotcom crash from maybe 2000 to 2003. It's fine now. The best barometer I've found for measuring the market is the total number of jobs number on dice.com. It's sort of useless because there are a lot of duplicate jobs on dice. But it's a good rough estimate. That number peaked at 120,000 during the dotcom peak and bottomed out at 17,000 during the dotcom crash. It's at 88,000 now which is a little down. It was about 96,000 last august. It's still not bad though. I have more work than I can do.



There are plenty of companies that will hire new graduates, you just have to be willing to work for what the indians make which is not so much. But someone with a CS degree can probably get $50k to start or so in a major city. Once you have a couple years of experience, you can make a lot more, especially if you switch to consulting.

As far as being over-qualified is concerned, it really depends on the job you're trying to get. After 6 years of experience, you should be aiming for jobs that are asking for that much experience. I've been doing this for 17 years, but jobs never ask for that much experience. They always say 6-10 years or so. I've never been called over-qualified, even for jobs where I was over qualified.

For salaried jobs, the bigger problem is whether you're technically so good that your manager-to-be views you as a threat.





That depends entirely on the type of work. If you're talking about someone with 2 years of java experience, then you're competing directly with the indians. But if you're talking about .net work for example, there are far fewer indians that are doing that (right now), so your likely to do better. So the type of IT work you do matters greatly as does the city you live in. I worked in orlando for a while which sucked. Then I worked in indianapolis which was slightly better. Then I worked in chicago which was great. It's IT's curse. You'll most likely need to live in a big city.

brian

That's florida for you.

Move to a large city. New York, Los Angeles, or Chicago. I'm in chicago and the job market has been great.

I'm 38. And as I said, I have more work than I can do. The guy sitting next to me right now is almost 50. I've worked with many IT consultants in their 40s. I think age discrimination has a lot to do with the image you project. If you look/act like you're 60, they'll think you're old.

In (any kind of) business, everything is negotiable even when they say it isn't. The only reason they put a maximum number of years on the requirement is because they think that someone with more experience will want more money, which they don't want to pay. So if you're willing to accept the pay they want to pay, no problem. They'll feel like they're getting a lot of extra experience for free.

brian

lol, my degree is from ucf (u cant finish) also. And I agree, no one has cared.

The only caveat is that I would make sure it's from an accredited school, on the off chance that an employer actually checks.

brian

Well I'm glad that things are working out for you. But for the vast majority of American software engineers, its not. The last I heard there were over 500,000 unemployed/underemployed skilled software engineers out there looking for work.

I have a friend who is one of them. He just got back from an interview in Washington, DC and is going out to CA for another one in about a week. He got a call today from a company in huntsville that said they got several hundred applications and were doing 10 minute phone interviews before calling people in for the real ones. He has been on several dozen out of state interviews and is willing to move around the country, but I'm not. I used to work for IBM OS/2 down in Boca, but there hasn't been any CS work around here since they left.

I really hated leaving the computer field since I'm so good at it, but it was either that or starve. Nursing is far more dependable and I don't have to look for a new job every 2 years when the project ends.