Lost Your Job Yet?

Computerworld ^ | April 12, 2004 | John Pardon

[q_an_a]

Go to monster.com type in a few key words found in IT like "coding" for N. NJ and there over 90 jobs. Is north NJ in the tristate area? I recall that EDS has a new office out there and is hiring as fast as they can, are they still an IT company? Business is TOUGH, but if you can't find IT work in health care right now you are not looking. There are body shops and hospitals screaming for help.

[q_an_a]

Here is a cool job working for the NBA (basketball).

This position is responsible for providing high-level leadership for a large Windows Server and Active Directory environment. The responsibilities are to include developing server standards and architectural design, supporting Microsoft based development efforts, providing second-level support and some project management. This position is required to be proactive in researching and providing solutions to meet the company’s need.

Tell me there are no good IT jobs.

[Centurion2000]

And that's the real problem: the IT shop can't quantify an answer to the question. They talk about how important five 9s is, but they can't SHOW how important it is.

Then they do not have very good management. IT managers should add up every employee's hourly rates, incoming e-commerce transactions and revenues and that should be enough of a baseline to get the ball rolling.

[Poohbah]

Then they do not have very good management. IT managers should add up every employee's hourly rates, incoming e-commerce transactions and revenues and that should be enough of a baseline to get the ball rolling.

Then almost any business would conclude that IT is a negative ROI.

E-commerce is a very tiny fraction of what the IT infrastructure is used for.

[CasearianDaoist]

Well I deal with outsourcing and believe me there are success stories out there. It is not going away as far as I can see. What is happening around here is that the firms are opening up their own subsidiaries overseas, not using a offshore vendor. I take stories like this with a grain of salt based on my experience. Nobody ever talks about their own in house failures of which plenty abound.

People who think that this will just go away are kidding themselves, in the end it will become a political issue not a just business issue. There is just too much money involved - and too many livelyhoods. This is just the beginning, it will spread to mcuh more than IT.

[CyberCowboy777]

The are I.T. jobs.

Could it be that some are too stubborn not to work for the money that was available in the 90's?

[CyberCowboy777]

No, it won't go away. But it won't look the same in 6 months either.

Anyone giving you doom and gloom is either naive or selling something.

[CasearianDaoist]

90 jobs! there should be 9000 jobs in that area. There are over 100,000 people looking for those jobs. ANd many of the those jobs are actually the same job posted by different head hunters for the same position. Please, I know the market = belive me it is the worst in three decades. 90 jobs is a joke. That just proves my point.

Why do you assume that I do not know what I am talking about? The disaster in tech jobs in this area has been a constant point of discussion for 4 years. I am not making it up. It is amlost impossible to get a job right now, it is difficult to get interviews from what I hear.

[CasearianDaoist]

With alkl due respect, I do not agree at all, I know what I am talking about. It will get worse ,I run a firm that does some outsourcing and it is really catching on. People on FR need to stop thining that this is some sort of electioneering issue thought up by the Democrats. It is not. This is a real issues and it will just get worse.

I could not disagree with you more. It may be good for some but as an engineer it really bothers me.

[Prov3456]

I wonder how many of those IT people can't find jobs because their basic academic skills (reading, writing, arithmetic, advanced math) are poor as the result of years of public school education.

Now they blame the business and/or the economy, when they (and their parents) should have paid more attention to the basic education they received while they were growing up.

This same statement applies to people in many different careers and occupations. IMHO, we are beginning to reap what we have sewn in "progressive education."

[expat_panama]

those who view the world from the corporate window see the world different

No, I see it the same as you.  The article refers to corporate interests twice, and posters over a dozen times-- all in a bad light.  The fact is that anybody can form a corporation and become a CEO, just like anybody can create their own job.  The other posters on this thread who talk about "corporate boardrooms" as being mysterious think that way because they don't undestand them.

They think the CEO is big and powerful.  We know that the CEO of say GM takes orders from a mass of shareholders, and anyone can become one for $46.79.  Ok, you either have to get other shareholders to cooperate (learning to work well with others), or you have to buy more than one share (AKA 'put up or shut up).

There are companies bigger than ours, and that's good because it means there are things we can do that they can't.  We got no use for professional victims.

[Poohbah]

I wonder how many of those IT people can't find jobs because their basic academic skills (reading, writing, arithmetic, advanced math) are poor as the result of years of public school education.

And the NEA representative is now shouting, "Pay no attention to the little man behind the curtain!"

[Glenn]

I wonder how many of those IT people can't find jobs because their basic academic skills (reading, writing, arithmetic, advanced math) are poor as the result of years of public school education.

Most people I know, in and out of IT, are educated. Your conclusions are faulty. America still has some of the brightest people on earth.

[q_an_a]

I was doing marketing consulting with an IT body shop, who had lots of contracting jobs. They offered a man in N. NJ a job on a one year contract paying over 90K and he turned it down. He told them, "I can get a better job that is permanent." This from a man with average to good work history and skills. Plus the job was near where he lived.

[Poohbah]

I've dealt with IT folks who couldn't write a comprehensible report on a simple problem if you held a gun to their head.

[oceanview]

then they truly know nothing. the most successful businesses in various industry segments acheive that success likely because they got their IT "right". WalMart is a prime example. We all know the losers when we call them - like the creidt card company that initially has you key in you card number over the phone, and then when you finally reach an agent, the first question they ask is: what is your card number?

[q_an_a]

"it is difficult to get interviews from what I hear." so you haven't actully experienced the bad times, only heard about them?

I am sure that there are some difficult times, and that getting an interview is hard, but except for the IT bubble from 1997 to 2000 when everyone was getting all the work they wanted and all the interviews they wanted, finding a job has always been hard.

[dirtboy]

Unlike Frank Hayes, I don't believe that it's widely possible to dodge the offshoring bullet by building up business skills and increasing face time with users

Gee, that's worked for me - that and becoming a contractor. I got a new contract back in early February, and when they weren't straight with me about how long it was going to last, I had another contract within a week.

There is only so much you can do to mitigate the fact that the world is changing - other than change with it and adapt.

[dirtboy]

I've dealt with IT folks who couldn't write a comprehensible report on a simple problem if you held a gun to their head.

I had enough upper-division English and Technical Writing classes in college to qualify for a minor. It's probably been my most valuable overall skill - not necessarily in getting an IT job, but keeping one and building a good impression (who was it that said something about fooling some of the people some of the time?).

[CyberCowboy777]

You sound like the automakers in the 70's and 80's....afraid of Asian market dominance.

Are you going to tell me that Ford and Chevy don't make cars anymore? Or that a Toyota is never built in the U.S.?

There are 8.4 million unemployed in the U.S. today (5.7), thats counting the "never will be" (a zero unemployment is not possible, a 3% would be a miracle). We were at 4.4% at the end of 98 a differance of 1.3%.

Of a rate of 5.7% (1.3% more unemployed compared to the go-go 90's) how many do you actually think are from outsourcing? Or even the I.T. sector? Keeping in mind the numbers from the airlines, travel, manufacturing.