IT can be easily outsourced. I recommend you get involved in a very specific field such as health informatics as there will be a huge emphasis on electronic health records over the next decade. Another safe bet would be to work in information security for the government or military. This is advice coming from a non-IT guy, though I have an interest in the field.
Maybe for you, or people at your level. Entry level is absurd. I graduate in 3 weeks, I've gotten all of 2 interviews and I've been sending out apps since October. Most places 'entry level' want AAS +5 years or BS +2 for 30-40k?! they've lost their freaking mind. I'm already thinking that I'm going to be going back to school in January for IT management.
Maybe for you, or people at your level. Entry level is absurd. I graduate in 3 weeks, I've gotten all of 2 interviews and I've been sending out apps since October. Most places 'entry level' want AAS +5 years or BS +2 for 30-40k?! they've lost their freaking mind. I'm already thinking that I'm going to be going back to school in January for IT management.
come on, don't you miss the days where anyone who knew 2 lines of html was trying to start web design businesses?It is the economy. I graduated in 2001 and couldnt get an interview for 8 months. Once the economy turns around it will be good again. One thing the 01 melt down did was flush the system of fly by night IT professionals who didnt know shit but got into the industry due to the insane demand to have anything related to Information Technology.
I would love to see some industry standardized job titles. For example:
Help Desk people could be Jr. Technician, Sr. Technician, Sr. Technician M
Systems people could be Jr. Systems Administrator, Sr. Systems Administrator, Sr. Systems Administrator M.
Networking people could be Jr. Network Engineer, Sr. Network Engineer, Sr. Network Engineer M.
It wouldn't have to be specifically that but something uniform would be nice. I hate all the different titles.
All true, but also consider that many companies, especially SMBs, have experience a contraction of budgets in all areas. Despite what many (non-IT) people on this forum think, IT is not something you just toss over the pond to some random firm in another country. Statistically, only 20% it outsourced at all, and upwards of 10% of that is with onshore firms (that might be augmented by off-shore resources).
As people cut costs, the top guys are having their compensation cut or they're cut entirely. I can think of at least 5 very large companies that have removed their CIOs and mid-level management entirely so they can hit end of year numbers. But guess what? The work still needs to be done. They're going to look for more junior to mid-level people.
So: If you're just getting into IT, NOW IS THE TIME. The dot-com days was the time, early 2004 was the time and now it's the time again. It goes in about 5 year cycles for reasons unknown to me.
Hit the smaller businesses where you're not judged only by the words on your resume and thrown into a pigeon-holed role. Focus on experience, meet the right people and grow. Now is the time.
You're not going to find them. Titles are almost meaningless. Some companies like to give almost everyone a Director title, for example: Associate, Assistant, etc. Some like to call everyone an associate, others prefer throwing the engineer title to everything.
Worry less about title and more about the general progression from junior to senior, journeyman to master. Whether you're in systems or applications (two of the core areas), the progression is largely the same.
I would love to see some industry standardized job titles. For example:
Help Desk people could be Jr. Technician, Sr. Technician, Sr. Technician M
Systems people could be Jr. Systems Administrator, Sr. Systems Administrator, Sr. Systems Administrator M.
Networking people could be Jr. Network Engineer, Sr. Network Engineer, Sr. Network Engineer M.
It wouldn't have to be specifically that but something uniform would be nice. I hate all the different titles.
come on, don't you miss the days where anyone who knew 2 lines of html was trying to start web design businesses?
Speaking about outsourcing. The only thing in IT that works "ok" being shipped to India is level 1 HD support and DBAs. For everything else there is a level of hands on participation that is required. It's hard to rack servers in Colorado from India and flying someone in from India to change a tape seems a little silly.
For the example I gave that work ok, let me say that they work somewhat but just enough to say they do.
Thankfully I have a stable job... but I would love to work for someone different. But as I look at requirements they are always wanting more and more credentials... yet offering a lot less money.
One of these days though I will take some ritalin and study for the cisco exams.
sharepoint is the future, facebook style file sharing/business(internal) pages to share files with others.
That's scary. My employer uses sharepoint on their intranet... It's horrible imho.
I think most IT infrastructure jobs will go away and be replaced by data centers where your company pays xyz data center to host your gear and take care of it all for you with higher up times than you can accomplish with an in house server room.
That's great for small companies, medium and large companies operate their own data centers.
sharepoint is the future, facebook style file sharing/business(internal) pages to share files with others.