State of the IT Industry?

[SandEagle]

cloud technology
focus on collaboration
everything virtualized

 

[Genx87]

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.

We have been hearing about this for over a decade. The bottom line is for many companies the outsourcing never produced the results that were promised. Some organizations made the serious mistake of outsourcing their help desks to India which is a damn nightmare. Others simply outsourced it to local IT based firms which ended up being a bad dream. But many now regressed from that line of thinking and retain on site support staff.

Companies like having people on site who can get to the hardware\software problem within mins, not hours. And like to have somebody they can blame and fire if it gets really bad. Not a faceless company who sends a new guy out each week who doesnt know his own ass from a hole in the ground. And when you terminate the contract your passwords and everthing else related to the infrastrucure mysteriously disappears.

 

[Genx87]

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.

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.

 

[LS8]

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.

 

[LS8]

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.

It's the economy, trust me. In 2006 everyone was hiring like mad. Slowed in 2008.

Back in '06 our HD people were starting at 45k.

 

[nageov3t]

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.

come on, don't you miss the days where anyone who knew 2 lines of html was trying to start web design businesses?

 

[LS8]

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.

 

[Descartes]

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.

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.

 

[Platypus]

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.

I agree completely about outsourcing. People who think skilled jobs can be easily outsourced are mistaken. I've seen companies try it and recoil in horror at the results. This was years ago even. That plus the fact that you just can't outsource a ton of jobs because of the hands-on aspect needed. Furthermore, the big areas where outsourcing is still happening (programming is a big one), companies still have local employees going over their work. I worked at a place that employed two people to fix the awful code they received from outsourcing full time.

The sad reality is that the older IT folks or management as you noted are the ones getting cut. Why pay for the seniority of a 15-20 experienced person when someone fresh out of college can do the same job for a fraction of the cost? That is a very true point as well and I do see what you're saying. I do still see in my current field that people are reluctant to hire fresh grads because of the need for some level of expertise in the area which is where I was going with competing with people who have 5 years on you. This LARGELY depends on the field you are in though so I should have been more clear and you are 100% correct.

I think you are spot on that this line of thinking is going to change if it already hasn't begun and fresh grads are going to be that much more appealing than before as bottom lines get tighter. Now is a much better time to break into IT if you're skilled than it was when I entered.

 

[LS8]

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.

No kidding you won't find them, which was my point (read that part?).

It would be nice if the industry as a whole could decide on some standardized titles, mostly for job seekers.

 

[Genx87]

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.

There are titles like that already.

Helpdesk level I,II,III
Network Administrator I,II,III
Ect. For the most part they are pretty unviersal in job duties and experience\education requirements

 

[Genx87]

come on, don't you miss the days where anyone who knew 2 lines of html was trying to start web design businesses?

Heh, not at all. I also really dont miss the days of the certified network idiot who has MCSE, CCNA ect and doesnt understand why disjoining a machine from the domain offsite logged on a domain account without knowing the local admin credentials can cause a problem.

 

[Genx87]

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.

Heh I started saying that years ago. Everytime I heard some middle manager pushing for an outsource to India. I would always say "I dont care how good their phone tech is, I dont know anybody who can get from India to our office in under 48 hours to look at the physical hardware."

 

[PricklyPete]

I was going to write a few things, but as always in these types of threads, Descartes has it all covered.

There is plenty of opportunity and areas of growth if you have the drive and the determination. People who just want a "safe" job with "decent" pay will be disappointed and are most likely to be "outsourced".

 

[PricklyPete]

Edit: VB attacks with double post!

 

[rudder]

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.

 

[ViviTheMage]

sharepoint is the future, facebook style file sharing/business(internal) pages to share files with others.

 

[Platypus]

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.

Here's a tip, though again this is wildly variable. A lot of places that list requirements don't stick by them steadfast. For example, my current job asked for 10 years of experience and I don't have that. This has been the case in every job I've worked for. It never hurts to try.

 

[zeruty]

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.

 

[ViviTheMage]

That's scary. My employer uses sharepoint on their intranet... It's horrible imho.

Yeah, it's a little weak right now, but if done properly, I could see it being the new way we share files internally.

 

[lokiju]

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.

 

[LS8]

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.

 

[Platypus]

That's great for small companies, medium and large companies operate their own data centers.

This plus depending on the field, data on said servers might not be able to be accessed by anyone outside the company and/or said hosting companies might not have people with enough experience to realistically manage the resources.

I'm not saying it's not possible as this is a realistic option for a lot of places but I think it's erroneous to say 'most infrastructure jobs'

 

[RichUK]

sharepoint is the future, facebook style file sharing/business(internal) pages to share files with others.

I’ve only really started using SharePoint since I’ve been contracting at my new place of work, and it seems pretty good to me.

I have two SP sites. One was inherited and maintained by my environment/configuration manager for my previous project, and the other I have been playing with in my spare time. I’ve been advised that to use it properly, you start with one document library which acts as a bucket for all types of files, and then you use the metadata you give to each file to augment the many views you can setup in SP – I prefer the traditional file/folder structure, though, which is what I have used for my new project SharePoint site

I’ve been playing with the front page, and with a little help from nakedfrog, I managed to get the html table in the centre looking much better. I think it's great, I've just got to get my project team using it more instead of using it as a basic repository:

 

[GodlessAstronomer]

Always gotta be some douche bag ruining the page formatting.