IT Shortage??
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I like this: "I have thirty years in the business, continuously training and upgrading my skills and knowledge. I managed to finally find employment in a pizza store." :laugh:
Kevin
Yep I also have 30 years expereince. Went back to school and got the latest ASP.Net & c# and was told "You don't have experience" and "We are looking for new blood" Then there is the whole HR issue. There was a job open in the city in the garment industry to upgrade from legacy code ( that I had supported in the past but not for this client) to ASP.NET - Every head hunter in the city contacted me but I couldn't get past HR. I finally did an internship for 3 months and got a contract with a big airline. Another friend who was a head hunter groomed me with tips on clothes, hair dye and said "It is a good thing you have an ordinary name - lots of places won't even look at prospects with 'funny' names plus they want 15 years experience, under 30, fluently bilingual, good communicator all for $30K"
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Yep I also have 30 years expereince. Went back to school and got the latest ASP.Net & c# and was told "You don't have experience" and "We are looking for new blood" Then there is the whole HR issue. There was a job open in the city in the garment industry to upgrade from legacy code ( that I had supported in the past but not for this client) to ASP.NET - Every head hunter in the city contacted me but I couldn't get past HR. I finally did an internship for 3 months and got a contract with a big airline. Another friend who was a head hunter groomed me with tips on clothes, hair dye and said "It is a good thing you have an ordinary name - lots of places won't even look at prospects with 'funny' names plus they want 15 years experience, under 30, fluently bilingual, good communicator all for $30K"
Out of curiosity, what skills did you have prior to ASP.NET C#? It certainly gets tougher as you get older. One thing I've worked out is you've somehow got to be as [commercially] current as possible if you want to stay in work and this is more important the older you get. If you have the latest .NET 3.5 and you're in your 40s and 50s you might still lose out to the young whipper snappers. But if you're that age and you're stuck doing VC++/MFC you will definitely lose out to the young whipper snappers; unless you're at an employer who's happy to keep you working on that stuff indefinitely. But if you're a contractor you're pretty much toast. What's annoying about this industry is that they continually moan about skills shortages. But if devs then decide to invest in themselves you are mostly ignored because you don't have commercial experience. If you then decide to pass off your home learning as commercial experience they complain that you're dishonest. And then they complain about skills shortages again! :doh: Granted that commercial experience is preferable to mere learning but that shouldn't mean that learning is of zero value.
Kevin
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http://www.itbusiness.ca/it/client/en/home/News.asp?id=50089[^] The next time someone suggests the market is experiencing a shortage of talent or someone asks whether they should get into IT... Show them this link. :) I wonder if the big corps don't fake this stuff to shift the market in their favour and pay us IT types even less. :P The next time someone suggests the market is experiencing a shortage of talent or someone asks whether they should get into IT...
I'm finding the only constant in software development is change it self.
There's a lot of blame to go around. On the one hand, software piracy is huge - it's estimated that 99% of all the software used in China is pirated. It's probably about the same in the ex-Soviet countries. Even in America, the software piracy rate is estimated to be around, what, 25% or more? (When software is valueless, software writers are valueless.) On another hand, there's the open source movement. When you give stuff away for free you shouldn't be too surprised that it undermines the value of what you do. Why pay for something when you can get it for free? Why hire an employee to write something you can get for free? Open source, etc., undermines professional software development. (For some things, like infrastructure and standards, open source may be good, but for free applications it's ultimately harmful to the profession.) On a third hand, there're the many companies that give software away for free under the concept that they will make up for it on volume or market share. (Did anybody else ever learn that zero times anything is still zero?) On a fourth hand, there's outsourcing. Supply and demand issues, etc. absolutely mean that will undercut salaries and opportunities in developed countries despite all the spinning to the contrary. On a fifth hand, there's bundling and monopolies. When Microsoft bundles some application with Windows, that pretty much kills the market for that application type. I've long since run out of hands to count on, but professional software development is being undercut from every angle. Some of it is extremely difficult to combat, due to widespread corruption of public officials by large corporations. (The US H1-B visa program is a complete fraud, for example.) But some of it is our own fault! Stop giving your services away for free, and maybe you will see the value of your services rise. -- david_f_knight P.S. In response to your question whether the big corps fake this stuff (the IT shortage) to shift the market in their favour and pay us IT types even less, I believe they do that but for several reasons. One is as you suggested. Another is that it helps support the "need" for the H1-B Visa program in the US. Another is that it provides political and public relations cover for outsourcing. Universities do their bit to perpetuate this fraud since it helps them sell their services to their clients, the students. For the truth, follow the money!
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Out of curiosity, what skills did you have prior to ASP.NET C#? It certainly gets tougher as you get older. One thing I've worked out is you've somehow got to be as [commercially] current as possible if you want to stay in work and this is more important the older you get. If you have the latest .NET 3.5 and you're in your 40s and 50s you might still lose out to the young whipper snappers. But if you're that age and you're stuck doing VC++/MFC you will definitely lose out to the young whipper snappers; unless you're at an employer who's happy to keep you working on that stuff indefinitely. But if you're a contractor you're pretty much toast. What's annoying about this industry is that they continually moan about skills shortages. But if devs then decide to invest in themselves you are mostly ignored because you don't have commercial experience. If you then decide to pass off your home learning as commercial experience they complain that you're dishonest. And then they complain about skills shortages again! :doh: Granted that commercial experience is preferable to mere learning but that shouldn't mean that learning is of zero value.
Kevin
Kevin McFarlane wrote:
Out of curiosity, what skills did you have prior to ASP.NET C#?
I spent 25 years as BASIC programmer/Analyst of various sorts (BBX, Providex, Thouroughbred, MAI, DG) First on "minis" then on PCs. Did everything from importing, manufacturing,payroll, order entry, sales, Trucking, fishing, Gravel pits, Garment industry, steel, POS, food services, hardware stores. Then I had a B&B for a couple of years and got tired of being poor and cleaning tiolets. I supported, with a former friend, some "legacy" software and DataEase systems. Then I decided to upgrade to more interesting stuff. Love Visual studio C#, Hate SQL
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If I had it to do over again, there's no way I'd be in IT. I didn't even go to college for it. I just ended up here because programming pays the bills. But if I had it to do all over again, I would have learned a trade and opened a small business. Seriously, I am having my driveway paved, my roof fixed and I had a fence put. All three of these business owners make A LOT more money then I do. And they don't have to deal with Corporate life.
I didn't get any requirements for the signature
I have a friend who's a carpenter, roofer and landscaper. Does small jobs himself, brings in other for big jobs. Otherwise he spends a couple of months a year traveling when business is slow. Nice life.
Bar fomos edo pariyart gedeem, agreo eo dranem abal edyero eyrem kalm kareore
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Kevin McFarlane wrote:
Out of curiosity, what skills did you have prior to ASP.NET C#?
I spent 25 years as BASIC programmer/Analyst of various sorts (BBX, Providex, Thouroughbred, MAI, DG) First on "minis" then on PCs. Did everything from importing, manufacturing,payroll, order entry, sales, Trucking, fishing, Gravel pits, Garment industry, steel, POS, food services, hardware stores. Then I had a B&B for a couple of years and got tired of being poor and cleaning tiolets. I supported, with a former friend, some "legacy" software and DataEase systems. Then I decided to upgrade to more interesting stuff. Love Visual studio C#, Hate SQL
LenaBr wrote:
Love Visual studio C#, Hate SQL
Ditto! :)
Kevin
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LenaBr wrote:
Love Visual studio C#, Hate SQL
Ditto! :)
Kevin
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http://www.itbusiness.ca/it/client/en/home/News.asp?id=50089[^] The next time someone suggests the market is experiencing a shortage of talent or someone asks whether they should get into IT... Show them this link. :) I wonder if the big corps don't fake this stuff to shift the market in their favour and pay us IT types even less. :P The next time someone suggests the market is experiencing a shortage of talent or someone asks whether they should get into IT...
I'm finding the only constant in software development is change it self.
I saw something like this many years ago. And the response was basically "That's like complaining that there's a shortage of $10,000 Ferraris". There's a shortage of workers for the pay ranges, mainly, is the big complaint. That said, we were trying to find some intern types for a period of time and couldn't get any bites. Location plays a part in that case, though.
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http://www.itbusiness.ca/it/client/en/home/News.asp?id=50089[^] The next time someone suggests the market is experiencing a shortage of talent or someone asks whether they should get into IT... Show them this link. :) I wonder if the big corps don't fake this stuff to shift the market in their favour and pay us IT types even less. :P The next time someone suggests the market is experiencing a shortage of talent or someone asks whether they should get into IT...
I'm finding the only constant in software development is change it self.
In my experience, the only IT shortage is experienced by companies that have either incompetent HR, incompetent managers, or both. An example of incompetent HR: an HR person I ran into recently and had to deal with believed that the only programming language in the world was COBOL, and that "any address with a www in it has to be typed into the browser to access". This person wouldn't know a talented IT person from a monkey in a human costume- they just don't have the technical skills themselves to evaluate the technical skills of others. An example of incompetent manager: "I need a .NET person with 26 years of experience". This manager doesn't know what the people working underneath him do, and couldn't care less. He neither has the experience nor the knowledge necessary to be herding cats (er, managing tech people) and will fail at his job regardless of the team he puts together. Unfortunately, many companies have both. And very few companies have both competent HR and competent IT Management.
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If I had it to do over again, there's no way I'd be in IT. I didn't even go to college for it. I just ended up here because programming pays the bills. But if I had it to do all over again, I would have learned a trade and opened a small business. Seriously, I am having my driveway paved, my roof fixed and I had a fence put. All three of these business owners make A LOT more money then I do. And they don't have to deal with Corporate life.
I didn't get any requirements for the signature
If I had to do it again, I'd get my PhD so I could teach at a University with a nice tenured cushion.
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One thing I did really wrong...was not going to post secondary... Problem is, like you, I started programming at a young age and by the time I reached Gr. 12 I figured (and rightfully so) I knew more about the teacher when it came to best practices, etc. One thing know one told me explicitly about programming, is it's like any industry... It's not what you know, it's who you know...this is made obvious by all the boobs working in development positions who write crappy arse code and still get paid to essentially introduce bugs into a software system. LOL
I'm finding the only constant in software development is change it self.
Hockey wrote:
It's not what you know, it's who you know...
While I think this is true in a minority of cases, it's more a case of how well some people manage to sell themselves. For the stereotypical IT "nerd" types, their inability to sell themselves is their Achilles Heel. "Sales" is an altogether different talent from programming, but one that is more easily accepted by HR types (being of necessity "people" persons). There's a balance to be struck (obviously Christian has it) but especially for corporate positions (obviously communication & teamwork are valuable skills in a team environment), I suspect the bias is overly much in favour of candidates with "sales" skills rather than programming skills. The mismatch between appropriate skill & probability of recruitment is of course, not limited to programming, it's rife in management too! :laugh:
T-Mac-Oz "When I'm ruler of the universe ... I'm working on it, I'm working on it. I'm just as frustrated as you are. It turns out to be a non-trivial problem." - Linus Torvalds