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Tech Workers in Higher Demand 325

mjdroner writes "CNN has a story on an employment consulting firm report showing job cuts in the tech sector are down 40 percent." From the article: "Despite the inevitable job-cutting that typically follows mergers, the job market picture for the nation's tech workers is definitely improving. Many job seekers in high-demand fields such as storage systems administration and information security are probably finding themselves in the driver's seat when it comes to negotiating employment terms"
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Tech Workers in Higher Demand

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  • Wait... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 10, 2006 @04:04PM (#15100805)
    So this "good news" is that people are getting laid off at a slightly lower rate?
    • by khasim ( 1285 ) <brandioch.conner@gmail.com> on Monday April 10, 2006 @04:20PM (#15100933)
      Tech workers are back in hot demand, according to a report released Monday.

      Tech-sector job cuts in the first quarter of 2006 were 40 percent lower than the same quarter last year, according to Challenger, Gray & Christmas Inc., an employment consulting firm.
      Gotta agree with you.

      Seeing a reduction in the number of people fired in no way translates to "tech workers" being in "hot demand".

      • by MyLongNickName ( 822545 ) on Monday April 10, 2006 @04:27PM (#15100986) Journal
        I realize thinking is not a pre-requisit to posting. However, realize that job cuts are a fact of life. Period. Even in the best of markets, some company is cutting jobs.

        And even in the worst markets, some company somewhere is hiring.

        Basically, this means that the hole in the bottom of the bucket is smaller. And, if you follow other news, you will realize that hiring has picked up.

        So, yes, a decrease in job cuts is good news. Your market may vary.
        • No where did it say hiring increased .

          Just less lay offs .

          Under those conditions and terms a natonwide job freese could be
          in effect at most places, and still some lay offs occuring .

          What the trend is typically is to hire more L1, H1-B's ,
          and offshore or near shore .

          Some countries have setup cruise ships off the coast ,
          and this is called near shoring .

          Bizarre indeed .

          http://www.adtmag.com/article.aspx?id=10959&page= [adtmag.com]
    • Re:Wait... (Score:3, Funny)

      by moochfish ( 822730 )
      Rather than firing 200 truck loads of IT staff this month, we're only firing 120 truck loads!!! Celebrate!
  • Despite the inevitable job-cutting that typically follows mergers, the job market picture for the nation's tech workers is definitely improving.

    After the rain comes sunshine. News at 11...
    • by EmbeddedJanitor ( 597831 ) on Monday April 10, 2006 @04:12PM (#15100868)
      Job cuts down != improvement in employment.

      Job cuts are down by 40% but that still means jobs were cut which still means that there is less employment.

      Our fantastic contributors are not the only people that are this stupid. The same trick is used to manipulate national debt news. There is a diffierence between debt and deficit. When the deficit decreases then the government crows about having control of debt. Not so. Deficit is the amount that the debt grows by. Therefore even if the deficit reduces, the debt is still increasing.

  • job cuts are down! (Score:5, Insightful)

    by wfberg ( 24378 ) on Monday April 10, 2006 @04:05PM (#15100811)
    "job cuts in the tech sector are down 40 percent." Great statistic! Now what on earth does it mean for the actual amount of jobs? And job seekers?

    This sort of statistic sound like it might be due to the increase in growth not slowing down as fast...

    In other words; hard, useless, figures.
    • Once they finally cut all the jobs, the next year they can crow about NO JOB CUTS!
    • "job cuts in the tech sector are down 40 percent." Great statistic! Now what on earth does it mean for the actual amount of jobs?

      Of course it's meaningless without the information on how many new tech sector jobs were created. Wihtout that, as everyone has pointed out, this article is just plain stupid.
    • I have a couple of different techniques for judging the job market.

      There's the inverse fast foot indicator:
      if I get really sucky service at a restaurant, the job market is good. When restaurant service is great, the job market sucks.

      Then there's the pimp index:
      Number and frequency of calls from recruiters

      And finally, the swag factor:
      When my employer feels the need to increase swag, I know the job market is getting better.

      YMMV
  • by bigattichouse ( 527527 ) on Monday April 10, 2006 @04:06PM (#15100816) Homepage
    I suppose "slightly less doom" in the world is reason to celebrate too.

    "Ahh.. but he's only stabbing me in *ONE* eye with an icepick now!"
  • by jrumney ( 197329 ) on Monday April 10, 2006 @04:06PM (#15100825)
    Shouldn't the headline read "Tech Workers in Lower lack of Demand"?
  • Consulting (Score:5, Informative)

    by kevin_conaway ( 585204 ) on Monday April 10, 2006 @04:07PM (#15100835) Homepage
    Many [bearingpoint.com] consulting [bah.com] and [www.ngc] defense [lmco.com] firms [accenture.com] have been hiring tech workers non-stop for a long time now. Especially in the D.C. Metro area.
    • Re:Consulting (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Catbeller ( 118204 )
      It's called "building the police state". No thanks. I will not participate in ending the Jefersonian dream. I will not make my own prison. I will not build machines to imprison my nation.
      • by wfberg ( 24378 ) on Monday April 10, 2006 @04:38PM (#15101074)
        Hey, the best way to wreck a system is from within. Just look at all the stoners who're wreaking their revenge at the DMV by taking a job there..
      • Try Huntsville, AL (mostly defense but we got some biotech and other firms). Try Silicon Valley. Theres plenty of tech places hiring if you take the initiative and look.

        Too many tech workers have been saying "poor me" since the dot-com bubble burst. Too many tech workers aren't willing to move away from their town of 20k in search of a better life. I know kids fresh out of college pulling down close to 60k working IT and related fields. They were willing to do a little research and they got one hell of a
  • by Maxo-Texas ( 864189 ) on Monday April 10, 2006 @04:07PM (#15100837)
    A relentless stream of "IT is great" news... yet a lot of folks I know are struggling (I'm doing okay but worry if I lost my current position).

    So I just don't believe this news and I think there is some kind of agenda behind it. Perhaps the big IT companies want to head things off because they finally see a big crunch is coming and they are going to need skilled IT people again.

    I would love to see things turn good again in this field but I'm not seeing it at the ground level yet (10+ years experience-- in the South).

    • IT is a pretty broad designation. The US is a pretty big place. If you're not seeing this growth then you're either in the wrong place or the wrong branch of IT. I'm a software developer in the Atlanta area. Until I settled down with my current employer a few months ago, I was getting asked to interviews quite a bit. The people I am with now saw my resume on a Thursday, interviewed me that Friday and offered the job the following Monday. They even offered $5K a year more than I asked for. They found
      • I'll back that up. On January 17th, my boss and I "had words" and I quit my job as Senior DBA. I agreed to stay until the 24th to document some processes and transfer knowledge to one of the junior DBA's. I did three interviews on the 25th, was offered two of those positions on the 26th, accepted one, got a counter-offer from the other, then a counter-counter-offer from the first, started work there on the 30th, again as a Senior SQL DBA. I don't think it would have been this easy a year ago.
      • Do you think your popularity might have had something to do with your work experence?

        Some of us had to pick up dead useless jobs in IT. I'd like to get into DBA, but all, ALL of the job posts I've seen are for senior DBAs.

        Except for the ones who want a senior DBA and then call it an entry level position.
    • by avronius ( 689343 ) * on Monday April 10, 2006 @05:02PM (#15101302) Homepage Journal
      For the record, years of experience in "IT" do not adequately illustrate how desirable your skill set may be to a prospective employer.

      I can point to three people that I work closely with. Each has "10 years of experience in IT". One has been doing desktop support exclusively on the Windows environment, one is a UNIX systems administrator, and one is a Windows systems administrator. Each is very good at what they do. As the months pass, one or another of them is offered a new position with a different company, doing interesting work within their area of expertise. This has been consistent for the past three years.

      I can point to 11 others who do similar jobs, but haven't received a reasonable job offer in three years. The differences don't appear to be what they do, or even how well they do their jobs, as much as how flexible they have proven themselves to be.

      As expected, those "IT Professionals" with the widest skill sets seem to be the ones that are most in demand. Failing that, those that have experience in multiple industries appear to be the next most desirable.

      Be proactive in defining your career direction, and flexible in the industries that you practice in. You will find that you are more likely to be considered for those available "IT positions". If your work history proves that you are flexible and adaptable, a prospective employer may be interested in training you in new technologies that interest you.

      This rant is a bit off-topic, but "years of experience" is a pet peeve of mine. It is not meant as a slant on the parent of this post. Although, I'd be interested to know what "big IT companies" would benefit from suggesting that IT jobs are more in demand now than before. It seems to me that it would cause a rate jump during a market shortage, rather than continuing with the age old fear mongering techniques of suggesting that you can be replaced before you make it to the curb.
      • Let's put it this way...

        As/400, Java, Websphere, C, C++, Unix, RPG, Cobol, Lisp, Pascal, Assembly...
        Project Lead, Developer, Microsoft Project. I am proactive but all the proactive in the world doesn't help me when 50% of our IT people are now indian (with 30% onshore and 70% offshore) and I know it is a race between their inflation and ours whether I remain employed or not. It doesn't matter how skilled I am if management can find an equally skilled person who is willing to work for $30k per year.

        People
  • Huh? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Wellington Grey ( 942717 ) on Monday April 10, 2006 @04:12PM (#15100862) Homepage Journal
    How does 'decrease in job cuts' equal 'higher demand for IT workers'? That's like saying I've gone from spending £10,000 more than I earn a month to spending only £5,000 more a month so obviously my savings are getting better.

    -Grey [wellingtongrey.net]
    • Jobs are being cut because there is excess supply. Actual employment does not respond immediately to changes in demand, if demand fell by 50% overnight, the surplus would last for several years, and there would be cuts lasting for several years.

      If after demand dropped 50%, it later increased back to 60% of the original value (so indeed, demand did increase) there is still a surplus, and jobs would continue to be cut, but at a reduced rate. Jobs will not stop being cut until either

      1) actual employement falls
    • This must be a European thing, cause that is exactly what it means to us in the US... Our economy is exploding, and the government is doing great, since we only overran the budget this year by something like $400 Billion dollars, and were projected to go over $500 Billion dollars. So, obviously, its time for another tax cut (or new programs) to give back some of the "savings" to us taxpayers. Are you sure your not an american politician?
  • by EmagGeek ( 574360 ) on Monday April 10, 2006 @04:12PM (#15100865) Journal
    saying "they're cutting medicare!!" because they are increasing spending by 7% instead of 9%..

    The fact that they're being laid off at simply a slower rate doesn't make me feel like they're in higher demand. It could just as easily mean that they've run out of people to lay off.
    • One problem with your comparison is the price of medical care goes up double digits per year. Another problem is the number of people on medicare goes up every year.

      If you leave the budget the same, that is less money per person to buy more expensive care. In other words, doubly less health care per person.

  • From an employer (Score:4, Interesting)

    by dada21 ( 163177 ) <adam.dada@gmail.com> on Monday April 10, 2006 @04:13PM (#15100874) Homepage Journal
    I've run my IT consulting business now for almost 20 years, a succesful business in the Midwest that has extended past. We ignored the dotcom boom (and bust), we grew slowly but surely, and we focus on showing our customers a profitable return on every investment they make in us.

    We can't find good workers. I've interviewed repeatedly and found the new talent is terrible -- it seems that has technology becomes more "known," the amount of GOOD talent is dropping. I've interviewed some people from top colleges that just don't know their way around a business at all, and I have no desire to train them in exchange for a high 5 figure salary.

    The only way I seem to find valuable employees is by picking up the real outcasts from the larger consulting firm -- outcasts that have great insight and work ethic but are too far outside the box to fit in any MBA-run company. Every time a consulting group goes under, the same morons get new jobs with the next company that won't exist in 10 years.

    For those in the same position, what are you doing for hiring? I don't see talent coming out of college and moving to the Midwest (a very profitable IT sector), most are instead moving to the west coast, taking a big salaried job, and finding themselves stuck in a very expensive area where the high salary doesn't seem to overcome the overhead of living there (stress, costs, traffic). I'd love to find a resource for good employees, but I guess the answer is right there: good employees don't get fired. The balance between efficiency and knowledge and salary is not something I worry about -- if my customers realize a gain on the money they spend on us, I have no problem paying the person right. For those who know, most of my employees work at minimum wage with a large project bonus (up to 80%), and I have enough people looking to work for us that it isn't the pay structure that isn't helping me find good help.

    Also, it seems that many people going to college for computer science/engineering aren't even learning the basics -- what colleges have you recent graduates gone to that have taught you real consulting skills, business sense and responsibility?
    • As my own consulting / repair business (finally) picks up, I'm planning on going with people I can trust. Granted, that's only a very few people, and it won't get me far... But a lot of the people that 'aren't getting fired' that you want are probably rather unhappy with their current jobs.

      So I guess the answer is where it started. Network, network, network. I don't do enough of that really, myself.
    • Re:From an employer (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Badgerman ( 19207 ) on Monday April 10, 2006 @04:25PM (#15100975)
      Here's a bit of a contrast from what I've seen - I left the midwest for the west coast (IT Project Manager).

      The big problem is getting people to move. Regions change and shift and grow, and one of the terrible problems is that to get talent, you may have to get it from somewhere else. I worked with one company who, essentially, raided a neighboring state for talent. Even if the job count stays the same, the type changes.

      And it'll all shift again. Five years ago, pre-9/11 my home state was hopping. Post-9/11 it never fully recovered, several changes affected the job markets, and people began leaving - me with them. Now, having moved, ironicaly, I'm gettng leads. Maybe it'll change in a few years, or maybe I'll end up having my company move.

      Another friend who's a storage expert in my old home can't find anywhere to go with his career, and has no choice to go to the coasts with his level of expertise. But again - what happens in five years? In ten.

      As my current boss put it, "Not everyone is brave enough to move" for a job. It's a helluva risk. And I think the changing demographics of need, combined with the fact some people don't want to move, create areas with talent gaps.

      This is all on top of the fact that a lot of IT people are damn bitter, and understandably so.
      • Re:From an employer (Score:3, Interesting)

        by Bob3141592 ( 225638 )
        The big problem is getting people to move. Regions change and shift and grow, and one of the terrible problems is that to get talent, you may have to get it from somewhere else. I worked with one company who, essentially, raided a neighboring state for talent. Even if the job count stays the same, the type changes.

        Moving can be economically risky. If you own a home in your present location, say you've been there for ten years, and now relocate to a new state and a new home, you're likely back at the beginni
        • I think you have the right idea when it comes to what many are thinking, but I think the idea of using a house as an investment is where many people go wrong.

          A house rarely is a good investment (even in this housing bubble we're in). I believe many people will lose 5-10 years of their retirement because of living in homes they can't afford. I truly believe that a home depreciates in value (even if it goes up in dollars the dollars are worth less), leaving you with a net loss investment upon retirement. M
        • by Badgerman ( 19207 ) on Monday April 10, 2006 @05:46PM (#15101622)
          That's the problem is that the situation is vasly different for different people - which is part of these various trends, I figure.

          For me no kids, no home, my wife in a job she'd outgrown, in a city with a meandring economy in the midwest. After I got laid off we basically decided to leave, and specifically targeted areas, companies, and industries appropriate to my skills and our needs. I had more interviews out of the state than in - and in my state I could at least interview for contracts. The employer I went with was one I hadn't even expected to be interested, and proved to be great.

          So for us, it came down to staying was a bigger risk than leaving. Staying probably meant career setbacks or stagnation, and eventually being unable to leave if we wanted to, being locked into a limiting geography and set of opportunities. We also had the ability to be mobile.

          But not everyone is us, and that's one thing that I find a bit chilling - I'm seeing a Mobility Gap affecting people's economic status. Both of our jobs can be done mobily, as telecommuting, etc. Both of us can move if needed, travel if needed. Not everyone else can.

          Among our friends, we see similar signs - some are staying in one area bound by a home, kids, economics, or both. Others are taking their careers mobile, looking at other states and countries.
        • Re:From an employer (Score:3, Interesting)

          by Maxo-Texas ( 864189 )
          I think real estate commissions are way too high and overdue for a reduction. If we could sell our house with a 1% commission, we would be a lot more mobile. I have seen some realtors offering 1% lately- and heck- that can be $2,000 dollars these days- a good week's pay. They would only need to sell 50 houses a year.

          In relation to IT and moving- and really moving in general- I have heard too many stories about moving for a job and then getting laid off 3 to 6 months later. Suddenly in a new city with no
    • by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 10, 2006 @04:31PM (#15101011)
      lol. you've never even seen a college CS curriculum, have you? i'm doubting if you even went to a US college if you expect people to come out of them with usable job skills in IT, much less those particular skillsets. here's all the business sense i have (and which you seem to forget) compressed into five words:

      "fast, good, cheap: pick 2".

      if you want employees that are "good" and "cheap" from a technical perspective, you're going to have to train them on soft skills, which doesn't happen overnight. sorry. logic's a bitch...
    • Re:From an employer (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Surt ( 22457 ) on Monday April 10, 2006 @04:39PM (#15101081) Homepage Journal
      The problem is that the west coast is a very attractive trap. Great weather/outdoor sports, lots of art and culture, good restaurants, ocean access, etc. It's going to be hard for the midwest to beat that. Add to that that living in a high cost of living has advantages for the smart: max out your 401k every year with ease, drive a nice car because the prices are all pushed down by the high wage earners buying and selling, etc. Finally, there are so many jobs here that even during the worst times a talented person can find work, which is not as true for the less IT dense areas of this country.

      So ... what would you have to do to compete (and potentially recruit people away from the west coast):

      Get the attention of the person in question ... do you have a strategy for getting them to look at your job offerings? Maybe advertising in some of the (bay area, ca) local newspapers for cheap? (ad: tired of renting a tiny one bedroom apartment?)

      Make sure that your hiring story is really going to be solid with respect to what the midwest has to offer. Make sure you can tell a candidate about all the great activities locally that compete with what the west coast has to offer. I'd have pictures on hand from a recent open house showing what a fantastic house they could own in your area, for what price, and how long it would take them to earn that with your job (also documenting things like what a good neighborhood it was in, with such great schools, no commute, etc.) I'd particularly make sure your story on how your company is never going away is strong ... the prospect of getting laid off in a low employment area is scary.

      Other than that I haven't much in the way of ideas for you. I would expect it to continue to be challenging to find good IT people in the midwest.
      • You're very right about the attractive trap part, but I'm not sure if the cost of living is met with the average salary out there. I know MANY people who are in dire financial trouble in the IT field in Cali, many who moved out of the Midwest to chase salaries 3x the offerings here.

        For me, I like to grow slowly. We turn down many contracts because we can tell the company isn't right for us -- we focus on mutual profits in both directions. If they're looking for cheap or fast, we don't focus on them.

        The v
    • Re:From an employer (Score:2, Interesting)

      by MudButt ( 853616 )
      Also, it seems that many people going to college for computer science/engineering aren't even learning the basics -- what colleges have you recent graduates gone to that have taught you real consulting skills, business sense and responsibility?

      I'm 28 years old and in college right now. (I dropped out during the .com boom to chase the almighty dollar, and now I have a decent resume and skillset to hold some water).

      I can honestly tell you that I built some of the best training, skills, & experience fro
    • We can't find good workers. I've interviewed repeatedly and found the new talent is terrible -- it seems that has technology becomes more "known," the amount of GOOD talent is dropping. I've interviewed some people from top colleges that just don't know their way around a business at all, and I have no desire to train them in exchange for a high 5 figure salary.

      Yep. I've been interviewing people for a Unix systems administrator position for our group where I work, and I can tell you that while the vast maj
      • > For instance, many so-called "Linux experts" did not know that the command to list the kernel modules loaded into a running kernel is 'lsmod'.

        While that's fairly bad, particularly from the point of view of debugging problems, it occurs that I've never really dealt with modules on server systems, only on desktop. On the servers, it's handled by the Linux distro, and we then don't touch anything, whereas on my own desktop installing new hardware with freaky module requirements isn't at all odd.

        > Most
    • by xtal ( 49134 ) on Monday April 10, 2006 @04:55PM (#15101234)
      Of course, I pay for it, too.

      I'm an oldschool technie who realized he'd better figure out this business stuff, fast. We do custom embedded linux work, board-level up, MCUs, etc etc. We're booked. Solid. Yet I get stuff done with low overhead.

      What did I do?

      I walk the walk. I know good people are easily 100x more productive than average. I know some good people from all my days in the trenches (hi guys). When I want things done, I package it up, and send it off with a big cheque. I don't care where, when, or how.. we work online. I live in the middle of nowhere, handy an airport. That's all that's required to do business.

      If one of the guys I work with is doing 10x the work - I'll actually give him 10x the pay!

      It doesn't work for all business, but it is working, and I am growing clients and profit.

      Something to think about if you "can't get people to relocate" - my advice - make teleconf and virtual offices work for you. Hire the best people available no matter where they are. Reap the rewards.
      • I agree with you 100%. Since I pay my employees up to 80% of the profit on a project (but minimum wage otherwise), they bust their butts to be more efficient, and reap the benefits. I know a few of them who've earned probably US$500 per hour working hard to finish well before the deadline and leave almost zero punch list activities.

        That being said, most geeks don't want to take a risk that they might only make US$12k per year (none of my guys do) in exchange for buying their efficiency and responsibility.
    • > I've interviewed some people from top colleges that just don't know their way around a business at all, and I have no desire to train them in exchange for a high 5 figure salary.

      Have you considered that maybe you should have lower-salaried entry positions, then, and promote as they pick up the missing skills? Speaking here as someone whose salary has doubled in the 5 years since they left university...
    • You got to head hunt if you want the pick of the litter without too much training. You can contract them out or you can have a recruiter on staff.

      Also, it seems that many people going to college for computer science/engineering aren't even learning the basics -- what colleges have you recent graduates gone to that have taught you real consulting skills, business sense and responsibility?

      UAH [uah.edu] did a pretty good job. Last two semesters are spent on a large scale engineering projects. The first semester is
    • I can somewhat agree with your problems here. I went to Ohio State Univeristy and later Illinios State University. Originally, I was majoring in computer science, but soon I changed my major to philosophy. I feel as though my experience in a variety of programs give me some insight to the higher education's perspective on the subject. Universities don't care to teach you anything about Windows or Linux or OS X. They want you to know what an operating system is and what it does in the most generic terms

    • For those who know, most of my employees work at minimum wage with a large project bonus (up to 80%), and I have enough people looking to work for us that it isn't the pay structure that isn't helping me find good help.

      I am simply not interested in working for bonuses. But minumum wage as the base? Hell it's no surprise you get applicants as you describe. I imagine that somewhere during an interview with you I'd be thinking "take your job and shove it"

      I've done my time working on death march projects wi

    • >For those who know, most of my employees work at minimum wage with a large project bonus (up to 80%), and I have enough people looking to work for us that it isn't the pay structure that isn't helping me find good help.

      Of course you have lots of people applying. The potential to earn 80% than you can at Wal-Mart will attracts lots of applicants. Be realistic in the level of qualifications you expect for that kind of money.

      >I'd love to find a resource for good employees

      You can get the combination of
    • Where in the midwest?

      You can surely find talent on slashdot? I am going to graduate with a degree in MIS in about a year and I am from INdiana even though I live in Florida currently.

    • by ErikZ ( 55491 ) on Monday April 10, 2006 @05:48PM (#15101633)
      I've interviewed some people from top colleges that just don't know their way around a business at all, and I have no desire to train them in exchange for a high 5 figure salary.


      You don't see this as part of your problem? News Flash, every company wants the perfect employee to drop out of the sky into their laps and not have to spend a penny on training. So, your choices are:

      1. Compete with every company in existence for these type of people.
      2. Sit back and complain.
      3. Adapt, gain the ability to find diamonds in the rough, prosper.

      I'd love to find a resource for good employees, but I guess the answer is right there: good employees don't get fired.


      You are using the most advanced communication tool in the history of mankind. On a forum dedicated to computer geeks. Posting about how hard it is to find workers. With just a few keystrokes you should have qualified workers raining down on you. Do you mention what IT skills you need? Do you say what state you're located? At this point, you seem to be the choke point in the system.

      I'm not seeing how you can claim you're paying your people well. You pay minimum wage, plus a bonus of up to 80%. That's 9.25 an hour? They must work some serious overtime to get that high 5 figures.

      What colleges teach real consulting skills, business sense and responsibility? There aren't any. That's the stuff you learn when out in the business world. College is the degree that gives proof that you can be taught. After that, the businesses have to go through the applicants, hire the one with the qualities it wants, and then teach them the business.

      Is that such a horrible thing? Why do you refuse to teach people how to work in your company? Do you even have a mere internship program? If people don't know certain basic concepts, do you tell them to learn them and then come back, or do you have them blacklisted forever?
    • Re:From an employer (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Dr_Art ( 937436 )

      ...I've interviewed some people from top colleges that just don't know their way around a business at all...

      So you're interviewing fresh grads and not finding them to be experienced, right?

      ...and I have no desire to train them in exchange for a high 5 figure salary...

      And you want to pay them peanuts and not invest in them at all, right?

      ...most are instead moving to the west coast, taking a big salaried job...

      Wow, why would they ever do that?!?!

      ...most of my employees work at minimum wage wit
    • by tundog ( 445786 )
      I've run my IT consulting business now for almost 20 years

      I find this surprising given your comments. Sarcasm aside, let me critique your post as an independent consulting professional.

      the amount of GOOD talent is dropping

      I think you forgot something at the end of this sentence. What you left off was "at the price I'm willing to pay". This is the nonsense that is fueling the outsourcing hype. The talent is out there, just not working for minimum wage.

      and I have no desire to train them in exchange for a high
  • by Wellington Grey ( 942717 ) on Monday April 10, 2006 @04:14PM (#15100885) Homepage Journal
    "Some businesses may in fact regret some of the job cuts they made in recent years, which, in retrospect, may have been too deep. Recent surveys suggest that employers are having an increasingly difficult time finding information technology workers."

    So can I be expecting a late night, drunken I'm-so-sorry-I-broke-up-with-you-will-you-please-t ake-me-back phone call from my ex-manager?

    -Grey [wellingtongrey.net]
    • So can I be expecting a late night, drunken I'm-so-sorry-I-broke-up-with-you-will-you-please-t ake-me-back phone call from my ex-manager?

      Quite possibly. I suggest the traditional response is the best approach to this situation: Pertend to take him back, and then sleep with his best friend as revenge.
    • I've had that call. It's about as weird as it sounds.
  • It's true! (Score:4, Funny)

    by saboola ( 655522 ) on Monday April 10, 2006 @04:15PM (#15100887)
    I know this because I watch television. In it, they say they IT jobs are in high demand, and all I need is this certificate in order to get a yacht like the guy on the tv. So, this is true.
  • now when will someone hire me?
  • Make you smile... (Score:5, Informative)

    by MudButt ( 853616 ) on Monday April 10, 2006 @04:16PM (#15100899)
    FTFA, "Some businesses may in fact regret some of the job cuts they made in recent years, which, in retrospect, may have been too deep. Recent surveys suggest that employers are having an increasingly difficult time finding information technology (IT) workers."

    I was laid off in the fall of 2004 because it was determined that the company could outsource our System Admins and Database Admins to a domestic contractor and co-locate to save a couple bucks in the long run. (You can convince any executive to do anything, BTW, if you have a good PowerPoint ROI chart, laser pointer, and $800 suit).

    Long story short, the fine print in the contract stated that only 2 major systems would be outsourced (which amounted to about 40% of the total workload), and after everyone was laid off, the contractor says, "Now... You know that we're not going to handle email, NAS, web services, and other misc systems, correct?"

    Needless to say, they're now locked into a 5 year multi-million dollar contract, AND have hired back new system admins to replace the layoffs. I'm not bitter... But it still makes me smile anyway... =)
    • Needless to say, they're now locked into a 5 year multi-million dollar contract, AND have hired back new system admins to replace the layoffs. I'm not bitter... But it still makes me smile anyway... =)

      I knew the moral of the story after reading the line I was laid off in the fall of 2004 because it was determined that the company could outsource our System Admins and Database Admins to a domestic contractor and co-locate to save a couple bucks in the long run.

      I've heard this story over and over again, and I
    • Makes you mad, though, that they didn't just hire you on, and increase your budget. I hate salespeople that wedge themselves between the employees and the DM.
  • by VoxCombo ( 782935 ) on Monday April 10, 2006 @04:20PM (#15100936)
    I guess my follow-up question is this:

    What's the current trend in hiring?

    That's great if cuts have slowed, but I'd like to know if that means the net number of jobs is increasing
  • We've been sitting on two open positions for going on 2 months now looking for qualified developers. Hell one seat is entry level! The other is mid level.

    Outsourcing FUD be damned, we have the positions and I could really use some help here!

    -Rick
  • by LoaTao ( 826152 )
    CS majors average starting salary dropped 2% according to CNNMoney [cnn.com]
  • Living near Pittsburgh, PA I can honestly say that tech. is non-existant. The jobs are far and few between, pay terribly, and the number of tech folks looking to grab any job at all (even at large pay cuts) is staggering.

    Outsourcing smaller tech depts to consultants and firms set up to do just that is all the rage, which just cripples the market even more. I know this isn't the hub of technology, but when you graduate #2 from Penn State with a 4.0, have 8 years of experience, glowing references, and still h
    • I know this isn't the hub of technology...[blah blah blah]... and still have an impossible time finding employment something is wrong.


      If you were an ice fisherman would you live in Arizona or Alaska? If you were an oil field worker would you live in Texas or New York City?
      • Fair enough, and fully agreed... just not everyone's life is so cut and dry that it is possible to pull up stakes and move. If you aren't familiar PA ran a huge campaign called "stay, invent PA" and a lot of people received grants and money to pay for school but in exchange for staying and working in PA once graduated... there are a lot of people in that boat. Not me personally, I have my own reasons that I cannot leave, but there are many that fit the above category and are in bad situations.
    • I know this isn't the hub of technology, but when you [have a lot going for you], and still have an impossible time finding employment something is wrong.

      ARRRGH! Would you move already?!

      I used to live near the Burgh, and while the city has a lot to recommend, a robust job market (of any kind) is not one of them. And it hasn't been that way for over twenty years!

      Sure, the cost of living is dirt cheap, but the jobs just aren't happening. The place is rapidly turning into Alabama North. (Especially outsi

    • hehehehe! I live *in* Pittsburgh, PA, and there aren't many jobs here. This is why I moved to Boston for the dotcom funtime -- Pittsburghers were very slow to gain interest in the Internet.

      That isn't at all to say there aren't some great high-tech companies out here, as there are a few. They're just not hiring. There's a list of almost all of the Pittsburgh recruiting agencies on (shameless plug) recruiter-rater [zhrodague.net].
  • ... job cuts in the tech sector are down 40 percent

    Wouldn't this start to happen as the number of available jobs to cut decreases because of all the cutting?

  • The gravy train ... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by pvera ( 250260 ) <pedro.vera@gmail.com> on Monday April 10, 2006 @05:00PM (#15101285) Homepage Journal
    ... is definitely .net.

    I got advance notice in late January that I would be laid off 3/31. Went into panic mode, started looking and all I could find was .net, which was a problem since I had switched the company from classic asp to PHP over the past 3 years or so.

    For every call I got about php I got 20 for asp.net. I even learned that one of the biggest recruiting companies in the Washington DC Metro now recruits for .net exclusively.

    After two months, my number came up and I got laid off effectively 3/31. I got two offers on 3/31, one to work like an animal in a php/Oracle shop for a huge company, one to work like an animal in a tiny shop that only does .net and is tired of turning down php work because all of the programmers are overbooked. I was able to jump in and do both kinds of work, so I took the job at the tiny shop.

    Apart from the near saturation of .net jobs here in DC Metro, there is a lot of Java, but I am very worried about the morons that are doing the recruiting. I actually had a recruiter hand me a job description that had three bold bullets with mandatory Java skills, and he was still trying to con me into applying for the job.

    Another problem I saw with the very limited supply of php jobs is that the people that are hiring are absolutely disconnected from the salary curves for this market. They want you to have 10 years of experience in C, C++, PHP, Ansi SQL, JSP, HTML, CSS, XML, etc. then they want to hire you for $50K or less. And they get offended when you laugh in their faces. I noticed this is only a problem with the open source type jobs, the .net people were advertising pretty much right on the median for the salary surveys for the area.

  • by Windcatcher ( 566458 ) on Monday April 10, 2006 @05:28PM (#15101502)
    ...the emphasis on "skill sets" and not on whether you can think and learn.

    "Does your skill set include J2EE? No, just Java?"

    Click. Phone goes dead, you never hear from that recruiter again.

    "Does your skill set include XYZ?"

    I'm so sick of this nonsense. The problem, as I see it, is several-fold:

    - Recruiters who want the immediate "sell" to get their finder's fee: they only want that person with experience in the exact buzzword they see in front of them

    - Employers who don't want to give an intelligent, experienced, agile person the couple of months to learn the new technology flavor-of-the-month

    - Employers who think coders are people who simply bang on the keyboard and, if they could train a cat to do the same, they would do so. They don't understand that it takes either education or experience (and likely both) to create code that is efficient, thread-safe, maintainable, etc. Cats can't do this--intelligent, experienced, educated software developers can.

    - Employers who have an immediate crisis (hmm...how did they let that happen to begin with?) and want someone they can immediately drop into the meat grinder. When you hear "off to a running start" from one of these, beware.

    - Recruiters and employers who don't understant that computer science concepts span languages and technologies and that someone who has grasped them in one implementation of computer science (read: technology) can apply them in another if only given a chance to learn the details (language, API, etc.)

    Non-developers are too focused on buzzwords and not on software. What makes software good software goes way beyond particular languages or API's. There are far more workers who can satisfy employers' needs; for some reason they simply won't use them.
  • Simple Math (Score:3, Funny)

    by DeadBugs ( 546475 ) on Tuesday April 11, 2006 @02:01AM (#15103946) Homepage
    Less jobs = less job cuts. If you cut off 8 fingers, the next round of cuts will be significantly less.

If A = B and B = C, then A = C, except where void or prohibited by law. -- Roy Santoro

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