IT Labor Shortage Is Just a Myth

buzzardsbay writes "For the past few years, we've heard a number of analysts and high-profile IT industry executives, Bill Gates and Craig Barrett among them, promoting the idea that there's an ever-present shortage of skilled IT workers to fill the industry's demand. But now there's growing evidence suggesting the "shortage" is simply a self-serving myth. "It seems like every three years you've got one group or another saying, the world is going to come to an end there is going to be a shortage and so on," says Vivek Wadhwa, a professor for Duke University's Master of Engineering Management Program and a former technology CEO himself. "This whole concept of shortages is bogus, it shows a lack of understanding of the labor pool in the USA.""

How much of the "shortage" would disappear...

[Tsar]

...if /. were only available at night?

Re:It's all the wording for HR

[smooth wombat]

A lot of the time I'd rather have a recent grad who's willing to learn than a guy with 10 years experience who thinks he doesn't have to learn anymore.

How about someone who's been around for a while but does want to learn, who likes to learn new things, who wants to get their hands dirty and likes to solve problems? Would you hire someone like that?

From my anecdotal evidence (i.e. recent job interviews) if you show any inclination to work hard, learn new skills, go the extra mile to see that the job is done right, take initiative, you can be guaranteed not to get the job.

In my most recent interview I told the people interviewing me I work on the idea, "When I know, I'll tell you. When I don't, I'll find out."

I even had an interview for a job in which the description and what I am doing were virtually identical. The only real difference was that right now I'm not managing anyone though people who have been here since before I arrived come to me on occasion to answer questions from time to time (I've only been here 2 years).

So, based on my limited, highly subjective evidence, the way to get a job in IT or a promotion is to be mediocore at what you do, don't do any more than is absolutely necessary to get the job done, and make sure you can sell ice to the Eskimos in January. If you can master those three skills, you have it made.

Re:Been perpetuating the myth since the 90's

[SCHecklerX]

Heh, reminds me of a ITT Tech article on ED I just saw (Possibly NSFW):

http://www.encyclopediadramatica.com/ITT_Tech [encycloped...matica.com]

Re:It's all the wording for HR

[SatanicPuppy]

I think a lot of people would rather gouge out their eyes with a spork than work helpdesk. The problem is, you're going to get people who want to work with people. I'm a reasonably social geek (how can you spot an extroverted geek? He looks at your shoes when he's talking to you) and people in the department live in fear of those rare times I have to interact with users. So the hardcore tech people are going to avoid the job; even if they're just benchtech types, there are a lot of better gigs.

Helpdesk is the worst too; users with stupid problems, who then blame you when you fix 'em. The temptation to put in snarky responses to tickets is overwhelming.

Re:No myth here

[LuisAnaya]

If things continue like this... Monopoly money will have more value than the Greenback :).

I remember a job that wanted 10 years Java exp

[WillAffleckUW]

Back when Java had only been out for seven years.

There is no shortage, just a lack of skills reinvestment by the hiring managers.

MS Licensing

[jay-za]

The real irony here is the most expertise I've seen out of the Microsoft side of things is the guys that can understand Redmond's insane licensing system.

Well, send them out this way. Or better yet, send them to Microsoft South Africa. One of the big reason's we haven't migrated to MS Exchange yet is because for the last year and a half every time I have to get clarification on licensing issues I get a different response. Once, I got an email where the (really helpful) lady contradicted herself twice in the body, and included a document that contradicted everything the body said.

I'm also busy building a virtual test lab. It's the forst in the Southern Hemisphere, and one of the first in the world, so I expected to be pretty much on my own getting it up and running. What I didn't expect is that Microsoft seems to have no clue how to license software to us.

Re:No myth here

[mcmonkey]

Throw a bash prompt in front of an MCSE and watch them look at you like your dog does when you tell him a joke.

Maybe your jokes just aren't that funny.

Spelling Checker pay

[Anonymous Coward]

For $65K/yr you can get the caiber of sysadmin ....

And for minimum wage, you can get the caliber of A/C who can remember to put the letter "l" in "caliber".

Re:No myth here

[cHiphead]

Actually that just shows you spent a lot of time clicking the mouse and yelling "WHY THE FUCK ISNT IT WORKING?" instead of typing on the keyboard and yelling "WHY THE FUCK ISNT IT WORKING?".

Cheers.

Re:It's all the wording for HR

[tompaulco]

I even had an interview for a job in which the description and what I am doing were virtually identical.
Lucky you. I once found a job posting where they had copied several paragraphs out of my online resume and listed that as job requirements. I mean it was word for word. They didn't even change the syntax to make it sound like job requirements. It read like a resume, because, well, it was.
I contacted them seeing as how I felt I fit the bill, but I never even got a call back, let alone an interview.

Re:Completely disagree

[hemp]

Our interviews are not concentrated on any one platform, we have stuff in foxpro, java, python, php, c++ and c#... Foxpro?? Umm...that may be your problem right there...You want stellar candidates to work on a 28 year old technology? Damn, that does sound exciting? Will I get to work on DOS 2.0 too?

Re:The way HR writes job ads is often the problem

[bi_boy]

I applied for a job as a general tech for a small computer shop once. They were asking for someone with experience doing basic Windows/network troubleshooting, and PC building. When I called to inquiry about the position he asked me if I'd ever been to Def Con (wtf?). I politely said no though I knew what Def Con was I just never had the inclination or money to fly out to Las Vegas. He said he was sorry but I wasn't qualified, that he was looking for "a real hacker". A real hacker to build computers and install Windows, at $12/hour. The help wanted ad I had responded that initially had a good description with realistic skill sets, was then changed so that next time I saw it said, "Looking for a real hacker type."

Re:No myth here

[schiefaw]

Probably the best impact that a certification has on the industry is that it indicates a certain base level of core competence. Unfortunately software development is one area where someone can make something "mostly" work. In any given language you can probably make something that takes the required input and generates the desired output. The key is to make an application that is stable, efficient, and flexible. It is very difficult for non-programmers to know when an application has met those standards, so someone could have been in the industry for 15 years and still be a complete idiot. Their employers may not have realized that the guy needed to be fired.

For example: I had to rework part of an application that purged files from a Windows directory when an account had been closed for a certain period of time. The application was set to run at night because it could take between three to six hours to run. When I looked at the code, the developer was comparing every account to be purged against every directory in the repository. When he found a match he would delete the directory and continue comparing against the rest of the directories (thousands of directories). So, he had two problems; he wasn't exiting the loop after finding the match and more importantly he didn't realize that he could just attempt to delete the directory without searching since he knew the path. When I reworked the app it would finish in three minutes. The guy who wrote it was the technical lead who had hired me.

BTW, I have no certifications (other than a BSCS).

Re:No myth here

[jollyreaper]

Throw a bash prompt in front of an MCSE and watch them look at you like your dog does when you tell him a joke.

Maybe your jokes just aren't that funny.

*tugs nervously at collar like Dangerfield* Ruff crowd here tonight.

Re:No myth here

[Shadow-isoHunt]

Contrary to /., taking a test doesn't make you stupider.

No, but it might make you more stupid!

Re:Got a labor shortage?

[colinrichardday]

And in the mean time, very few have noticed that one of Microsoft's published future plans is to dumb down IT to the point where any idiot can do it with the right software support. This may or may not be a major threat, but once they figure out how to build an operating system that actually works, you had better watch out.

Isn't Microsoft's figuring out how to build an operating system that actually works a sign of the apocalypse?