Information Technology people -- I need some advice

This might sound sorta dumb...but you should work on "usable" work experience. Right now, the IT market is supersaturated with people looking for jobs. And it's not just new graduates...my company just hired a senior level programmer who had been out of work for six months...and we hired him only after interviewing a number of out-of-work senior level programmers. That wasn't so disturbing as the fact that these guys were desperate enough to be willing to work for figures that were not that much higher than entry level salaries.

Hopefully, the IT job market will turn around. Things have been going really bad lately.

As a suggestion for what classes...I would try to get as well-rounded an education as possible, or pick one particular area and focus on that area only. Databases are generally a good area to become well versed in. Most companies have local databases such as Oracle or SQL Server and they require onsite DBAs that maintain those databases. Application programming (C++ or Java) using databases is a nice skill to possess. You might also want to consider what line of work you want to aim for. Fortunately, I work in the energy sector (natural gas) and almost all software associated with our industry has been kept in-house (in the US).

Whatever direction you end up going...good luck. I didn't mean this posting to sound extremely negative...I just wanted to let you know what type of market we've been looking at here in Houston. Hopefully this will help you make the right decisions in choosing what classes to take to prepare you for post-school life.

 

jw1144...another class/thing you might want to consider is doing some sort of internship. Those will usually give you a smooth entry into the working world and allow you to get some usable and resume-mentionable work experience. And, a lot of times, the company that you do an internship with will make some sort of job offer at the end.

 

I don’t have a lot of experience. I graduated school last May, and the future of IT looks scary and sometimes I wish I had majored in accounting or gone to pharmacy school.

I started working in June, and have tried to absorb as much knowledge/experience as possible. But what may be more important than learning .Net, Cisco, or insert new technology, is how people deal with each other. It sounds very basic, but communication is still key. We have had issues due to lack of communication. I worked on a project where I didn’t see my client or only talked to my manager via phone. At times it was frustrating, as I knew the project would be so much easier had I face-to-face meetings with people. Be precise and detailed.

I think all the technical expertise will come as long as you are willing to work, smart, and are a problem solver. You can learn and read all you want, but you’ll really understand it when you apply it. You mentioned you are looking for some experience; if you can’t find an internship with a company; think about volunteering for a non-profit organization. I worked with one during my senior year in college, and got some great experience.

This is a good article on "transferable skills":
http://www.computerworld.com/careertopics/careers/story/0,10801,84295,00.html

 

about 5 years ago, i started to study some hacking techniques. Needless to say, when i began to relize how young and determined these kids were, i decided the IT market was not for me. Dealing with IT people, i noticed a lot of them do not have a clue on what they are doing.

 

jw1144,

The key is getting experience in order to get a job these days. What they teach you in school is very minimal to what you will use in the workforce. Just like boomboom said, try to get an internship. Work for free if you have to. Just adding that experience to the resume along w/ learning Cisco, C++, Java, etc. on the side will definitely help you out. If you are into programming, school will barely touch the surface. It's a lot of learning on your own or taking certification courses that can definitely help you in the workforce. When I was in school 3 years ago, the people w/ the 3.5-4.0s were getting the internship because then, the job market wasn't that bad. But now, those 4.0s w/ no experience are less likely to get a job than the 2.8...3.0s w/ 2-3 years experience under their belt. It's hard out there, and I really, really hope the IT market comes out from the grave soon.

 

I have been in IT for 20 years. I have been an mainframe programmer, DBA, Data Administrator, and Visual Basic/Unix programmer.

The most important thing is just finding that first job ---- anywhere. In order to keep jobs (I have had 3 offers in the last 2 months) it's all about networking and getting to know people.

Are there any local user groups or professional organizations. Get out and network. Volunteer to be on committess (even if you are just stuffing envelopes).

 

which area will probably not be exported to India

Jobs that require "face time" will not be exported to India. For example, the big consulting firms will not likely move their jobs to India.

Something else you need to consider is that programming will likely not be the only job you have for your entire career. You will need to be thinking about what your next career change will be as you go along.

 

unless you get unfortunate like I did, and end up interning with a government agency that has no budget to hire because of the State of Texas budget troubles.

I jumped at the chance to intern with the college district cause I figured that would be a guaranteed job offer afterwards...but that was until I fould out that because of the budget cuts in education...not only were they not allowed to hire anyone new...they weren't even allowed to replace the guy that quit while I was there.

both the district CIO and my immediate supervisor wanted to hire me...but could not get permission from the people incharge of the budget.

so anyway...stay far away from networking...there are zero jobs out there for a entry level network admin.

 

Choose a path that you think you'd be happiest doing. I wouldn't be happy as a network guy and a network guy probably wouldn't be happy doing what I do.

As far as classes, I'm not sure. It's been far too long since I've been to classes that had much more meaning than the basics. My courses consisted of Fortran, Cobal, Pascal, etc. Assembler was still out there for those who wanted to scrape the metal. C was just coming on in the end but too new to be added to the curriculum. And yes, we did it in punch cards in the beginning but later we were using terminals! Wooohooo! What a SWEET day that was!

My personal favorites are MS products - .NET specifically. If you train for this and have a little VB in your background, there are quite a few VB programs that are due to be rewritten. Personally I think they could last longer than most people think, but I think managers will get spooked by the hype and you could see what happened pre-y2k - only this time shops will be looking for people to rewrite what VB code they have.

Also, I know this is a busy time, but since you've spent a lot of time and money to go this far, MS certification would help. Normally I wouldn't recommend that, but I do think it helps those with little experience. And don't waste your time with some of those knock-off tests.

And like Cesar say's, network with people when ever possible.

 

I am in the IT industry as well and I can tell you one area that will not be going away is network security. If you get into that you will have a nice long career. In fact, I wish I would have focused on that in my last few years in college.

 

I'm not in IT, but it seems like security is a good gig. That's what I hear from my friends. It's got some stability as long as you don't screw up.

 

This is good advice...I started training to be a network admin...but got this same advice a year or so back....thats why I have been specializing my training into security in the last year.


Make sure you take classes about Unix
Make sure you know C(+)
Cisco classes are always going to be good since most of the internet routers out there are Cisco.

 

Please explain why this job can not be done in India.

 

Here's my not so humble opinion:

First of all, get the Software Engineering MS instead of th CS one. That will make a big difference in the long term, as it seperates you from the code monkeys. Remember, it's the code monkeys' jobs that get shipped oversees. The software is still architected and spec'ed out over here.

Also, remember that the most tedious stuff is also the best paying and most stable. Get some experience doing some hardcore verification and testing, including writing and automating test suites. Learn low-level OS internals and/or database internals. Get a job as a student sysadmin, and learn as much as you can there as a fallback. The goal is both depth and variety, and one shouldn't sacrifice one for the other.

The key is learning to do things that other people can't do. You're not going to do that by just sticking to the book and swallowing all the Java and .NET crap that they manage to shove at you. And above all, don't do it for the money. Do it because you love it, and the money will follow. Otherwise the computer industry will eat you alive and spit you out the minute their stock drops half a point.

 

Key bit of advice here!

Your possible directions seem pretty different. E.g, I love to code by I despise network IT. Which do you like more?

It's a little bit of an over-simplification, but in general if you love what you do and you excel at it, you will find a good career.

 

This along with boomboom's advice about just getting your foot in is the best combo advice I can give.

Get your foot in the door to just get experience. Once in a company, dabble in all sorts of things and accept challenges if you think you can handle them. Learn, learn, learn...

Don't worry about the VB gurus, the .Net gurus, the Java gurus, etc. The key to earning money is doing the stuff that nobody or very few other people do. I learned long ago that it's not necessarily "what you know" but "what you know that others don't" that keeps you employed.

As an example, back in 1995 or 1996 I read about a 26 year old programmer turning down jobs that offered to pay him $300-$600/hr doing some new thing called Java programming. He said he was swamped with contract work and couldn't accept any more no matter how lucrative. Now that everyone and their mother "does Java" ask me how many command that salary...

 

Reminds me of the COBOL programmers. Their numbers dwindled for years as everyone was most assuredly moving to PC-based technologies...then came Y2K. That's when we all found out how many legacy systems there really were.