Hot Tech Skills For 2006? 494
linumax writes "Computerworld is running a 3 page story on what tech skills will be in demand for the coming year. They suggest developers, security experts and project managers are in demand. It also comes up with some good news. FTA: 'Despite the notion that hordes of U.S. IT jobs are being sent offshore, in reality, less than 5% of the 10 million people who make up the U.S. IT job market had been displaced by foreign workers through 2004, says Scot Melland, president and CEO of Dice Inc., a New York-based online jobs service. The numbers of jobs posted on Dice.com from January through September for developers, project managers and help desk technicians rose 40%, 47% and 45%, respectively, compared with the same period in 2004, says Melland.'"
The most important skill (Score:5, Insightful)
The reality, though, is that I constantly have to re-evaluate if my top paid employees are worth the money they're getting paid. I don't have as much trouble as do MOST IT employers -- my employees make minimum wage plus a large per-project bonus. I would pay less than minimum wage if I could (and more of a bonus), because it forces workers to become more efficient, and we all benefit from this.
Here's the kicker: as I see more decent workers come into the workforce, I see less reason to pay as much as I have in the past. Every dollar I save in wages and bonuses is almost $1.50 I can save my customers. I sell my business to my customers by guaranteeing a profit for them on every dollar they pay me. If I can save them that $1.50, I can show them more of a profit, for less expense. It is a win-win situation for the customer and myself, but it causes IT employees to cry foul.
This is a very strong part of the free market -- supply and demand. As the supply of quality IT workers goes up, demand has to go up equally for the price to stay constant. The demand HAS gone up, but I believe the supply is heading upwards at a much higher rate, hence a lower base pay. The second part of the free market that angers the average worker is that as the base pay gets lower, salaried workers have more reason to go off on their own (to earn that $1.50 instead of the $1.00), which increases competition, lowering prices even more.
This is GOOD for the economy and good for the world -- the less that companies pay for IT, the more money they have for other costs and investments, such as R&D or more efficient machinery. I personally have made more money in the years that I lowered my billing rate, as I found more customers willing to extend projects they didn't want to in previous years.
To stay on the topic, the hottest tech skills are less important (to me and my customers) than the ability to understand what IT does for a business: it should raise efficiency, it should allow multiple tasks to be performed by the same person, and it shouldn't interfere with the employees' abilities without increasing their abilities in some other area. IT should be profitable for a company, not an expense without gain.
If you want to be a valuable IT employee or consultant, figure out how you can make your customer (or employer) more money, so that you truly have value for the work you perform. If you are just an expense, you're not doing your job. This is true of ANY employee in ANY business, but most people ignore the realities of business and the market.
Re:The most important skill (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:The most important skill (Score:2, Insightful)
I wouldn't hire someone with that attitude anyway. My goal with each and every person I hire is to see them competing with me in 5-10 years. Not a single employee of mine better stay an employee for the rest of their lives. I have a few ex-employees (one guy in his 50s) who are now
Re:The most important skill (Score:3, Insightful)
I've worked under
Re:The most important skill (Score:4, Interesting)
Yes. I pay myself minimum wage every month (I think I make about US$600 take home salary a month). I bonus myself a dividend at year's end and maybe at the half year as well. My employees all work exactly the same way, although I pay the bonuses at project end, not year's end.
You're right, you wouldn't hire me, because I wouldn't work for minimum wage.
So you'd rather say "I am worth US$80,000 per year" and be done with it. That's fine. My employees want more. They want to learn about business (all my accounting books are completely open to even the newest employee). They want to learn about collections and input costs. They want to learn how to manage crises. They want to get a piece of the action based on the profitability of their project (we're talking up to 66% profit sharing, not 3%). They want to work hard, knowing in a few years they could own their own business -- that I helped them finance.
I hate the term employees. I love the term future competition.
Re:The most important skill (Score:2)
Priceless. Your name isn't David Brent [wikipedia.org] by any chance, is it?
Re:The most important skill (Score:2)
I pay myself minimum wage every month (I think I make about US$600 take home salary a month).
Only problem for me is that minimum wage isn't enough to live on around here. I don't have a 6 month cushion and, going into a new place, I'd be wary of someone who offered a deal like yours.
Re:The most important skill (Score:2)
Yeah and he fired the "winner" to "encourage him to get out there and compete with me".
This also sounds like the kind of guy who gloats when he beats a 2 year old at chess...
Re:The most important skill (Score:2)
Re:The most important skill (Score:5, Interesting)
He's underpaying workers until the project ends. Then he gives them a bonus based on profitability. This enables him to bid fixed-price contracts because buyers love them.
I'm going to throw out some numbers. I hope he's listening because he can confirm or deny that his pay scale works as I say.
He has a project which he bills out at $145 an hour. He pays his people $6 an hour. However, he doesn't really charge $145 an hour. Instead, he says the project is 100 hours @ $145 an hour, or $14,500. Let's say 20 of those hours are his supervision and he has one person working 80 hours. He pockets the $145 an hour x 20 and gives the worker $6 an hour x 80, or $480. This is a total of $3,380. He has a gross profit of $11,120 remaining. Then he gives the worker a bonus, splitting the remaining revenue 50/50, meaning he gets $2900 + $5560 and the worker gets $480 + $5560.
In the end, this means the worker got paid approximately $75 an hour. This is substantially more than he would normally get paid in a more typical work environment, maybe more like $60 an hour. So the worker loves this system.
But it gets better - if the project can be done in 80% of the time, the worker still makes $5560 but divided by fewer hours. In fact, he would make about $86 an hour.
The downside of this is that if the project is estimated poorly, the worker will get paid less. Let's say the project goves over by 50%. The worker's paid a bit more than $5560 because his minimum wage pay goes up. But his bonus goes down. I'm too lazy to do a detailed calculation, but he's down to about $46 an hour.
What this system does is align the incentives of the owner and worker. If the worker can get the work done more rapidly, his bonus is enormous and he's motivated to do even better. If he does dismally (say he takes four weeks to do this two week job), his pay is down enormously and he might even want to leave the company.
If you compare this with a typical contractor who might pay $60 an hour and bill at $175 an hour, you can see how the bonus formula I've described above is actually a better arrangement as long as you work diligently and at about the proper estimated time.
Personally, I would have loved to have worked as a contractor under that system. It's fair and transparent.
Hope that helps.
D
Re:The most important skill (Score:3, Interesting)
Yes! Except I'm overpaying them minimum wage.
I hope he's listening because he can confirm or deny that his pay scale works as I say.
Always listening.
Then he gives the worker a bonus, splitting the remaining revenue 50/50,
Closer to 66% bonus, even to my outsource employees.
If the worker can get the work done more rapidly, his bonus is en
Interesting idea. A question, though... (Score:2)
Re:The most important skill (Score:2)
The way the system is setup and talked about though, I have a feeling there are no actual W4 employees, just contractors and outsourcers.
Re:The most important skill (Score:2)
> system. It's fair and transparent.
It also attracts people who don't prejudge things on face value and take time to evaluate things. Because those who take making minimum wage and then earning bonuses on face value are not going to seek employment there.
Re:The most important skill (Score:3, Interesting)
So, the person who does almost zero actual work gets a huge salary, and the peon doing all the hard work gets shit. This, as you describe it, is bordering very closely on accounting and tax fraud. The employee's benefits and other employment factors are set by the base pay/hourly (minimum) wage. That "bonus" isn't taxed the same as his/her base pay. And absent any specifics in a contract, there's no certainty of the
Re:The most important skill (Score:3, Interesting)
I don't believe in loans -- if you can't afford it, don't buy it. I screwed myself on loans when I was younger and refuse to ever do it again. I bought my first condo for US$17,000, it was a craphole. It only took me 1 year of renting to save that money. I have
Re:The most important skill (Score:4, Interesting)
Interesting comment. I have two follow-ups:
Re:The most important skill (Score:5, Insightful)
Absolutely. It is not learned in school, either. I am constantly amazed at how many massively profitable businesses bring on "business experts" who have huge paper backing without any real life experience. In the past 10 years, I've watched almost 5 big customers of mine go in the gutter over the advice of a guy with letters after his last name. America is quickly learning that MBA is not the key to running a good business: profitability, efficiency, and marketplace wanting your product/service is. It isn't so hard to understand.
I also think it can be taught/learned in the same way as good management.
I'm not sure. From my experience, the best managers are the people who understand both the needs of the employee from a human standpoint and the needs of the company from a profitability standpoint. For the majority of employees without management potential, this is a constant area of debate. For management, they see how effective it is to constantly balance the needs. In my experience, the best managers don't come out of college, and some of them barely finished high school. I did meet a fantastic manager with a Master's Degree, but he admitted that it was 'in his blood.'
Do you really think the supply of good quality IT workers is going up?
Absolutely not. In this country, the supply of quality workers is going down. My firm belief is that young men and women should get work experience as early as possible in life -- instead we focus on higher education in high school and college. I learned everything I needed to know about business between the ages of 13 to 15 by studying other businesses and trying things. I meet 20 year olds now who won't take a risk and start a business because "college experience is more important." I think there are far bigger risks to take when you are young, and this can lead to a higher quality work force.
The worst part of the workers in this country is the demands they make and our government backing those demands up. I don't want to get to that part of the debate because it always starts flame/troll wars, but let us just say that I feel the employee/employer trade shouldn't be regulated or restricted.
most of the guys coming in now are all hot on this certificate or that buzzword, but even those from an allegedly academic background often don't understand basic principles as much as everyone used to when the market was smaller and newer.
It isn't the market's oldness that is the problem, it is the fact that companies are losing ground VERY fast, and they're not sure what the problem is. People think it is the lack of "training" or being in the wrong business, but that is not the case. For the past 3 decades we've sown terrible policies (politically, educationally and in the workplace) and these policies are catching up with us. A very good friend has a son who is just starting out on his own business (the kid is 16) that I helped him start. He works cheaply, efficiently and in the first 3 months he has more opportunities than he could every handle. Why? Because he's willing to let the market set his price and his product instead of the other way around. Opening yourself to the realities of the marketplace is much more important since you'll be more willing to see where you are needed and for how much rather than say "This is how much I demand I get paid and this is how many hours I will work."
Re:The most important skill (Score:2)
185 indian infosys contractors (130 of them in bangladore) that -would- have been employees 5 years ago.
Your probably right.
The only hope is for 18% wage inflation to continue.
Re:The most important skill (Score:2, Interesting)
Remember, such numbers are only voluntarily given by corporations (and the federal and local governments which do the same thing), and in each and every study by the GAO, and various other agencies and organizations, very few corporations and companies actually responded.
Just doesn't track.....here in Seattle, I see nothing but inferior white Project Managers who oversee
Re:The most important skill (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:The most important skill (Score:5, Interesting)
Really? I started my first IT business almost 17 years ago. It has been in business all that time, grown every year, and has performed work on some of the largest commercial ventures in the Chicagoland area. I'm tired and have no desire to stay in the business more than another 3 years. Blogging is a new direction for me (I wrote paper newsletters for years that were successes and failures). Considering my company refused to go dotcom and continued to grow duing the dotbomb, I think I do know what I am talking about.
Me working for peanuts is not good for me, and I can't imagine how a low-wage earner of any career is good for the economy (except for banks).
Really? My employees that earn peanuts for a salary make a ton of money in bonuses. Some projects bonus out over 66% of the profit of the project. One of my top employees only works about 15 hours a week and he owns his condo, car and all his assets without loans. He's not even close to 30 years old.
Also, I've noticed that when I reduce my rate, people not hire me, even if I'm starving. Crank the rate back up, and I find myself consistantly employed.
This is VERY true. When I said I lowered my rate, I didn't mean going from $160 per hour to $40, I meant going from $160 per hour to $145 or so. Consider it a discount for past contracts, but it helped 75% of the time I presented it.
I don't like being treated like a slave laborer, either.
Only someone not willing to increase their abilities and offer their customers profits would be a slave. If you have value, you'll never be a slave, except to the State.
Re:The most important skill (Score:2)
However, you are deluding yourself if you think that this isn't a real problem. Without paying a decent salary, you aren't going to get good help, which you personally can see because your good employees earn huge bonuses.
However, you get what you pay for, which is something that tends to be forgotten in the American corporate rush to commoditize employees (outsourcing, switching to temp workers and lowering salaries in gene
Re:The most important skill (Score:2)
Re:The most important skill (Score:2)
This was done (Score:5, Insightful)
This was done during the industrial revolution. Workers were paid not on a wage, but by how many units of whatever they could produce. This left workers tired, worn out, and considerbly less effective.
Then the workers rights movement emerged. Unions formed to protect workers as a whole. Required breaks, 40 hour work weeks, and wage all came about because of this. It's kinda sad to see that a lot of the tech industry is not learning from the past.
It doesn't make them more efficient. It makes them feel like they've constantly got to work at 100%. This isn't sustainable and in the long term the total output of work is equal or lower than someone on set wage.
There was an article on this idea a few months back that actually one some awards from what I understand. Studies during the industrial were cited.
Re:The most important skill (Score:3, Funny)
So if I don't pay my workers ANYTHING, and promise to give them a huge bonus if they finish the job, they will be perfectly efficient?
Tell me something, you don't happen to be a manager at EA do you?
mod parent -1, flamebait (Score:5, Insightful)
He deviates from the topic to carry on for five paragraphs justifying why he pays his workers so little. Posting that on /. is like jumping into a pit of lions covered in Worchestershire sauce - there is no explanation as to why somebody would do this except to elicit hateful responses. I recommend some self-help books on guilt or conseling, because he's clearly consumed with guilt.
Economics is more than just supply and demand. If it were that simple, then there would be no economists, no economics professors, and the only book necessary for an exhaustive understanding of the economy would be The Wealth of Nations. There's another side to business: you have to give in order to get. I've watched more than a few restaurants go under because the owner was an indifferent jerk. No matter how good the food is, if the company's ugly, you'll leave. Likewise, a well-treated worker is more efficient than one who gets treated like shit, because being paid well and being valued by your employer raise your self-esteem.
Why do you think Google is the envy of all of Silicon Valley? In order for Parent to have any semblance of sense, Google's HR policies would not only have to be incorrect, but totally fallacious. Judging by the fact that their stock is 423 bucks right now, there are at least a few people out there who believe Google is doing something right.
Re:The most important skill (Score:2)
I take it the saying goes.. "You get what you pay for." Really works here.. I can't see HOW they could even surv
Re:The most important skill (Score:2)
Re:The most important skill (Score:2)
Madison has a horrific economy. I see huge profits though, with the right drive.
I'd be happy to get you going, seriously.
Rocket Surgery (Score:2)
The problem with your model, which in certain forms is flatly illegal and I suspect you're skirting legality (not to mention credulity) already, is that in effect you base your employees pay on YOUR performance, not theirs. So, they bust their butts and you lose a client (for whatever reason), which conveniently gets you off the hook for paying them. No matt
Re:The most important skill (Score:2)
Re:The most important skill (Score:2)
My books are open to my employees -- they can see what the company takes in, what it pays out and what it writes off.
Most projects pay between 50% and 66% of the profits out as bonuses. About 25-30% of the project goes to overhead (salary and bills). The rest goes into my pocket. I've made bonuses of more than 30% of some projects, and in other projects I'll make 2%.
I believe we pay $6.15 per hour but I co
Re:The most important skill (Score:2)
So I read this to mean that $6.15/hr is worth somewhere between 9%-30%.
So this means that 1% bonus is worth $6.15/.3 = $0.205/hr to $6.15/.09 = $0.683/hr.
So unl
Re:The most important skill (Score:2)
Re:The most important skill (Score:2)
I can tell you this - no matter how large the bonus is, I wouldn't work for this person's company under those terms. On a project, I will try to meet any deadline that isn't too far from reasonable, but only for a fixed wage that recognizes my worth. Why will I not take the equivalent or slightly higher in low wage + bonus, then? Because the bonus depends on things that are outside of my control. Should the project manager mess around with specifications, should other colleagues not pull their weight, shou
Re:The most important skill (Score:2)
Not really. If the contract is drawn up correctly (read: by a lawyer), then there will actually be very few things "outside of your control" when it comes to deliverables and payment.
On a project, I will try to meet any deadline that isn't too far from reasonable, but only for a fixed wage that recognizes my worth.
Then you obviously are willing to settle for much less money.
I used to work for a guy who ran a small/medium network
Currently Seeking (Score:5, Funny)
- 5 years Ruby on Rails development
- Microsoft Windows IIS 6.0 security and administration certification
Re:Currently Seeking (Score:5, Funny)
Also required:
17 years experience developing Java applications that interface with a high availability MySQL database that imports data from a Commodore 64 system, converts all the data to PNG image format and then OCR's it back into text to be stored into an Oracle 9.3.4.1a database running on a FreeBSD 4.11 system that has Postfix & Apache installed but is not running Bind.
5 years experience required on WeMadeThisProgramInhouse 2.0
Applicants without these requirements will not be considered.
Re:Currently Seeking (Score:3, Informative)
Either that, or it's some headhunter collecting resumes to stuff their database with.
My surefire job-seeking strategy (Score:2)
Re:My surefire job-seeking strategy (Score:2)
Shhhh! My boss might read that!
Re:My surefire job-seeking strategy (Score:3, Funny)
From experience: (Score:5, Insightful)
This is from my experience this year. A lot of companies expressed interest in me setting up a voip system for them, and because I go with asterisk I can undercut most competition dramatically while offering more features.
Look for voip ( and asterisk especially ) to explode in 2006.
Question (Score:2)
Re:And then watch VoIP implode... (Score:5, Informative)
If by external lines, you mean internet lines, then I agree. The sound quality is better than regular lines, but the reliability is subject to the internet, which is flaky. That's why I have copper to the asterisk boxes, with internet trunks backing that up.
VoIP IMO is the emporers latest clothing collection though I await to be proven wrong.
If you want to stick your head in the sand, by all means. More business for me.
VoIP is a proven technology. Don't believe me? How do you think the phone company delivers your lines to you? In most cases, it's VoIP over an ATM circuit, then broken out in to a t1, then finally into your lines via a channel bank. In many setups, it's only when the lines are finally in copper that it's a regular old analog line. It's VoIP up to that.
In replacing legacy Avaya systems and the like, what you are looking at is putting a VoIP backbone and VoIP phones, hooked directly to a POTS network. You not only get the feature set of VoIP, but you get the reliability of the POTS network.
Re:And then watch VoIP implode... (Score:2)
socket in the wall. What I *dont* want is some friggin PC-in-a-box that
has to have a full OS + network stack + associated unreliability and
hackability just to do what $2 worth of components from radio shack can do
just as well.
For backbone providers perhaps VoIP is a good idea as they can merge
data and voice. For me as a consumer is a problem looking for a solution
s
Re:And then watch VoIP implode... (Score:3, Informative)
You'd be surprised. You know those partner phones on the desk? Yeah, those are about 100 bucks each.
For the record, a voip phone typically doesn't have a big feature set either. The pbx does.
What I *dont* want is some friggin PC-in-a-box that
has to have a full OS + network stack + associated unreliability and
hackability just to do what $2 worth of components from radio shack can do
just as well.
You are in
To summarise then.. (Score:5, Funny)
It take a certain kind of recruitment consultant to figure out these gems..
Re:To summarise then.. (Score:3, Insightful)
We don't care if you can't manage two nuns in one minute of silent prayer.
You just have to be loyal about it.
huh.? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:huh.? (Score:5, Interesting)
I figure, any number touted by Dice or Monster can be made more accurate by moving the decimal one position to the left and dividing by two.
Re:huh.? (Score:3, Funny)
US jobs that will never leave (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:US jobs that will never leave (Score:3, Insightful)
And the benefits are ridiculous.
Re:US jobs that will never leave (Score:2)
Re:US jobs that will never leave (Score:2)
-Isaac
Re:US jobs that will never leave (Score:2)
Re:US jobs that will never leave (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:US jobs that will never leave (Score:3, Informative)
1. You work for a defense contractor who will then sponsor your investigation.
2. You were part of the DoD and already got one; pretty much if you were in the military at any given point working on an installation that required that sort of investigation. You're pretty much covered.
3. You are a retired army general and are starting your own defense contractor business. In which case you probably don't have to ask for one.
Disclaimer; I used to work on an intelligence battalion when I was in th
Re: (Score:2)
Re:US jobs that will never leave (Score:2)
Yeah, no kidding. I took a significant pay cut to work closer to home and landed a govt gig. After a month here (as a contractor) they offered to make me a permanent employee. I would have made $10/hr less, with virtually no chance to advance (I would have been a senior developer, and the manager I would have worked for was in her mid-50s and had been managing that group for over ten years). When I declined their offer, they said they weren't surprised.
It is an interest
Canadians aren't better. (Score:3, Interesting)
What's the difference? The jobs ran a few hundred times faster and involved a one step JCL to go from input to output instead of three steps, including an intermediate, totally useless and computationally very expensive sort.
But the t
No need to specialize in a tech trend. (Score:5, Insightful)
Learning a language or tech trend is not hard if one understands the underlying concepts: operating systems, OO code, various design patterns, protocols, etc.
Re:No need to specialize in a tech trend. (Score:2)
Re:No need to specialize in a tech trend. (Score:2)
technically i agree with you. but that's a huge "if". many programmers (or those who call themselves programmers and are employed as such) do not understand the basic data structures, design patterns, algorithmic complexity, memory allocation, etc, etc, etc.
i can't tell you how many hiring applicants i've weeded out because they couldn't give even th
Re:No need to specialize in a tech trend. (Score:2)
Add to this finding an employer who understands that underlying principles matter more. I tried to get a job with a company as a VB developer and my background was pure C / C++ and Telecomms. At the interview they really didn't like being told that I'd just go and learn the VB language before I started. But what do you know? I did. Five weeks into it I was reviewing everyone elses code.
But that only happened because the company was desperate and couldn't find another candidate. They'd have taken any mon
Only up to 5%? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Only up to 5%? (Score:2)
Just make sure you don't live there!
Recommended skills (Score:4, Insightful)
Know yourself. Be honest with yourself first. Understand what you like to do and find a job where you can do that.
Be innovative. Keep your skills current and apply them to new problems.
Be respectful to your colleagues. They need you and you need them. Penis waving is not a firm foundation for a functional team.
Be a hero on a consistent basis.
DICE is the proof? (Score:4, Insightful)
Then, of course, there is the too-frequent ridiculous requirement that the person they're looking for be more experienced in that company's systems than the person who just left. Just look at the laundry lists of "requirements"....
I wish companies would put a "date posted" *in* the ad, to prevent this abuse.
mark
Re:DICE is the proof? (Score:2, Interesting)
Are IT jobs still in demand? Not where I work. Our development staff has been savaged over the last year. Many of our positions are now based in Bangalore. I see the handwriting on the wall and would like to take proactive steps but the situation is the same where ever I look.
The best tech skill for 2006 is an alter
Missed an important need (Score:2, Interesting)
Not that every program needs to use extra CPUs, but developers who have experienced continued speed "free lunch" improvements are going to hit a wall unless they start thinking in terms of threads, OpenMP, and MPI. You can check out Cluster Monkey [clustermonkey.net] for infromation on cluster compu
Re:Missed an important need (Score:2)
If it is true that clusters are the future, won't it be Windows "Cluster Edition" that runs everything?
I'm just kidding. Clustermonkey looks like it has a lot of useful information. It is in the tradition of Linux -- lot's of info to make it easy-to-get-started. I'm looking forward to Windows Clusterfuck Edition bug reports.
Re:Missed an important need (Score:5, Funny)
Trust me, they won't! And in 2000 Bush Jr. will be elected.
IT Jobs Not Dead (Score:5, Insightful)
The only people that I know that are having trouble finding jobs are those without enough skill sets. Being a computer nerd, playing alot of video games, and running your MMORPG guild's website are not marketable skills. You need to actually be useful. Probably at least 95% of those 5% of jobs going overseas are just taking away jobs from the morons in the computer industry.
And colleges are turning out incompetent programmers at an alarming rate. Going to a college to find a competent IT worker is barely more fruitful than going to your local Walmart. I wish they would start teaching these kids something instead of just having TAs on hand to basically do the student's work for them every time they have a problem. I actually have a friend who complained that his boss wouldnt help him enough whenever my friend had a problem with his work. I couldnt believe what I was hearing.
Re:IT Jobs Not Dead (Score:4, Insightful)
Whenever the subject of tech jobs comes up around here, you can always count on a number of posts from people who know this language and that, years of experience, etc etc going for months or years without employment as if the jobs didn't exist. I too, thought that IT/tech jobs were extremely few and far between until I got the opportunity to interview for a programming gig that I was in no way qualified for.
It was then that I found out what the parent stated, truely qualified people are tough to find for these jobs.
Re:IT Jobs Not Dead (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Highly skilled slaves in high demand right now (Score:2)
But in a serious vein - I'm in security and have been for years and I can't honestly see that demand for those jobs is increasing. I think what they're talking about is network admins who are familiar with the security aspects of the hardware they already
More important than anything else... (Score:5, Insightful)
- Solid logic & critical thinking skills. Sounds silly to mention, but there are way too many people in the IT world who lack these basic qualities that are so important to troubleshooting and smart design. I still run into a lot of people who don't grasp the big picture and realize that fixing A could break B through Z if they're not careful.
- Willingness to solve tough problems. This was taken care of for the most part by the dotcom bust, but IMO no one belongs here who doesn't have a good work ethic and the desire to do difficult work. Especially now that IT is becoming more process-oriented and less "shoot-from-the-hip", being able to come up with an answer that does more than address the immediate problem will earn you huge points.
- Business and customer service skills. The outsourcing thing is going to be especially hard on those who don't interact with users, exclusively write code, or do "just" their IT job. It's becoming even more important to get out there and be seen among your customers. The days of the "computer guy" who doesn't play well with others are numbered, nufortunately for people like this. There will always be a set of hardcore geeks in the center of it all, but that center is getting smaller as platforms merge, standards develop, etc.
So basically, IT jobs at their core require the same skills as any knowledge worker, just more of them. Being technically capable is required, of course, but it's not the only requirement anymore.Re:More important than anything else... (Score:3, Insightful)
Also depends on the geographic market (Score:2, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
Lots of Bad Workers (Score:5, Interesting)
We have two IT Positions available, one for Web Developer -- PHP interfacing with PostGreSQL, and another for Software Engineer -- Designing Spec Docs and then Coding (and eventually managing other coders) that spec doc.
Our technology bases arent the newest around (PHP, PostGreSQL, Perl/C) but we consistently get the following types of resumes:
1 - Foreigners who want to work in the US. Sorry, I cant and dont want to sponsor you. We are a small company.
2 - Foreigners who want to consult with companies in the US, but not move or be an employee. Sorry, not happening with us.
3 - Highly underqualified people applying for a position. For example -- We have recieved a number of applicants who have 1 year programming experience, and no specific experience in our tech's, and who attended less-then-ideal educational institutions (Ivy Tech anyone?).
I think that for every capable IT person, there are probably 15 cert jockies, and 25 idiots.
Moreover, we have had people apply for the position who then asked what our company did. They could have spend 30 seconds looking at our website before dropping off or emailing their resume and found out. This type of laziness is horrible.
B
Re:Lots of Bad Workers (Score:2)
Rational Unified Process really is the way to go. Waterfall development processes suck to work under and don't perform. Divide a project into clear "user stories", do the risky ones first, and use agile methods (planning poker, team velocity, etc) to estimate time to completion.
You can't know precisely what you want to do until you've tried some of it, all the way through down to coding a
Re:Lots of Bad Workers (Score:2)
Re:Not everyone needs to be Ivy Tech (Score:2)
http://www.ivytech.edu/ [ivytech.edu]
I would be glad to have ANYONE apply from any normal state school, or even who had good experience.
BUt little experience + bad education is not the way into this college.
Brian
Re:Not everyone needs to be Ivy Tech (Score:2)
As much as the article tries to be reassuring... (Score:2, Insightful)
The training ground argument (Score:5, Insightful)
When you outsource the lowly programmer jobs to India, where are the sec experts & proj managers supposed to come from ? No university instantly graduates a security expert - you learn on the job & submit papers get peer reviewed & work your way up. If you outsource the training ramp, you can't expect to get to the top.
When I asked NYU economist Prof Easterly about this, he dismissed it as classic fallacy - "nobody works his way to a Professor by first serving at kindergarten, then middle school, then high school, then college, then univ..."
Well ok, but you don't get tenure straighaway either - you start as a freshly minted PhD, become a post-doctorate asspc, then asst Prof, then associate Prof, then tenured Prof.
There is always a training ground.
Dice is a poor reference point (Score:3, Interesting)
Is it just me... (Score:2)
Comment removed (Score:3, Informative)
That's easy (Score:4, Funny)
Pay Attention - this is the straight shit. (Score:2)
CNC is really starting to take off, a CNC robot is the modern equivalent of the black plantation slave, at the moment the CNC market is dominated by proprietary non standards compliant hardware and software attached to each machine, but this is changing.
If you want more (interesting) work than you can shake a stick at then get into CNC now, and this doesn't mean just learn G-code programming, it means learning things like "real time" linux extensions, feedback and close
Threat of offshoring lowers wages (Score:4, Interesting)
The point - at least initially - is not to shut down operations and move them overseas (which is often not really cost effective.) The point is that you can threaten people with outsourcing/offshoring/whatever in order to lower their wages.
Large corporations - Caterpillar is a very famous case, type "caterpillar strike breaking" into google if you want detail on that - are very well served in having excess capacity overseas for this purpose. Technical workers do not generally form unions, let alone go on strike, but they still engage in negotiation for higher wages, and the *threat* of offshoring can be a powerful instrument in those negotiations, even if it is usually a bluff.
This is especially important in that the thrust of the article remains true - demand for these skills is actually higher than it was at the peak of the
Re:most job postings are vapor anyhow (Score:2)
me: Hey, I have the interview at 10, where do I park?
receptionist: around the corner, in the garage.
me: I assume you validate?
recept
Re:Lies, damned lies, then... (Score:3, Insightful)
Well, here's the rub. Let's assume that the numbers are accurate -- that only a small prtion of jobs are being offshored, and that the ones that are are low-level jobs that don't require all that much skill (far-fetched, I know, but just for the sa