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The salaries they offer for the IT positions on craislist are laughable

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Descartes said:
IMO, the lack of respect, if you want to call it that, goes both ways. The best engineering can't place a product in the market. It takes collaboration from both sides, and that requires give/take from both sides as well.

Engineers have this "we're smarter" mentality that's always in opposition. The reality is, they're not clueless and it takes everyone to really make the machine work to create something viable. I'll even go on a limb and say marketing is MORE important to the business than engineering. It's maybe sad to think about it like that, but true.
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I am not talking about an engineer being told that he needs to cut cost or find a cheaper way of doing something, but still getting the job done. I am referring to the corporate practice of making decisions based on marketing data or cost without any concern for what the final product will be. An example is designing a heat sink for a product that you know will fail within a year and being told by management that is what they want because the warranty only last 90 days. Or pointing out that a product will likely fail but again being told that is okay because that design will sell better according to marketing.

It happens every day in engineering and sometimes people die as a result. Engineers have been relegated to the position of , if you are not paying for it to be made then shut up.
 
drebo said:
Degrees/certs/etc mean nothing. It's all about experience and the ability to present yourself well to your interviewer and management. If you are articulate and appear to know what you're doing and have the experience to back it up, you'll get a job. Anyone can get certifications...in fact, there are classes you can take that teach you how to pass the CCIE R&S exam and lab...they don't teach you HOW to do the work, just how to pass the test. Certs don't really mean much anymore.

That said, experience isn't a surefire indicator either...I've met my fair share of "IT experts" that have "20 years experience" and didn't know their ass from a hole in the ground.

Oh, also...managed services are WAY popular right now. Companies LOVE not to have to capitalize things. How to get rich quick in today's IT world? Figure out how to sell something needed as a service.
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it's pretty hard to pass the CCIE labs and not really know it. Don't get me started on everyone and their brother that has passed the written. That means only one thing...you can TAKE the lab.

You say certs don't mean much, but it's pretty impossible to get hired without them in today's market. Everyone's resume looks the same without them.
 
alkemyst said:
People have migrated away from point to points for a long time now except for specialized niches. Maybe outside the major metro areas this has been slow to come...
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There are a LOT of places where things like metro ethernet and fiber are just plain not available. Additionally, there are still people selling point-to-point T1s when they are not needed. We come across them all the time. I agree that there is almost no need for them anymore, but they are still out there nonetheless.

That was merely an example though. There are many others...traditional centrex, for instance...DDTS phone systems and "supertrunks"...heck, even traditional analog trunks aren't really cost effective anymore.

As more people realize this, and more people adopt these new methods, it will spread and networks will need to be overhauled.
 
alkemyst said:
You say certs don't mean much, but it's pretty impossible to get hired without them in today's market. Everyone's resume looks the same without them.
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That's generally true...certs will get you an interview at the least. However, not having a degree or any relevant certs didn't stop me from being offered a DBA position at a County a year ago (I've since finished my bachelors). I didn't take the job, because I like what I'm doing now better, but still...jobs are there and if you're good enough with the right kind of experience, people won't care about your certs or degrees.
 
alkemyst said:
I have seen many managers that have been engineers, but I have not seen many company's management being many them.

As a matter of fact except in the most technical of sectors much of management is more Business-sided than science/engineering.
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this is definitely true, and as in any industry, the farther you moved up the chain, the more removed you'll be from the actual profession. From my experience, senior level engineers will eventually be told to get their MBA, and start working from a corporate strategy standpoint, leveraging their experience and understanding of what each engineering position entails. Of course, this is a long process, but you'll be hard pressed to find any engineer who has worked in the industry more than 20 years that is still doing the same thing they've been doing for years without branching out into consultancy or doing freelance work.
 
MotF Bane said:
You were drawing a distinction between engineers and techs, and I was curious what your degree was that put you with the engineers.
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i'm sorry, i hope i didn't come off as arrogant in my first post. It's always been my understanding that a certification sort of pidgeonholes you into a particular niche specialty where you'll largely be called upon when needed. engineers tend to be a bit broader in scope, and that is somewhat evident by the Engineering Exam, which doesn't really test you on relevant skills more or less a general understanding of how everything is and how they fit together.
 
If you want to make lots of $$$ in the near future then train yourself on application virtualization and cloud computing. As much as I hate to say it, if you want to be a global competitor then your industry is going to have to go to a "let the employees buy whatever computer they want (Mac, Linux, Windows, etc) and webify the apps." stuff like google sites/apps and salesforce.com will end up winning the war because they will be able to support your sales force in every country in the world on any equipment they have available there.
 
IT != engineering

For example, Microsoft have software engineers that writes software like Windows and Office (that generates revenue), they also have an IT dept that manages internal operations (that reduces costs of operation).

I am sure Cisco has real engineers that designs the network hardware and writes the IOS (generates revenue). They probably also have an IT dept that has "network engineers" who configures Cisco equipment to support their own internal network (reduce costs of operation).

If you are not on the revenue generating side of the company, less company resources (including pay) are dedicated to you. That is why very often a top sales person in tech companies will be the highest paid non-managerial employee.
 
drebo said:
That's generally true...certs will get you an interview at the least. However, not having a degree or any relevant certs didn't stop me from being offered a DBA position at a County a year ago (I've since finished my bachelors). I didn't take the job, because I like what I'm doing now better, but still...jobs are there and if you're good enough with the right kind of experience, people won't care about your certs or degrees.
Click to expand...

You are speaking of your own unique situation...not what's common across the board.

There is a big reason even seasoned vets are finding themselves HAVING to get certified.

Now more than ever hiring managers are getting thousands of resumes for jobs and need quick ways to weed out the chaff. The easiest ways are to look at degree and cert level.

Without either no matter how good you are you don't even make the cut.

That said without the certs and degree that same hiring manager is taking a leap of faith unless they also personally know you or your references.

IMHO references are worthless in a way too. Unless you are a social dreg you should have quite a few 'friends' that can give a great work story for you.
 
Imdmn04 said:
IT != engineering

For example, Microsoft have software engineers that writes software like Windows and Office (that generates revenue), they also have an IT dept that manages internal operations (that reduces costs of operation).

I am sure Cisco has real engineers that designs the network hardware and writes the IOS (generates revenue). They probably also have an IT dept that has "network engineers" who configures Cisco equipment to support their own internal network (reduce costs of operation).

If you are not on the revenue generating side of the company, less company resources (including pay) are dedicated to you. That is why very often a top sales person in tech companies will be the highest paid non-managerial employee.
Click to expand...

Cisco many times hires firms to design new hardware/software. There is an ex-DOD/Rocket Science firm down here that is responsible for some of Cisco's releases.
 
drebo said:
There are a LOT of places where things like metro ethernet and fiber are just plain not available. Additionally, there are still people selling point-to-point T1s when they are not needed. We come across them all the time. I agree that there is almost no need for them anymore, but they are still out there nonetheless.

That was merely an example though. There are many others...traditional centrex, for instance...DDTS phone systems and "supertrunks"...heck, even traditional analog trunks aren't really cost effective anymore.

As more people realize this, and more people adopt these new methods, it will spread and networks will need to be overhauled.
Click to expand...

I was in agreement, hence my 'outside major metro' comment. These markets aren't really big potatoes though. For a 'dude' or a small team they can be lucrative.
 
I see a lot of posts about how IT is 'overpopulated' however 90% of the people in IT are damn near retarded.
 
KentState said:
I'm not sure either why people are under this impression. I found it incredibly difficult to fill the DBA role at my company earlier this year. Yes, we had a ton of applicants, but the quality ones are very rare and in high demand. Secondly, I've been doing my own job search to advance my career. I have at least four companies right now that are interested in me in jobs paying over 100k. I don't buy that there are more candidates than jobs if I can easily move to another job.
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I think a lot of people who don't work in corporate IT or consulting services see Microsoft or Apple release new operating systems, see the improvements and see how dumbed-down and easy they are making things, and figure that experts won't be needed much longer.

These guys really have no comprehension of the inner workings of a data center and the exploding fields of VoIP, virtualization, Sharepoint, etc. At my last company, we tried to hire enterprise-level engineers for servers/networks and it was extremely slim pickings, and I live in a fairly large market.

As I stated in my earlier message, finding IT people is not an issue; finding ones who have the necessary experience and a proven track record of implementing and learning new technologies is the hard part.
 
drebo said:
Spidey is right...IT spending will increase dramatically over the next 6-12 months, and it will be for efficiency's sake. Companies have been sitting on their money for the last year or so and have not been spending on IT. We're slowly moving out of that. I'm not sure what effect that will have on the job market for in-house IT, but I know that as an outside consulting firm, we're getting a LOT more work.
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As someone who has years and years of experience in IT at Fortune 500 companies, I can say that Spidey is correct. I too believe that as the economy improves, company purse strings will loosen and IT spending will increase, resulting in more people being hired.

During this relative down time, the best thing you can do is anticipate those markets and get the proper training to jump in at the right time. I recently switched positions from a network/systems engineer (and for those degree snobs, yes, I have an EE) to a developer specializing in Sharepoint solutions, because Sharepoint is absolutely exploding and with a new version on the horizon and IT spending likely to start increasing, it is a lucrative field and having experience in both infrastructure and application development is really important.
 
I recently filled an entry level helpdesk-ish sort of position and was amazed by some of the resumes I saw and people I interviewed - and not in a good way. Out of 200ish apps there were less than ten that I'd consider hiring. Half of the people I interviewed could barely hold a conversation about themselves. It was really sad - and startling.
 
DougK62 said:
I recently filled an entry level helpdesk-ish sort of position and was amazed by some of the resumes I saw and people I interviewed - and not in a good way. Out of 200ish apps there were less than ten that I'd consider hiring. Half of the people I interviewed could barely hold a conversation about themselves. It was really sad - and startling.
Click to expand...

so you're talking about their social skills and not their technical skills right?
 
drebo said:
Degrees/certs/etc mean nothing. It's all about experience and the ability to present yourself well to your interviewer and management. If you are articulate and appear to know what you're doing and have the experience to back it up, you'll get a job. Anyone can get certifications...in fact, there are classes you can take that teach you how to pass the CCIE R&S exam and lab...they don't teach you HOW to do the work, just how to pass the test. Certs don't really mean much anymore.

That said, experience isn't a surefire indicator either...I've met my fair share of "IT experts" that have "20 years experience" and didn't know their ass from a hole in the ground.

Oh, also...managed services are WAY popular right now. Companies LOVE not to have to capitalize things. How to get rich quick in today's IT world? Figure out how to sell something needed as a service.
Click to expand...

This man speaks the truth.
 
drebo said:
There are a LOT of places where things like metro ethernet and fiber are just plain not available. Additionally, there are still people selling point-to-point T1s when they are not needed. We come across them all the time. I agree that there is almost no need for them anymore, but they are still out there nonetheless.

That was merely an example though. There are many others...traditional centrex, for instance...DDTS phone systems and "supertrunks"...heck, even traditional analog trunks aren't really cost effective anymore.

As more people realize this, and more people adopt these new methods, it will spread and networks will need to be overhauled.
Click to expand...

I'm in the position unfortunately. My company, without even speaking to me or considering the telecom situation, signed on the dotted line on a new facility at the outskirts of Minneapolis. No high speed connections are available here, so we're stuck on a dozen T1s right now between voice and data. Qwest is supposed to be bringing QMoE here, but they're not exactly racing to do it.
 
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