What would you do . . .Should I take the job?

[ericb]

Originally posted by: wyvrn
His degree is not in "IT", it is a business degree which concentrates on technology. He can use it for more than just a network admin type position. He could manage, and if he decides to get his masters, could make a lot of money down the road.

I would take the job. The market is horrible right now. I know lots of people with experience and college degrees taking this kind of offer because they cannot find anything else. After pounding the pavement myself for a year, I decided to give up and am now back in college.

He will make all sorts of contacts which will be more valuable to him than what he is losing in salary. He is young and has plenty of time to find a better job. If the economy were booming I would say skip it, but I don't think he has that luxury.

What exactly do you qualify as IT then? IT stands for Information Technology not computer programming or computer engineering. That means a MIS (Management Information Systems) degree is IT. Personally I have a MIS degree and a business administration degree and I can tell you they are two completely different things. In Business I took business, accounting and finance. In MIS I took networking, programming and systems design.

As for the job...take it and get the experience. Nobody is going to blink if you work there 6 months, learn everything you can and then leave. It is your first job out of college. And the experience will help a lot.

 

[Alternex]

Originally posted by: Kemosabe1447

Originally posted by: CPA
In this market, get your feet wet anyway possible. My first job out of college (accounting/HR) paid $7.69/hour. 9 years later, I work for a Fortune 200 company and make about 6 digits after bonus. Go for it.

Wow that's totally not worth it, I'm still in high school and I already make that much. If you go to college you might as well get a good job with the education you have.

When I was in High School I made $25/hr (web design) and made a ton of money. After I graduated college I made pretty much the same amount at a different job that required more skills. That's because there's more to a job than money - I wanted to do something I wanted and not web design. Also, I know a few people who graduated from some top level schools and haven't been able to find jobs...

 

[CChaos]

Originally posted by: Kemosabe1447

Originally posted by: CPA
In this market, get your feet wet anyway possible. My first job out of college (accounting/HR) paid $7.69/hour. 9 years later, I work for a Fortune 200 company and make about 6 digits after bonus. Go for it.

Wow that's totally not worth it, I'm still in high school and I already make that much. If you go to college you might as well get a good job with the education you have.

Hi that was 9 years ago when you were 8 years old. Also, you have to start somewhere.

EDIT: Let me throw in my personal employment experience. I have a BA in English and my first job out of college made me $9/hour. After about 3 months I was offered a salary and my bosses' job. After another year or so I started going to Chubb at night for programming. Now, thanks to my work experience as much as my year of night classes I make about double what I made in my previous job and I'm a programmer. I'm now thinking about a Master's.

Take full advantage of whatever is available to you. It's a simple equationa: $25k/year + experience > assal horizontology on the folk's lazyboy. This is my philosophy, of course, and yours may differ but get your butt out there and start your career in whatever form it takes.

 

[wyvrn]

First, MIS is a degree awarded by the Business College in most schools. So it's a business degree. I don't know about you, but I have taken many finance, economics, marketing, and accounting classes in my MIS degree. I will also take C+, database fundamentals, systems analysis and design, and information systems management. My degree has as much business classes as it does anything that could be considered IT. Personally, I don't consider C+ or any programming class to be IT. And I don't consider the numerous math classes (two calcs, matrices and vectors, and statistics) to be IT specific. My Calc classes were business specific, IE: the word problems concentrated on profits, surplusses, etc.. So did my two econ classes. It's a business degree awarded by the business college that concentrates on technology, imo. An IT degree would be the Associates of Unix Administration I just graduated with this month. Pretty much every single class in that degree concentrated on IT subjects. MIS is not an "IT" degree.

Originally posted by: ericb

Originally posted by: wyvrn
His degree is not in "IT", it is a business degree which concentrates on technology. He can use it for more than just a network admin type position. He could manage, and if he decides to get his masters, could make a lot of money down the road.

I would take the job. The market is horrible right now. I know lots of people with experience and college degrees taking this kind of offer because they cannot find anything else. After pounding the pavement myself for a year, I decided to give up and am now back in college.

He will make all sorts of contacts which will be more valuable to him than what he is losing in salary. He is young and has plenty of time to find a better job. If the economy were booming I would say skip it, but I don't think he has that luxury.

What exactly do you qualify as IT then? IT stands for Information Technology not computer programming or computer engineering. That means a MIS (Management Information Systems) degree is IT. Personally I have a MIS degree and a business administration degree and I can tell you they are two completely different things. In Business I took business, accounting and finance. In MIS I took networking, programming and systems design.

As for the job...take it and get the experience. Nobody is going to blink if you work there 6 months, learn everything you can and then leave. It is your first job out of college. And the experience will help a lot.

 

[SammyBoy]

Originally posted by: Kemosabe1447

Originally posted by: CPA
In this market, get your feet wet anyway possible. My first job out of college (accounting/HR) paid $7.69/hour. 9 years later, I work for a Fortune 200 company and make about 6 digits after bonus. Go for it.

Wow that's totally not worth it, I'm still in high school and I already make that much. If you go to college you might as well get a good job with the education you have.

dumb ass

 

[rh71]

$25k/yr is chump change. My bro who has a nothing-major made that much doing clerical-type work and he even quit that.

Don't waste your time and education on $25k/yr, even though there are few other jobs out there. Though, if you're really desperate, you can take this on and go job hunting for real in the daytime... the night-time thing does afford you many options.

 

[Pakman]

I think you should take the job. Like other's have said, experience and networking with people are more valuable than what they're paying you. I think most of the replies telling you not to take the job are from the younger crowd. Probably high school or college kids that still live in a fantasy world. Plus it's at night, I would love to work the graveyard shift cause it gives you options during the daytime if you need to go on an interview or other errands. It's all about the experience these days. I still haven't completed college but within 3 years, my salary has gone up 20K. With your degree, you will probably be able to advance faster than that.

 

[GoingUp]

holy christ! only 25k? Man im gonna be screwed when I graduate with my MIS...... did you have much prior work experience?

 

[lastig21]

I have had a few years experience working part-time for the University, mostly doing PC Tech Support. I've been a helpdesk operator, network technician, and pc technician for the university. I figure I have more experience in the field then the average college grad, but less than the average IT person looking for a job right now.

 

[Apathetic]

Yes, the pay is low and the hours would suck but you get EXPERIENCE. Most entry level jobs just plain suck. See if they offer any kind of training once you've been there a while. Night shift is usually a good time to sit down and study for a certification.

Just because the entry level positions aren't great doen't mean the place won't be a good place to work after a year or two.

Dave

 

[CrazyDe1]

If you take a job with something you know you don't want do will limit it so you can't get a job that you want to do later? Cause right now I have a technician job offer on the table but the pay is kinda low (38k) and I know I could do better. I'm tempted to take it just to have some income and to be doing something in the time being while I continue my job search. I have only been searching for like 2 weeks though.

I'm almost absolutely sure that I could probably land a job in something I want to do within 3 monthes because I've completely tailored my last year of school to this field. I also know that my opportunity to get a job in something I want to do is limited because if I toss anymore experience on my resume that doesn't have to do with embedded software/firmware development it's going to get bypassed completely. As all my experience in the field is academic based, my window for such a job is also limited because if I wait longer than 6 monthes I can't really prove that I've done anything related and I may forget a lot of what I know right now.

In other words, I have to be entry level with the experience I have now to get the kind of job I want. So that being said, if you take a job and sell yourself short because the economy is bad, will it kill all future opportunity for a job I really want later?

 

[DT4K]

On the MIS - IT debate:
I don't really know much about MIS. You guys can duke it out if you want about whether it counts as an IT degree. It was simply my understanding that it was more business oriented while lastig seemed to want to move more into the technical side of IT. Networking, programming, etc. And it seemed to me that without a CS degree, it would be even harder to land a networking type job.

I also get the impression(could be wrong) that those saying he shouldn't take the job are still in high school or college. I think you may have unreasonable expectations considering the state of the economy right now, specifically the tech sectors. The collapse of the dotcoms and the telecoms, combined with a major recession has changed the tech job market drastically. Four years ago, there was incredibly high demand for anyone with programming, network, or other technical skills. Now there are lots of unemployed programmers and network techs who are having a hard time finding work. So even non-tech companies no longer have to offer high salaries to get the technical workers they need because there are so many unemployed. Last year, my company reorganized and laid off thousands. Many of those were IT. The only reason I still have a job is because I work at one of our manufacturing plants instead of the corporate office and I'm in the middle of some very important projects that they can't afford to drop. Look at companies like Nortel. They have laid off thousands and thousands of employees. Something like 1/3 or 1/2 of their workforce.

I still expect IT to be a good career path because I don't think technology is going away and I think (hope) the economy in general and the tech sectors specifically will recover and grow in the next few years. Oh wait, I mean it sucks and I hate it and none of you should go into the IT field. If only I could get that negative impression to stick in India, I'd be much better off, but that's a different rant.

But clearly, the demand for IT skills is not high right now and people in these fields need to lower their expectations (at least for now) and do whatever they can to improve their value to an employer.

Gaining real work experience is one of the most important things you can do to help you get hired in the future and that is why lastig should take the job.

Lastig, I agree that there is nothing wrong with taking the job and leaving for something better in 6 months. Company loyalty is much less important or valued now than it used to be. For the most part, employers understand that people need to do what is best for them, and if someone leaves for a better opportunity, that is very understandable.

 

[lastig21]

bump for a signing bonus response

 

[zCypher]

Just take the job. A job is a job is a job!

If you get a job and you don't like it, at least you have a job while you look for a better one.

 

[SP33Demon]

I graduated in Dec 01' (GIS) and took what I could get, a 35K/yr job and a nice 3K signing bonus... Just got a 9% raise this year, plus the experience so I'm doing great... it all fits into my plan to work for the gov't next year... Make sure you have a plan, if you just haphazardly throw yourself into a job that you hate and has no relation to what you want to do in the future, then I'd rethink it. Otherwise, opportunities are like prostitutes: take advantage of them, they can offer you great experience and you can have fun while doing it.

 

[SCSIfreek]

I would take it and keep on looking for another job. Couple years ago, I started fresh out of college with a BS in Engineering. My first offer was for $11.50/hour. I took it. After the initial 3 months, I got a fat increase in salary. Moral of the story is, whenever you're in entry level suck it up and someday you'll appreciate the chance this company had given you. Now I'm much better off as far as salary.


--Scsi