People Dont Understand What Has Happened To This Field

[ilconsiglliere]

My sister works for this company where she is in investor relations and essentially works for the CEO. That being said her girlfriends husband left there for *iticorp in Warren. She passed my resume to him. He came back and said make a list of the jobs that I am interested in. *iticorp has 174 open jobs in NJ.

So I gave her a list of 25 jobs and she was shocked it was so many. She was like you honestly want to apply to 25 jobs?

I said look, every IT job gets 100+ resumes and in some cases 200+ resumes. I said the field is over run with foreigners now and unless your friend's husband can wire a job for me ie. basically put me ahead of all the other candidates this is the way it is. She sat there with her mouth open.

I have realized that people fundamentally dont get it. The general public doesnt understand what the IT field has because they are not in it. They think its all dot com days still where the money is flowing and you can get a job by snapping your fingers. They dont get it about the offshoring, outsourcing and H1Bs.

[Walter Mitty]

The "IT talent shortage" was artificial in 1992.  It's still artificial in 2011. 

Here are some of the problems:

Hiring enterprises want to bypass supply and demand, by drawing from a pool of indentured servants.  This includes, but is not limited to,  would be immigrants on guest worker visas.

Human resources generally doesn't have a clue about how to distinguish the real talent from the charlatans.

Most interviewers are amateurs at conducting an interview.

Producing a copy of a good resume is too cheap.  As a consequences there are too many resumes submitted.

Hiring managers have been fobidden from bypassing "the process".  and "the process"  has generally been hijacked by outsourced recruiters. 

Business to business deals between large coporations and solo contractor/consultants can land the client in tax court, through no fault of the client.

The rate of change has sped up to the point where the majority of professionals are in future shock.

I'll stop here for now.

[unix]

Computer science / Information Tech enrollments are dropping for these reasons - it's not a financially lucrative field.

IT is not better than other fields. Conversely, the grass is not greener on the other side either.

[ilconsiglliere]

Computer science / Information Tech enrollments are dropping for these reasons - it's not a financially lucrative field.

IT is not better than other fields. Conversely, the grass is not greener on the other side either.

I agree the grass is not always greener. I have seen financed people that are whipped pretty much every day because of constant obsessing about the budget. And there are special whipping sessions on monthly, quarterly and annual book closes. You couldnt pay me to do that stuff.

But the one thing these people are not facing is whole sale offshoring of their field along with endless pool of labor being brought in on visas. This is a dynamic that is unique to IT.

Thought I have to say they are now reaming out the pharmacists and nurses now via special visas.

[Walter Mitty]

Computer science / Information Tech enrollments are dropping for these reasons - it's not a financially lucrative field.

IT is not better than other fields. Conversely, the grass is not greener on the other side either.

I agree the grass is not always greener. I have seen financed people that are whipped pretty much every day because of constant obsessing about the budget. And there are special whipping sessions on monthly, quarterly and annual book closes. You couldnt pay me to do that stuff.

But the one thing these people are not facing is whole sale offshoring of their field along with endless pool of labor being brought in on visas. This is a dynamic that is unique to IT.

Thought I have to say they are now reaming out the pharmacists and nurses now via special visas.

And schoolteachers.

[The Gorn]

"EMPLOYMENT" as we have known it is over for the time being. I am guessing this is where we are headed.

Blue collar employment is hollowed out, skilled labor is nearly hollowed out but doing OK in some areas and circumstances, and all types of degreed professionals are in the crosshairs of budget cuts.

Funny how every company that lays off a bunch of people cheers for itself that it just increased gross profits. Funny also how the mantra of "downsizing government" that some political factions cheer neglects the scores of middle class people that have those jobs who are members of society who also pay taxes and buy things. 

There will be almost no jobs as in an assured schedule to work. Just work and tasks needing to be done.

In the future, everyone will be a contractor or vendor of some type if they wish to earn an income. Available on call, when needed.

The closest thing to "full time employment" in the future for most people will be temping, and  for someone else who is set up like a real business.

It's a return to Charles Dickens' London as I see it.  We are already seeing this: the unwinding of social reforms.

"Everyone" isn't an entrepreneur. I don't think our society can survive this, honestly.

[TRexx]

There will be almost no jobs as in an assured schedule to work. Just work and tasks needing to be done.

In the future, everyone will be a contractor or vendor of some type if they wish to earn an income. Available on call, when needed.

And since health insurance continues to be tied to employment, these temp workers will have to fend for themselves should they get sick.

[benali72]

Gorn, I think you're right.  Seems to me we're heading back to 1900, when there were few protections for people who worked for others.  Companies are shifting medical insurance and retirement costs to employees.  Meanwhile they replace their FTEs with overseas workers as fast as they can, and if they have to use US labor, they favor part-timers or contractors they don't have to pay benefits.

Government policy seems directed for the benefit of corporations. Both parties advance a set of policies they call "free trade," which encourages laying off US workers while increasing those overseas. Budget crisis solutions I read about in the press focus on reducing federal social security or medical costs (again shifting them back to individuals).

What says it all to me is that the head of the president's job commission is a guy whose main mission at GE was to reduce their US headcount and replace it with overseas labor (he succeeded).

[ilconsiglliere]

This wont continue indefinitely. The public is becoming agitated that they are getting screwed. As time goes more and more people are becoming pissed. We are nowhere near the tipping point but I can see it coming. I watch the rhetoric of both parties and its meaningless.

The comparison to Dickens and the 19th century is very appropriate because this is where we are heading. What the powers to be seem to have forgotten is the result of that which is civil strife, union militancy and more.

[choppedwood]

But the one thing these people are not facing is whole sale offshoring of their field along with endless pool of labor being brought in on visas. This is a dynamic that is unique to IT.

Actually, their field is being offshored.  If you can offshore the code you can offshore some dude to add up the financials.   But, I agree that I don't see it ever getting as bad as we have it.  One advantage they have is that the process of processing often requires a whole host of interactions with customers and vendors that would be a nightmare if they tried to do it in India.  However, multinationals do this sort of thing and I'm betting a lot of it gets done in a country cheaper than this one.

The other advantage that accountants have is that when a new FASB standard comes out their resume doesn't go obsolete.  You see wanted ads for specific accounting niches, or industry background, but "for the most part" 2/3 of the market isn't locked out to them because they happen to work with Microsoft products instead of Oracle products.  Although, I will admit to having seen jobs that have a software product requirement attached.