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An
Employers Job Market
Douglas Chick
 Since
the changing of guards in the White House took place almost two years ago,
computer jobs have been on a downward spiral with no end in sight. Almost at
the moment that this administration assumed office the economy crashed
faster than a server without backups. Still there was at least some sign of
recovery, and then 9/11, Enron / Arthur Anderson, and on Friday the stock
market plummeted -295 points. All of this of course left many people without
jobs.
The Hook and Line
As with most tragedies, there are always those that immediately find profit
in the misfortunes of the unfortunate, and this is where Certification Boot
Camps rushed in like water from a burst dam. With the promise of a high
paying career in computers, with financing as low as 49.95 a month in only a
2 week training course, shelling out 12000.00 dollars doesn't seem like that
much when you're desperate for a job. Imagine, if you thought all you have
to do is to obtain an MCSE, CCNA or even an A+ in 2 weeks or less and be
almost guaranteed a job for 60,000 dollars a year with no experience; man,
you'd jump right on that. But what if 2 weeks was just too long to go to
school for or you were only allowed to finance 6000 dollars, you could only
do 1 week and make 30,000 a year as a computer technician. Hell, I'd give up
my job working the car wash for an opportunity like that. The
direct result of this type of marketing caused the computer industry to
become saturated.
The Sinker
Because all of these newly certified hundreds of thousands, (maybe even a
million) people looking for a better life for themselves count as computer
professionals, the computer field may very well be the highest
unemployed profession in America right now. And now there's an over
population of experienced and inexperienced people all competing for the
same jobs. Because the economy sank, causing jobless people to change
careers, causing a deluge of certified people, computers are no longer in
the top ten careers to have in this country. Sadly most of these people that
obtained a certification were lied to and quickly discovered for themselves
that no one is going to hire them because they simply don't have any
experience. Certifications have become synonymous with job inexperienced
applicants that only learned enough to pass the test. If you are one of
these people that are considering a certification boot camp and you don't
believe me, ask the training company for the names of past students who
currently hold a job. I doubt that you'll ever see such a list. This is not
to say that everyone that goes to a certification boot camp and leaves two
weeks later won't find a job, some will. There will be a percentage of
people that are either ambitious enough or lucky enough to find a job where
no experience is needed. This could very well be you. But you better be able
to correctly answer those technical questions when asked.
Who wins?
The number one winners in this mess are the software companies. Whether
software companies played an active part in this or not; certified computer
people will buy the software to what they are certified in. Who benefits
next are all of the certification boot camps, certification training
classes, junior and community colleges, companies that sell practice tests,
certification books and the actual testing companies themselves. That's a
lot of people. I only hope that at least a portion of revenue remains in
this country.
Who
else benefits?
The employers also benefit because now they have a stronger bargaining
position with their existing IT department in lowering wages. With falsely
reported corporate earnings and with the loss of investor trust, CEOs are
scrambling to secure enough cash make sure there is enough money to fill
their golden parachutes.
Below
is an example of job postings that I'm seeing more and more of:
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Network
Specialist Wanted
Seeking an individual with diversified computer and networking
experience. The successful candidate will have technical experience
in current versions of Windows, Linux, Novell (desktop and server),
Cisco equipment, IP, IPX networking, telecommunications, and web
design. This individual will also need to possess demonstrable
programming ability in one or more of the following areas: Visual
Basic, Java, C++, ASP, SQL.
This is a Salaried position of 35,000.00 a year
Please reply to "The Last Job on Earth" to have your
head examined.
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Seeing
ads like this angers me. Not only is this position grossly under paid, but
like having to sell apples on a street corner someone will fill it out of
desperation. I have seen the same ad from the same companies popup in the
paper every few months. The reason, because anyone with all of the above
mentioned qualifications that was forced to take that job, only kept it long
enough to find another. I have heard from other computer people
that their companies are importing certified computer people from India for
minimum wage. With respect to those people from India; that's just swell! So
the average wage for computer people in this country has significantly
dropped, more computer people are being imported from other countries in an
already bare job market, and now my wife (a network engineer) is out of a
job and if she doesn't find one soon every appliance in the house is going
to be wired to a hub with a network management protocol on it. I’m not
kidding.
Who loses?
The victims are of course, those that were told they could buy a job with a
certification and are still unemployed. Computer professionals whose jobs
were lost to cheaper inexperienced help. The average annual income of an
entire profession. And all of the people that live within a two miles radius
of my house since my wife downloaded a wireless network sniffer, the Radio
Shack catalog and e-mail addresses of United States Senate.
What will fix
this problem?
I don't know. If this problem had happened to the health care industry
instead of the computer industry how safe would you feel going to the
hospital. A better example might be: What if the airline industry, who is
already suffering, decided to replace all of their pilots with pilots from
another country at minimum wage to save money? Planes would crash just like
hard drives that were over looked in the backup by over worked, under
staffed computer departments.
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E-mail
your comments to dougchick@thenetworkadministrator.com