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Shortage of IT staff?

moycullen14

I-Sean O'Sullivan of Dragon's Den fame was on Morning Ireland saying we should allow unrestricted access to IT workers (suitably qualified) as a help to boosting the economy.

Now I know we are constantly been told that there is a shortage of IT workers but is this scheme going to help or is it that there is only a shortage of cheap IT workers?

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Manach

In my own experience, given the unwillingness of firms to provide to spend money on training to skill up and relying on workers to enrol in outside courses at their own expense, I'd say the cheap part is the operative word

peter_dublin

Very true, In Ireland it seems everyone wants you to have five years experience and work for 28k a year, I heard a great on today on the radio, CPL wanted Oracle Admins / Developers with five years experience. They must also have experience in MS SQL. Sybase, DB2 and Infomix. Not looking for much then.

IT it seems is turning into a race to the bottom in terms of pay where young graduates cannot get a step on the ladder as few organisations are willing to hire and train them up to a highly skilled level that is required.

Yet we don't see such behaviour in the other professions, I believe this is down to "business" professionals still seeing IT as a cost and not a business enabler / requirement.

carveone

peter_dublin wrote: »

Very true, In Ireland it seems everyone wants you to have five years experience and work for 28k a year,

I think IT is not viewed as an engineering skillset. "Sure I know some html, how hard can it be to make another Amazon?" This is possibly due to the high level of skills coming from enthusiast programmers in the 90s who learnt their skills from the new frontiers of the 80s. In other words, they were interested in IT work because it was interesting and they not so pushy on the pay. So companies got used to that.

I heard a great on today on the radio, CPL wanted Oracle Admins / Developers with five years experience. They must also have experience in MS SQL. Sybase, DB2 and Infomix. Not looking for much then.

Wow. What are they paying? Sod all I guess in comparison with any other discipline like engineering or financials. I know guys with Oracle/DB2/SQl/C#/.NET/VB/PHP etc experience for 10 years+ but unable to secure anything better than 40k on 3-6 month contract only.

Young people going into college seem to be smarter than I was and see where the limits lie. It's like the 2000s where the smartest engineers could go into Engineering and get 25k or go into finance in the US and get 250k. No brainer really.

If we'd all charged legal rates per hour for formatting a floppy disk back when you had to type "format a: /F:1440 /U /S" then we'd be much better off now

k.p.h

Dose the IT industry have any unions ..?

syklops

k.p.h wrote: »

Dose the IT industry have any unions ..?

Not really. The problem is its become so large, with so many different disciplines, that its hard for one union, to be able to protect all its members.

Besides, I personally don't believe in the need for unions anymore.

moycullen14

My definition of a shortage is that your phone would be hopping off the hook with offers (assuming you had the skills!).

I'm sort of looking for contract Java work at the moment and am a bit horrified at the response - especially from agents - calls not returned, no follow up, usually stuff. The first - indeed only - question seems to 'What's your rate?' To which the only answer is 'As much as possible:)'.

I'm not complaining about the difficulty in getting work - it just doesn't seem consistent with the '000's of unfilled vacancies' mantra that I hear in the media.

Maybe I shouldn't believe all that I hear on the radio? Doh!

syklops

moycullen14 wrote: »

My definition of a shortage is that your phone would be hopping off the hook with offers (assuming you had the skills!).

I'm sort of looking for contract Java work at the moment and am a bit horrified at the response - especially from agents - calls not returned, no follow up, usually stuff. The first - indeed only - question seems to 'What's your rate?' To which the only answer is 'As much as possible:)'.

I'm not complaining about the difficulty in getting work - it just doesn't seem consistent with the '000's of unfilled vacancies' mantra that I hear in the media.

Maybe I shouldn't believe all that I hear on the radio? Doh!

I think the shortage is in specific roles, not all IT roles. There was a time when every IT student learnt some level of Java so I would say there is no shortage of Java devs, but maybe they are looking for other skillsets.

big_heart_on

I've been hearing all about the shortage of IT staff for a long time now, and since I'm losing my job in a few weeks I've started searching and cant see where all the jobs are hiding!

I have been a few years in my current IT software development/support role and got no further training, every course I've done is at my own expense and I've been payed buttons essentially.

I'm willing to take an entry level position despite having 7+ years experience in different roles I picked up no extra training from employers along the way, so every job has requirements for certs that I cant meet, despite having years of "on the job" experience.

Catch 22.

peter_dublin

moycullen14 wrote: »

My definition of a shortage is that your phone would be hopping off the hook with offers (assuming you had the skills!).

I'm sort of looking for contract Java work at the moment and am a bit horrified at the response - especially from agents - calls not returned, no follow up, usually stuff. The first - indeed only - question seems to 'What's your rate?' To which the only answer is 'As much as possible:)'.

I'm not complaining about the difficulty in getting work - it just doesn't seem consistent with the '000's of unfilled vacancies' mantra that I hear in the media.

Maybe I shouldn't believe all that I hear on the radio? Doh!

That's the nail on the head.. IT is a cost, your rate is a cost. In the eyes of the business world you are not a professional, sure don't you know you can now do your primary degree in say Archtecture and if it doesn't work out you can become a IT Professional by taking a one year transitional course under the jobs bridge scheme but strangely I can't seem to find the one year option to become an archchitech in one year or a structural engineer either.

Developement generally pays more I believe because you create wealth for the company against the staf in say a admin or support role. At a 3rd level I believe IT requires a restructuring so that we remove a lot of the generality from some IT degrees. Jack of all trades master of none comes to mind.

I have a BSC Hons in Computer Systems Management. Certs in Cisco, SAP, MS (OS specfic), ITIL and am taking a masters in Advanced Computer Networking with OU and I still get the responce about not having a specific still set at times. These guys want you to be a master in everything and that is not possibe.

As a programmer you specialise in Programming and sample several languages, in other IT degrees we need to move towards the same model I think, so instead of one module in Unix you should have several and instead of one or two in Networking (Which is normally C programming for a large part) you should be able to take a BSc in it which will provide the experts needed.

I once had the purchasing manager for a construction company tell me that he knew about IT because he bought three laptops. My response was I know about purchasing in a contruction enviroment because last week I bought a wheel barrow and shovel.

srsly78

IT support is not the same as development. Also degrees+certs have little value compared to experience.

hobochris

moycullen14 wrote: »

My definition of a shortage is that your phone would be hopping off the hook with offers (assuming you had the skills!).

I'm sort of looking for contract Java work at the moment and am a bit horrified at the response - especially from agents - calls not returned, no follow up, usually stuff. The first - indeed only - question seems to 'What's your rate?' To which the only answer is 'As much as possible:)'.

I'm not complaining about the difficulty in getting work - it just doesn't seem consistent with the '000's of unfilled vacancies' mantra that I hear in the media.

Maybe I shouldn't believe all that I hear on the radio? Doh!

I am constantly being hounded by agents and companys alike, happy where I am though.

This might be a little harsh but your experience with agents Could be(not saying it is) down to your skill set and experience. I wouldn't even think about contract work with anything less than 5-7 years under my belt.

The SDev community is also very small in Ireland(everyone knows everyone), It could also be that you have worked for the wrong place before without knowing it and people may think you've been tainted by bad practices from said place.

There is also Degree snobbery to contend with(more so if you are Junior), Many who are in a position to hire have notitions about which degrees are good and which are not worth the paper they are wrote upon. This opinion varies form person to person.

Ideally people should be hired on there own merits alone but unfortunatly, a fair few(not all) cases Irelands backward thinking culture will influence hiring decisions.

As has been stated already here though is Business people see IT as an expense not a company asset to be used to drive the Business. A smart few dont share this veiw and generally, their business is usually near the top in their market(funny that).

Unfortuantly the attitudes of the rest is what is driving this shortage with them Expecting 7+ years experience while only wishing to pay what would be graduate rates in any other less demnading field.

There is a shortage of IT people(read: idiots who don't understand their free market worth) who have vast amounts of desirable experience.

Likewise their is also a shortage to some degree of competant people as business are unwilling to invest in Grads / Juniors in order to make them competant in the skills that businesses require.

Colleges can only do so much.. it is up to businesses to take on the responsiblity of educating Graduates on the business in which they wish them to operate in.

</Novel>

carveone

srsly78 wrote: »

IT support is not the same as development. Also degrees+certs have little value compared to experience.

Try telling HR that. Or an agency. Every decent job I ever got was when I happened to talk to a senior engineer directly.

ixoy

Most of the available roles seem to be in development. I did 6 months of development many years back and the area I'm in now is niche - there's not that many roles out there for me.

The idea that IT is full of empty roles is a bit of a false one - certain areas requiring certain skills sets have lots of demand for roles. It's almost impossible for me to get into these gaps now because in order to get the requisite experience you need the requisite experience...

There seems to be a bit of a blinkered attitude. Too many companies willing to let a role go fallow than up skill someone who has the basic groundings making it locked off for many IT people who might well be capable.

Gurgle

peter_dublin wrote: »

IT it seems is turning into a race to the bottom in terms of pay where young graduates cannot get a step on the ladder as few organisations are willing to hire and train them up to a highly skilled level that is required.

Yet we don't see such behaviour in the other professions, I believe this is down to "business" professionals still seeing IT as a cost and not a business enabler / requirement.

I believe its more to do with over a decade of job hopping. IT staff in particular have a (well earned) reputation for joining a company, adding its various software / systems to their CV and then moving on to bigger and better paychecks within a year.

Not much incentive for a company to hire & train recent graduates.

srsly78

It works both ways: not much incentive to stay with a company when competitors are offering a lot more. Courses etc are worthless anyway (aside from getting started), you have to learn the serious stuff yourself.

Gurgle

srsly78 wrote: »

It works both ways: not much incentive to stay with a company when competitors are offering a lot more.

[preachy voice]That's exactly the attitude that led to the problem.[/preachy voice]

Giblet

big_heart_on wrote: »

I've been hearing all about the shortage of IT staff for a long time now, and since I'm losing my job in a few weeks I've started searching and cant see where all the jobs are hiding!

I have been a few years in my current IT software development/support role and got no further training, every course I've done is at my own expense and I've been payed buttons essentially.

I'm willing to take an entry level position despite having 7+ years experience in different roles I picked up no extra training from employers along the way, so every job has requirements for certs that I cant meet, despite having years of "on the job" experience.

Catch 22.

What stuff have you done? I'm looking for people.

MagicRon

Gurgle wrote: »

[preachy voice]That's exactly the attitude that led to the problem.[/preachy voice]

There is nothing wrong with that attitude - If an employer is serious about holding onto good staff, they should pay up.

Who in their right mind would stay with a company if there were better opportunities elsewhere!?

hobochris

MagicRon wrote: »

There is nothing wrong with that attitude - If an employer is serious about holding onto good staff, they should pay up.

Who in their right mind would stay with a company if there were better opportunities elsewhere!?

Define better opportunity? any good Developers I have known have a figure,not the figure they will get out of bed for, but the a figure in which larger amounts of money waved infront doesn't faze them(this is often lower then you would expect), other factors take precedence.

Often good developers are the type of people who would do their work for free if it were not for those pesky bills and financial needs.. Unfortunatily due to us living in a capitalist society, these people type of people are hard to find.

MagicRon

hobochris wrote: »

Define better opportunity? any good Developers I have known have a figure,not the figure they will get out of bed for, but the a figure in which larger amounts of money waved infront doesn't faze them(this is often lower then you would expect), other factors take precedence.

Often good developers are the type of people who would do their work for free if it were not for those pesky bills and financial needs.. Unfortunatily due to us living in a capitalist society, these people type of people are hard to find.

A better opportunity might be allowing someone to work from home or remotely once in a while or a job that would give you an extra few days holidays in a year or a job that would give you more responsibility such as a lead role etc ... it doesn't have to come down to money.

And yes, everyone has a figure - unfortunately, I am nowhere near that figure yet.

I definitely don't believe though that anyone who is working towards their figure and feels that they need to leave a company to get there is someone with "the attitude that led to the problem" as Gurgle said.

Giblet

I'm a good developer, and I have a good rule of thumb, offer me double, and I'll jump ship. I'd like to have a logarithmic scale of wage increases.

MagicRon

Giblet wrote: »

I'm a good developer, and I have a good rule of thumb, offer me double, and I'll jump ship. I'd like to have a logarithmic scale of wage increases.

Gurgle wrote:

[preachy voice]That's exactly the attitude that led to the problem.[/preachy voice]

:rolleyes:

uck51js9zml2yt

The problem I see is the lack of graduate positions. Companies are saying they can't get staff and yet aren't willing to provide graduates with jobs.
Alternatively, they want graduates with a raft of experience which colleges don't give you.

When will companies start seeing the potential and give us a chance to build on the foundations which the college courses provided?

I did a H. Dip in Web Technologies and am now doing a Postgrad in Cloud Computing and am starting to ask myself how I'll ever get a job.

DublinWriter

Giblet wrote: »

I'm a good developer, and I have a good rule of thumb, offer me double, and I'll jump ship. I'd like to have a logarithmic scale of wage increases.

Having worked in IT for the past 22 years, I'd say the biggest mistake I've made, and that I've seen others make, is always chasing the money and equating career progression with salary progression.

One major factor I've seen for the reason so many IT people company hop is down to very poor management in the IT function itself.

At best, IT management tends to be comprised of burnt-out or incompetent ex technical staff who are unsackable, have been with the company since the year dot and are very unsuited to people management. At worst, IT management is delegated to some neglected arm of the finance function.

dazberry

Giblet wrote: »

I'm a good developer, and I have a good rule of thumb, offer me double, and I'll jump ship. I'd like to have a logarithmic scale of wage increases.

I'm not too bad either

. Maybe it's just an age thing (burned out and cynical) but I'm happier to fore-go wages/rates in lieu of other benefits, most notably enjoying what I'm doing, being neither bored nor stressed, and working closer to home. Working somewhere that understands there's more to investing in IT beyond paying your wages is also a benefit, as is not having to wear a f**king suit

Giblet

Fiona Cuddly Toothpick wrote: »

The problem I see is the lack of graduate positions. Companies are saying they can't get staff and yet aren't willing to provide graduates with jobs.
Alternatively, they want graduates with a raft of experience which colleges don't give you.

When will companies start seeing the potential and give us a chance to build on the foundations which the college courses provided?

I did a H. Dip in Web Technologies and am now doing a Postgrad in Cloud Computing and am starting to ask myself how I'll ever get a job.

Funnily enough, I'm looking for graduates, and can't seem to find any. I posted an ad here (sticky above) and got one reply, but no CV was provided. Still looking...

MagicRon

Fiona Cuddly Toothpick wrote: »

The problem I see is the lack of graduate positions. Companies are saying they can't get staff and yet aren't willing to provide graduates with jobs.
Alternatively, they want graduates with a raft of experience which colleges don't give you.

When will companies start seeing the potential and give us a chance to build on the foundations which the college courses provided?

I did a H. Dip in Web Technologies and am now doing a Postgrad in Cloud Computing and am starting to ask myself how I'll ever get a job.

How many companies have you applied to work with and how many said you didn't have enough experience? How well do you know everything you did in college? ... have you a portfolio or a website created with your CV on it?... have you worked on any projects in your own time? ... Have you ever worked on an open source project? What programming languages have you played around with?

The company I work with, in Dublin, are looking for graduates.

Giblet

DublinWriter wrote: »

Having worked in IT for the past 22 years, I'd say the biggest mistake I've made, and that I've seen others make, is always chasing the money and equating career progression with salary progression.

One major factor I've seen for the reason so many IT people company hop is down to very poor management in the IT function itself.

At best, IT management tends to be comprised of burnt-out or incompetent ex technical staff who are unsackable, have been with the company since the year dot and are very unsuited to people management. At worst, IT management is delegated to some neglected arm of the finance function.

I was being facetious, but I agree.

Frisbee

Fiona Cuddly Toothpick wrote: »

The problem I see is the lack of graduate positions. Companies are saying they can't get staff and yet aren't willing to provide graduates with jobs.
Alternatively, they want graduates with a raft of experience which colleges don't give you.

Exactly. I applied for a few graduate jobs last year that wanted 5+ years experience. How the hell are you supposed to have 5+ years experience if you are a graduate?!

MagicRon

Frisbee wrote: »

Exactly. I applied for a few graduate jobs last year that wanted 5+ years experience. How the hell are you supposed to have 5+ years experience if you are a graduate?!

If the job advert says graduate, it shouldn't say 5+ years.

If it does, then a graduate shouldn't apply nor should someone with 5+ years experience. If there are people applying to these jobs, then they need a schmack.

Are you working now?