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Seems to end around age 35. So we had better be teaching our children about second careers as well.
The op on the 2005 thread you cite bloviates about the True Nature of IT -- but breaks his text with unnecessary line feeds. Some expert. The comments, not the op, are the interesting part.
Just kepp on trying and there's stuff out there. Just got another job at the ripe old age of 49. Guess experience counts for something!!
Don't mention your age/date of birth on your resume lest it will disappear into the black hole. Also, do not admit any experience you might had with PDP, VAX, Motorola 68xxx and the like. If you omit the said information, you'll at least get occasional "thanks but no thanks".
What a world we live in...
Still, at least those who aren't born yet are considered "indispensable life".
Still, at least those who aren't born yet are considered "indispensable life".
I started my career in IT at 34, in 1986 and had a pretty good run until recently, thanks to ageism and outsourcing.
other people say we need more talent here, how we don't have talent here, encouraging people to go to higher education...
I hope people aren't being fleeced... they deserve a refund if they have been.
I hope people aren't being fleeced... they deserve a refund if they have been.
http://www.economicpopulist.org/content/great-worker-shortage-lie-alive-and-well
That's the real reason why so much money and effort is spent on making IT exciting:
http://www.euractiv.com/infosociety/high-ICT-salaries-hamper-eu-digital-market-news-493719
ICT salaries 'hamper EU digital market'
. . .
If the EU does not solve the e-skills gap, fewer engineers on the market will likely keep salaries high and slow down the digital development in Europe and prevent small and medium size companies to compete in the global economy, said the head of cabinet for EU Information Society Commissioner Neelie Kroes yesterday (4 May).
"If ICT practitioners are not available or are available but at too high a cost due to market factors, this will make more difficult the uptake of the ICT sector," Anthony Whelan, head of Kroes' cabinet, told an audience of experts at a conference organised yesterday by DigitalEurope, one of the biggest industry lobbies.
That's the real reason why so much money and effort is spent on making IT exciting:
http://www.euractiv.com/infosociety/high-ICT-salaries-hamper-eu-digital-market-news-493719
ICT salaries 'hamper EU digital market'
. . .
If the EU does not solve the e-skills gap, fewer engineers on the market will likely keep salaries high and slow down the digital development in Europe and prevent small and medium size companies to compete in the global economy, said the head of cabinet for EU Information Society Commissioner Neelie Kroes yesterday (4 May).
"If ICT practitioners are not available or are available but at too high a cost due to market factors, this will make more difficult the uptake of the ICT sector," Anthony Whelan, head of Kroes' cabinet, told an audience of experts at a conference organised yesterday by DigitalEurope, one of the biggest industry lobbies.
Why work for peanuts? We're developed nations that purportedly abhor slavery.
Otherwise, why would anyone bother with making IT exiciting again?
Teaching kids about computers that learn from us is a bit of a pointless exercise.
We should look at how best to integrate IT into our lives instead of setting up a new generation of consumers, which is what its really all about.
My daughter is now 14, and I'm disgusted at what the school is teaching:
Her last piece of homework was to Google various keywords and obtain images mostly of various textiles, the point of which I was assured was so that the children could identify various patterns in cloth... (Really useful to be able to spot Burberry from 10 paces these days.)
All the IT lessons include a section on Social Networking, designed one supposes to teach children how to stay safe on the public networks. Its a good idea, but wouldnt it be better to spend the money on fixing the network to make it safe, rather than educate about its dangers?
My daughter was given a laptop and a years Internet by the government, its purpose was for research at home, and for work in school. It was loaded up with Visual Basic, Visual C#, MS Office and a whole bunch of other tools that she has never touched or even needed - in fact, the system worked so poorly that in the end she wiped it and put Linux on there. Now she can access the schools WIFI (We live close enough), get into her account and do work that Windows never allowed her to - the schools systems nearly all run XP with a few Macs, and Win7 just would not network to it properly.
That is of course the schools fault for not setting up their network properly, and not Win7, but it means that the hundreds of laptops distributed by the government for this area were utterly useless and a waste of money - because the generation thats supposed to teach the recipients their skills have no skills to teach them, and their equipment is obsolete as well.
Its woeful, thats what it is.
We should look at how best to integrate IT into our lives instead of setting up a new generation of consumers, which is what its really all about.
My daughter is now 14, and I'm disgusted at what the school is teaching:
Her last piece of homework was to Google various keywords and obtain images mostly of various textiles, the point of which I was assured was so that the children could identify various patterns in cloth... (Really useful to be able to spot Burberry from 10 paces these days.)
All the IT lessons include a section on Social Networking, designed one supposes to teach children how to stay safe on the public networks. Its a good idea, but wouldnt it be better to spend the money on fixing the network to make it safe, rather than educate about its dangers?
My daughter was given a laptop and a years Internet by the government, its purpose was for research at home, and for work in school. It was loaded up with Visual Basic, Visual C#, MS Office and a whole bunch of other tools that she has never touched or even needed - in fact, the system worked so poorly that in the end she wiped it and put Linux on there. Now she can access the schools WIFI (We live close enough), get into her account and do work that Windows never allowed her to - the schools systems nearly all run XP with a few Macs, and Win7 just would not network to it properly.
That is of course the schools fault for not setting up their network properly, and not Win7, but it means that the hundreds of laptops distributed by the government for this area were utterly useless and a waste of money - because the generation thats supposed to teach the recipients their skills have no skills to teach them, and their equipment is obsolete as well.
Its woeful, thats what it is.
I worked as the Network Manager in a very large High School (1900 students plus teaching and admin staff) and all the kids were interested in was trying to access facbook and the like. Only a handful were interested in learning about IT and it's useful application in society. A couple were handy hackers but we quickly trapped them and put them to work on something useful, whitehatting for us (and we paid them for it as well!!). The systems when I started in 2004 were NT4 servers and 98 clients for gods sake. It took up a lot of time and finance to upgrade to the point where we doubled the number of pc's and laptops, upgraded to XP and server 2003 and had a lot of really useful apps, targeted at the relevent departments, something I had to fight to get the staff to recognise. I left because the budget was being cut and I didn't think I could do a good enough job on the funding available. I spoke to the guy in charge a couple of months ago and there hasn't been a n upgrade since I left nearly 4 years ago!!
Private colleges are skimpy on assignments at times too, but if public K-12 assignments are THAT weak...
Running a Google search for Codeacademy brought up "codecademy" as the top 8 out of 10 results! "Codeacademy" is codeacademy.org, but "codecademy" is codecademy.com. It would have been a good idea to have a link on this name to eliminate the confusion.
My children never found ICT interesting in the classroom but they use computers all the time. I could never understand why schools don't teach some level of programming/coding - see some code you have written perform even a small task can really get you hooked, so why do schools fight shy of it?
"jkameleon" is correct. I am over 50 and applied for a job with a new company in Pittsburgh. I researched the company and discovered that the entire staff, including the owner, were under the age of 30. Despite my qualifications, no phone call. Even the government will not hire anyone over the age of 40.
No matter what your current job situation is- places like this should be avoided like plague
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cc-IAwUAJuo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cc-IAwUAJuo
I just turned 50 and am still getting job offers for IT. I am not done yet. Most intelligent HR and IT people realize the value in maturity, knowledge, experience and morals.
suggests you are in the minority. You know something has gone awry when the title of "senior" is applied to 29 year olds...
It suggests s/he's hit upon a niche, and used personal networking well, and/or has flexible ethics as to what sorts of work s/he will do.
But, yah, I've never seen an ad that says "required 30 years of experience" (though there have been a few that say "requires 5-7 years of experience with" something that's only been around for 2 years).
But, yah, I've never seen an ad that says "required 30 years of experience" (though there have been a few that say "requires 5-7 years of experience with" something that's only been around for 2 years).
How much of a wage hit did you take?
Or, rather, how much did you allow yourself to be cheapened by?
Or, rather, how much did you allow yourself to be cheapened by?
I told my kids to stay away from IT. Here in the states, most of the work is done overseas in India. As an IT consultant for over 20 years, its been quite a struggle. Large companies won't even look at IT consulting firms unless they provide "global" resources.
A few months back, I realized that I'd really come into my own where programming is concerned and that got me to thinking about robots--a prospect that, for me, would have been unfathomable 2 years ago.
I have a 7 year old son who is extremely inquisitive and finds interest in the darnedest things...so I'm probably going to kindle his interest in tech+science with the Lego kits that I've read about and that were mentioned here. Any of these institutions that say Tech Ed is dead is not thinking far enough outside the box.
I have a 7 year old son who is extremely inquisitive and finds interest in the darnedest things...so I'm probably going to kindle his interest in tech+science with the Lego kits that I've read about and that were mentioned here. Any of these institutions that say Tech Ed is dead is not thinking far enough outside the box.
http://scratch.mit.edu/
I remember building 'NXT' like systems in grad school based off 6.270 course at MIT. Still a pretty neat document, though NXTG and Lego (tm) have made it a whole lot easier.
http://www.cs.uml.edu/~fredm/ml/6.270_robot_builders_guide.pdf
I've been doing First Lego League for about three years now which is really fun, but as he is seven check out JrFLL in your area.
http://www.usfirst.org/roboticsprograms/jr.fll
I remember building 'NXT' like systems in grad school based off 6.270 course at MIT. Still a pretty neat document, though NXTG and Lego (tm) have made it a whole lot easier.
http://www.cs.uml.edu/~fredm/ml/6.270_robot_builders_guide.pdf
I've been doing First Lego League for about three years now which is really fun, but as he is seven check out JrFLL in your area.
http://www.usfirst.org/roboticsprograms/jr.fll
Dean Kamen founded FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) to inspoire young people to participate and learn about science and technology. FIRST offers robotics competitions for students as young as 6 years old, using the Lego Mindstorms® platform. http://www.usfirst.org
You might not only get your kids interested, you might find yourself helping out...
You might not only get your kids interested, you might find yourself helping out...
You cannot expect the schools to make IT exciting. The schools are struggling to teach basic skills. To ask them to become a marketing engine for an industry they know nothing about; using programming paradigms they don't understand (imaging Ms. Crabtree trying to explain encapsulation and poloymorphism to the Lil Rascals) would be a miserable failure.
The training schools do a pretty good job of it. Look at DeVry's advertising. It's not about the work, its about having a job they enjoy and the money to do what they want.
This is similar to the attraction for people living in rising economies to get into IT: employment and money. Someone from a rising economy can come to the US, Canada or Western Europe and make enough to send home enough money to care for their families. That's attractive.
I got into IT because, let's face it, I'm a nerd. I love this stuff. But I dug my first computer out of a dumpster, learned to program by typing in code from 2600 Magazine and learning from dialup BBSs and FidoNet (oops, dating myself). Most of the "best" people I've worked with are almost entirely self-taught with supplimentary education from vendor training. While I did study Computer Science in college, college was a long time ago and the technology they taught was out of date at the time I was learning it.
If the schools are going to do anything, they need to get out of the way. Instead of mainstreaming everyone into a single curriculum, they need to provide programs that meet the needs of the individual student and provide exploration opportunities. Not likely to happen.
The training schools do a pretty good job of it. Look at DeVry's advertising. It's not about the work, its about having a job they enjoy and the money to do what they want.
This is similar to the attraction for people living in rising economies to get into IT: employment and money. Someone from a rising economy can come to the US, Canada or Western Europe and make enough to send home enough money to care for their families. That's attractive.
I got into IT because, let's face it, I'm a nerd. I love this stuff. But I dug my first computer out of a dumpster, learned to program by typing in code from 2600 Magazine and learning from dialup BBSs and FidoNet (oops, dating myself). Most of the "best" people I've worked with are almost entirely self-taught with supplimentary education from vendor training. While I did study Computer Science in college, college was a long time ago and the technology they taught was out of date at the time I was learning it.
If the schools are going to do anything, they need to get out of the way. Instead of mainstreaming everyone into a single curriculum, they need to provide programs that meet the needs of the individual student and provide exploration opportunities. Not likely to happen.
Great comments Marc. The cookie cutter approach doesn't work. It's all about self motivation. It know very little about the IT field but reading comments from those who are in the real world of this field doesn't make it sound glamorous.
How's this for glamour:
I've met two US Presidents (Bush, Clinton), William F. Buckley Jr, Bill Gates, Hank Aaron, Yogi Berra, Bob Costas, Howard Reynolds and Mitch Williams.
Larry Ellison called me a bad name (quite the kudos, considering I was working for Microsoft at the time and just beat out Oracle for a deal at one of their marquee accounts).
I've spoken at industry events.
I've helped companies save tens of millions of dollars.
I've worked in London, Amsterdam, and various locations within the United States.
I paid cash for my daughters education and feel like my retirement is fairly secure any time I'd like to exercise the option. I have the cash on hand to help out friends and family.
Its hard work, with long hours and challenging situations. There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch. The industry isn't for everyone. But if you are into solving problems and constantly learning, there are few better industries to be in.
I've met two US Presidents (Bush, Clinton), William F. Buckley Jr, Bill Gates, Hank Aaron, Yogi Berra, Bob Costas, Howard Reynolds and Mitch Williams.
Larry Ellison called me a bad name (quite the kudos, considering I was working for Microsoft at the time and just beat out Oracle for a deal at one of their marquee accounts).
I've spoken at industry events.
I've helped companies save tens of millions of dollars.
I've worked in London, Amsterdam, and various locations within the United States.
I paid cash for my daughters education and feel like my retirement is fairly secure any time I'd like to exercise the option. I have the cash on hand to help out friends and family.
Its hard work, with long hours and challenging situations. There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch. The industry isn't for everyone. But if you are into solving problems and constantly learning, there are few better industries to be in.
> Can you think of more ways to make IT ??? and careers in IT ??? more attractive to the next generation of workers? Let us know your thoughts.
How about inspiring music and a Dear Leader? This folks looks pretty attracted:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_AZnlyKXGPM
Last year's winners of the world's "Who's gonna work for less" championship.
How about inspiring music and a Dear Leader? This folks looks pretty attracted:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_AZnlyKXGPM
Last year's winners of the world's "Who's gonna work for less" championship.
I can still remember when I was 12 years old and my computer teacher demonstrated how to create our very first web page in Notepad, by using HTML.
That's when I knew I wanted to be a future IT employee after I left school.
Adding text, images, sound and video and changing colours, image size and much more were all very exciting to me. Programming, on the other hand, didn't interest me, particularly since coding was done in Microsoft BASIC. Even Logo didn't excite me very much, until I was able to use LEGO Logo (now LEGO Mindstorms) to create simple robots when I was 15 years old.
Graphics, video/animation, sound, HCI and AI/robotics is what gets most children interested in IT. Not wordprocessing, not spreadsheets, not networking, not (heavy) coding and not databases.
That's when I knew I wanted to be a future IT employee after I left school.
Adding text, images, sound and video and changing colours, image size and much more were all very exciting to me. Programming, on the other hand, didn't interest me, particularly since coding was done in Microsoft BASIC. Even Logo didn't excite me very much, until I was able to use LEGO Logo (now LEGO Mindstorms) to create simple robots when I was 15 years old.
Graphics, video/animation, sound, HCI and AI/robotics is what gets most children interested in IT. Not wordprocessing, not spreadsheets, not networking, not (heavy) coding and not databases.
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