IT Employment
This is page 2 of the discussion. Read the opening post
by gauravbahal
The education bit is quite true...given that two candidates have similar experience..a company would obviously opt for the more educated one. It bodes well for the company's profile.
They can always proclaim... x% of our employees have an Engineering or higher degree...it is a marketing stunt which does work.
by nusigf
by techrepublic
by nusigf
What's your point? Sure, IT costs billions, there are epidemics like SPAM, viruses, etc. Phones work because they do one thing, and they charge a crapload for doing just that one thing. When's the last time you called eBay? Amazon.com?
Yes, there are lots of business things that IT brings to the table, baggage and all. The benefits to business are meager for some, enormous for others. Computers and networking and every piece of functionality comes with risk. Businesses buying businesses, selling products, hiring employees, shipping stock, etc... all of that comes with risk as well.
You measure which risk is cheaper, if it's acceptable, what the benefit is and move on.
Large risks are mitigated; change management, patch management, information security, threat and vulnerability management, network security, email filters, federation of identity, access control, PKI, etc.etc.etc. These are all ways to ensure that IT works and provides the benefits that it was meant to.
Back to the original question, though, there is a glass ceiling in IT. Every business, even IT businesses have it. Most people are either technical in nature, with all the idiosynchrasies that go with that, or non-technical (and they're a bunch of freaks). You can either deal with people or you can't. You either understand IT or you don't (or some parts of it [incompetence vs. inexperience]). You either go up the food chain, understand the way businesses interact and survive, or you don't.
You can learn management and supervision... but you can't learn to be a visionary. Companies that have no visionaries are doomed to die.
Visionaries can be IT focused, but they only come up with things like the Death Star. Who funds that? Who built it (can you imagine how many milestones there were in the MS Project Plan for that?)? Who freaking manages the waste produced on it?
by gauravbahal
Very right...though these skills can be got in parallel...i would still put communication as the top...just the ability to listen and respond in a manner that a lay man understands...breaking down tech stuff into some day to day example is a skill that i found useful. Simple examples that are less jargon and more related to the business simplified.
It all depends on urself..what course u want to take. If you are one of those people who is worried about what ''others'' percive about you and ur ''designation'' then u had it!! For such a person personal intersts take a back burner and just getting a fancy desig preferably management related is the key.
by gauravbahal
Thats about it...you have seen it all Stan. You have followed ur heart and thats the key.
Get a few like minded people together and one can do wonders...there is no substitue to dedicated and passionate people. Money would become secondary..it would flow in on its own if one does a great job.
My best wishes!!
by gauravbahal
Stan,
Isnt it true that if one has to start on their own (like u did) you would need all the network to get business (At least initially)..and that comes in when one is a in a management position?
Did u utilize ur contacts from industry..if yes..were these contacts from ur days as a tech guy or as a management person?
by stan20
With my current company I have used mostly technical contacts, and have hired a few people I knew from other places I have worked, since I knew they could do the job and would fit in with our goals. (I'm responsible for all technical activities, and stay away from other areas when possible, since I'm less interested in other areas and have people who are good at the things I'm not good at.)
I haven't used many business contacts since I'm in a completely different field now, and, having learned what I'm good at and what I enjoy doing, I started my current company with one partner who is very good at sales and marketing. And we are currently negotiating with a potential third partner who is very good at managment and has extensive legal and accounting skills.
My partner had quite a few business contacts that have been quite useful, since they are in the same field. Contacts won't make the sale, but they will get you in the door, which sometimes is difficult for a small, unknown startup.
by gauravbahal
by techrepublic
I've been ousted by my staff. But I still won't make that the focus of my work. Some of them lost their jobs, and some of them got better jobs when the contract went belly up.
The kind of people that you impress by ass-covering, are not the kind of people you want to work with anyhow. In my case, the people that were key to removing me, were also the one's that gave me the most grief opperationally, and are also the people who became unemployed soon after the shakeup. If anything, I learned I should be quicker to fire people.
And that's really it. If you have to ass-cover, you aren't doing enough firing / hiring.
by techrepublic
Business is about providing a product to the market at a better price point than your competition.
That people have made it about "titles" and "pay stubs" is what is ruining it.
What has happened, is that in IT especially, people have been encouraged to cross what I call THE EMOTION LINE at work. There is no place for emotion at work. Yet there it is, especially in IT.
As a responsible manager, you should be looking to attract the smartest people possible, and to create the best products possible, and to keep these people, you should be paying the best salary possible, by setting the best price possible for your product.
Is that what your manager is doing? If you are a manager, is that really what you are doing?
Name:shola Olowu
Position:Information Systems Manager
Location:Nigeria
I strongly believe that IT pros can climb the ladder to become anything, only if they learn the act of Management, but the other point to consider is that IT pros can?t remain technical all their life. It?s more than the money but the joy of fulfillment in ones area is most important. If becoming a CEO is ones joy then IT pros can become one and be good at it.
by jcptech
by erich1010
There used to be a time when a son learned a trade, like blacksmithing, then became a blacksmith. The blacksmith would always be a blacksmith. The blacksmith learned more and more about his trade until he became an expert blacksmith, but he was still a blacksmith. The blacksmith might even have hired people to teach blacksmithing to and help him, but he was still a blacksmith.
These days, you go to school to learn a trade. After you learn the trade, you find a job whose description more or less matches your trade, depending on the job market. As you learn your job, you become proficient at it. But as you become proficient at it, you need to learn different skills which may or may not build on the ones you've previously learned, based on job market.
Eventually, you are considered an expert at whatever you end up calling yourself. Then you are pressured to move into management. Management is a totally different set of skills. It is its own profession. You've usually been weaned to it by being a technical lead, project officer, then program manager. However, unless you went to a business or management school, it is not the profession you chose.
Now, you run offices, overseeing projects that may or may not relate to your field of expertise, but hire other people to do the "fun stuff".
That really sucks if you just wanted to be a blacksmith.
by keith2468a
Unlike most other areas, weak IT managers like young flexible staff, staff that:
- Won't ask "Why ?"
- Will work overtime for free (on a charity basis) so upper management doesn't become aware of mistakes in the project plan, product selection, and/or application design.
- That don't pose a threat because it will be years before they are ready to be promoted into management.
The main causes of project failure are:
- technical staff not asking enough questions to define what is to be done so that they are all working in the same direction on the same workable plan,
- planning and preparation missing critical steps and details,
- and for large projects, not having a succession plan for when key people leave or are taken off the project.
by keith2468a
Success in upper management requires different skills than success in IT department management in a non-IT company.
Success in upper management, and the CEO position, requires coming up with good new ideas and plans, selling the rest of the organization on those plans.
In almost any company, sales and marketing are the key areas that CEOs are choosen from.
IT managers tend to succeed by implementing the plans of other areas.
IT managers aren't seldom even good at coming up with initiatives to keep costs down in their own departments.
Look at how few track properly track the time spent on recurring bugs and maintenance issues with a view to creating small projects to reduce or eliminate these costs.
It isn't just IT that has this ceiling. HR and facilities maintenance have similar problems.
by swoodburn
by gorto
by raw41
by stan20
Quite often people higher up have no idea what tech people are doing, or who is doing what. As long as things are running smoothly they don't pay much attention.
In my first IT job I started writing a weekly summary of activities, and pointed out specifically things that saved the company money. And had it on my supervisor's desk and the department head's desk every Monday morning. You want to be sure you and your work are visible.
by techrepublic
by gvargo
Time is Money
Knowledge is Power
Power is The Amount of Work over a period of Time
Thus...
Time (t) = Money(m)
Knowledge(k) = Power(p)
Power(p) = Work(w) / Time(t)
Therefore ..
p = w/t and since k = p and t = m
k = w/m
so solving for "m" we get
m = w/k
The end result being .. M as k-->0 = infinity or
in plain english.. as knowledge decreases, money approaches infinity regardless of the amount of work done.
Which explains the salaries of our companies executives and upper management
... the fine art of creating work where none existed before.
... all you really need is a sucker - and there is usually a sucker to be found in every crowd.
go sell your snake oil up someone elses a$$.
fyi - in order for you to be consulting for 20 years you would have to be pre networking era -- meaning programming -- meaning fortan -- meaning no one wants you any more --....
i worked 14 hours days while execs with "soft skills" up the kazoo worked 4 hour days -- got paid 3 times as much as me -- wrote off 10 times more stuff than me --- paid 5 times less taxes than me -- ran the company into the ground -- and still managed to find another exec job where they got double what their last salary was.
yeah. the world is an unfair place. we have been waiting for you and your high moral ground to come in and make it better. make sure you visit the poor ba$tards dropping like flies in africa. they probably need your help more than us geeky IT guys sitting behind our computers in our underwear.
let me just put it this way -- from my very subjective perspective.
i love infosec. i get paid quite well to do it. i used to not get paid well for doing it. now i do. probably sometime in the future - i will go back to not getting paid that well to do it - once all the hoopla dies down - and it will die down and infosec will go back to not being a specilaized skill set but will go back to being part of a senior sysadmins duties.
but i will still keep doing it. why? because i love the job first. the money is second. i will always choose to do what i do before more money for doing somerthing else.
Just spent two years with it earning a reasonable sum.
As for higher management, you can't be a success at it, if you don't accept that every now and then you have to stop being nice. A manager you want to work for is one who's nice when they can be.
by the admiral
I think the perceived Artifical Ceiling is based on the IT pro's own inability to grow past installing Windows and the applications. It is one of those things where much of it is outsourced, so rather than go into management or other areas, they sit stuck with paycuts or worse yet, on unemployment.
The ceiling that is percieved is based on is not having the liberal arts or critical thinking or, in some cases, the ability to grow beyond the certifications or the degree and experience that you have into an area where you can go elsewhere.
Take for instance a technician who has been doing "techie" stuff for over 10 years and could not get out of the rut. Graduated high school, and got every single certification there is, but can not break into management. The break is to get a bachelors degree in a management area.
What you have to do when you go after a degree is look past the degree as to where you want to go. Sure a technical degree is great if you are going to be doing a technical discipline, but not if you are going into a management area.
From what I have seen is a self-imposed ceiling where a technical degree and experience do not buy you into anything else.
by techrepublic
Ok, I'll call. Here is my resume, bring me on board...I'm the OPPOSITE of what you mentioned there, fitting in no groove, often chastised for being too creative, generally loved by those that work with or beneath me, generally feared by those above. I never even got an A+...yet I'll bet a month's consulting fee that I can make a PC out-perform factory settings and anything a A+ tech can do to it. Or maybe there are staff and/or management issues? I can take those on too. Or how about a really pissed of client? I can resolve that too. Or maybe a bloated IT budget? I'm the man for that too.
by the admiral
but a degree doesn't seem to have anything to with it. It's being able to step beyond what the technology is to what it's for.
The other problem I see is a certain class of tech gauging others or themselves as somehow failing if they don't want to move into management. As though it's some sort of technical progression as opposed to a career switch. A lot of people grumbling about not getting a move into management, when they don't want to be managers, it's just expected that they should.
by the admiral
Not necessarily, I think it is a self defeat and a matter of "I am in Information Technology" and that is that rather than where can I go from here.
So far, every single person I have seen and talked to in the IT profession have blinders on that they can only do just tech stuff. The fact of the matter is that you have kids in grade school that can do the same thing that someone with an A+ can do, so that attitude that they are the only ones who can do tech work is self-defeating.
I have found a very few that want to go into other areas, which stuns me in that the amount of outsourcing and the numbers of "automated" solutions, no matter how crappy, they continue to get rid of the technicians.
by kevaburg
IT forms the basis of any modern organisation and so has to conform to the standards set by it.
IT moves constantly as does the motor industry and so the ceiling moves acordingly.
Anyone that thinks the ceiling is tangible and can be met or exceeded is fooling themselves: Ask Microsoft, 3-COM, Cisco or anyone else and they will tell you.
The job of a senior executive is based purely on business and IT has very little to do with it.
Therefore, rely on the instincts of lessons learned by the people that know and not on the statistics of people that don't!
In the motor industry - the MBA/buisiness buckaroo does not go around telling the car engineer how to build the car or what parts and materials to use -- why?? becuase some poor shmuck will buy that car, put his family in it and they will all die on the highway.
In the IT industry - every god damn MBA/business buckaroo with the slightest interest in IT wants to mastermind the engineering of the network and tell the admins what to use and how to do it.
There -- thats the difference between the motor industry and the IT industry.
by kevaburg
My point was that the industry we have chosen to work in has a continually moving ceiling that has committments we are bound by professionalism to meet. Just like the car industry.
You are of course right: Anyone, not just in business but also in our private lives, that has an interest in IT generally thinks they are the God that everyone should follow. But I think that thread is a completely different discussion altogether.
But in the same way that the MBA business "buckaroo" (who thinks of these words?) in the car industry does not dictate building standards, so the same ranked person in the IT industry should also not dictate which firewall of server system should be used. After all, IT is now a mission-critical subject for almost ever business in almost every industry.
Maybe the question really should be "are we in the IT industry incapable of the right kind of communication to prevent the wrong person making the wrong IT decisions?"
by kevaburg
Sorry to have to say this but it does seem to me that there are alot of answers that you have posted that are nothing less than insulting to those of us that work damned hard at what we do.
I am no "Monkey-Boy". I am the sole system manager for a company that stands to lose around ?60k a day in revenue if the systems I put in place don't function correctly. On that basis I think it fair to say that I have a little bit of knowledge in both and something interesting to say to the remainder of my peers.
You are not one of my peers. You are an egotistic man who believes you are it and if you are a manager of people then I imagine you to be a bad one.
I engage in these discussions to hear constructive points from people that know what they are on about and not to receive insulting comments.
I would therefore ask you politely not to say anything if you can't say it nicely.
by oz_media
If the MBA/Business Buckaroo (you don't seem to like more successful people then yourself do you)wanted to, they could say 'buh bye' to the entire IT department and o back to paper and pens.
People in IT seem to have some inflated concept that they are the bread winners and backbone of the organization. Yet ANY oranization where I have been in C level positions, does not see the IT department as anythign more than an expense. They place you in the same mold as the trained secratary, she has a skill but does not MAKE the company money. The accountant, has a trained skill too, but IT staff like to believe they are above that too.
IT is a company expense. IT is NOT seen as the bread and butter nor even a contributor to most organizations, obviously excluding online businesses.
IT is just ANOTHER cost that the C level employees must control, reduce and streamline. Your position in their eyes is no more important or valued than the janitors. Get over yourself.
When YOU start generating millions in actual company revenue, then you will gain some importance and clout, until then, you are a mee emploee, get used to it. IF you don't like not being the backbone, then either find a new skill or build your own business.
Oh, by the way, the MBS/business buckaroo DOES have a HUGE say in what parts and engineering is used in new cars. The engineers are just told to make it happen under the budgets and expectations of the businessmen.
Otherwise we would not be able to afford a $200,000 compact car.
Yes, people DO die on a regular basis due to engineering cutbacks and material savings fordced upon engineers by the MBA/business buckaroo's.
To once again hit on your comments about them stepping on IT toes, if you said NO, they would simply say have a nice day and find someone else who WILL do what they ask. They control money, not you,THEY decide what's needed not you. YOU just make it the way THEY want it and if they DON'T like it you are gone, completely disposable. Unlike the MBS/Business buckaroo who is responsible for driving revenue to the company and not just retaining some of it.
YOu may think you SAVE the company thousands, in actuality, you COST the company thousands and while you may help them streamline and save, you are NOT generating revenue. REVENUE GENERATION IS WHAT COUNTS IN BUSINESS, saving and cutting back on expenses is secondary to most execs, that's why they hire a bean counter, so they don't spend too much on pens and paper, but that is miniscule in contrast to a revenue generation stream, (salesmaen and C-Level employees). Sounds ODD but that's how the C's see it. A Sales rep is FAR mroeimportant to ANY organization than the IT geek.
Why do IT staff feel SO important just because they are now accepted in a working environment and allowed to leave the basement?
It's not just you, I see it all the time and the employers laugh at the Prima Donna syndrome, it's like a bunch of wannabe rock stars.
IT staff are just replaceable peons and always will be, once they understand that, they will enjoy their work a lot more and will become accpeted by those they work with.
by vltiii
by techrepublic
"I'm sorry, you are not qualified to make that decision sir"
I've said that. I've been sacked. That's why I keep several clients, and make sure I get paid what I'm worth.
When I'm sitting at home between jobs, I increase my value via education. There are companies out the that exist to do business -- verses existing to stroke egos. You have to keep looking till you find them. (similar advice for finding life partners)
:o)
The fact that I want to be and stay in IT isn't a limit, it's a desire and a goal. No doubt I could employ my undoubted talents elsewhere, I just don't want to. Just the same as a good pilot wants to keep flying. Of course in their case the physical limits to their profession do at some point force them into a career chnage, but in IT those limits are self imposed, if I'm good and I keep up with the technology then I can keep earning and enjoying. If you are unhapy with waht you do and don't find it rewarding enough, then you should move on. If like me you still do, then you should not consider yourself somehow lacking.
I feel no more limited by the fact that I don't want to be a manager than I don't want to work in the attack industry.
by saint714
In the past 17 years as an IT pro, with emphasis on project management and technical documentaiton, I have yet to see a single corporation that rewarded the people who *DO* the work versus those who *MANAGE* those who do the work, PARTICULARLY when the workers are contractors.
The IT community these days has become a shark pool where promises are intentionally empty, and more time/effort is spent covering one's @ss and/or justifying their positions than actually performing in any effective manner.
It's what I've come to call the "Frank Burns Syndrome." In the middle-season of M*A*S*H*, Major Frank Burns went insane when Hotlips left him. So one day in Tokyo, he assaulted a general's wife, thinking she was Margaret Houlihan. Instead of putting him in Leavenworth, the Army promoted him to Lieutenant Colonel and assigned him to a Pentagon director-level position.
I've lost count as to how many times I've seen managers and directors mismanage and misdirect projects and programs into the ground, play the nepotism/friendship card and get promoted while the project team who worked their tails off under the mismanagement were fired or frozen.
Given the opportunity, the majority of managers and mid-level executives will screw royally anyone they can to get what they want, and they generally get away with it because the corporate accountability system is premised on targeting the lowest man on the pole. Example: A $150,000 director gets a $500,000 bonus for a program that was over-budget and past deadline, yet the company fires/lays off 10 $50,000 project managers because they have to cost-cut.
The "loyalty is a two-way street" concept was abandoned long ago, but not before it was raped and beaten by the "get what you can while you can" concept.
Greed, avarice and disloyalty only need an opportunity. And the majority of managers and directors will seize that opportunity, regardless of the victims.
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