http://www.gainesville.com/article/20120425/articles/120429719
On Thu, Apr 26, 2012 at 11:18 AM, Andrew Henderson <[email protected]>wrote: > On Wed, 25 Apr 2012, Nathan Hamiel wrote: > > Honestly this model is dead. It's all well and good for people who have >> been in the workforce for quite a while, but what about future students? >> They can't get experience because they can't get hired. You can't come >> straight out of high school and get a job in technology. It just doesn't >> happen anymore. This isn't the 90's ;) What company do you know that >> offers >> on the job training? Those programs got cut back when the big drop >> happened. I mean, is it even possible to get an AOL tech support job >> anymore? Comcast? I'm guessing if so, the number of positions have fallen >> drastically. Our society has become much more technology savvy rendering >> much less need for positions like that which honestly did help people >> break >> in to technology careers in the past. >> > > I have to say that I agree with this. Like Nathan said, this isn't the > 90s anymore. While I was earning my bachelors in CS from 95-99, I noticed > that several fellow students decided that they didn't like formal education > and dropped out to become system admins and network techs. And that's > fine. They didn't have experience, but they had some raw talent and a > willingness to learn. And many are still working in the IT field in rather > senior positions. > > These days, I don't think that is such a wise approach to a career in IT. > I'm sure there are IT shops out there with some need for the new tech of > the month, but the majority are interested in the basic infrastructure > expansion and maintenance. Backups. Mail-server maintenance. > Troubleshooting. Account creation/deletion. Security. IT is usually not > the core competency of a company. It is a cost center, like secretarial > and janitorial services. It is necessary, but it doesn't directly generate > profit for the company. IT costs the company money, so a company is going > to minimize the amount spent on IT. > > IT professionals are never happy about this characterization. After all, > if the infrastructure fails, the business grinds to a halt. But, much like > the phone company, nobody thinks much about them until service fails. This > a the major downfall of being in the IT industry. > > Back in the 90s, IT WAS a profit center for many companies. ISPs were > popping up all over. Large companies were developing infrastructures for > web business and customer interaction. The service being sold WAS IT. > There was a shortage of good people to fill in the niche with newer > technologies, so anyone good enough could potentially slip in and begin > building a career. These days, IT services are a commodity. If you've got > people with bachelors and masters degrees trying for these same IT jobs > that you are, companies are going to go with them if the cost to them is > the same or only marginally higher. > > Another thing that has bothered me for years is how people without degrees > rail about how worthless they are and a waste of money. I think they > protest a bit too much. I understand that some may have made a career for > themselves without a degree, and that's great! But, I think that requires > a bit of luck in addition to talent. > > I've actually been a hiring manager at a few different companies, one of > which was in Jacksonville. I have hired a few developers from the > Jacksonville area that did not have degrees. They were a little rough > around the edges, but I spent time working with them and helping them to > fill out their skills a little. I've also interviewed plenty of people > without degrees that were just plain awful. Seriously. Many had a > know-it-all attitude with half a dozen unfinished personal projects and the > "a degree is a waste of time... I'm a self-starter!" attitude. I did my > best to look beyond the personality and judge their merit based solely upon > technical ability. They just didn't stack up very well. They talked the > talk, but didn't walk the walk. And I wasted dozens of productive hours > conducting interviews. > > For those that I did hire, I spent my own time working with them and > providing training. I was investing my own time into their personal > growth. I believe that that sort of investment into a company's employees > is very much the exception, rather than the rule. > > What my anecdotes boil down to is that there are people out there without > degrees that are VERY good at what they do. But, they are buried among the > large number of applicants with mediocre talent and an inflated sense of > their own ability. From an HR perspective, why waste all the resources > sifting through all that when you can just use an associates/bachelors > degree or "five to ten years experience" as a filter? > > You can make the argument that HR is just being lazy and not considering > viable candidates. Then again, when was the last time you put up an open > job posting and received 250 resumes that needed to be considered? Hell, I > was pulling my hair out over sifting through 50 of them, setting up > interviews, and spending dozens of hours interviewing. HR, and the > managers that they represent, are not interested in what a unique snowflake > you are. They just want to put a body in a chair that can do a job for a > minimal amount of money. > > If you can get a job without a degree, awesome! > > If you can accumulate enough experience that no longer having a degree is > a consideration, awesome! > > If you start your own business and it is successful, awesome! > > But, if you'd like to stack the odds in our favor a little bit and make > the process of developing a career a bit easier, consider getting a degree. > To any naysayers that believe that a worthless $40k piece of paper to > bypass HR is a tremendous waste, please remember that that piece of paper > has a non-trivial education that kinda comes along with it. And if you are > a self-starter that is capable of so much without a degree, then certainly > you're taking advantage of the facilities and faculty at a university or > college to learn lots of current market skills on the side while you're > there, right? > > Please understand that I am not a degree snob. I'm just providing > anecdotes based upon my experience in the tech industry in markets in > Florida, New York, and California. There are a lot of crap people out > there looking for jobs. I've seen talented people without degrees, and > I've seen awful people with degrees. Based upon my observation of hundreds > of IT and engineering employees, the biggest indicator of future success in > their jobs was the following: > > Those that had a degree, enjoyed what they were doing, and had made the > most of their time at college (side projects, internships, research > projects, networking with others, etc.) were the most likely to be > flexible, quick to understand new technologies, and successful in the > long-run. > > > Andrew > > > ------------------------------**------------------------------**--------- > Archive > http://marc.info/?l=jaxlug-**list&r=1&w=2<http://marc.info/?l=jaxlug-list&r=1&w=2> > RSS Feed > http://www.mail-archive.com/**[email protected]/maillist.xml<http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/maillist.xml> > Unsubscribe [email protected] > >
