[TriLUG] Sort of OT Job Posting or The quasi-literate at work

Ken Mink ken.mink at gmail.com
Mon Sep 13 13:20:25 EDT 2004


On Mon, 13 Sep 2004 12:54:09 -0400, Brian Henning
<brian at strutmasters.com> wrote:
> > Agreed.  When did 'qualified for a job' suddenly become too much to ask?
> 
> I think it's a condition of moving from "please please work for us, by the
> way here's a dump-truck full of money for signing with us and we'll train
> you along the way" to "work for us, know everything already, and you'll find
> your peanuts in the break room.  But don't eat them."
> 
> An exaggeration to be sure, but I bet some of the flak does come from folks
> who are still expecting (or wishing for) the "olden days" where qualified
> (or semi-qualified) IT professionals were a precious commodity rather than a
> dime-a-dozen such as we seem to be now.
> 
> Some flak may also come from folks (much like myself) who are meagerly
> qualified due to brief experience (to use myself as an example, I've only
> been in the field for about 4 years, only full time for 2) being sniffed at
> in favor of the myriad of out-of-work [over-/better-]qualified IT
> professionals with 10+ years of experience.  Perhaps I'm cynical, but I seem
> to see an awful lot of "lots of experience and qualifications" job postings
> and precious few entry-level or <5yrs experience positions.  Maybe I'm just
> looking in the wrong places.

Bryan, welcome to the real world. As someone who started in the
industry before the web and before PCs were big, I tell can tell this
is the way things used to be. It's also how things are in most other
industries.  IT folks have been very spoiled. There were more jobs
than experienced workers, so companies were hiring new grads and jr
level folks like crazy. Now things are settling in like a more marture
industry. All those jr folks haven't left and they now have
experience. Add the fact that there are less jobs and employers can
now ask for experience and expect to get it. I wouldn't expect things
to go back to when new grads were naming their price. The world has
changed.

Ken

> 
> The perennial PFY (who longs to be the BOFH),
> ~Brian Henning
> 
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