IT and the bleak business context

CIOs increasingly promoted from outside of IT ranks: http://itmanagement.earthweb.com/career/article.php/3571656

40% of corporate IT specialist jobs to be eliminated by 2010:
http://itmanagement.earthweb.com/career/article.php/3567881

 

Interesting. I have seen some of this already, especially being able to communicate with people. How many people have worked with the stereotypical "IT" guy. I have meet more than a fair share of people that can only communicate with machines because they have the personality of a stone, or they are so abrasive that they are not tolerable. Additionally, the need for a broad skill base is fairly old news, although specialist at this time do make more money depending on the sepecialty. Not too long I remember most Network Admin jobs being Windows or Novell based. Now the same jobs call for Windows, and/or Linux/Unix skills AND Route/Switch (Cisco IOS) skills also. This is definatly a field that you can never stop learning.

 

What it says to me is that an IT pro will require both multiple vendor certs and an MBA to remain competitive.

 

I think a high end degree, MS or higher, is going ot become more common. I guess the question to me is, how can this trend be used to better place ourselves for success????More Certs? Dual Degrees?


Lou

 

In my short adult life (only been an adult for some 17 or so years) -- I have pumped gas, shelved books, swept floors, led development teams, edited books, cleaned toilets ....

This to say -- versatility is always a good thing. There are no "safe and stable" careers -- those days are gone. In real life, one must be prepared at all times to turn at the drop of a pin. Security through diversity.

 

Quinn, no one disputes that. Unfortunately, this is another example of a profession becoming out of reach to an entire socio-economic class.

IT was once a paraprofessional career path available to anyone with a decent work ethic and a bit of technical aptitude. It was a decent blue collar career path available to those possessing only associate's degree-level education.

Community colleges have poured billions into developing curricula to prepare the current IT workforce, some of whom are displaced adult workers retraining from lost manufacturing careers. In four years this investment will be wiped out.

If these projections are correct, in four years entry level IT jobs will only be available to those with the time and resources to pursue four year CS or CIS degrees AND requisite internships or certs.

Community colleges once prepared RNs, now they only prepare LPNs or CNAs. Likewise, it looks as if the future for community college IT programs is in preparing retail PC technicians for near-minimum wage jobs.

 

I continued my education (see signature) as well as my certs (MCSE NT 4.0, MCP+I, MCSA W2K, Server+, Network+, A+, Security+, Project+). To answer your question...Yes and Yes. I kept up with both and I have been rewarded greatly.

I was promoted from Field Service Engineer to Field Trainer to Software Application Specialist to Area Service Manager for FL, AL, MS, LA. By the way, the medical IT field is the way to go.

My employer is hiring several Software Application Specialist across the country.

 

This aspect of the whole thing is disturbing -- yes indeed it is.

There was a time when anyone in his or her basement could produce software. Now, it takes a fairly sophisticated and qualified team to produce the simplest of utilities. But so it was with the automobile industry, at one time, too.

I'd like to see IT remain within every capable practioner's grasp, regardless of socio-economic class. The demands of the market however, may not allow this -- as users have become far more sophisticated, and the demands have grown very sophisticated as a result -- so perhaps it is in the public's best interest that qualifications increase and demographics change, and we will have to hope another industry appears that can do for the garage-type what IT once did.

 

I think its the qualifications and nothing more...


I work in the industry like Randell and you definatly have your non traditional "super-heros" here and there, but they are far outnumbered by people with lackluster skills. In the past, management was signifgantly older and less savey to technology so it was easy to "BS" your way through. Given a chance people can accomplish anything, but as complexity has grown the ability of a person is based on an understanding of that complexity, especially in code development

Additionally, Compliance requirements (SOX,GLB,HIPPA, and other ISO17799 based audits) have pushed the industry into a more professional arena, which in my opinion is a good thing. IT has long been though of as "that group of geeks in the basement" and the truth of the matter is that there is no other business dept that is more important. CEOs realize this now and want to ensure that strong people hold those positions.

This is the basic reason while I am here. You have to grow, get degrees and certs, and learn, learn, learn....There is no end, but lets face it IT is pretty cool and I wouldnt have it any other way...

 

I question the assumptions driving this "market". Just a few decades a man could work his way up from the mail room to the board room. This is no longer possible - this path now requires an elite B-school education with the right internships, and that too is increasingly closed to the working class. Now CIOs will be drawn from this class as well.

Are today's hourly-paid corporate grunts inherently less talented than their peers of the '50s? Less diligent? Do they have less business sense? I don't think so.

Other factors are decreasing corporate opportunities for perfectly capable, hard-working people.