2010 Salary Survey Highlights IT Woes 332
CWmike writes "Trapped between flat salaries and ever-increasing workloads, IT professionals are about to explode. That's the top takeaway from Computerworld's 2010 survey of nearly 5,000 IT workers. 'Bonuses and benefits are way down, and workloads and work hours have increased. Meanwhile, salaries are stagnant (rising just a microscopic 0.7% on average), and — not surprisingly — satisfaction is on the wane.' Another finding of note is the shrinking female IT workforce. Have a look-see at how IT fared in your neck of the woods with this smart look-up tool."
You control your own destiny (Score:5, Insightful)
career experts say you have to take a strategic approach to your job search and application process. The best candidates are always taking steps to manage their careers...
I fully agree. If you sit passively and wait for your next raise, you may be waiting for a while... But if you are proactive, good things eventually happen to you. Contribute [github.com] to an open-source project. Become the co-founder [fairsoftware.net] of a cool iPad app or whatever cool idea people are trading nowdays...
It doesn't pay off instantly, but a year or two later, your resume stands out from the crowd, and more importantly, you may not even need a resume anymore to get a great job!
"shrinking female IT workforce"? (Score:4, Insightful)
Maybe they are going into a better paying industry.
http://newsone.com/nation/news-one-staff/more-women-considering-stripping-in-struggling-economy/ [newsone.com]
What?!? (Score:5, Insightful)
Really?
What jobs are you talking about?
Most of the jobs that actually pay a salary don't give a rat's ass about any F/OSS projects you've worked on. Recruiters want to know what your paid experience was. If you're applying for your typical corporate IT department (read a MS shop), no one really gives a shit. They want their laundry list of skills and at least 2-3 years experience with each.
I would be astounded if someone post a job description that says FOSS experience a plus.
Accountants and marketers running the show... (Score:5, Insightful)
This is exactly what happens when you have non-technical accountants and marketers making technology-related decisions. Look at the executives for nearly any American company. You'll find the number of technical people at or near the top is virtually none.
Accountants are concerned with one thing: the next quarter's numbers. Software and IT infrastructure, on the other hand, often takes longer than that to properly implement and to see their benefits. So these accountants ignore IT, and often do what they can to deny funding, especially if it won't result in a near-immediate balance sheet gains.
In the past, when America still had some manufacturing base, engineers often had a prominent place within the leadership of most companies. They could think beyond the next quarter's financial results, and saw how technology could make their companies more efficient in the long run. Unfortunately, these people have retired or been forced out.
America now generates its "wealth" not through the creation of tangible goods and improving productivity at existing enterprises, but rather by creating and selling a variety of bullshit financial instruments. Things won't improve until technical folks are making the calls, rather than accountants and marketers.
Re:Exactly. (Score:5, Insightful)
On the other hand, after a year without a job, I decided to just take whatever was offered (i.e. $30,000 below my former salary). In 2011 I'll look for something better but for now, having a job is better than not having a job.
I'm also working lots of paid overtime to make-up some of the loss.
Re:Rate of inflation (Score:4, Insightful)
Not quite. While your salary might beat out the rate of inflation, other things need to be considered. For example, I was notified my rent is going up starting next month by 9.8%. The actual amount happens to coincide with the exact amount of my monthly pay increase. In other words, I'm treading water because my pay increase will now go towards my rent increase.
On top of this, mother nature decided to force my decision on replacing my 12-year old car, I'm taking classes to (hopefully) get out of this urine-soaked hell hole (thank you Krusty) which are costing me over $1,400 per class and whose prices are also going up in the coming semester and my electric rate just rose by 30%.
So, while my pay increase was higher than inflation, it is completely overwhelmed by everything else that is going on.
Re:Rate of inflation (Score:5, Insightful)
Not really...
If your pay goes at the same rate as inflation it means your value in the company even after an other year of experience hasn't increased. Normally you should expect a 10% increase in your pay per year until you reach 15 years of experience then it will slope down as your years experience is having a slower rate of return.
I dunno mang, (Score:3, Insightful)
My pay nearly doubled in 2010. Maybe it has something to do with me working on my skills portfolio for over a decade and pent up demand for those skills.
One thing for sure - if you want to make more money, you need to ALWAYS be thinking on what skills you could acquire to achieve that goal. Any retard can poorly code up a web page - why would anyone pay a pretty penny for that?
Another life's lesson - if you want to grow, you need to move. Don't sit on your ass in the same job for a decade. Change teams, companies, industries, roles. If you don't do this, the best you can hope for is a 5% merit raise, and that's in a fat year.
Re:"shrinking female IT workforce"? (Score:4, Insightful)
Maybe they are going into a better paying industry.
http://newsone.com/nation/news-one-staff/more-women-considering-stripping-in-struggling-economy/ [newsone.com]
Or maybe they are running away from an industry that considers jokes like that acceptable.
Re:female (Score:3, Insightful)
>>>it is undeniable that healthcare is the wave of the future in the United States
Except that the U.S. government is paying LESS than actual cost of procedures, so many doctors are quitting the profession due to increasing losses. You're better off to stay in a profession that doesn't have top-down price fixing (i.e. commercial, engineering or programming).
Re:female (Score:4, Insightful)
If you want to be guaranteed a job for the next 30 years or so, go into geriatric nursing. Unfortunately, you'll be spending the next 30 years changing diapers for 90 year olds, but at least you'll always have steady work. Depending on whose IT department you work for, this may or may not be an improvement over your current situation.
Re:"shrinking female IT workforce"? (Score:5, Insightful)
Possibly, but maybe not to where you are expecting.
The thing is, if you're in IT, you're probably smart. You understand basic math. For example, you can easily see that [(weekly pay) / 60] [(weekly pay) / 40]. If you're expected to work longer hours for less pay, you'll understand that you're getting paid less. There's a reason overtime is supposed to be time +; it's because it's shitty work that makes you neglect your Real Life. Women are just as smart as men, and they are surely aware of the same basic math. Why end up as a slave with worse pay than retail sales? It's not worth the hassle. I'm sure a lot of folks are moving into management, HR, and other fields that don't have 3am emergencies.
For what's it's worth, my pay is 165% of what I made at my first post-grad job in 2004. I've left a job that wanted me to work 60+ hours a week "because I'm a computer guy" (I'm an EE). Now, I never work overtime. I've also got an 8% raise coming up this summer. If you look for better work and hold the same level of loyalty to a company as they do to you (i.e. none at all) then you can be more successful at home and at work.
Re:Exactly. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:female (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:You control your own destiny (Score:4, Insightful)
There are good or at least decent companies to work for so I doubt this explains the gigantic sausage party that is IT. By and large, most women look at the world in terms of relationships both with people and with objects such as tools they use. By and large, most men appreciate the relationships they specifically want to participate in but view the rest of the world in a more utilitarian fashion. IT is all about utility and pragmatism. It's not a surprise that most IT folks are men while i.e. most teachers are women. Women either don't have the IT skillset or don't wish to do that kind of work and that's why many of them don't choose IT as a career path.
Honestly I don't see what the big deal is with this issue. Not every demographic disparity is because of racism or sexism, though that idea appeals to people who just refuse to admit that women are different from men and tend to have different preferences. I think they refuse to admit this because they think that saying "women are different" is the same thing as saying "women are not our equals" and that just isn't true. If anything, refusing to appreciate their differences is a disservice to them, a denial of the way they want to be. I think you'll find that actual discrimination against women is rare, that most men prefer a co-ed environment over a sausage party and would be glad to see more women who share their interests.
This reminds me of the absolute lunacy perpetuated in the name of feminism. Professors and others have been fired merely for suggesting that a woman's brain is "wired differently" than a man's brain, nevermind that this is demonstrably true. I think the same people who can't deal with such realities are the same ones who would automatically assume the scarcity of women in IT must be due to sexism. If some kind of discrimination is really going on, it's probably not sexism. It's probably discrimination against obesity, as the few women I've ever seen who were highly skilled in IT were all rather chunky. It's a shame this is so important to people because the bottom line in a workplace is whether they can do the job, not whether they make good eye candy, but this does happen.
Re:"shrinking female IT workforce"? (Score:5, Insightful)
How is that an unacceptable joke (or even a joke, necessarily - it's an extrapolated guess based off of disjointed but related data)? I know of a guy who left IT to become a Chip'n'Dale stripper because it paid better and was less stress (go figure). Woo, nakedness - big deal! If it's acceptable to say "men are leaving IT for construction jobs" (some are) why is stripping (physical labor for work) any more offensive?
If you want equality, then you better want it equally. People are sick of this "equally better" PC bullshit the women's lib movement has been pushing for the past 50 years. If you can do the work, great: step right in and pull up a chair, etc.
Re:What?!? (Score:4, Insightful)
Agreed, but if you think this ends with their hiring practices you are probably in your early twenties. An IT shop that isn't excited about an applicant's FOSS experience will never be a positive work environment.
Caveat mancipior.
Re:You control your own destiny (Score:5, Insightful)
If you are working your way up the tech ladder you should really be living as transient a lifestyle as is possible. This means renting rather than buying a home, not buying roomfulls of furniture (harder to move all of your stuff), limiting debt, etc.
Don't forget not getting married, or if you do, marrying a housewife and not a woman with any career aspirations beyond perhaps working at the mall.
would need to hire a mover,
Moving isn't quite as hard as you make it out to be; I've done it many, many times. These days, the best way to do it is to use a freight shipper. I used ABF when I moved cross-country in 2000, and it worked out quite well: you get some friends and move all your stuff into a trailer, close it up, and then the company comes with their semi-tractor and takes it away. 10 days later, your trailer shows up at your new home, ready for you to unload it.
Whatever you do, NEVER hire a full-service moving company like Mayflower. They'll hijack your stuff and hold it hostage, demanding extra payment for you to get it back. If you don't have any friends to help with your ABF move, then you can hire local movers (like from Craigslist) at each end to do the work for you. With locals that don't have any connection to the trucking company, you don't have to worry about anyone hijacking your belongings.
I know some guys who are stuck in areas like Boston, NYC, Michigan (multiple cities), etc who can't sell their house (not only is no one buying, they owe more than it is worth) which means they can't afford to move at the moment.
They can, but they'd have to walk away from their homes. They really should look into this; if they're underwater any significant amount, and don't want to be stuck in their current location for the next decade or more, then they NEED to walk away. House prices are NOT going to go up significantly for 5-10 years; it'll take them decades to recoup what they've paid for their homes. It's easier to just walk away, take the credit hit, and buy a new house in a few years (or at most, 7). Also, they can try to do a short-sale, which has less of a negative effect on your credit score.
Re:"shrinking female IT workforce"? (Score:3, Insightful)
I'd guess that it takes at least a hundred employed people to support one stripper.
That's kind of silly logic. I guess it's based on some misconception that economics are zero sum, or that some services are inherently worth more than others. Being a stripper is employed. It's providing a service that people want, just like an auto factory or an amusement park or a grocery store.
Re:I dunno mang, (Score:3, Insightful)
If employers have a hard time keeping their employees, who's fault is that? The employers or the employees?
Consider that not long ago, people were working the same job for their entire career. People, by their nature, prefer stability (that's why many go through all that effort of getting a good degree, and why government job preference has been on the uptick for some time).
If employers don't want employees to jump ship they need to make their employees feel like their jobs aren't in danger and provide them competitive pay. People don't leave a good job for 5% more: they leave for significant lumps of cash; they leave due to business instability; they leave for (inter)personal reasons. They also leave because they know the company doesn't hold them in high esteem as a person, more than likely, and that if push comes to shove, the company's going to dump them.
Ultimately, it's a cycle - but a cycle which companies started. God bless the Business Management types.
Re:"shrinking female IT workforce"? (Score:3, Insightful)
So? It takes about 80 employed people to justify my job. Without them, my company would need one less full-time geek. And each of them requires a client with dozens of employees to buy the stuff they make. And each of those companies presumably has hundreds of customers, etc.
Re:What?!? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:You control your own destiny (Score:3, Insightful)
Just because you find an environment tolerable does not mean that the environment isn't broken.
Re:and please raise your hand (Score:5, Insightful)
I have. However, all my "raises" came from changing jobs. It's simple: if you want more money, you need to find another job. Employers these days NEVER give out pay raises, unless they're a pittance. However, in their utter stupidity, they're more than happy to give new hires much more money than the people who've been working there for many years. My advice is to stay in a job for about 2 years, and then go looking for a new one. You should be able to get a 10-20% increase.
Watch as some trolls try to refute my comment. Of course, if job-hopping were such a bad thing in the eyes of employers, they wouldn't be hiring, now would they?
Re:What?!? (Score:0, Insightful)
Oh come fucking off it already. Jesus christ.
I'm fucking SICK to death of the FOSS community. If you're not using Linux, you're not a geek. If you don't contribute to Open Source projects, you're not a geek. FOSS is the holy mother, all hail the holy mother.
Fucking BLOW ME already.
I've put over 15 years into a mostly-microsoft IT career. Sure, I can use/have some Linux in my environment, and I'm not a retard and can use whatever flavor of *nix you want. And I have a touch of Apple in my marketing department. And yeah, some *nix experience is mandatory now. But people who don't understand that its a Microsoft ruled world with required skills of interoperability between OS's in the corporate arena are fucking delusional and a waste of fucking space.
And it might change too someday...Microsoft isn't the holy fucking mother either. There's a lot of shit that I HATE about proprietary software. But you know what? I work hard, I enjoy life, I have a good gig, and I'm fucking happy where I work...and these people could give two fucks about the FOSS community, and they're a "positive work environment"
Really, the freaks in the FOSS community are no better, and often worse, than their Apple Fanboi cousins, or the pure Microsoft fanbois too. Its all fucking bullshit really, and any IT person who is unwilling or incapable of supporting a fully blended environment will go the way of the fucking dodo just the same as any Microsoft shill. And its not that FOSS is worthless...we use and contribute to a few FOSS projects out there that meet corporate need. Of course, its my fucking job to find the "product", FOSS or proprietary, that will actually solve corporate need and not just my desire to use "free" software...and often times, the best answer is NOT the FOSS community.
Last time I had to hire for a non-programming IT job, the first guy that I turfed the resume into the circular filing bin spouted on and on about his FOSS involvement. And beyond that, he didn't have a fucking class, session, certificate, traning program, or touch of experience in the Real Fucking World that actually shown he would have been useful in a real world corporate office.
The caveat to all this: If you're a programmer, and heavily involved in a GOOD and WORKING FOSS project, it can HELP on your resume. If you're applying for anything BUT a programming gig, its wasted space on your resume.
Re:Accountants and marketers running the show... (Score:3, Insightful)
I'll let you in on a secret, since I'm in a Management of Information Systems class right now as part of our MBA curriculum... We're being told not to worry about being intricately familiar with XYZ technology, since XYZ tends to have a useful lifespan of 3-5 years... we're there to learn how to focus IT to best provide a service to the other parts of the business, and how to manage people. We learn what relational databases are, not how to do an installation of SQL Server 2008. What SOA represents to standardization and business intelligence, not how to set up the ESB, write adapters, etc.
It is interesting that in the "business side", the knowledge tree is inverted relative to IT, in that the business managers are expected to know every detail of their underlings workflow. Bank managers can step in and be tellers, loan officers, or just help you open a line of credit. But in IT, the higher up you go in management, the less technical knowledge exists (or at the least, skills have been depreciated) such that the managers truely lack the ability to drop in and fill the position. Be honest, how many .Net-programming, router configuring, DBA managers are there? IT has become comfortable with "niches", and the delegation mindset drives productivity... IT managers exist to coordinate, not implement.
In a way, it's specialization at it's finest, but compartmentalization comes at the price of becoming interchangable... Hense, a company's IT's service becomes replacable, and the managers don't pay it any mind. A help desk service could be in-house, or outsourced. Internal programming staff could just be a consulting company hired for a one-off job. It's the way that IT has been evolving, so it's not a stretch to see that competition is forcing costs (i.e. salaries) down.
Re:What?!? (Score:5, Insightful)
It's hard to look at interoperability problems and then blame them on the Open Source folks who use open standards. So perhaps people agree with you, in a way, and are just more up-front about where to assign the blame. Not to mention that it will forever remain a "Microsoft ruled world" if no one is ever willing to value alternatives.
Honestly you don't sound very happy or content to me. You sound angry and venomous. If you have a great source of joy in your life, something that makes it easy have patience and be at ease with all the things you don't like, you seem rather selective about expressing it. Even if you're right and they are indeed foolish, why would the opinions of some "fanbois" take away your happiness by making you so upset?
If someone has no formal training and still managed to become an important part of a real software project, doesn't that tell you something about his or her resourcefulness and ability to take initiative? Why do you believe they would fare poorly in an environment like an office that comes with additional advantages like structure, training, clearly spelled-out expectations, and financial compensation?
Re:What?!? (Score:3, Insightful)
I can't bring myself to believe that you have 15 years of experience in the IT industry and don't know the real value of these "certificates". They exist solely to help HR tick off the appropriate box on an application.
I've seen plenty of your kind, and they were all asking for five years of Java experience back in 1995.
Re:You control your own destiny (Score:3, Insightful)
I imagine your mother deserves piles of compensation for having to put up with you, and likely with the demented woman-hating father you had that taught you to think this way.
Re:What?!? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:"shrinking female IT workforce"? (Score:3, Insightful)
Please try.
I would like to subscribe to your newsletter.
Rgds
Damon
Re:What?!? (Score:1, Insightful)
Actually, I have to disagree. I'm responsible for interviewing potential candidates for my team and whilst it's not a deciding factor, if I see a CV which shows an active interest in OSS and/or open standards (or other computer-related interests), it -will- catch my attention. Not because it's 'cool' or otherwise, but because it (possibly) demonstrates to me that this person has passion. Along with good work experience and a decent education, having a passion for what you do counts as a definite plus.
Also, considering that many CVs tend to list any and every technology (i.e., they worked with Java for a month), it's the small details that I tend to look for. A 'laundry list' of technologies kind of defeats the point - especially when everyone is doing it - I'd much rather have someone who specialises in the needed skills. I've found that people who have a wide variety of skills (and I don't disagree that this can be beneficial) tend to be in the 'jack of all trades/master of none' category.
I would encourage people to become experts on 1-2 technologies of their choice, have a fundamental understanding of programming principles and practices - and keep abreast of the latest technologies. Additionally, find your passion and never, ever stop learning. In my own life, I've found that this will get you to wherever you want to go.
Re:You control your own destiny (Score:3, Insightful)
I think you're right about much of what you said, but recommending people just walk away from their homes if they're "underwater any significant amount" isn't the most responsible thing. Our country is in such bad shape right now, partially because of people with this attitude of "I'll just walk away from what I owe as soon as I don't like the terms anymore that I agreed to initially!"
Bullshit. I'm only advocating living up to the contract you signed.
Every home loan is a collateral-backed loan (as opposed to an unsecured loan, such as credit card debt). The terms are really quite simple: you have two choices: 1) pay your mortgage on time, and you get to stay in your house until the loan is paid off, or 2) fail to pay on the loan, and the bank is allowed to take the house back from you.
It's no different than a car loan. With a car loan, you make the payments, OR, the repo man comes and takes your car away from you.
I'm only advocating exercising option #2. There is a penalty, however: you get a hit on your credit report, saying to other creditors that you're a credit risk. If you're OK with the penalty, then there's no shame in exercising your option to default.
Remember, these lenders had a responsibility (to their shareholders) to exercise due diligence and proper judgment in handing out these loans. Every loan, of any type, carries a certain amount of risk. There's a risk that the borrower will default, and you'll lose money. To mitigate this risk, there's several steps you can take: 1) require the borrower to pay for PMI. Most underwater loans have this, so lenders are getting reimbursed for defaults. 2) require the borrower to put up collateral. For home loans, this is obviously the house itself. So, if the borrower defaults, you can take the house back, and re-sell it to recoup your losses from them not paying their mortgage. Now, it should be obvious (but it's not to a mortgage lender apparently) that you should make sure the house is actually worth what you're loaning out for it, because if it's not, then you're going to be screwed when you try to auction it after a foreclosure.
It's not the buyers' fault that banks/lenders colluded to artificially drive up house prices, and then didn't bother to actually make sure they weren't sitting on trillions of dollars of highly risky loans on properties that weren't worth half what they loaned for them.
(He said he already tried to renegotiate his mortgage with the lender, but they refused to help him.)
They do this for everyone. They've already been paid off by the government for all underwater loans, so there's no reason to renegotiate, as they profit more from a foreclosure.
Do it: walk away. You are NOT hurting anyone, you're only helping yourself. The lenders aren't being hurt, because they've already been bailed out by YOUR tax dollars. You might as well take your share by saving your finances now.
Finally, yes, I do agree that a short sale is a better route in most cases, if you can manage to get one. It's a lesser hit to your credit.
Finally,
Our country is in such bad shape right now
People walking away is NOT what put our country into such bad shape. It was extreme greed and shortsightedness on the part of major corporations, and especially the government, whose very job it is to regulate large industries to keep giant economic problems from happening in the first place. They learned their lesson in the 1930s with the Great Depression, and enacted many laws to regulate the finance industry to keep it from happening again. These laws were dismantled in the 90s, and the expected result has occurred.
Only, it's worse now. The bailouts are only prolonging the situation, and making it seem less bad than it really is. We're going to have another big drop in the near future I think.
Our country is going down the tubes, from many factors (religious fundamentalism, greed, growing separation of classes and disappearance of the middle class
Re:You control your own destiny (Score:3, Insightful)
There's something to this idea. Every army needs its cannon fodder (or Jihaddist with a bomb vest).
I consider it a Darwinian reproductive strategy by the alpha males,
Possibly that's why the "Protestant Work Ethic" goes hand in hand with admonishments against promiscuity. You work hard and keep your hands off the harem. Those are for the king.
Re:What?!? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:What?!? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:What?!? (Score:3, Insightful)
I can't bring myself to believe that you have 15 years of experience in the IT industry and don't know the real value of these "certificates". They exist solely to help HR tick off the appropriate box on an application.
in my eyes, you are a bit overly-cinical. Sure those certificates are mostly checkboxes for HR, but i can state from my own experience that getting my sun certificates really helped me in my first job, partly since i didnt do a pure CS/IT study.
now microsoft certs (where candidates get testkings a few days before the exam), those are worthless in my eyes. At best they prove the person has the ability to memorize a couple hundred multiple choice question/answer combos
Re:What?!? (Score:3, Insightful)
Not entirely. If everything else is equal the guy with the cert gets the job. I understand that all the cert does is show you can attend a boot camp but it does bring a measurable skill set with it. For instance if you've got an MS Exchange cert and I'm looking for an Exchange administrator the cert will definitely help you get the job.
However, if you put yourself out there as a certified Exchange admin and you can't do the job I'd be considerably more inclined to fire you than try to train you.
I still put my MCSE (even though it's an NT 4.0 MCSE), MCP+I and A+ on resumes mainly because it gets my resume past the first cut - which in my industry is done by a machine.