More about why technical professionals can’t find employment

I received the following post as a Comment to my recent post, “Why technical professionals can’t find employment,” Advice Line, 11/24/2008. Rather than add to the back-and-forth in the comments, I thought it would make sense to reply here. – Bob

Bob,  

The sad truth is, is that many a business person in the larger companies, can only see the dollar signs and nothing else … not whether someone does or doesn’t have skills, or whether someone does or doesn’t improve them. In many cases even knowingly know that it may damage the business in the long run because they assume they will be long gone when the $%^& hits the fan. You can see this at several points in the corporate business world, not just in offshoring, but in training dollars, manpower, infrastructure investment etc…… as many a technical conference that I have attended recently, have 1/3 the attendance from the 90s. 

It is impossible to develop a workable marketing, packaging or quality job plan if the pricing expectation is that you have to work for $20K/year or less… which is pretty much impossible to support a family on, in America nowadays.  

According to a senior VP at a major outsourcer(and one-time CEO of the year winner)… “Every IT job except management can be offshored” 

With modern tools, location is no longer a factor in IT and with cost trumping skills and experience… he may be justified in his opinion. 

Anyone who thinks they can ‘reskill’ or ‘market’ or not ‘grouse’ themselves out of a layoff or into a job are just whistling in the dark … layoffs can hit anyone in almost any position, now, and most IT budgets are just too tight, nowadays to really expect people to come knocking on your door right away, should a layoff happen to you. Most business objectives demand that no ONE person be indispensable and most IT budget demands require a shrinkage, not added staff. 

All you have to do is look in the newspaper nowadays to see that IT careers are very limited in scope now in the US … In the 90s almost every major newspaper had 2 or 3 PAGES of IT jobs in the Sunday paper. Nowadays they have 2-3 IT JOBS.  

Your claim that if a seller(job hunter) can’t market, promote, price, it must be his/her fault, not the marketplace … Whose fault is it when there aren’t any BUYERS (employers) of a service, in a marketplace? The lack of advertised positions in the newspapers is a strong indication that demand has pretty much disappeared, relative to the supply in the IT employment industry, which would indicate it’s more of a BUYER shortage, not a SELLER’s marketing problem, right now.  

Under these circumstances it is not surprising that SOME people, would have difficulty finding a new job, no matter HOW hard they try or HOW skilled they are.  

If you haven’t tried OBTAINING (any idiot can FIND a job advertised via www.indeed.com) an IT job in the last 7 years or don’t live in an IT hotbed, such as DC or NY… you really don’t know  

what’s going on in the IT job market, anymore, even if you were on the ‘wrong’ side of a corporate layoff, at some point.

– Disagrees

Dear Disagrees …

Let’s try this again: You might be right, you might be wrong, and it doesn’t matter.

Here’s how it works: People who succeed focus on what they need to do. People who don’t succeed focus on what other people need to do.

I give advice on how to be successful. If you’re an IT professional who is out of a job and wants a job in IT, my advice is to focus on what you can do to make your job search as successful as possible. This is no different in principle from the advice I give CIOs who are having a hard time convincing business executives they need to invest in quality architecture, not just features and functionality:

If you’re having a hard time convincing them you need to find new approaches that are more persuasive.

The alternative would be to commiserate, and while saying, “Gee, that is too bad … here’s a Kleenex,” might be comforting, it wouldn’t be particularly helpful.

A couple of points, that to me suggest it isn’t quite as bleak a picture as you paint:

• The number of classified ads is a lousy metric because for employment, classifieds are pretty much a dead medium. If you believe there are no jobs to be had in IT I have simple advice to give: Find a different profession. My own opinion is that there are jobs to be had – fewer than there used to be, given the economy, but they do exist. They’re going to the most desirable candidates. If you want a job, make sure you’re one of them.

• Nobody is going to have to cut back from a $100K compensation package to a $20K compensation package if they’re any good. They might, however, need to cut back to $75K — difficult but not beggaring. We’re in a horrible economy right now. Real unemployment is over 12.7%. Few companies are even making a profit of any kind at the moment, which means everyone, including employees in IT, are going to feel the squeeze.

• Not every job is going offshore because it doesn’t make sense to send every job offshore. Most business managers do their best to make good decisions for their employer. They look at cost, because looking at cost is good business. They look at other factors too, such as the question of whether something will work, because no matter how inexpensive something is, if it doesn’t work the entire expense is money down the drain.

• As has usually been the case, huge corporations will continue to be the worst place to look for jobs. The easiest, but the worst. Especially if you’re concerned about offshore competition, small companies are the least likely to send IT work offshore and the most likely to value versatile employees.

Here’s the best advice for everyone who wants to be employed right now: Be completely, ruthlessly honest with yourself. For just about everyone there’s a job classification in which you can be in the top 10%. It might not be a “money” field. It might not be your current field. But it’s there — it’s what you have a particular aptitude for and, if you’re lucky, enjoy doing, too.

If you’re looking for work in a field where you’re in the top 10%, you’ll find work. Otherwise your changes aren’t as good.

What I’ll guarantee is this: Every minute you spend thinking about how awful it is that someone else isn’t thinking in ways that are to your advantage is a minute you aren’t spending figuring out how to make yourself more attractive to the job market.

That’s a minute you’ve wasted.

Oh … you comment about the possibility that I haven’t had to find work myself recently. As it happens, I run a small consulting company. If I don’t sell my services, I don’t get any income. It’s that simple.

Right now isn’t the best economy for selling consulting services. My job isn’t to spend time and energy focused on how terrible that is. My job is to figure out how to sell consulting services in the conditions we’re currently facing.

Same problem. Same solution, too.

– Bob