If LAN is legacy, what is the UN-legacy...?
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One major issue with the job disparity issue is keeping up with current technologies or making sure that we offer the skills that are needed.
IT Pro says "I do X" and no one is hiring.
Company says "We need Y and no one is looking."
It is the IT Pro's job, if they want to work, to make sure that they adjust their skills to be sure that they can service the companies that they want to work with.
So we tend to end up with IT Pros who think that there is no work and companies that think that there are no IT Pros. It's not like accounting where everyone who does accounting is visible to everyone that hires accountants.
If we look at IT as a whole, there are nearly a million unfillable jobs in the US alone. If we look at "SonicWall Level 2 Administration is Topeka" we might think that there are no jobs at all. There is a lot of perspective issues there.
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@scottalanmiller said:
Easy answer (that no one likes to hear is) .... you don't. IT is in demand, successful companies need it. IT isn't justifiable in a small environment. It just doesn't make sense. And especially not in companies that struggle with the basics and keep IT from being valuable.
The problem is you are trying to make people perceive value that doesn't exist. Both because the environment is too small (an MSP could manage that in its sleep) and doesn't have a means of leveraging a full time IT staffer even if they appreciated what you could offer. The very idea that you need to justify your existence should be a red flag, that's not how it should work. We should not be at work trying to sell the idea of being there. Does bookkeepers do that? Does HR? Does the operations department? No, then IT doesn't either.
The SMB is not a place where IT has much place as a full time, in house role. Everyone needs IT, but too often the SMB IT departments lean on doing IT inefficiently and poorly in order to maintain their positions.
Have you seen any published material stating this type of thing? I say it often when meeting potential clients, and remind existing clients about it on occasion. Would be nice to reference some published material though also.
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@JaredBusch said:
@scottalanmiller said:
@Dashrender said:
the problem is that there aren't nearly as many companies out there looking as their are workers looking.
Is that true? Having been on both sides of the fence, I can tell you that companies feel the opposite.
As @coliver jsut said, it is most certainly regionally true.
I totally believe that it is regional, but are there really regions where companies are like "So many IT Pros to choose from, we don't know what to do with ourselves?" I'm sure some town is like that somewhere, but in general, are there companies getting flooded with viable CVs in any quantity? I know that they get flooded, but generally with spammer-like stuff that isn't serious and doesn't match the person at all.
Maybe there are, but even in the places where IT Pros feel that there is no work, I often talk to companies that still can't find people.
Beyond market volume, there is also the problem of matchmaking. Dashrender could be two blocks from ten companies that all need him and exactly him and yet they never make contact or find out about each other. So there is that issue, as well.
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I don't know what it would look like, but I really believe that there needs to be some kind of highly visible IT skills market. Something with way, way more info and matchmaking than anything out there today. The ability for companies and IT Pros who need each other to find one another is horrific. If the best job for me was next door, and I was the best candidate for them, the chances that we would find each other is near zero, even if we were both seeking each other at the same time.
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@JaredBusch said:
@scottalanmiller said:
Easy answer (that no one likes to hear is) .... you don't. IT is in demand, successful companies need it. IT isn't justifiable in a small environment. It just doesn't make sense. And especially not in companies that struggle with the basics and keep IT from being valuable.
The problem is you are trying to make people perceive value that doesn't exist. Both because the environment is too small (an MSP could manage that in its sleep) and doesn't have a means of leveraging a full time IT staffer even if they appreciated what you could offer. The very idea that you need to justify your existence should be a red flag, that's not how it should work. We should not be at work trying to sell the idea of being there. Does bookkeepers do that? Does HR? Does the operations department? No, then IT doesn't either.
The SMB is not a place where IT has much place as a full time, in house role. Everyone needs IT, but too often the SMB IT departments lean on doing IT inefficiently and poorly in order to maintain their positions.
Have you seen any published material stating this type of thing? I say it often when meeting potential clients, and remind existing clients about it on occasion. Would be nice to reference some published material though also.
Do you mean about the size of the company, MSP vs. in house and that aspect?
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@JaredBusch said:
@Breffni-Potter said:
If the culture around you is not changing and despite your best efforts you cannot improve it, find a culture who will value and embrace you.
I did this.
My next step has to be making myself marketable if that is the case. Any advice? I have the experience on paper but I definitely need to tighten my knowledge for sure.
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@scottalanmiller said:
I don't know what it would look like, but I really believe that there needs to be some kind of highly visible IT skills market. Something with way, way more info and matchmaking than anything out there today. The ability for companies and IT Pros who need each other to find one another is horrific. If the best job for me was next door, and I was the best candidate for them, the chances that we would find each other is near zero, even if we were both seeking each other at the same time.
I totally agree with you on this. Someone go find some venture capital to start a company. I could work for a startup, but i know myself better than to think I could build a startup.
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@scottalanmiller said:
Do you mean about the size of the company, MSP vs. in house and that aspect?
Yes
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@wirestyle22 said:
My next step has to be making myself marketable if that is the case. Any advice? I have the experience on paper but I definitely need to tighten my knowledge.
Well, the first step, IMHO, is deciding on your career goals. You need to know what will make you happy, what you want to do, where you want to go, what you are willing to do, etc. You need those answers first. Then you need a loose roadmap for education, resume building, experience gathering, etc.
IT is a huge field, lots of ways to get to different places.
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@JaredBusch said:
@scottalanmiller said:
I don't know what it would look like, but I really believe that there needs to be some kind of highly visible IT skills market. Something with way, way more info and matchmaking than anything out there today. The ability for companies and IT Pros who need each other to find one another is horrific. If the best job for me was next door, and I was the best candidate for them, the chances that we would find each other is near zero, even if we were both seeking each other at the same time.
I totally agree with you on this. Someone go find some venture capital to start a company. I could work for a startup, but i know myself better than to think I could build a startup.
I can't do either any more. I'm too stodgy for a start up these days.
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@JaredBusch said:
@scottalanmiller said:
Do you mean about the size of the company, MSP vs. in house and that aspect?
Yes
This is the only one that I have, basically talking about how tiny departments lack the breadth necessary to be useful.
http://www.smbitjournal.com/2013/02/the-smallest-it-department/
I don't know of any publications other than that that have talked about that aspect, I'll keep my eyes open.
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@scottalanmiller said:
@wirestyle22 said:
My next step has to be making myself marketable if that is the case. Any advice? I have the experience on paper but I definitely need to tighten my knowledge.
Well, the first step, IMHO, is deciding on your career goals. You need to know what will make you happy, what you want to do, where you want to go, what you are willing to do, etc. You need those answers first. Then you need a loose roadmap for education, resume building, experience gathering, etc.
IT is a huge field, lots of ways to get to different places.
I know I enjoy server administration and network administration. I'm not a huge fan of SQL. That's really it. I've operated under the notion that I can learn anything and have adapted to every job I've taken.
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@wirestyle22 said:
I know I enjoy server administration and network administration. I'm not a huge fan of SQL. That's really it. I've operated under the notion that I can learn anything and have adapted to every job I've taken.
That's pretty broad
What geographic region are you in? What industry verticals have you been in? Are you free to relocate?Few things did more for my career than having no geographic location. I went anywhere for work and that allowed me to be employed faster, at higher rates, more often than most anyone else. I went anywhere for the work. Kind of sucks, also gets you out seeing things. I worked in something like seventy cities between 2004 and 2005 alone! (Cities, large villages, whatever.)
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The biggest problem @scottalanmiller @JaredBusch with a match-making site is how do you sort out the liars?
I'm sure I've not seen even half the candidates you two have, yet when you have a candidate who claims to have done xyz then fails to explain the most basic fundamentals about it.
I'm not talking about "Explain this model to me, or how does this exact thing work" more like general concepts.
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@scottalanmiller said:
@wirestyle22 said:
I know I enjoy server administration and network administration. I'm not a huge fan of SQL. That's really it. I've operated under the notion that I can learn anything and have adapted to every job I've taken.
That's pretty broad
What geographic region are you in? What industry verticals have you been in? Are you free to relocate?Few things did more for my career than having no geographic location. I went anywhere for work and that allowed me to be employed faster, at higher rates, more often than most anyone else. I went anywhere for the work. Kind of sucks, also gets you out seeing things. I worked in something like seventy cities between 2004 and 2005 alone! (Cities, large villages, whatever.)
Tri-state area east coast U.S.
I have worked as desktop support in a major hospital.
Server administrator for a few doctors offices (I am still--sidework)
Everything under the sun for my current job (I am the IT department). I listed my setup here above somewhere. I've been learning as needed but I really need to hunker down and learn everything to my standards--which I haven't yet. I'm an extremely detail oriented person but I don't know where to invest my time. -
@scottalanmiller said:
@wirestyle22 said:
I know I enjoy server administration and network administration. I'm not a huge fan of SQL. That's really it. I've operated under the notion that I can learn anything and have adapted to every job I've taken.
That's pretty broad
What geographic region are you in? What industry verticals have you been in? Are you free to relocate?Few things did more for my career than having no geographic location. I went anywhere for work and that allowed me to be employed faster, at higher rates, more often than most anyone else. I went anywhere for the work. Kind of sucks, also gets you out seeing things. I worked in something like seventy cities between 2004 and 2005 alone! (Cities, large villages, whatever.)
This was one of the things I noticed when looking for a job last year. I was lucky enough to find something local but if I didn't I would have been forced to move to one of the surrounding metro areas. Or try and work remotely, which I'm not sure how well I would have done.
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@coliver said:
@scottalanmiller said:
@wirestyle22 said:
I know I enjoy server administration and network administration. I'm not a huge fan of SQL. That's really it. I've operated under the notion that I can learn anything and have adapted to every job I've taken.
That's pretty broad
What geographic region are you in? What industry verticals have you been in? Are you free to relocate?Few things did more for my career than having no geographic location. I went anywhere for work and that allowed me to be employed faster, at higher rates, more often than most anyone else. I went anywhere for the work. Kind of sucks, also gets you out seeing things. I worked in something like seventy cities between 2004 and 2005 alone! (Cities, large villages, whatever.)
This was one of the things I noticed when looking for a job last year. I was lucky enough to find something local but if I didn't I would have been forced to move to one of the surrounding metro areas. Or try and work remotely, which I'm not sure how well I would have done.
That is where I'm at. I don't think my knowledge is anywhere near strong enough to hold up in a competitive interview. As a matter of fact I know I'm not. That isn't to say I couldn't do any job that I was hired for, but at my current level I have to look a lot of things up and I'm positive that I am missing pieces of knowledge that could make me look less knowledgeable than I actually am.
I guess what I'm asking is what should I be studying? Network+ MCSE CCNA exam study material?
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http://mangolassi.it/topic/7840/how-do-you-find-the-right-employer
Setup a new thread for this topic, we might be able to brainstorm some solutions.
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@scottalanmiller said:
Maybe there are, but even in the places where IT Pros feel that there is no work, I often talk to companies that still can't find people.
There are definitely companies like that here, but what they want is someone with 10+ years experience, plus a masters in either electrical or mechanical engineering for their engineers.
Hell for their junior personal they want undergrads with engineering degrees.
Granted this is only one company.
Is the IT Generalist going the way of the dodo?
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Relocating would be nearly impossible for me. My wife would hate moving away from her family. Me - I have no family here other than my wife.. so I'll go nearly anywhere.
