Hiring Disparity
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@scottalanmiller said:
That's a huge question that I don't know the answer to but I think that it is key to solving this problem. Maybe an IT Industry Association is needed to not be a union per se but to act as a non-profit to oversee this kind of stuff and set standards.
That's the first reasonable suggestion I've heard to attempt to fix this. Wonder what it would take to start one?
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How would job titles mean that a Sybase DBA working in a small town earns more money? If there isn't a demand for Sybase DBAs in his town, then he's not going to earn $500k. It's simple supply and demand, labour economics, isn't it?
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@Carnival-Boy said:
How would job titles mean that a Sybase DBA working in a small town earns more money? If there isn't a demand for Sybase DBAs in his town, then he's not going to earn $500k. It's simple supply and demand, labour economics, isn't it?
It's two separate issues. One is a lack of career ladders for most IT careers. The second is that even for existing career ladders, the most common ones, there are no established titles.
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@MattSpeller said:
That's the first reasonable suggestion I've heard to attempt to fix this. Wonder what it would take to start one?
It's been discussed around here. I have a lot of interest in that area. Establishing meaningful titles and job descriptions. Making resumes mean something. Helping HR departments understand what they are asking for and what they need. Providing guidelines for IT education.
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@scottalanmiller said:
@Carnival-Boy said:
I'm sure this is true for lots of other professions as well. Top mechanics might earn $500k, but they won't earn that in my town.
Outside of working for a racing team, do any mechanics actually make anything like that? Do even ones working for top racing teams?
Agreed, $100K seems ridiculous for even the most senior mechanic, same goes for most IT jobs, they under $100K, probably most are under $80K.
I suppose the lead mechanic on a racing team, who's also a designer/engineer could make $100K+, but not a mechanic (non-engineer).
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@Dashrender said:
Agreed, $100K seems ridiculous for even the most senior mechanic, same goes for most IT jobs, they under $100K, probably most are under $80K.
In a major market I could see $100K. The senior techs who are very busy and helping other techs, it would make sense. Otherwise you'd have major issues hiring people in places like NYC, Silicon Valley, etc. But the average mechanic has to be like $40K - $60K and the top pay is probably topping out a little over $100K. And it is, I assume, pretty predictable. But IT, the starting is lower and the ending is higher and the predictability doesn't exist at all.
I literally get contacted about the same job title and description all the time with a pay range from $60K - $300K without any way for me to be able to tell what the difference in the job is creating the disparity in potential pay.
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500% swing on pay on the same job is pretty crazy.
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tl;dr
I think that the problem is lack of standardisation. With Doctors, Lawyers, Plumbers etc there is a standard that people have come to expect. Doctors & Lawyers etc have specific & mandatory qualifications and standards that they have to meet which are respected across the board (in their country).
IT has no mandatory or specific qualifications. Yes, we are professionals (well, most of us
) but due to the lack of standards we get shafted because most companies don't know how to describe what skill set or worse, they don't know what they are looking for.Also, each set up is painfully unique because they are governed by budgets and not standards.
For a bunch of people who like standardised stuff, we should really be mortified about the lack of standardisation of jobs/hiring.
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@scottalanmiller said:
It's two separate issues. One is a lack of career ladders for most IT careers. The second is that even for existing career ladders, the most common ones, there are no established titles.
Ah, gotcha. I'm still not convinced IT is that different from other careers. My sister is a Business Analyst. I have no idea how much she earns and I have no idea how much Business Analysts generally earn, but I suspect that, like IT, it varies wildly, as it is a pretty broad profession.
A friend of mine is a bookmaker. He actually had to leave the UK entirely, as all the major British bookies have moved offshore for tax purposes. He moved to Guernsey. When he lost his job there, the only similar jobs he got offered were in Vegas, Cyprus and Australia. Again, the salaries varied widely, as it is not a "standardised" career, but I imagine he's pushing towards the $500k mark. I'm sure I could think of other examples just within my circle of friends and family.
Anyway, I'm not going to convince you.
I have a few issues with recruitment in the IT industry. This is in the UK, it might be different in the US. Firstly, it is very hard to even be considered for a lot of IT jobs without a degree, even though it's not a job where a degree can help you much.
Secondly, 99% of IT jobs are only advertised through IT recruitment agencies. There are a few great IT recruitment agencies, but I think the majority, particular the large ones, are awful. IT recruitment in the UK seems like a shady, cut-throat industry compared with, say, accountancy, where the biggest accountancy recruitment firms have a pretty good reputation. IT candidates appear to be treated like a simple commodity rather than as human beings, and I don't think this issue exists in other industries.
Finally, I think the IT certification industry could be better. In theory, Microsoft certification sounds great. But in reality, it's fallen in to disrepute over the years. They're supposed to test for practical experience, but in reality you can pass them just by reading a book. I'd like to see established IT certifications and qualifications that are on a par with, say, accountancy.
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@Carnival-Boy said:
Ah, gotcha. I'm still not convinced IT is that different from other careers. My sister is a Business Analyst. I have no idea how much she earns and I have no idea how much Business Analysts generally earn, but I suspect that, like IT, it varies wildly, as it is a pretty broad profession.
I've been a BA. BA is normally considered part of IT or at least part of software development. It's a slight modification of the old system analyst (software designer) job.
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@Carnival-Boy said:
A friend of mine is a bookmaker. He actually had to leave the UK entirely, as all the major British bookies have moved offshore for tax purposes. He moved to Guernsey. When he lost his job there, the only similar jobs he got offered were in Vegas, Cyprus and Australia. Again, the salaries varied widely, as it is not a "standardised" career, but I imagine he's pushing towards the $500k mark. I'm sure I could think of other examples just within my circle of friends and family.
Never considered the world of bookies before. No idea what that career field is like. Very niche field, I suppose, which is why I've never met one. I'm sure there are many tiny fields or job that have the issue. They would be like IT, that makes sense. The thing that makes IT dramatic is that it is one of, if not the, largest field. It's up there with teachers, nurses, engineers, secretaries, receptionists and factory workers. It's one of the few fields in the US where staff numbers in the millions. A significant portion of the US population works in IT and/or software development. Significant meaning real percentages, not fractions of a percentage. Only a couple different fields can be that big. Given that IT is needed in every town, every business, nearly every endeavour.... that you have the issues that are faced by fields so small as to have effective zero people in a country is staggering.
That it is bookies that we need to compare to rather than teachers is really my point, I guess.
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@Carnival-Boy said:
Secondly, 99% of IT jobs are only advertised through IT recruitment agencies.
Is this true? I've not found this at all. Many are, certainly, but 99%? None of the big places seem to do this (Apple, Microsoft, Exxon-Mobil, Google, Facebook, Amazon, etc.) Medium sized ones seem to do it a lot. And the SMB doesn't seem to do it at all, that I've seen.
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@Carnival-Boy said:
I'd like to see established IT certifications and qualifications that are on a par with, say, accountancy.
Can't you pass those exams just from studying in books too? I've not tried or looked into it, I have no idea what they are like. But I imagine that book learning is all that is needed to get accounting credentials.
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@scottalanmiller said:
@Carnival-Boy said:
I'd like to see established IT certifications and qualifications that are on a par with, say, accountancy.
Can't you pass those exams just from studying in books too? I've not tried or looked into it, I have no idea what they are like. But I imagine that book learning is all that is needed to get accounting credentials.
Not even close. For example, to sit for the CPA exam, which has four parts, you have to have a certain number of logged hours in certain types of work, primarily tax and audit (two separate things). And to sit for the CPA exam, unless they've changed it, you are required to have at least at Bachelor's degree IN accounting. Less than 10% of people get their CPA license on the first try. Most need at least two rounds. The thing about accounting is that it's as much knowing tax law, if not more, as it is how to "do the numbers". My father is a CPA and says that so much of accounting is learning the law that makes up a given scenario, etc. Without hands-on experience, and a lot of it, you would never pass the CPA exam, regardless of how much you studied.
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@Carnival-Boy said:
Finally, I think the IT certification industry could be better. In theory, Microsoft certification sounds great. But in reality, it's fallen in to disrepute over the years.
I agree, but I don't think that certification can come from vendors. Those certs (MCSE for example) have an important place in certifying people on products and vendor published best practices, but what other industry (maybe mechanics) relies on vendor certifications rather than industry ones? The MCSE isn't there to tell people that you are a competent IT professional, only that if you are, you know how to apply that to Microsoft's products in a Microsoft-approved way.
What IT lacks is any sort of general certification for the field. CompTIA tries to do this but only addresses the entry level and only addresses it rather weakly. Their Network+ exam does cover a certain minimum level of network understanding but does nothing to talk about general IT skills, business alignment, understanding the role of IT, dealing with things across vendors (which is pretty important in IT!)
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@thanksaj said:
Not even close. For example, to sit for the CPA exam, which has four parts, you have to have a certain number of logged hours in certain types of work, primarily tax and audit (two separate things). And to sit for the CPA exam, unless they've changed it, you are required to have at least at Bachelor's degree IN accounting. Less than 10% of people get their CPA license on the first try. Most need at least two rounds. The thing about accounting is that it's as much knowing tax law, if not more, as it is how to "do the numbers". My father is a CPA and says that so much of accounting is learning the law that makes up a given scenario, etc. Without hands-on experience, and a lot of it, you would never pass the CPA exam, regardless of how much you studied.
Requirements are silly, though. Logged hours means that you are working in the field prior to certification. So that's an advanced cert. I know that CPA is way beyond "accountant." Same for MBA. You are supposed to be a career manager before attempting an MBA. The CPA exam is hard, I understand, but I think we are talking more of a "normal" account level certification here. IT has plenty of exams that require "logged hours" but they still don't get harder, they just get weird because anyone can log hours.
Knowing tax law is just learning from books though, right? Not like CPAs can practice law as attorneys before taking the exam.
Having to have a degree in a field is just more paper. They do that to RNs too.
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1990 I started school to become an Automotive Technician and was introduced to ASE. The people who started the National Institute for Automotive Service Excellence wanted to have a governing body to protect both the technicians, shop owner and the customers WITHOUT government involvement.You can read more here. When I was an automotive tech, I had certs for A1-A7 ( there was no A9 at the time) which you can see here.
ASE covers Cars & Light trucks, collision repair, medium-heavy duty truck, truck equipment, school & transit buses, auto & truck parts.
I believe that since ASE encompasses a lot area in the "automotive" world, we could mimic their organisation for IT. It could help bring more structure and provide us with a voice or even a medium for generic advertising. Did you know outside of the SMB sector, that businesses or employees don't know what IT is or what an IT person is? Creating a non-profit org like ASE for IT could help change that and more, it could bring change to the hiring disparity.
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@technobabble said:
Did you know outside of the SMB sector, that businesses or employees don't know what IT is or what an IT person is?
I don't know what IT is! I asked that very question in a new thread on here a few weeks ago, and was still none the wiser. I often tell people I'm a Computer Programmer rather than an IT Manager, as I can understand what that is. When people ask me to describe what I do as an IT Manager I can't really explain.
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@Carnival-Boy said:
@technobabble said:
Did you know outside of the SMB sector, that businesses or employees don't know what IT is or what an IT person is?
I don't know what IT is! I asked that very question in a new thread on here a few weeks ago, and was still none the wiser. I often tell people I'm a Computer Programmer rather than an IT Manager, as I can understand what that is. When people ask me to describe what I do as an IT Manager I can't really explain.
A friend saw a post about IT techs that I posted and asked me what is an it? I had to explain IT duties could be: computer repair, networking, malware/AV cleanup, backup management etc.
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@technobabble said:
@Carnival-Boy said:
@technobabble said:
Did you know outside of the SMB sector, that businesses or employees don't know what IT is or what an IT person is?
I don't know what IT is! I asked that very question in a new thread on here a few weeks ago, and was still none the wiser. I often tell people I'm a Computer Programmer rather than an IT Manager, as I can understand what that is. When people ask me to describe what I do as an IT Manager I can't really explain.
A friend saw a post about IT techs that I posted and asked me what is an it? I had to explain IT duties could be: computer repair, networking, malware/AV cleanup, backup management etc.
lol, I guess not everyone can know everything about everything. The last universal man died in 1887(?) I'll have to check that.
EDIT: Hmmm, probably wrong about that date. I can't seem to find the article that I read...
