Where are all the IT jobs?

[Skyrys62]

Here in Western KY, the contractors can't find good help. They are always looking.
If possible in OH, try to call some of the MSSP's or hit up the contractors, even some of the electrical contractors, as they seem to be picking up IT work for cabling, basic network setup, terminations, fiber, etc.
And ditto on the school systems. The guys I've known for years will retire soon with great benefits....but.. they are working for the school system, which brings it's own set of frustrations. Especially in any leadership positions.
And yes,the security thing is definitely hot.
Think about becoming a certified HIPAA consultant. People pay big when you scare them with millions in fines. Then you copy/paste their company name in some standardized policies and act like you worked your butt off for them. Then, make them read/approve them so that it's not your liability anymore. Return every so often to re-do their risk analysis to keep the hook in the mouth.

 

[flyingcheesehead]

I've seen a lot of recommendations to move, but TBH, there are IT jobs everywhere. Every organization of any size greater than one person uses computers to varying effect, and thus if there's a company somewhere with more than about 50 employees, they probably have an IT person. Plenty of companies even smaller than that need someone if they're a more computer-centric/professional type of business.

There are plenty of small businesses that are terrible at IT. If you can sell yourself, you can be a consultant. Help them set up a better web site, do a security assessment (which usually means checking to see if their software is up to date enough to not have any known vulnerabilities), all kinds of relatively easy stuff needs to be done that you probably already have the skill to do.

And the jobs are out there. It's not what you know, it's who you know. Heck, hang out at the airport and make new friends there. Many pilots are also business owners.

We recently went through a whole bunch of sysop resumes I was thinking that "oh, in my day we only used IPv4, surely young sysops today will now know how to do it in both IPv4 and IPv6".

Anybody who really qualifies as "young" probably doesn't even know what a "sysop" is. They call 'em sysadmins most of the time now.

Really, I haven't heard anyone call themselves a sysop since the BBS days.

I could tell you a UDP joke but I'm not sure you'd get it

 

[denverpilot]

Wait what? Kubernetes and blockchain aren’t saving the world yet? LOL.

I better check my “Gartner Magic Quadrant” to see what we are looking for on resumes this year. Hahaha.

 

[Matthew]

Small offices, like a church, often contract out for IT support. If you are a member and able to volunteer your time, you might find out you are going to be dealing with accountants, payroll companies, banks, and a number of other professional contacts.

 

[weilke]

Ok, FWIW, try USAJOBS.gov. I am not an IT person, but at the DOD facility that I work at, I am told, that they are desperate for IT people.

They are desperate for IT people with a clearance. And with 'IT people' they mean someone who can fog a mirror and has a clearance.

Anything I can say beyond that would fall under protected personnel information, but let's say if you have a TS clearance, any ability to navigate an MS domain environment will put you on the top of the hiring stack with many of the DoD contractors. Without that clearance, you can be gods gift to database design and you won't get a callback.

 

[flhrci]

They are desperate for IT people with a clearance. And with 'IT people' they mean someone who can fog a mirror and has a clearance.

Anything I can say beyond that would fall under protected personnel information, but let's say if you have a TS clearance, any ability to navigate an MS domain environment will put you on the top of the hiring stack with many of the DoD contractors. Without that clearance, you can be gods gift to database design and you won't get a callback.

So what's happens if you had a clearance over 10 years ago and you apply? There are tons of DOD IT jobs here but my clearance expired when I got out of the Navy in 2006.

 

[Pugs]

So what's happens if you had a clearance over 10 years ago and you apply? There are tons of DOD IT jobs here but my clearance expired when I got out of the Navy in 2006.

10 years is a while. Within 3 years a clearance renewal up through TS/SCI is easy. I think at 10 it's a start over, although the actual process may go more quickly once they get to your application. From no clearance to SCI is running > 450 days last I heard.

No idea on secret level clearances.

 

[jsstevens]

So what's happens if you had a clearance over 10 years ago and you apply? There are tons of DOD IT jobs here but my clearance expired when I got out of the Navy in 2006.

You have to start the process all over. It can take from a couple of months to 2+ years to get a Secret depending on how complicated your history is. For all practical purposes it's as if you never had one before.

 

[jsstevens]

Wait what? Kubernetes and blockchain aren’t saving the world yet? LOL.

I better check my “Gartner Magic Quadrant” to see what we are looking for on resumes this year. Hahaha.

Oh man, I'm glad I finished my coffee before I read that! I've had customers suggesting blockchain to optimize network communications. (Huh?!? Security perhaps, but network comms?) Of course they all want some Big Data and Deep Learning too...

 

[Half Fast]

You have to start the process all over. It can take from a couple of months to 2+ years to get a Secret depending on how complicated your history is. For all practical purposes it's as if you never had one before.

There's quite a backlog. I don't think anyone is getting cleared in a couple of months these days. Even a collateral secret can take 12 months, longer if there are complications.

 

[weilke]

So what's happens if you had a clearance over 10 years ago and you apply? There are tons of DOD IT jobs here but my clearance expired when I got out of the Navy in 2006.

As I understand it, while your military clearance expires when you leave, if you are within 3 or 5 years of your last renewal, getting a 'lateral' clearance for contractor work is quite straightforward. That's one reason people try to time their transition from fed into the contractor world at a point when they have a 'fresh' renewal which makes them highly employable. And it doesn't matter whether you watched a radar screen with that TS/SCI clearance, if you did any distance learning classes with 'cyber' in them, you choose your employer and location of work.

Getting a clearance from scratch for contractor work is difficult. The contractor needs to employ you for a indeterminate period of time (often 18mo - 2years) and keep you on 'unclassified' projects until the clearance comes through. With fed contracts being parceled out in 6month chunks, they never know whether they can get any payback on their effort to get you cleared (and of course, the moment you have the clearance you are going to jump ship to work for their prime contractor at $10/hr more than what they are allowed to offer you under the subcontract).

Fed IT contracting is an odd world. It's a bit like the mafia, minus the blood ritual.

That said, if I came out of a CC with a basic IT degree, I would consider talking to a military recruiter to enlist with a contract. 4 years in some job description with cyber/future-warfighter/space/cyber/future/cyber somewhere in your specialty title may be a worthile use of your time to get established in an IT career that revolves around the fed contracting bubble. It also comes with educational benefits you can use during and after your enlistment for either yourself or your kids.

 

[jsstevens]

There's quite a backlog. I don't think anyone is getting cleared in a couple of months these days. Even a collateral secret can take 12 months, longer if there are complications.

We're getting some cleared in that time. But they are interns and have little "history" to investigate.

 

[Half Fast]

We're getting some cleared in that time. But they are interns and have little "history" to investigate.

It seems to vary quite a bit based on the sponsoring program. My son got his interim secret quickly, but the final took almost a year and he had very little history to investigate.

 

[idahoflier]

Like others have said, jobs are around but you may need to move. We just hired another team member and the candidate pool was pretty slim so there is a market out there. Unfortunately I have rarely seen a job posted as entry level, but don’t let that dissuade you. In today’s environment there are a lot of products that offer demos that you can cut your teeth on and more and more organizations are going open source to you can get experience with the actual product. If you want to stay local, join the various users groups available and go to meetings so you can network. Like others have said, tailor your resume’ to fit the job you’re applying for. Hang in there and Good Luck!

 

[MonkeyClaw]

Do you speak Hindi? That seems to help a lot...

 

[flyingcheesehead]

BTW, one other thing: Every job, ever, lists requirements that are sometimes unrealistic. For example, I remember seeing an ad for a Java developer position in 1994 that required two years' Java experience. Java was released... In 1994. NOBODY had two years' experience.

Also, your school should be able to help with placement, and they should know which organizations are willing to hire entry level people, because the college is where the companies will find their entry level people. And any college should have a placement office. Have you talked with them?

Again, I don't think you'll have to move. IT is everywhere.

 

[Kenny Phillips]

Do you speak Hindi? That seems to help a lot...

You only need the accent, not the actual language skills.

 

[wayne]

The local community college lied, didn't they? Lots of companies here, very few IT jobs hat I might be able to get. Zero "entry-level" jobs. Mostly "senior" level jobs.

Just graduated today with Associate's. Been applying for months with only one interview.

Frustrated.

Just got this email:


We have a Fulltime/long term contract position for Java Developer in the location of OAKS, PA / Cincinnati OH

Role: Java J2EE Developer
Location: OAKS, PA // Cincinnati OH

Job Description:

• Bachelor’s degree in Science or Equivalent, with minimum 8+ years of experience.
• Very strong experience working in Java/J2EE environments.
• Experience in Oracle/SQL, Spring Modules, Spring Boot.
• Experience in AngularJS.
• Strong in design and development using Core Java, JavaScript,.
• Experience in writing SQL Stored Procedures and queries (Oracle).
• Experience with Source Control tools like GIT, TFS.
• Experience in software development, code reviews, unit testing.
• Experience in RESTFUL API Services.
• Well versed with TDD (Test Driven Development), using Junit.
• Experience in Micro-services.
• Knowledge of DevOps, CI/CD pipeline.
• Ability to lead design discussion with key stake holders with business and product owners.
• Ability to grasp key technology areas with short/steep learning curve.
• Strong verbal and written communication skills.
• Ability to guide the team in building Unit Tests using best practices.

Thanks & Regards,
Anand. S

Resource Logistics Inc.|| Open Jobs
Address: 39 Milltown Road, East Brunswick, NJ-08816
Desk No: 732-553-0566 Ext. 102||Fax: 732-553-0568||
E-Mail: anand.s@resource-logistics.com

 

[Everskyward]

Resource Logistics Inc.|| Open Jobs
Address: 39 Milltown Road, East Brunswick, NJ-08816
Desk No: 732-553-0566 Ext. 102||Fax: 732-553-0568||
E-Mail: anand.s@resource-logistics.com

Interesting. This caught my eye because is about a mile or two from where I grew up.

 

[kayoh190]

With a 8+ years experience requirement, it doesn't sound like an entry level job. Curious (and thinking back to Bryan's thread about discussing salary, perhaps asking is a no-no), but what would someone expect to make at a job like this?

It's funny, the conventional wisdom about flying for a living is to get a degree in something you can fall back on. One of my degrees is in CS, and I'm pretty sure I'd be entirely unemployable in tech if something happened to my medical.

 

[hindsight2020]

With a 8+ years experience requirement, it doesn't sound like an entry level job. Curious (and thinking back to Bryan's thread about discussing salary, perhaps asking is a no-no), but what would someone expect to make at a job like this?

It's funny, the conventional wisdom about flying for a living is to get a degree in something you can fall back on. One of my degrees is in CS, and I'm pretty sure I'd be entirely unemployable in tech if something happened to my medical.

Its not that complicated. Youd do what every other pilot who loses their 1st class medical does: go work at a sim for a quarter of the money (or the same money if you're a regional FO). The alternative is forced retirement if you can afford it, or going back to college, which is usually a non starter for those with dependents. I suppose if you can keep a 2nd class you could find some form of flying job, but at the mainline level its just better to ride the LTD and just fly for fun on a third class rather than deal with the median 2nd class medical flying job on the schedule vs QOL front.

I hear ya on the specious nature of the fallback degree. I'm on the same boat, and I even have a masters on it on top of it. With no work experience its as good as bar napkin. Lol.

Jest aside. What I am positive about is im never using my degree in a formal capacity. Thence, I no longer worry about it. We 're not the first or last people to never use our post graduate education in a formal capacity.

 

[kayoh190]

I hear ya on the specious nature of the fallback degree. I'm on the same boat, and I even have a masters on it on top of it. With no work experience its as good as bar napkin. Lol.

Heh! I actually have a few years of professional programming under my belt (it paid for college and my flying) but that was almost 20 years ago. Wrote C for the Playstation 2? Might as well put on there that I'm competent in COBOL.

 

[jsstevens]

Heh! I actually have a few years of professional programming under my belt (it paid for college and my flying) but that was almost 20 years ago. Wrote C for the Playstation 2? Might as well put on there that I'm competent in COBOL.

Apply to defense software contractors. We're still using C. And Ada.

 

[flyingron]

College, even moreso community colleges, are a lousy way to pick up useful computer/IT skills. In all the hiring I did as both a Unversity administrator and as a software company vice president I can tell you that I hired next to zero guys right out of college if that's all they had for experience. Now, if you'd worked some related part-time job, or participated in the programming side of a robotics competition, or did something on your own, or even had an interesting independent study product, then you'd be the type I'd be willing to take a chance on.

 

[gkainz]

Apply to defense software contractors. We're still using C. And Ada.

I found these a while back while cleaning out my bookshelf and files ...

 

[chartbundle]

College, even moreso community colleges, are a lousy way to pick up useful computer/IT skills. In all the hiring I did as both a Unversity administrator and as a software company vice president I can tell you that I hired next to zero guys right out of college if that's all they had for experience. Now, if you'd worked some related part-time job, or participated in the programming side of a robotics competition, or did something on your own, or even had an interesting independent study product, then you'd be the type I'd be willing to take a chance on.

I think that a fair number of people(at least when I went to college in the dark ages) didn't really understand that a 'Computer Science' degree is not a 'Computer Programming' degree. If you're interested in programming you can learn a lot from Computer Science courses, but they're not going to teach you how to be a programmer. I do think a few programmers do need to be reminded that the real hardware they're using is not a Turing machine and does not have infinite storage though.

 

[schmookeeg]

With a 8+ years experience requirement, it doesn't sound like an entry level job. Curious (and thinking back to Bryan's thread about discussing salary, perhaps asking is a no-no), but what would someone expect to make at a job like this?

It's funny, the conventional wisdom about flying for a living is to get a degree in something you can fall back on. One of my degrees is in CS, and I'm pretty sure I'd be entirely unemployable in tech if something happened to my medical.

The J2EE job? Probably 40-50/hr, because:

1. The entire nation of india is pumping out new little java/spring developers by the thousands daily.

2. Location MOFN, as OP is learning. Prices are lower for talent who like living in the sticks. Captive supply, low rates abound.

3. This is one of the classic body shop recruiters in NJ, so prices will be lowball anyway. They make it up on volume somehow. It's a half-notch above the IRS scammers. They may not even have that job or any affiliation therewith.

Same job in LA would be 90-100/hr I'd expect. Maybe an extra 25 in SFO.

 

[kayoh190]

^^^ interesting! I didn't think of these sort of jobs as anything but salaried.

 

[schmookeeg]

Let me know if you actually want to talk to these idiots, I get tons.

I wish Gmail had a way to share a spam folder the same way I can with photos or drive. There might be a diamond in the street-center sewage in there.

 

[flhrci]

Primarily want to get into Cybersecurity which I know will be difficult. I am 4 months into a Cybersecurity internship though which should help. @schmookeeg I definitely don't get that many emails but I am sick of the emails that keep asking me to get into sales and not IT.

I also read an article this weekend that reflects the struggle. It makes a good case that IT is skewed towards 40 years old and under. I am 48 making a career change again.

 

[schmookeeg]

An IT buddy of mine just did some sort of certification for security which is apparently "the thing" to get. I can ask what he got, how he did it, and what it was about (or better, since I'm socially inept, maybe just connect you both and stay out of it ) -- but he is expecting the cert to unlock some opportunities. Sounds like it's working too based on his interviewing schedule.

IT is far more sensitive to degrees and certifications than dev I've noticed.

 

[flhrci]

An IT buddy of mine just did some sort of certification for security which is apparently "the thing" to get. I can ask what he got, how he did it, and what it was about (or better, since I'm socially inept, maybe just connect you both and stay out of it ) -- but he is expecting the cert to unlock some opportunities. Sounds like it's working too based on his interviewing schedule.

IT is far more sensitive to degrees and certifications than dev I've noticed.

I have a couple certs but so far, no bites on the hook.

 

[schmookeeg]

I thought of a joke to tell my buddy on Hangouts and leveraged the opportunity. Turns out he got the "CISSP by ISC2" cert, whatever that means. He seemed to think it was a big deal and that life would shower him in cash and prizes now. Will see what the harvest is.

 

[CaptainXap]

Google does an Information Technology Residency Program, which is fixed term (26 months), and I think the idea is that it's a good starting point for IT career. I'm too new to post a link here, but if you go to the google careers page and search for 'Information Technology Residency Program' you'll find it.

However, you would have to move to the bay area or Austin.

 

[flhrci]

However, you would have to move to the bay area or Austin.

There's always a catch.

 

[-KLB-]

A CISSP is a good cert for cyber security. It doesn’t go very deep in any specific security area, but it is very broad in what it covers, which makes it rather difficult. But there is no telling if it is what you need to get doors open, or if it is just the year end hiring slump.

 

[Pugs]

A CISSP is a good cert for cyber security. It doesn’t go very deep in any specific security area, but it is very broad in what it covers, which makes it rather difficult. But there is no telling if it is what you need to get doors open, or if it is just the year end hiring slump.

It's really only a selling point if you want to work with the government in my experience. It is very broad and shallow but for someone right out of school it wouldn't be a hard cert to get.

 

[Crashnburn]

I could tell you a UDP joke but I'm not sure you'd get it

And he might have gotten it before you sent it.

 

[Crashnburn]

You only need the accent, not the actual language skills.

Yes, I've been thinking to myself I should change my name to something like Hari Krishna, darken my skin, and present myself as female. I saw a recruiter's eyes open wide when the Indian (dot, not feather) woman in front of me at a job fair told him she was a programmer. Recruiters seem to think something in the Indian DNA makes them great programmers. Me, I may as well have been chopped liver.

 

[hindsight2020]

Recruiters seem to think something in the Indian DNA makes them great programmers. Me, I may as well have been chopped liver.

I'll go out on a limb, and I know this might be speaking the quiet parts out loud, but I think the presumption on the part of said recruiter is the darker skinned fella might be in a more precarious work status/life position and thus more willing to accept a lower wage than you.