One fairly down in the mouth chap had this to say:"Your chat with the IT recruiters makes depressing reading. Pity all those students studying for their masters degree in IT so hopefully they can get their foot in the door with an entry level IT job. They will now be asked to do some more courses in management, sales, marketing and personal communications and presentation. It's all getting too hard which is probably why students are turning away from studying IT.
Now the IT industry wants people it kicked out the door back. I say they will be lucky
because those people who have left have probably found more satisfying jobs and have got
their life back together.
As for me 23 years in the industry has been more than enough and I will not be going back to IT. I guess I got fed up of being told that because I have only got skills in ABC I can't work in another area that requires skills XYZ. You can call me unambitious but I also don't want to spend the rest of my life doing courses."
We can sympathise but in the high tech business the only way to keep up and stay in the game is to keep reading, learning and moving forward. That is unless you're lucky (or unlucky) enough to find yourself at a company stuck in a time warp. Chances are the company won't last much longer with that attitude though. The other option is to buy into a donut franchise or lawn mowing round.
Another slightly more up beat reader believes that so-called senior IT recruiters must be a rare breed because they're very difficult to track down. He said:
"We would love to meet the Senior IT recruiters you refer to. In our experience most of the recruiters are very young and very earnest and simply don't understand the wealth of knowledge and experience that we have - and no matter how we try to convey the message in a well-crafted email or CV, we find time and again that we are put into the "too hard basket" (or is it the "too old basket"?). So, if you could help us by letting us know who ARE the enlightened senior IT recruiters, you could be doing a service to us all."
Well we can assure you there are at least a few out there that we know of. However, as many of them have probably risen to management roles within their organisations, there is a good chance that they're not that easy to access for a techie who hasn't taken the time to build personal relationships with them over the years. As the old saying goes, it's not necessarily just what you know.....
Then there was the tech head who believes in wearing his lax attitude to personal appearance like a badge of honour. We think his email deserves to be read in full (we've corrected most of the typos but kept the form):
"As a formerly employed and now 'raggedly dressed, unshaven (ex) Java programmer' I thought I'd respond to your Chatroom article about what senior IT recruiters want.
The similarities between what these senior IT recruiters want and the ICT policies espoused by (ICT Minister) Senator Helen Coonan were striking.
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REAL IT JOB PROFESSIONAL BEST PRACTICE RECRUITMENT AGENCY
WANTED:
* Fat ICT Managers to delegate work to 3rd world cookie cutters.
* Essential: a Degree in Politics, Marketing or Sales, MBA preferred.
* Must look good in suit.
Send us your best practice professional promotional video performance today
and we'll get back to you real soon, promise.
DO NOT APPLY -
IF YOU HAVE ANY PREVIOUS ICT EXPERIENCE.
IF YOU ARE OVER 35 YEARS OLD.
( This is a real job ad, you can trust us to tell the truth )
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Reduce Cost$ at all Expen$e and the Form over Substance mentality of Australia Industry and its influence on Australian culture has Out$ourced any possibility of becoming a 'insert latest marketing term here' nation.
What to do next ? Start a banana plantation or maybe a sugar cane farm, why not save up and retrain at a new 'Technical Centre of Excellence' least I'll get a new set of tools - well an allowance or rebate won't I ? An apprenticeship sounds good they get $6 an hour ! wow that's $6 more than I get now as in (ex) IT professional.
For all you unemployed tech whizzes out there who share similar sentiments with the above, we're happy to inform you that there may be another option for you. If you really are as talented, skilful and experienced as you say, then why not use your talents to develop some of your own intellectual property? Surely you must have learned something during all those years working at the coalface in the engine rooms of business and industry. Why not get together with some of your like-minded unemployed nerd friends, brainstorm some ideas and start your own company? Who knows, you may open a whole new chapter of your life where you become your own boss and actually create jobs for others. If you really don't believe you have the necessary skills to do something unique with your technical knowledge, then perhaps you can't really blame an employer for passing you over for someone who can do what you do better and cheaper. Like it or not, that's business.
