It's nice to be so loved (or: the world of IT is insane!)

[der_kluge]

I had a lot of that recruiter run-around about a year or so ago, when I had become really burned out on my job. Turns out, I'm really highly paid for what I do, among other things, so that didn't help me much in finding opportunities. Luckily a rotation at work that was right up my alley opened up before I had to get too frenetic in looking for another job.

I sure do hope I'm not stuck here in southeast Michigan the rest of my career, though. And my wife hopes that even more. Although we're getting into the time of year where Michigan is great to live in...

Occasionally I'll get something from a recruiter that's WAY out in left field. Like, I got something from a recruiter about a position with Ford Motor Corp in (I think) Dearborn, MI.

Last year, I had a well-paying 6 month contract (which fell through) in Pierre, SD. And a lady I talked to recently had something (though she had just filled it) in Boise, ID.

Maybe I'm just too much of a snob. I wouldn't want to live in any of those places. I could see someone from India being a better asset to a recruiter in that regard than an American. Because someone from Bangladesh wouldn't know that Boise is a festering wasteland of boredom*.

BTW, JD, what do you do?

* I've never been to Boise, so it might be the greatest city on earth, so I apologize to anyone from Boise if I've offended you.

 

[ssampier]

makes me reconsider IT

I'm a recent college graduate with a BS in Sociology and a minor in Information Systems & Technology. I work part-time as a "tehnical support and customer service specialist". I handle dial up and DSL issues for a rural telephone company. I also manage our department customer records using Access (custom designed tables, queries, and SQL).

I make "okay" money for what I do; $10 an hour (I was recently given a $.25 cent/hour raise). I'd like to make more, full time with benefits. I'm not really interested in social work, which is 90% of what Sociology graduates go into.

I have considered getting my Masters of Science degree in Business Information Systems. But I don't know. I already borrowed $26,000 for my BS degree -- I want it to be worth my time and money.

I would think you'd have a tough time finding work as a 1st year CS student. At best you could intern somewhere during the summertime.

My best advice for CS/IS graduates right out of college is to work at a sweat shop. A lot of them hire from colleges, and there is usually a lot of turnover. I didn't mean to do that, but that's what I did when I worked for Wal-Mart. It was a great learning experience, and great for my resume. Apparently Circuit City in Richmond is the same way. They hire a lot of college graduates, and work them to death. Stay there about 3-4 years, and then find a better place. Works like butta'.

What exactly is a sweat shop and how does it compare to what I do now? I'd like a job with advancement potential. My job is "okay" and all, but there's not a position to "advance" to. I'd like to get my A+ cert, though.

 

[drothgery]

It's like the quote from "Secret of My Success": "How am I supposed to get a job with experience if I can't get a job to get the experience?" (or to that effect)

... and although I'm quite happy with my job right now I still don't have a good answer to that. My first job after college was awful (six months with low pay at a tiny company doing uninteresting, unchallenging work), and I've reduced it to one line on my resume; my second was better, but it was still 8 months of contract work. And then I was out of work for months before I hooked up with the company I'm at now (and have been with for almost four years). I think, at least for programmers, what you want to do is hook up with a big company for a few years after college (graduating six months late despite a bunch of AP credits due to being a slacker in college doesn't help with this) and then you've got some experience you can use to move up or move on.

 

[Desdichado]

BTW, JD, what do you do?

I work for Ford Motor Company in Dearborn, MI.

I'm in Purchasing. I was a buyer for door handles (interior and exterior), mirrors (interior and exterior) and luggage racks for all North American vehicle programs when I was burned out. It was a pretty nifty job in some ways; I was in charge of almost half a billion dollars annually, although naturally we were trying to shrink that as much as possible. Now I'm working with an IT group (although I'm still attached to the Purchasing function) and I'm the guy in charge of all announcements and communications relative to changes in our Purchasing systems to all users. That's actually a fairly big deal, as we're in the middle of a massive transition from one system to another. But once that's all done, the workload will probably dry up and I'll have to go back to a more mainstream purchasing job.

Like I said, I'm actually pretty well-paid for that kind of job at about 85k annually. Then again, southeast MI is a relatively high-cost living area, so we need to be better paid than we were in, say, Texas (where I lived before) to have the same standard of living.

 

[Felon]

I'm currently not willing to move. I've sunk my teeth into Atlanta, and I won't let go until it gives up and gives me a good job. I also have a girlfriend and a lot of great friends with connections here, so something will open up eventually. I'll make do in the meanwhile with my crappy Publix job.

What's your skillset again, Wick? I work for Fulton County Gov't, and despite the hiring freeze, we have craploads of jobs open that pay decently, have better benefits than most private businesses in Georgia, and many of them count your college as 4 years of experience.

If you haven't already, go to www.co.fulton.ga.us and check it out.

 

[Byrons_Ghost]

I'm another in the "just got a CS degree and can't get an entry-level job" group. It's been about a year now, and I'm currently doing a temp job for overnight data entry, just to get some money coming. I haven't had all the bad experiences with headhunters and the like, every time I've gone to a "recruiter" it's been another term for someone who does placement for a temp agency. Even then, in the IT world, you can't even get contract work without previous experience. The closest I came was dialing into servers and retrieving files that should've been uploaded automatically, but weren't. It was trained-monkey stuff, the kind of thing I could have done in high school with no computer degree at all.

So I'm starting to get pretty irritated by it all, really. I'm pretty close to the point of just grabbing whatever I can in some company and hoping that an IT job opens up- I don't know how much hiring of IT personnel is done from other, internal departments vs. how much is done through outside sources (I imagine it would depend on the company). I'd also thought about doing the Best Buy route (I assume you're talking about the repair shops, Kluge?), but we had no hardware courses at the University at all- everything was programming and design. And I really don't see one of those jobs opening up from a position where I'm basically just defragging people's drives. After all the time I've spent in school, I'd like to do something at least vaguely related to my degrees, so that I know I'm getting something out of that 28 grand I owe the government.

 

[der_kluge]

I'm a recent college graduate with a BS in Sociology and a minor in Information Systems & Technology. I work part-time as a "tehnical support and customer service specialist". I handle dial up and DSL issues for a rural telephone company. I also manage our department customer records using Access (custom designed tables, queries, and SQL).

I make "okay" money for what I do; $10 an hour (I was recently given a $.25 cent/hour raise). I'd like to make more, full time with benefits. I'm not really interested in social work, which is 90% of what Sociology graduates go into.

I have considered getting my Masters of Science degree in Business Information Systems. But I don't know. I already borrowed $26,000 for my BS degree -- I want it to be worth my time and money.

What exactly is a sweat shop and how does it compare to what I do now? I'd like a job with advancement potential. My job is "okay" and all, but there's not a position to "advance" to. I'd like to get my A+ cert, though.

Social workers make crap for money (I know, my wife is one, and she has her Masters in it). I think to get anywhere with social work, you have to have a Masters, and have you to get your clinical license, and then you can make good money at it having a private practice. If that's not your cup of tea, there are plenty of careers in IT.

It sounds like you could do report writing, or queries. Some companies have people who do nothing but run queries against databases. I would think such jobs might be hard to come by, but you could probably do that, and they probably pay much better than where you're at. I'm not sure I could recommend any specific training or qualifications that you'd need. It might not hurt to contact some of the local recruiters in your area and feel them out. They might know of something. You never know.


edit: A sweat shop is a place that works you to death. 70/80 hour weeks are not uncommon. Sweat shops often hire lots of people right out of college, pay them crap, and burn them out. They can be good for getting a lot of great experience after college, though.

 

[der_kluge]

I work for Ford Motor Company in Dearborn, MI.

I'm in Purchasing. I was a buyer for door handles (interior and exterior), mirrors (interior and exterior) and luggage racks for all North American vehicle programs when I was burned out. It was a pretty nifty job in some ways; I was in charge of almost half a billion dollars annually, although naturally we were trying to shrink that as much as possible. Now I'm working with an IT group (although I'm still attached to the Purchasing function) and I'm the guy in charge of all announcements and communications relative to changes in our Purchasing systems to all users. That's actually a fairly big deal, as we're in the middle of a massive transition from one system to another. But once that's all done, the workload will probably dry up and I'll have to go back to a more mainstream purchasing job.

Like I said, I'm actually pretty well-paid for that kind of job at about 85k annually. Then again, southeast MI is a relatively high-cost living area, so we need to be better paid than we were in, say, Texas (where I lived before) to have the same standard of living.

How funny. I wouldn't have thought that Michigan would have had a higher cost of living than Texas. Well, I think Dallas pretty much crashed after the IT plummet in 2001, so things might be different there now.

 

[der_kluge]

So I'm starting to get pretty irritated by it all, really. I'm pretty close to the point of just grabbing whatever I can in some company and hoping that an IT job opens up- I don't know how much hiring of IT personnel is done from other, internal departments vs. how much is done through outside sources (I imagine it would depend on the company). I'd also thought about doing the Best Buy route (I assume you're talking about the repair shops, Kluge?), but we had no hardware courses at the University at all- everything was programming and design. And I really don't see one of those jobs opening up from a position where I'm basically just defragging people's drives. After all the time I've spent in school, I'd like to do something at least vaguely related to my degrees, so that I know I'm getting something out of that 28 grand I owe the government.

Not sure what you mean by the "Best Buy route". I didn't mention Best Buy anywhere, and no, I wouldn't recommend that at all, in fact I'd steer away from that if I were you. If you're up to the move, you could always consider Wal-Mart in Bentonville, AR. It's actually a really nice place to live, and it's a great place to get some experience. It's a very "young" workforce, with a lot of people there right out of college.

I don't know of any consulting firm that hires people without any experience. Though there may be some, I doubt it. Most colleges work with graduates and act as facilitators for prospective employers, so if you're a recent graduate, I would check into what kinds of contacts your college has to help you land a job.

Another thing to consider is what kinds of work do you want to do? There are programmers, data modelers, database administrators, and a host of other kinds of roles. Typically programming is at the bottom rung, but there are other areas of IT (such as report writers, like I mentioned in a post above, that can be good entry level positions as well).

 

[Cthulhu's Librarian]

Not sure what you mean by the "Best Buy route". I didn't mention Best Buy anywhere, and no, I wouldn't recommend that at all, in fact I'd steer away from that if I were you.

You mentioned Circut City, which is headquartered in Richmond, VA. I think thats what he's referring to.