Where are the IT jobs?

I have been getting the same treatment from recruiters. It's very difficult to even get a recruiter on the phone and I have had NO responses to any of the apps/CV's I've sent in.

I'm in technical support and have been told here that I have "too much" experience which to me is code for "you're too old". I'm lucky that I'm at least working part-time but I really need a full-time job to make ends meet.

I've even tried websites that say they have "global" or "worldwide" jobs but none of them list Ireland. They list other countries like the UK and other european countries but not Ireland. It's as if we don't exist here or there's a closed market here or something. I called a company in the U.S. because they advertised technical support from home. I thought they would consider me especially since I'm a U.S. citizen but they said no as did many others I contacted. So what's up with "global" or "worldwide" jobs? Where the heck are they?
 
sam h said:
What an excellent question!! Great way to see if they can spot & solve inefficencies! We used to do "brown bag" lunches with staff and rather than just being a venting opportunity for them, we would ask them to suggest solutions....they often came up with some excellent ideas that generally worked really well.
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I think it depends on the role. Sometimes you should focus on the point that the person is applying for a role as 'software engineer' and not 'department manager'. That person has no intention to be department manager and is most probably not qualified. In addition, the salary you are offering is not equal to the strategic position that you are asking her to vet for. I don't agree with your method to be honest, it has been used on my wife who is a very hard and smart worker, she had to leave a job because the employer kept pushing her to 'add value' within 3 weeks of joining and at lowest salary scale! The employer lost out big time because she is very experienced, they asked her to consult now about problems whereas if they had backed off and let her do the essential job she was hired for they wouldn't be scrounging around with lesser candidates and wasting time.

I live outside Ireland so the high salaries of Irish graduates has been more obvious to me over the last few years. You can't blame people for taking higher paid jobs if they are available, that makes sense in some ways. You hired cheaper people overseas so you played exactly the game they did. Now the shoe is on the other foot and I do think it's good that you can grow your own business.

To the last poster, some good websites to try for a global overview are careerjet.com and simplyhired.com The aggregate other job-site postings. The main issue at the moment is Ireland is haeomorraging jobs and as the population is small it goes from a medium level of overall jobs available to almost none in a lot of specialities, that's why big metro centres like London will always have more opp's, due to their scale.
 
D8Lady said:
I keep hearing about the thousands of vacancies in IT - so where are they?!

My last contract ended just before Christmas, took a few weeks off and now am hitting the agencies etc.

They are all saying that things are very "quiet" - talk about understatement.....

So where would a talented (such as myself) QA/BA/PM with software, telco, banking, eLearning and innovative R&D experience find just one job?

Anyone have any ideas?
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I had a very interesting conversation with only on Friday about cost cutting reviews conducted over the past few months. Value for money from Business Analysis and Project Management staff was a prominent disscussion point. An opinion was expressed that well rounded software engineering teams organised and cultured to some of the newer engineering methodologies could cut accross the need for dedicated BAs or PMs. I would possibly agree with that in the context of my company, but the definition of a BA or PM varies widely accross different companies, so I don't think I could generalise. My point is my company has seen your area of expertise as an opportunity to manage costs.

Judging from the recent comments of Havok CEO and Googles refusal to locate 100 Computer Science jobs here and the opinions expressed by my own IT Manager, I have a feeling that what is really in demand accross the industry is quality Computer Science graduates with a passion for technologies and problem solving. Highly technical people who self-train out of interest and see such learning not only as an expense to be written off against tax but an opportunity to expand their interests. People Moreover, the type of graduate that got into the business for the work, and not the money.

In my opinion, ff you see yourself in the above category then, keep looking, you'll def find something.

The more experience I get in the industry, the more I can see that the above profile is quite a rare but highly valued commodity.
 
Cindilu: Employers are taking their time about making decisions when CVs are obtained by an agency for a role. As a result, the job isn’t closed on the job search sites. These ads are refreshed every 2 days or so. It gives the impression that there are plenty of ads out there when there aren’t.
It would not surprise me if a number of agencies start going to the wall soon.

dtlyn: I agree that the role definition of BA or PM varies between companies. If someone is a total technologist, they generally do not want to get into contract negotiations, personnel issues, strategic and implementation planning, dealing with customers etc. A good PM will keep all of that “noise” away from a development team to ensure the team can focus on their core expertise.

One of the problems with the idea that “well rounded software engineering teams...cut across the need to dedicated BAs or PMs” is that they see the technology development as an end in itself.

Example: Say you have a project to restructure an organisation that is technology enabled. Technologists will deliver a product (perhaps even on time, reasonable quality) and that would be it. They won’t anticipate problems with unions, training of people to use the product, transitioning legacy systems to the new system nor how it will be sustained in the future. That’s what a good PM will sort out.

The biggest cause of IT project failure is the lack of clearly defined, well communicated and delivered requirements. That’s what a good BA will produce.


The[broken link removed] has become a classic example of this.
 
D8Lady said:
dtlyn: I agree that the role definition of BA or PM varies between companies. If someone is a total technologist, they generally do not want to get into contract negotiations, personnel issues, strategic and implementation planning, dealing with customers etc. A good PM will keep all of that “noise” away from a development team to ensure the team can focus on their core expertise.

One of the problems with the idea that “well rounded software engineering teams...cut across the need to dedicated BAs or PMs” is that they see the technology development as an end in itself.

Example: Say you have a project to restructure an organisation that is technology enabled. Technologists will deliver a product (perhaps even on time, reasonable quality) and that would be it. They won’t anticipate problems with unions, training of people to use the product, transitioning legacy systems to the new system nor how it will be sustained in the future. That’s what a good PM will sort out.

The biggest cause of IT project failure is the lack of clearly defined, well communicated and delivered requirements. That’s what a good BA will produce.
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I agree with mostly on PMs in the context you're considering, however I disagree that dealing with the customer and implementation planning should be considered "noise" by a well rounded S/W engineering team. I would have though the contrary to be true. I have seen quite a few PM roles that have consisted of no more than takers of minutes and documentation of timelines that are ultimately driven by the S/W team.
​

I agree with you on good Business Analysis, although I would add the ability to manage changing requirements or possibly changing requirements. I also,however, would consider the BA role a subset of the S/W Eng role.

Lets not get off topic though!
 
dtlyn said:
Highly technical people who self-train out of interest and see such learning not only as an expense to be written off against tax but an opportunity to expand their interests. People Moreover, the type of graduate that got into the business for the work, and not the money.

In my opinion, ff you see yourself in the above category then, keep looking, you'll def find something.

The more experience I get in the industry, the more I can see that the above profile is quite a rare but highly valued commodity.
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Excellent post which holds true for many jobs.
Different area but despite the recession we cannot get people with the right skill level in Ireland and have to hire on the mainland and in the UK.
 
Purple said:
Excellent post which holds true for many jobs.
Different area but despite the recession we cannot get people with the right skill level in Ireland and have to hire on the mainland and in the UK.
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"and have to hire on the mainland and in the UK"! Where do you operate from, Skellig Michael?:confused:
 
The European main land. (We are a small island situated off the coast of Europe in case you haven't noticed).
 
Cripes! Sorry about that. Had forgotten. It just looked funny.
 
dtlyn said:
Lets not get off topic though!
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Agreed :).

Apart from the usual techniques, we also need to get creative.
The Digital Hub are looking for [broken link removed] in addition to those they [broken link removed].
Looking at start ups in [broken link removed] are worth a look.
And a bit of old fashioned personal networking.
 
Chocks away said:
Cripes! Sorry about that. Had forgotten. It just looked funny.
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OK, I’ll come clean; when talking to English people I always refer to main land Europe as “The Main Land” since they use the same term to describe that other small Island off the coast of Europe that they live on. ;)
 
Ressurecting this thread just to say Mr Bubbly secured a contract with one of the big insurance companies as a BA.

Have to say though, it took a lot of work, there seems to be a few contracts out there but to be honest this was his first interview for a couple of months.

He reckons the market is slowly picking up though and a few months from now there will be more contracts and rates will go up too.

I know how hard it is right now, and not just in the IT sector, I wish all job hunters every success.
 
Congrats Bubbly!

I've seen precious little in the last few weeks. I got a call from a consultancy last week to see whether I was in the market or not, but that's the first contact in months!

I'm hanging in there for now on a maintenance contract in the insurance sector. Dull but it keeps me going.

Not to change the subject but what's going on with Eircom is very disappointing.

We want major bandwidth to secure future jobs and it looks as if Eircom has no money for any rollout. Eamon Ryan is talking of getting 3MB broadband via mobile. Those cloud computing jobs look a long way away.
 
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