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IT Job Satisfaction in a Rut

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IT Departments: Bridging the IT Generation Gap

August 15, 2010/0 Comments/in Information Technology, Information Technology Field, Information Technology Organizations, Information Technology Staffing, IT, IT Careers, IT Department, IT Employees, IT Field, IT Hiring, IT Industry, IT Professionals, IT Staff, IT talent, IT Workers, Technology/by admin

Older generations learned tech. The younger generation lives it. Organizations that want to succeed need the skills of both.

InfoWorld — IT pros who grew up in the Baby Boom are dinosaurs who just don’t get it. Generation Y is full of Facebook-happy slackers with an exaggerated sense of entitlement. But beyond these broad generalizations lie some real differences between the generations of geeks who do tech for a living, from Boomers to Generations X, Y, and the Millennials.

“Today’s generation was born into a world where technology is about interaction, whether it’s playing video games or using social media,” says Larry Johnson, age 62, co-author with daughter Meagan (age 40) of “Generations, Inc.: From Boomers to Linksters — Managing the Friction Between Generations at Work” (Amacom, 2010). “They spent hours at it, the way I spent hours watching ‘Rin Tin Tin.’ So their brains are structured to interact with technology in an entirely different way.”

[ Looking to get the most out of your IT investments, see InfoWorld’s “20 more IT mistakes to avoid” and “16 ways IT can do less with less” | Find out which of InfoWorld’s IT personality types best fits your tech temperament. ]

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IT Staffing: IT Hiring Continues to Improve, According to Surveys

August 10, 2010/0 Comments/in Information Technology, information technology budgets, Information Technology Field, information technology hiring, Information Technology Organizations, Information Technology Projects, Information Technology Recruiting, information technology spending, Information Technology Staffing, IT, IT Budgets, IT Field, IT Hiring, IT Industry, IT Job Growth, IT Job News, IT Jobs, IT Projects, IT Spending, IT Staff, IT Staff Augmentation, IT Staffing, IT talent, IT Workers, Technical Staffing, Technology, Technology Budgets, Technology Projects/by admin

Hiring for IT jobs continues on the upswing in the U.S. and Canada as recessionary gloom gives way to cautious optimism, according to various recent polls of employers, who cite networking, security, virtualization and database skills as among the most sought-after.

IDG News Service — Hiring for IT jobs continues on the upswing in the U.S. and Canada as recessionary gloom gives way to cautious optimism, according to various recent polls of employers, who cite networking, security, virtualization and database skills as among the most sought-after.

“Overall, employer confidence is improving,” said Tom Silver, senior vice president, North America, at Dice Holdings, which operates Dice.com, a technology and engineering careers website. “We hear that as we speak to our customers every day.”

The most recent edition of The Dice Report, which heard from 600 respondents across the U.S. who hire or recruit technology professionals, found that 71 percent expect to add more employees in the second half of the year than they did in the first. More than half of that 71 percent expect to hire 10 or more new IT staff members. Likewise, CDW’s IT Monitor has had similar findings in its surveys across the U.S. and in some areas of Canada.

The IT Monitor recently found that 37 percent of IT decision makers at large companies expect to hire more IT staff in the rest of the year, which is up 11 percentage points from a year ago — the size of the increase was “a much faster jump than I would have expected to see,” said Matt Troka, CDW vice president of product and partner management and acting CMO.

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IT Spending: Let your budget be free

July 30, 2010/0 Comments/in IT, IT Budgets, IT Department, IT Field, IT Hiring, IT Spending, IT Staff Augmentation, IT Staffing, IT talent, IT Workers/by admin

If you were looking for some ammo to get your budget increased for the coming fiscal year, Forrester has got your back with arguments why CEOs should stop limiting their IT budget allocations.

The gist of the argument is that putting CIOs under budget pressure forces them to spend on maintaining current operations rather than helping to grow the business. This isn’t a particularly universal argument; there are a lot of shops where IT really doesn’t have any clear or positive ROI avenues to contribute to business growth. The idea that new initiatives can contribute to efficiency and stability, though, can be easily substituted.

But the real problem with the Forrester argument is that they are probably advancing ideas that CEOs are already familiar with, and have rejected. More than once I have come across CEOs that squeeze IT budgets explicitly to prevent growth… growth in IT, at least. That is, after all, what they most frequently get for their invested IT dollars… new systems, more ongoing maintenance costs. There is no faster way to exist the CEO’s office than to come to him presenting as a positive something he has already mentally adjusted to as a negative.

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After Pay Cuts, IT Workers May Seek Payback in New Job

July 23, 2010/0 Comments/in Information Technology, information technology budgets, Information Technology Field, Information Technology Organizations, Information Technology Projects, information technology spending, IT, IT Budgets, IT Candidates, IT Department, IT Field, IT Hiring, IT Industry, IT Jobs, IT Professionals, IT Projects, IT Staff, IT Staff Augmentation, IT Staffing, IT talent, IT Workers/by admin

A Harris Interactive survey found that IT workers see an improving economy — and an opportunity to start looking for a better job.

Cross posted from Computerworld

Computerworld — It may be matter of debate whether the IT job market is improving.

Certainly, for Eli Lilly and Co.’s (LLY) IT workers who are facing a layoff, the state of the job market is clear. The pharmaceutical company last week said it plans to cut 340 IT jobs on top of 140 positions cut earlier this year.

Eli Lilly employs some 1,250 IT workers in the U.S. and said the IT cuts are part of an overall restructuring of more than 5,000 workers nationwide, a company spokesman said, confirming a report in the Indianapolis Star , hometown newspaper in the city where Eli Lilly is based.

Despite the woes in the Eli Lilly IT operation, national IT hiring indexes have been showing fluttering month-to-month increases , and a new survey conducted by Harris (HRS) Interactive found that confidence among tech workers in the economy is on the rise.

Harris surveyed 4,367 employed tech workers, including 241 in IT operations, in the second quarter of 2010 and found that 38% of the IT workers believe the economy is getting stronger, compared to 32% in the first quarter.

The survey, dubbed the IT Employee Confidence Index, was conducted by Harris on behalf of Technisource Inc., a national staffing and recruiting firm.

The breakout data from the survey could portent trouble for IT managers and companies now relying on fewer IT employees.

For example, the survey results provides evidence that many IT workers may already be preparing to look for new jobs over the next year.

Harris said that 61% of IT workers earning between $35,000 and $50,000 a year are "likely" to start looking for a new job over the next 12 months. Meanwhile, 27% of IT workers now making between $50,000 and $75,000 annually and 36% of those whose salaries exceed $75,000 are "likely" to begin a job search.

"In some areas, salaries were cut or certainly salary increases were suspended," said Sean Ebner, a regional vice president at Technisource. And, he added, "as cuts were made in IT, the remaining staff was asked to do significantly more without additional compensation. It really did create some pent-up animosity."

Ebner said the survey found more interest in seeking new jobs than ever before.

The willingness to look for new jobs doesn’t yet mean the job will be there. For instance, only 27% of IT workers earning between $35,000 and $50,000 indicated that they expect more jobs will be available to them.

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2010 IT spending still looks strong, Forrester says

July 22, 2010/0 Comments/in Information Technology, information technology budgets, Information Technology Field, Information Technology Organizations, information technology spending, IT, IT Budgets, IT Industry, IT Job Growth, IT Services, IT Spending, IT Staffing, IT talent, Technical Staffing, Technology, Technology Budgets, Technology Projects/by admin

IDG News Service – Despite fears caused by the European debt crisis, spending on technology products and services is set to continue growing around the world, although the pace of growth in Europe overall will be lower, Forrester Research said in a report released Tuesday.

U.S. IT goods and services spending will jump 9.9% in 2010 to $564 billion, compared to 7.8% growth worldwide to $1.58 trillion, Forrester said.

Canada will experience the highest IT spending growth this year with a 16.2% rise, according to Forrester. IT spending in Latin America is set to grow 15.4%, followed by Asia-Pacific with 11%. Eastern Europe, the Middle East and Africa will see a 10.5% uptick.

But IT spending in Western and Central Europe is set to drop by 0.7% due to the debt crisis and the weak euro.

The US 2010 forecast represents a 1.5% increase over one Forrester gave in April, while the global growth rate remained roughly the same as the previous forecast of 7.7%.

Growth is being spurred partly by the fact that the U.S., and to a lesser extent, other nations, are entering an innovation cycle marked by adoption of new technologies, Forrester said.

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Regards,

Mike Hanes ProVisionTech

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Executive Q&A: Citi’s Jon Beyman on IT Talent

July 14, 2010/0 Comments/in IT talent/by admin

By Greg MacSweeney

Read the Original Article at Bank Systems & Technology

Jon Beyman, managing director of operations and technology for the global institutional client group at Citi, has a long track record of driving technology and financial innovation. Before joining Citi in 2008, he was CIO at Credit Suisse, and prior to that he was the long-time CIO at Lehman Brothers, so he has a pretty good perspective on the state of innovation in the U.S. financial services industry. Beyman discusses with Greg MacSweeney, editor-in-chief of Bank Systems & Technology sibling brand Wall Street & Technology, financial firms’ search for technology talent and the dangers of the United States falling behind other regions in the race to lead global technology development.

What is the state of technology development in financial services? Are you concerned with the pace and rate of innovation?

BEYMAN: I am most concerned with providing technology solutions that help drive the revenue generation, risk management, efficiency and productivity of the businesses that we support. The technology that I provide needs to be closely aligned with business goals and needs to be aimed at business goals.

A large part of the innovation equation is finding technology talent. Some experts say it is hard to find enough technology talent here in the United States. Are domestic firms having trouble finding qualified technologists?

It is an interesting question. The answer is “no” here at Citi. Honestly, because of the nature of these businesses that we are in and in particular, the trading businesses, it attracts smart people because it pays very well. But to meet my goals, I need great technologists, and I need these technologists to have a lot of domain expertise — they need financial services knowledge.

For a long time, people have said that the best and brightest technologists have been going to Wall Street in search of wealth rather than pursuing engineering or software development, fields in which their compensation would be lower. Given the struggles and bad publicity the financial industry has experienced in the past two years, will the best and brightest software developers and quants turn away from Wall Street?

I suspect it is too soon to tell. There are always people who are going to make as much money as they can. Wall Street doesn’t have the star attraction it had a few years ago, and a lot of what has gone wrong in the economy is being laid at the feet of Wall Street firms.

Certainly there are people who will refuse to work on Wall Street and will work in other industries for less money. But there are also people who are designing systems and technology who say, “I’m just working on technology; I’m not hurting the economy.”

If there is a sustained period of time when there is no compensation difference between financial services and a software developer in another industry, then it might become an issue. But that is not the case right now. Financial firms still pay more for technology talent, and I am in a war for talent with other firms. [For more on IT salary and compensation trends in banking and the capital markets, see this month’s Special Report for the results of the exclusive InformationWeek Analytics 2010 IT Salary Survey, page 28.]

Do you think the current state of education in the United States is preparing enough software developers/engineers/technologists to sustain technology innovation in the U.S.?

We don’t exist in isolation. There are an awful lot of technologists who work in the U.S. and they were not native born. The question is if the combination of people wanting to come to the country and the U.S. graduation rates are enough to sustain the level of innovation domestically. There is a certain level of technology job that can be done anywhere in the world.

My broad answer is, we will always be able to find talented people — as long as there is no societal restriction on the people getting into this country. But if there was no access to external talent available, I don’t think the U.S. schools are training enough qualified people.

What are some of the dangers if the U.S. falls behind in terms of financial innovation?

The only way that would happen would be if there were no way to attract talent to the places where the financial markets are located. But the jobs we are talking about in financial services need to be in certain areas — where the innovative companies are and where the innovative work is being done. Right now, that is happening in the U.S.

India is not a deep financial liquidity pool, though there is a lot of technology there. The advantage the U.S. has is that it is still the biggest and largest and deepest financial market in the world. As a practical matter, you need to be here both for the business and for certain types of technology development if you are a financial firm. I don’t see China or another country becoming a large financial center anytime soon. It could be that other markets grow faster because of regulatory constraints on trading activity or IPOs. But the regulators around the world have learned that the different liquidity centers need to adopt similar rules.

China does not have a deep and liquid capital market. Capitalism works on rewards, and stock markets grow up around where capital providers can build returns on capital. The fear that the financial markets have is not that we are going to lose all business to China. I have not ever heard that expressed. There is a lot of development in China, but there is a lot of Chinese financial investment here in the U.S. because the U.S. has the liquid market.

What are the dangers if the U.S. falls behind in terms of technology innovation?

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Dilemma: IT Staffing Solution- Staff Augmentation (part I)

July 10, 2010/0 Comments/in IT Consulting, IT Staff, IT Staff Augmentation, IT Staffing, IT talent/by admin

“We interviewed for six months for this position, and then gave this guy six months to prove himself, but he just hasn’t worked out.” a frustrated client explained to me just last week. “Now the head of that team has given her notice, and will be gone in two weeks! It’s just extremely frustrating” she went on to say.

Unfortunately this type of problem is a regular occurrence for small to medium sized businesses trying to build and/or keep their IT staffs intact, happy, and motivated. This recession, which many IT managers had hoped would provide a much needed reprieve from the incredible challenge of finding the right IT talent, has brought little relief. It is just as difficult to recruit and keep exceptional IT talent as it has ever been. There is a solution however, that I have seen work well for many companies willing to think outside the box a bit. I refer to it as “staff augmentation, basically bringing in outside personnel to augment your current staff from time to time”.

You see, there are many solid IT integration companies that have talented IT engineers with a wealth of knowledge of a variety of networking solutions. These are very expensive people to keep on staff. For integrators, keeping these engineers busy on billable projects is crucial to their profitability. Utilizing this talent in staff augmentation roles on a regular basis has many advantages. The first and most obvious is that such an engagement is usually billed by the hour, making the engineer’s billable hours 100% percentage billable100%. The second is that it can provide a degree of stability for the engineer who can report to the same site, with the same hours, for a specific period of time. That can be a welcome break for an engineer who has been all over the map juggling a variety of projects. It also allows the engineer to form much tighter working relationships with key staff at a valuable client. From the integration company’s perspective it can be a real win.

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IT Staffing – Permanent IT Jobs ‘Returning to Growth’

June 16, 2010/0 Comments/in DFW IT Staffing, Information Technology, Information Technology Field, Information Technology Organizations, Information Technology Projects, IT, IT Budgets, IT Candidates, IT Hiring, IT Job Growth, IT Job News, IT Jobs, IT Professionals, IT Spending, IT Staff, IT Staff Augmentation, IT Staffing, IT talent, IT Workers, Job Tips, technical recruiting, Technical Staffing, Technology Budgets/by admin

The IT jobs market is showing signs of recovery, particularly on the permanent side, according to Reed Specialist Recruitment.

Computerworld UK — The IT jobs market is showing signs of recovery, particularly on the permanent side, according to Reed Specialist Recruitment.

Andrew Gardner, senior divisional director of the technology division of Reed Specialist Recruitment, said that the number of available permanent jobs was picking up again particularly in SMEs, as well as in the financial services sector and in software houses.

“As part of the downturn, our permanent team took a mauling, but over the last five or six months, it has started to pick up again.

“We are now looking to build our permanent teams back up to meet the demand,” said Gardner.

Reed currently has a team of 25 in the permanent jobs division, and Gardner aims to recruit a further 20 in the next few months, which takes the total “slightly higher than we had before”.

Furthermore, Reed said its lead time between interviews and job offers has shortened to that of before the recession.

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IT Staffing – 8 Trends Driving IT Job Growth, Salaries

June 12, 2010/0 Comments/in Information Technology, Information Technology Field, Information Technology Organizations, Information Technology Projects, IT, IT Budgets, IT Candidates, IT Consulting, IT Hiring, IT Industry, IT Job Growth, IT Job News, IT Jobs, IT Professionals, IT Projects, IT Spending, IT Staff, IT Staffing, IT talent, IT Workers/by admin

Will job prospects for U.S. IT professionals fare better or worse for the rest of 2010? It’s hard to tell from the latest economic and employment data being released by IT career experts.

Network World — Will job prospects for U.S. IT professionals fare better or worse for the rest of 2010? It’s hard to tell from the latest economic and employment data being released by IT career experts.

Reports issued in the first week of June provide conflicting information about IT hiring, compensation and outsourcing trends. On the plus side, these reports say IT hiring will increase during the second half of 2010, and CIOs are more optimistic about their budgets and staffing levels than they were a year ago. However, IT salaries and benefits are still being squeezed from all sides, and it’s difficult to tell which IT skills are most in demand on a month-to-month basis.

“There’s more volatility in the market than at any point in time since we started tracking IT pay data in 1999,” says David Foote, CEO of Foote Partners, a consulting firm.

As evidence of the volatility, Foote points to the May 2010 U.S. Department of Labor National Employment Report, which showed a net loss of 100 IT-related jobs in May, following a gain of 8,800 jobs in April. Foote has been tracking ups and downs in employment in five key job categories – IT services, computer systems design, data processing, computer/peripheral equipment, and communications equipment – for the past six months.

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