Hiring Disparity
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@Dashrender said:
Additionally on the small business side, IT jobs are often significantly under paid for the work (in my opinion). An IT person is not the same as a receptionist - yet many small businesses think of IT workers as commodity employees and treat them as such, yet they wonder why they have issues.
Part of the problem is IT people willing to work for those wages.
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When you're out of a job, it doesn't seem like you have much choice.
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@Dashrender said:
When you're out of a job, it doesn't seem like you have much choice.
But other fields do not have this problem. Something makes IT pros willing to work at a fraction the rate of other fields and experience. Being out of a job cannot be the primary factor as few fields are so short of staff as IT.
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@scottalanmiller said:
@Dashrender said:
When you're out of a job, it doesn't seem like you have much choice.
But other fields do not have this problem. Something makes IT pros willing to work at a fraction the rate of other fields and experience. Being out of a job cannot be the primary factor as few fields are so short of staff as IT.
Yes but not everyone is in a position to move to a different region. Some areas have very few jobs period.
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@thanksaj said:
Yes but not everyone is in a position to move to a different region. Some areas have very few jobs period.
Then they need to accept low pay or choose a different career field as IT is one that demands mobility outside of very large metro areas. The decision to enter IT as a field is not one that people are forced into. Moving between companies and ergo between locations is built into the system due to the massive technical ladder involved in advancing an IT career.
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That does undermine the field, though, forcing non-mobile people willing to work for a fraction of the otherwise going rate because employers see their technical staff as captives and have no incentive to pay them more.
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@scottalanmiller said:
@thanksaj said:
Yes but not everyone is in a position to move to a different region. Some areas have very few jobs period.
Then they need to accept low pay or choose a different career field as IT is one that demands mobility outside of very large metro areas. The decision to enter IT as a field is not one that people are forced into. Moving between companies and ergo between locations is built into the system due to the massive technical ladder involved in advancing an IT career.
It's not always that simple. I've known plenty of people who were willing and ready to move to another area for a better job, but because they were caring for an older parent or some other uncontrollable circumstance, they were stuck in one area. It's not as black and white as you want to make it.
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Captives?
I'm really struggling to see what is so special about the IT industry compared with other careers.
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I also don't see many other careers where people change jobs as often as IT either.
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@Carnival-Boy said:
I'm really struggling to see what is so special about the IT industry compared with other careers.
What is alike with other fields? What other field has no upward mobility in a single company or region? IT is extremely unique in that it is huge, broad, ubiquitous but the needs of the job vary so heavily between positions, companies and regions. There is no field that I know of remotely like it.
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@Carnival-Boy said:
Captives?
Yes. In most regions outside of major metro areas (NYC, London, Houston, The Bay, Zurich, etc.) the IT ladder exists only partially. In smaller regions this means that the IT person at company X might have literally zero other employment options without relocating. Their employer, if they know that the employee is unwilling to relocate, knows that they have a monopoly on the IT positions that they can accept and can therefore dictate their salary. The employee has no bargaining power as both parties know that they cannot leave without simply being unemployed and unemployable.
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@Dashrender said:
I also don't see many other careers where people change jobs as often as IT either.
Because of the ladder effect. Most careers you have the ability to move up within a single company. But IT can't do that. Only the very largest companies can have an entire IT ladder internally and nearly all of those still require multiple regions in order to make it up that ladder. So even if you work for IBM, JP Morgan, Barclays, Microsoft, etc. if you are unwilling to relocate you become trapped at a step on the ladder.
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Upward mobility - I'm not sure how many jobs have that either.
To go back to the first post:
doctor, lawyer, accountant, receptionist, salesperson, teacher, factory worker, manager, etc
A doctor and lawyer are kind of at the top of their field already - short of going to work either for themselves or a larger firm, there isn't going to be much change.
A receptionist and factory worker are kinda the same, unless they don't want to be those things anymore, they don't ever really change, there's not much of upward mobility there.
Now a salesperson - they are their own thing
Teachers, unless they get more schooling (i.e. masters, PhD) assuming they want to stay in the classroom, again no changed needed or really available.
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Usually a Doctor or a Lawyer are trying to physically move when they apply for another Job. Not many stay in the same geographic area.
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@Minion-Queen said:
Usually a Doctor or a Lawyer are trying to physically move when they apply for another Job. Not many stay in the same geographic area.
I would ask why they are moving though? Is it for promotion, or for geography reasons?
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From what I have seen it's more geographical than anything else.
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I'm not sure what you mean by ladder effect?
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@Dashrender said:
Upward mobility - I'm not sure how many jobs have that either.
To go back to the first post:
doctor, lawyer, accountant, receptionist, salesperson, teacher, factory worker, manager, etc
A doctor and lawyer are kind of at the top of their field already - short of going to work either for themselves or a larger firm, there isn't going to be much change.
A receptionist and factory worker are kinda the same, unless they don't want to be those things anymore, they don't ever really change, there's not much of upward mobility there.
Now a salesperson - they are their own thing
Teachers, unless they get more schooling (i.e. masters, PhD) assuming they want to stay in the classroom, again no changed needed or really available.
That's my point, they have short ladders and those ladders usually exist, in their entirety, in every region that employees anyone in those fields. Doctors and Lawyers can start their own practices anywhere, doctors can move to a hospital nearly anywhere, etc.
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@Minion-Queen said:
Usually a Doctor or a Lawyer are trying to physically move when they apply for another Job. Not many stay in the same geographic area.
But they don't have to move. They might want to, but their careers can be made in nearly any region. It's only to get more customers that they would move to a bigger region. Not to do more senior work.
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@Carnival-Boy said:
I'm not sure what you mean by ladder effect?
To go from entry level IT ($10/hr) to senior non-management IT ($500K / year) there are a huge number of career steps. Huge number. In system administration alone (not an entry point career path) you have juniors, mid levels, seniors, leads, subject matter experts, etc. Few companies short of the Fortune 100 have all of those positions. If you want to get through those ranks you are either limited to a very few multi-national companies (not likely located where you live) or you have to bounce around a lot as you gain experience.
If you want to laterally move, normally needed for reaching high level positions, say between Windows and Linux you need a company large enough to not only use both and employee people for both but also to have the right ladder steps for you in both positions.
The career ladder for IT is immense, larger than any field that I know. If you want to go from a medical intern to a neurosurgeon, you have steps, but relatively few. If you want to go from L0 helpdesk to senior architect you have many - a great many steps.
