2.1.2004

You Have To Worry About Them When They Get Quiet All Of A Sudden...

I have been able to confirm from two well-placed Qwest sources that the company is quietly off shoring 300 - 500 jobs per WEEK; laying off the U.S. based workers and replacing them with foreign consultants overseas. (Apparently everyone has had to sign confidentiality agreements or something; they're not allowed to talk about it.) This would go a long way towards explaining why the economy is supposedly in better shape than it's been in a while, yet the job market is still reeling as if it had been mugged. I'll bet many companies are doing the very quiet off shoring thing - IBM is another well-known offender. Well, if enough of us don't have jobs, a certain somebody is gonna lose *his* job come November. I do try to stay somewhat neutral, politically, but I'm not going to support an administration that can't get it in gear economically. They've had four years - and what do they have to show for it? Ask yourself this question - are you better off now than you were four years ago? And don't just think about it - get up off your seat cushion and DO something about it. 'Cause if you don't, you'll have no business complaining about the antics of the next administration, whoever they might turn out to be.

"Off shoring Eats Away at IT Pay, Study Shows

By Lisa Vaas
January 13, 2004

As IT jobs such as application development and maintenance get shipped offshore, pay for remaining, domestic IT jobs continues to slide. A recent report shows the vulnerable and secure positions. The off shoring of IT jobs caused IT salaries to slip for the third quarter in a row, according to new research from Foote Partners LLC, a management consultancy and IT workforce research company. Some of the findings on premium pay for certifications and skills were:

• Stand-alone applications development skills fell 8.5 percent in 2003.
• Application development certifications lost almost 18 percent of their value of the past two years.
• Webmaster/Internet certifications were down 22.7 percent in 2003.
• Beginner certifications such as the MCP (Microsoft Certified Professional), CCP (Certified Computing Professional) and CompTIA A+ were down 13.6 percent.
• Database certifications fell 9.4 percent.

Foote Partners research detected the trend a year ago but refrained from reporting on it until the company could ascertain whether it was being caused by the sour economy or by offshore outsourcing, according to David Foote, president and chief research officer for the New Canaan, Conn., research firm. Foote Partners pegged off shoring as the salary-eroding culprit after interviewing executives who are off shoring, executives at the middlemen companies that are contracting with offshore companies, and those IT workers who've dealt with jobs being offshored at their companies. Storage Center Editor David Morgenstern recently wondered if offshore outsourcing was a "natural law." Foote Partners has been tracking IT salaries since 1997 and, as such, can put the current IT salary and bonus-pay slide into historical perspective.

"We first started noticing off shoring pressures on stateside compensation early in 2003," Foote said in a statement. "Premium bonus pay for segments of IT skills and certifications that had been performing steadily in our quarterly research began to slide noticeably. These segments coincided with many of the same employment categories that have been most susceptible to offshore outsourcing." According to Foote, the employment categories most susceptible to offshore outsourcing include application development and maintenance, some data-center tasks, help-desk jobs, and, recently, some business-processing work. The type of work that's being sent to countries with low salaries, such as Pakistan, India and China, is along the lines of rote implementations of higher-level infrastructure architecture. In other words, Foote observed, if you're the one doing the modeling or the systems-architecture work, your job is safe-for now. Those workers carrying out orders, may have either lost jobs, or should be worrying.

"A lot of this stuff isn't being outsourced," Foote said. "Project management, security, architecture, those aren't being offshored. Systems and network administration isn't being offshored. They're still onshoring jobs that require in-depth knowledge of business processes." Companies have been spending "a fortune" project-managing this stuff from afar, Foote said. That's one reason why project-management certifications still demand a strong premium, with 6.7 percent growth in premium pay in 2003. But how long will it be before project management gets outsourced for lower wages, as well?

Not too long, Foote said. "We talked to companies who said early on, 'We're not setting up operations in other countries. We're simply off shoring jobs. 'We said, 'At what point will you consider setting up an outpost in another country? You're spending so much time there and your customers want you to do that. They feel safer. Their data is on computers in Pakistan, and they want you there, with your regular operations, with your internal checks and balances,'" he said. Now off shoring executives are now starting to tell him that the time to offshore entire operations is upon them, Foote explained. "They're saying, 'You're right, it's too risky. It's cost-effective. We're going to do this offshoring thing for a long time to come, so we're going to set up operations there. We're going to house people there.' That's coming from customer pressure and the costs of managing from afar." So what's still safe from getting offshored? Here are some bright spots from Foote Partners' research that also reveal the current state of supply-and-demand and can point to relatively secure jobs in the U.S.:

• Project management certifications premium pay was up 6.7 percent in 2003.
• Security certifications were up 1.1 percent.
• Top performers were:
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  • Certified Information Systems Auditor, up 25 percent in 2003 and 38 percent over the past two years;
  • Certified Information Systems Security Professional was up 20 percent in 2003 and 50 percent in the past two years;
  • GIAC Certified Windows Administrator was up 13 percent in 2003 and 29 percent in the past two years; and
  • GIAC Certified Unix Administrator was up 13 percent in 2003 and 29 percent in the past two years.
  • Systems administration and engineering/network certifications were up 0.4 percent.
  • Premium bonus pay for Citrix Certified Administrator went up 17 percent in 2003.
  • Citrix Certified Enterprise Administrator's value was up 10 percent in 2003.
  • Red Hat Certified Engineer was up 14 percent in 2003. Linux Professional Institute Certification Levels 1 and 2 were up 17 percent since late 2001.
  • Cisco Certified Internetworking Expert was up 11 percent in 2003.
• These certifications were earning 10 to 11 percent of base pay in median premium bonus pay in 2003:
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  • Microsoft Certified Trainer,
  • Microsoft Certified Solution Developer,
  • Oracle Certified Professional/DBA,
  • Cisco Certified Enterprise Administrator,
  • Cisco Certified Network Professional,
  • Master Certified Novell Engineer."

Getting a Job

A young man entered the company's Human Resources Department and handed the executive his application. After reviewing the papers, the executive noticed that the applicant had been fired from every job he had ever had. "Young man," the executive said, "I've looked over your work history and it is terrible. You have been fired from every job!" "Yes," replied the applicant. "There really isn't anything very positive in that," said the executive. "Well, at least I'm not a quitter!" the young man replied.

"Get Noticed: Top 3 Resume Tips

Wendy Terwelp, Job & Career Transition

When developing your resume, keep these top three tips in mind: Clearly define your objective. "We don't have time to be career counselors," said Tim Moran, Hallmark's Director of Human Resources, at a Career Masters Institute conference, "so please, help us out a little. Let us know what you want. "Be specific when recounting your achievements. "Dollarize" them says Jeffrey Fox in "Don't Send a Resume." Qualify and quantify them in some manner that demonstrates what you can offer a prospective employer. Use the CAR method to help you recall your achievements: Challenge, Action, and Result. Achievements are the most important part of the resume say recruiters and human resource professionals. "Past performance predicts future productivity," said Lynn Williams, President, Prestige Placements. Use action words and statements. "Responsible for"... is out, "Developed; Directed; Achieved; Coordinated, etc." is in."

"Unadvertised Jobs: Get The Inside Track

If you're currently in the job market, here's the little known secret to tapping into the most lucrative, yet hidden jobs available. Even in this economy, there are still millions of great jobs out there. It's just that many of the best ones never make their way to the classifieds. Instead, they're taken by people who know about them before they're ever advertised. Imagine how great it would be if you had thousands of friends who'd always tell you about unadvertised jobs that you're perfect for. As they say, it's not what you know it's whom you know. The secret to getting the unadvertised jobs is to make friends out of really good recruiters. And not just a few, but LOTS of them. Here's why, and how you do it: Recruiters, otherwise known as headhunters or search consultants, are hired by companies to find candidates to fill open positions. These jobs are often never advertised. But the secret of how to best use recruiters is to first realize that contrary to popular belief they don't work for you. This is an important fact that most job seekers don't understand. The key to maximizing recruiters is to understand the following: Recruiters don't find jobs for people -- they find people for jobs. It's an important distinction to understand if you want to get a job through a recruiter. In other words, recruiters service the people who will pay them today. And unless you're paying a recruiter out of your pocket today, don't expect them to canvas the world to find you a job. You'll only be disappointed. Recruiters will be interested in you if you meet the criteria of a job one of their client companies has asked them to fill, or they believe they'll soon be asked to fill. So to get the hidden jobs, you have to realize it's a numbers game and you must play it well by getting your resume to as many recruiters as you can, that specialize in people with your skills, in your field and in your geographic area. While some recruiters may not have something for you today, if their clients regularly look for people with your skills, they will add you to their database. That's a good thing. The first place a recruiter looks when a client comes to them with a job to fill, is their own personal candidate database. It's never too late or too early to start networking with recruiters in your area who specialize in people like you."

<Note from JobFairy.com: They make an interesting point. You want to get your resume to as many job boards as you can, because recruiters need to see you in order to decide that they're going to make you part of their database. I get many calls from recruiters who know me, have dealt with me, and are glad to be able to place me. That's how I got my most recent position. Networking can mean letting your friends and relatives know that you're looking, but recruiters are the ones with the bead on the jobs, so making nice to them never hurts.>