Computer science graduating class of 2007 smallest this decade

[OhioChick]

Source: Computer World

But turnaround possible as new enrollments show signs of leveling off

March 5, 2008 (Computerworld) Enrollments in computer science programs, which plunged after the dot.com bust, may have leveled off, according to new data from the Computing Research Association (CRA). The group follows year-after-year enrollment and graduate trends at 170 PhD-granting institutions.

But this leveling is happening only after the number of bachelor degree graduates has, apparently, hit a trough. In the 2006-07 academic year, only 8,021 students graduated with computer science degrees from these schools -- the lowest number of graduates this decade.

By contrast, in 2003-04 -- the high point of this decade -- 14,185 students were awarded bachelors degrees in computer science, according to CRA data.

This sharp decline in graduates may be about to level off. In the fall of 2006, new computer science enrollments were at 7,840, and the CRA says new enrollments are now at 7,915 for the fall of 2007. The organization measures the numbers of students who have recently declared computer science as their major.





Read more: http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9066659

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Snip~ "Vegso says students should be able to find job opportunities, based on the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics employment projections showing IT jobs increasing by double digits."

Double Digits? Where the hell in the US are IT Jobs Increasing by Double Digits??

I'd Like to Hear What the 14,185 Students That Were Awarded Bachelors Degrees in 2003-04 are Doing Right Now...

[tanyev]

1. My husband's company is sending those jobs overseas by double digits.

[TechBear_Seattle]

3. And therein lies the problem

The tech jobs of a decade ago have largely gone overseas. Competition for the jobs that are left is fierce. Technology has largely favored experience over education, so a person with a bachelor's degree and five or ten years of experience will almost always get the job ahead of someone with only the degree. Therefore, why take up a huge amount of debt for a degree you will probably never be able to use?

[madrchsod]

7. that happened to my son

we all took out loans to get him through devry and 2/3 of the way in his major evaporated...so he decided to work in the printing industry...they always need someone who knows how to print!

[SnowCritter]

12. It's not always experience over education

I graduated (Magna Cum Laude) with a Bachelors Degree in Computer Science in 2000. I had been working in I.T. for quite some time (16 years) prior to that, and returned to school to get the sheepskin that I believed would help me move forward. It didn't really turn out that way. Most places wanted the "Young Turks" who would work endless hours of unpaid overtime. I know of several classmates who applied for jobs at the same places I did who actually got positions. These were people that I had "shepherd" through some nuanced programming in the process of a 400-level Software Engineering courses in order to complete our project.

Ah, well, life goes on.

[One_Life_To_Give]

19. Need is for Specialists

If your a VX Works Guru nobody will ask what kind of sheepskin you have. And if you can fit the stack in 4k you can write your own offer.

[Tesha]

65. Even embedded and realtime programers are having a hard time.

VxWorks isn't a sure ticket to success any more and I
get the impression that Wind River Systems is hurting
badly these days.

Tesha

[BearSquirrel2]

55. Herein lies the NAFTA debacle ...

We were told we were converting to an "information economy". I believed them and got my CS degree. And then they offshored these jobs. I would be better off today if I had gotten my foot in the door at the steel mills.

[DrDan]

2. I sure would like to see those same results for India and Brazil . . . . n/t

[bean fidhleir]

13. Exactly! I'm sure the class sizes in India and China (Brazil??) are larger than ever (nt)

[DrDan]

16. Brazil may be the next India

[DrDan]

17. here is a link for Brazil

http://www.iht.com/articles/2005/05/17/business/outsource.php

There are several advantages to Brazil over India or China - one being in the same basic timezones as the U.S.

This link shows a few more advantages - http://www.braziloutsource.com/why.html

[bean fidhleir]

22. I wonder whether their uni education has improved enough

I'm thinking of Feynman's experience there: 100% rote learning, at least in physics.

They certainly seem to have a strong self-edu program in the humanities, though.

[Prisoner_Number_Six]

26. No doubt there's a Brazillion of 'em...

...you need to know I broke a solemn vow just now when I typed that... :rofl:

[Iris]

53. It would also be interesting to know how many of the US gradautes were actually from other countries

and just here to get educated.

[LiberalEsto]

4. Why bother going into hock

for tens of thousands of dollars in college tuition, when the jobs are going to people from other countries who are being brought in on H-1B visas? These people get paid less, and usually they are willing to work more hours and put up with more crap because they know they can be shipped home if they cause trouble.

[OhioChick]

5. And Our Friend Gates Will Be Asking for More H1B's Once Again...

Gates to appear again before Congress on eve of H-1B visa rush

For second straight year, Microsoft exec will testify weeks before application process begins

March 3, 2008 (Computerworld) Next week, Microsoft Corp. Chairman Bill Gates will testify before the House Committee on Science and Technology at a hearing "on the future of innovation and U.S. competitiveness," at which he likely will renew his appeal for more foreign workers to be allowed into the country.

The topic of the hearing is familiar ground for Gates on Capitol Hill. But what makes his scheduled appearance on March 12 potentially explosive is its timing, less than three weeks before the start of the annual application rush for H-1B visas.

April 1 is the first day that U.S. immigration authorities will begin accepting H-1B applications for the federal government's 2009 fiscal year, which begins in October. Last year, the government stopped taking applications after receiving about 150,000 in a single day — far more than enough to exhaust the annual cap of 65,000 regular visas and 20,000 set aside for foreign nationals who have advanced degrees from U.S. universities.

Last month, Gates called the H-1B program "a disaster," in response to a question about immigration during a talk he gave at the University of Waterloo in Ontario. "If I could just change one law in the U.S., it would be this," Gates said. An excerpt featuring that comment has been posted on YouTube, and a video of the full speech can be viewed on the university's Web site.

http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9066460&intsrc=hm_list

[raccoon]

8. He is so full of shit. nt

[nbcouch]

10. Gates is an ass

I don't care if he is a Dem. For all his philanthropy, he hasn't done a damned thing for the American worker but lobby to cut more and more US IT people out of a job. Why doesn't the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation work toward retraining (if that's what we really need) all the US IT talent that's going to waste? And he's been banging his insipid "innovation" drum for well over a decade now, while his products continue to suck. Have they gotten better? Yes, in some ways, but generally speaking they still suck. The guy disgusts me. He's one example of the corporatist mindset that's flourished under BushCo.

[OhioChick]

39. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.....Philanthropy?

Dark cloud over good works of Gates Foundation

Published January 7, 2007


Ebocha, Nigeria - Justice Eta, 14 months old, held out his tiny thumb.

An ink spot certified that he had been immunized against polio and measles, thanks to a vaccination drive supported by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

But polio is not the only threat Justice faces. Almost since birth, he has had respiratory trouble. His neighbors call it "the cough." People blame fumes and soot spewing from flames that tower 300 feet into the air over a nearby oil plant. It is owned by the Italian petroleum giant Eni, whose investors include the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

Justice squirmed in his mother's arms. His face was beaded with sweat caused either by illness or by heat from the flames that illuminate Ebocha day and night. Ebocha means "city of lights."

The makeshift clinic at a church where Justice Eta was vaccinated and the flares spewing over Ebocha represent a head-on conflict for the Gates Foundation. In a contradiction between its grants and its endowment holdings, a Times investigation has found, the foundation reaps vast financial gains every year from investments that contravene its good works.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/la-na-gatesx07jan07,1,2987071.story?coll=chi-news-hed

Snip~ "<snip> In addition, The Times found the Gates Foundation endowment had major holdings in:
Companies ranked among the worst U.S. and Canadian polluters, including ConocoPhillips, Dow Chemical Co. and Tyco International Ltd."

[nbcouch]

40. thanks - I was giving them the benefit of the doubt

since I don't know much about what they do.

[Xenotime]

15. That asswipe has too much money..

He can't seem to make a decision on anything.

[0rganism]

32. I've said it before and I'll say it again: I'd 100% rather see H1-B visas than offshoring

H1B is pretty much the BEST CASE SCENARIO, given the current free-trade bullshit embraced by the powers that be.
Apparently, repealing GATT is not going to happen anytime soon, so companies will continue eagerly seeking ways to push their costs down by moving as much work as possible to the dirtiest, cheapest, labor markets they can find. This will persist until our labor markets equalize in cheapness and dirtiness with the foreign competition, or we enact sensible tariffs to reduce ROI for predatory capitalism.

In the meantime, anything that brings a skilled worker INTO the US for a specific job, working with Americans at American wages in American living conditions, does a heckuva lot more to stimulate the local economy than that same job shipped to a distant land. H1-B workers pay American rents & utilities & taxes, they shop at American retail and grocery stores, and they might just bring some memories of the good parts of America back to their homelands when that visa expires.

On the flip side, instead of having our jobs exported to anonymous cheapskates with funny accents thousands of miles away, Americans get to meet someone from a foreign land and maybe get to know that person as a colleague. It's much healthier for everyone involved.

[BearSquirrel2]

56. H1-B is a precursor to offshoring ...

The H1-B system was used as a precursor to offshoring. They would bring people over to train in US culture and the software systems. Once they were trained, you could bounce the Americans.

This is not a sustainable economy. Ultimately, we are going to have to tax the shit out of US companies hiring foreign workers.

[0rganism]

62. H1-Bs are a way to get qualified people in-country for 3-6 years

Believe me, you don't need to have a relatively rare 3-year H1B visa to bring someone in for relocation prep. At one company I had to train a guy in India to do some IT-ish things (ECAD support), most of the training was remote (which was a pain in itself, given the timezone differences and telephone reliability issues) but when we brought him over to train in person it was for 2 weeks of intensive brain dumping. That's hardly H1-B visa territory. The decision to offshore a lot of the motherboard production had been made long before that, and it's not like having a crackdown on 3-year visas was going to change anything.

But what really convinced me this is not a one-sided issue is working with guys on both H1B and standard work visas, doing software development. This wasn't some precursor thing, they were here for the long haul, and they were a lot of fun to work with. Some of them were on a citizenship track, too, and they were pissed as hell about the offshoring. It hurts them most of all when their jobs get shipped back to their countries of origin.

Until American voters figure out that this is what's happening and stop lapping up the bullshit, we won't get any progress towards policy change. We've had decades of propaganda telling us how the Mighty Gods Of Free Trade will bring us all Wealth and Prosperity. Folks still think they're getting a great deal at WalMart. Until we're willing as a people to face the Real costs of unprotected trade, we'll gladly sell our birthrights for pottage.

[BearSquirrel2]

64. The H1-Bs I worked with ...

The H1-Bs I worked with were in general non-citizen seeking and income tax dodgers. They were quite proud of it. Even the ones I liked.

I few were quite bluntly ... really stupid.

[0rganism]

73. Fair enough, there are some like that, too

still two things to consider:

1) Even if the H1-Bs you knew were dodging their taxes (i.e., breaking the law and liable to have their visas revoked if caught), they were still paying rent and buying food, clothing, etc. in the local area. That is money recirculating in your local economy.

2) H1-B is NOT offshoring in and of itself, whether or not it's a precursor. If someone is living here, making American wages (stagnant though they may be), and getting the QOL benefits of such environmental protections and consumer product safety regs as still exist, there's a world of difference between a guest worker and an offshored job.

As it stands now, damn near every offshored job is an absolute failure in terms of worker rights, environmental protection, economic development, and democracy in general, both here and abroad. All those must necessarily be sacrificed on the altar of corporate profits, along with any sense of community responsibility, and the multinationals will gladly jump ship to the first cheaper labor market that comes along.

H1-Bs do not, in themselves, incur that kind of destructive burden. On the other hand, they may just do something to prevent offshoring as well. If an American company can bring in the talent it needs from a variety of labor markets to work in an existing stable infrastructure, there's that much less benefit in relocating. It's a line item checked off the list in a CBA.

[DainBramaged]

Bill Gates, not a friend of the American worker

Unions are the reason there are weekends.

[Tyler Durden]

6. They will make FINE shift managers.

McDonald's and Wendy's have ads for them all the time.

Start payin' back that student loan right away!

[Demeter]

9. Double Digits Means There Are 10 Posted Job Openings!

Of course, there are 10,000 H1-B visas, too.

[AlertLurker]

11. Why study in the USA if all the jobs are in Mumbai and Guangdong?

[go west young man]

14. Listen to this one.

I have a friend from Belarus who came over on a student exchange program at the age of 16. He ended up living with an American family for 6 years and received a degree in computer science. Then he got a job with an innovative firm in RTP, N.C. He has been trying to stay in the country with his wife. He has filled out all the proper forms and followed the rules. Yet the U.S. has now rejected his application and after 7 years in the country they are sending him and his computer science skills back to Belarus. What government in it[s right mind would send away the talent that it needs most for the 21st century?

[WilmywoodNCparalegal]

57. there has got to be more to the story...

please PM .. I'm an immigration specialist and perhaps I can help..

[BearSquirrel2]

58. One that ...

One that has a sizeable population of laid off programmers.

[AnneD]

18. I liken that....

to all the Nursing schools that are closing down in this country. Here we are in a growing Nursing shortage, for every available seat you have 250+ students competing...and yet the schools are closing. This is like any medical training...labour intensive.

Everyone wants the skill set-but they want it for pennies on the dollar. This needs to be strongly regulated. This is what's killing the middle class in this country. They need to strongly regulate those HB1 visas.

[AngryOldDem]

20. Where are these grads now, you ask?

Probably in any job they can find to keep the wolves from the door.

And that quote is a perfect example of the old canard, "If you can't dazzle 'em with facts, baffle 'em with bullshit." If that were true, you wouldn't see nearly the number of out-of-work IT people in their 30s and 40s, or those in their 30s and 40s who are forced to take five-digit pay cuts when they find anything remotely comparable to what they were doing just a few years before. Maybe that's what he meant. The jobs are there, if you're willing to work at slave wages. Most people can't.

A few years back, nobody really knew just how many jobs had been officially lost to outsourcing because the government wasn't keeping track (or so I heard). Has that changed, do you know? Do we have some definitive figure of how many jobs have gone overseas since the late 1990s?

[nbcouch]

25. Bureau of Labor Statistics

Not sure if it will answer your questions or not, but you can check out the BLS web site - www.bls.gov - and look at their Occupational Employment and Wage Estimates and compare the numbers year over year. That should give you some idea of the growth/shrinkage in the various employment sectors of the economy.

[sergeiAK]

21. A view from the inside, it's not as bad as it looks.

I'm a Computer Engineering student, graduating in December. I just started my hunt for full time employment. I've interviewed with 4 companies so far, I have two solid offers, and one that's a possibility (pending 2nd interview). Most jobs will require relocation, but within the US, and most of the ones I've interviewed for being in the southeast. There are still a lot of CS jobs out there (I keep getting recruited for them, but I'm barely qualified for most of them), and a significant subset require that they go to a US citizen for security reasons.

We have a shortage of skilled engineers/CS people in this country right now. Even Tata (the dreaded outsourcing demon), is hiring within the US. They actually recruited me for a programming job on contract for Bank of America. The financial sector is hiring CS majors left and right to hopefully help them out of the hole they're in right now. They're moving more and more to computerized models, and they need help building the models, simulating things, and programming the trading algorithms. They pay very well for the type of skills and personality they want. The jobs are out there, but it's no longer 2000, where Joe Blow with a 2.5 from U of Nowhere can get $75k a year for sitting in a cube and having Nerf wars with Marketing.

Also, Computer Science != IT. Many companies are hiring programmers, but having had an internship/co-op job is one of the critical things on a resume, as a fresh grad with 0 experience will get put on the bottom of the stack in favor of a candidate with just a summer internship. I'm in a pretty good spot due to taking a year and working a co-op job, with EMC. It also paid for my last 2 years of school.

As for the areas growing, the Research Triangle in NC is one, the DC metro area is doing pretty well, I've seen lots of jobs in the Oregon/WA state area, and a fair number in VA.

If you want a list of companies hiring CS/CE/EE people, I'll post the ones I'm applying to.

[bean fidhleir]

23. I think you'll find that it's the better-paid jobs that have been exported or H1'd

You, as a prospective new grad, presumptively meet the expectations of exploitative managers: you're young, energetic, still caught up in the mystique of the profession, and willing to work your butt off for tens of thousands a year less than someone more experienced.

Engineers in their 30s and up are making "too much" money. Managers are rated on bringing their products out on time and under budget, and salary is only part of the budget hit for each head in the headcount. So managers try to staff their projects with cheap people, therefore new ones. But any salary that isn't charged to a project is charged to corporate overhead, and the corpo beancounters do all they can to get rid of people who spend too much time as overhead. Result: job export and unemployed older engineers.

When you get to your first job, take a look at the ages of the people around you.

[sergeiAK]

28. Actually, I find the better paying jobs are the ones "stuck" in the US

For example, I just got offered $60k a year for a field engineering position. 40-50 hours a week, lots of travel (worldwide customers, small company), great benefits. The workforce there is ~1/2 young, ~1/2 with 10-30 years in the field. The company has some H1-B workers, but it's harder to get an H1-B approved now.

As far as the budget system goes, not true where I work, but I worked in manufacturing support, so we were just lumped in with the manufacturing costs. My group consisted of me (student), a semi-fresh grad, a guy with ~7 years, and 4 guys with over 20 years each. The software groups were a bit younger, and the process engineers positively ancient (with one exception).

There ain't much mystique in this field. There's a fair amount of "working your butt off" though. At my co-op job, it was normally 45 hour weeks until the last month of every fiscal quarter and then it turned into 55-70 hour weeks to get the orders shipped.

Most of the positions with Tata, and the other big outsourcing firms were the lower end ones. At EMC, we outsourced grunt IT work (which was dumb), and the diagnostic software group (previously employing ~10 people with ~2 years experience). The higher-up engineering staff seems to stick around, though job-hopping is very common now, with layoffs and companies (like Sun) hitting hard times. Most of the companies I've interviewed with have been fairly "old" companies, with a few exceptions (notably the USPTO, National Instruments, and NetApp).

Consulting firms are also hiring lots of experienced engineers right now, due in part to what you mention, companies H1-B the jobs, then realize they needed that experience, and hire them back as consultants for 2x the pay.

Also, an observation from the engineering career fair. There were lots of signs saying "we don't sponsor visas" and "US Citizens only". The event also had ~1.5x the number of companies as it did last year, and spanned two days rather than the traditional one. I asked a recruiter why that was happening, and the answer was that it's becoming harder to get H1-Bs approved, and that DHS restrictions had made many more projects require security clearances due to their military/governmental/infrastructure involvement, which makes US citizens much more valuable to these companies.

There was a company at the career fair offering $80k to any US citizen who would program in COBOL for them. Few takers. Same with VMS experience, etc. Many jobs for specialists, but run of the mill Java/C++ guys are competing for the same few jobs as the H1-Bs.

[XemaSab]

54. I'm in a totally different field (environmental consulting)

but I praise the powers that be that my job is outsourcing-proof.

Some dude in India making 2 dollars an hour ain't gonna do the Burrowing Owl surveys in Hanford, California. :)

[0rganism]

29. the outlook for young grads is much different than it is 15 years down the road

Now I don't know your particular circumstances, but assume you're youngish and fresh out of college, well-versed in the latest state-of-the-art technologies. Chances are, you don't have much tying you to any locale, you aren't weighed down with a family and a mortgage, your resume' is pretty much a blank slate and it might even fit on the proverbial single page. Companies will practically jump to hire you, promise you the moon on a platter, talk up their benefits and options, and you might even get to call the shots on your salary.

5 years from now, you've gotten pretty well used to your job, you've bought a house in the area, and you think you have it figured out. But that's when the changes start.

The tech you knew so well back in college, it's obsolete, and there are a lot of fresh faces just like you are now, hungry to work with the latest & greatest. Hope you've been doing your time with certs or cranking out patents, because your employer is going to be looking at your CV thinking, "What has s/he done for me lately?" Maybe you'll be in a position to jump on as a team lead or a manager -- that's the best case scenario, moving up from within. But you gotta play it right, don't make the wrong enemies, and ensure that your primary rivals are neutralized. This is the track to keep your salary increasing over time and acquire additional illusions of job security.

What's far more likely is you'll notice your salary stagnating, your options aren't maturing profitably, and if you've started a family, you'll see some of those nice benefits take a pretty gnarly chunk right off the top. You may find yourself training others to do your job for a fraction of the pay you were getting, maybe in Shanghai or Bangalore. You may notice that your job evaporated out from under you when the company relocated your division to one of the cheaper labor markets.

Well there's plenty of niches for someone who wants to keep playing the game, you can try polishing the ol' res again, and jump to one of your employer's competitors. They'll happily bring you in, suck your brain for all the juice they can, but soon enough you'll be in the same position as before: an aging body of knowledge and an easily replaceable skillset.

Or you can fall back to an alternate track, get into the support or tech-writing or testing or QA gigs, that'll keep you in play for another 5 years if you can swing it. If you've been interested in such things along the way, you can try to hop over to IT, but it's a harder sell and you'll have to do some quick footwork to keep on top of your material. You might just find yourself talking to the temp agencies, looking at short contracts that represent a major pay cut, and wondering how to pay the rent.

No matter how you slice it, your position 10 years from when you started is markedly different from when you came in. When a prospective employer scans your resume' now, it's a lot longer, and they expect a whole different bundle. What projects have you led? What did you do to enable timely project completion? Do you have any success bringing in solid work under-budget? After a few years, you'd better be prepared to quantify your accomplishments, whether at your performance reviews or interviewing for a new job in the field. And if you're not alpha-worker material, you've got to be ready to sniff butts and roll over for those who are.

In short, don't expect to be doing the same thing you're doing now, even if you're damned good at it. I think that more than anything else is what drives people away from CS, IT, and EE careers. All these fields have tremendous opportunities for newcomers to engage and innovate, and they all have an egregiously high turnover rate to match. So just stop off at a pub near the tech shops and listen to the 40-something "oldtimers" talk about how it used to be so sweet, how those VMS programmers really knew how to cook up a tight overlay back in the day, how they got those machines talking so smooth on the token ring networks, how the whippersnappers taking their jobs don't know what they're doing, and how the managers who just laid them off don't know what they're losing.

The problem with tech is this: it's all temporary work. Skills you spent years developing are completely out the window the minute something better comes on the scene. Be ready to jump ship at a moment's notice, don't get attached to any single way of doing things, keep your running shoes on, and good luck with it.

[high density]

31. You're lucky!

I graduated in 2003 with a computer science degree and floundered in the job market for about two years. It was not fun, because as you noticed, nobody wants to hire anybody with no or little experience. Given my location (Maine) I did not have the internship opportunity. It puts people like me in a catch-22 situation so I don't know how these companies expect to have a supply of lower/mid level developers in the future in this country.

DC Metro/VA area seems to be mostly jobs requiring security clearance. If you have that, it seems you're probably set for life. Of course those without security clearance have found another catch-22 situation where one needs an employer to sponsor it, and few seem willing to do this for new employees.

Anyhow I'm very glad to see you're having an easier time at it than I did!

[superconnected]

36. And how much in salary are you asking?

Real view from the inside - worked in the industry for 20 years, systems engineer, I'm one of the only ones left who can make over $35 an hour.

They'll hire kids for $15-20, or they'll go to india. Those jobs for the cheap kids always end up going to india too. You get to train them - the indians.

I'm surrounded by brazilians and people from portugal now that I'm training to take overy my whole groups jobs. I'm switching to another company because the job I'm sitting in -My whole groups jobs, are going over seas. I've done this many times as I've worked all over the IT industry watching them outsource.

There are great jobs out there for newbies who can live off a bit more than a wendys shift manager makes. Unfortunately those jobs are also very temporary. I've seen so many of them outsourced now. They're the first to go because they require the least skills.

[sergeiAK]

38. I'm asking for $70k, I've been offered up to $68k

If you're a US citizen capable of passing a background check necessary for a security clearance, with a degree in EE, CPE, or CS, the USPTO wants you something awful. The offer they extended to me (as a CPE grad) was $68k + signing bonus ($9900/year for 4 years provided you commit to staying 4 years), government benefits (which are about as good as it gets), and 2 weeks of vacation a year. A friend of mine took their offer a year ago, and is now a GS-10, which means ~$74k, rest of the package is the same.

Now, in the private sector, I've been offered $60k, similar benefits, no signing bonus, in a much cheaper area for a job I'd actually enjoy. I'll likely either take that job, or the one I'm about to go interview for in FL. That one should pay a bit more, but it requires a security clearance.

The supply of "cheap kids" is still there, as is the demand. It's getting filled from India now that most of the degree mill schools have shut down, but one of the reasons for the lousy pay and reluctance to hire unknown people now is that schools pumped out so many crappy graduates during the dotcom boom that it became harder to sort the wheat from the chaff without verified experience, so they require internships and co-ops to verify skills. Easily outsourced jobs will be, which is why I'm looking for a job that's hard to outsource (either for security reasons, costs, or physical proximity).

My co-op job paid $22.25/hr, with overtime. The lowest paying co-op that I heard of in my field was $16/hr. Payscales are rising, albeit slowly.

[cap]

43. Lots of jobs for the under 40 set

nothing for the over 40 set... People have kept up their skills for the most part. Nobody would risk their house just because they WONT do Ajax. Trust me.

[sarcasmo]

24. Because we all know the Earth is only six thousand years old, who needs Science.

Do I really need the Sarcasm tag?

[lovuian]

27. two family members graduated MIS business BA at Austin

they got jobs but it wasn't for the money they should of because of outsourcing

their graduating classes were like 145 and 141 the years 2007 and 2005

if you look back at 2002 and 2004 the classes were 450

there was a moment in the middle of getting the MIS degree the choice was do I go into accounting finance etc... many opted to go Finance WHY because they were getting over 150,000 dollars

meanwhile the MIS graduates were starting a lot less and scrambling for jobs

thats why the shortage

And now the Companies are GOING to HAVE to PAY because this is of their own doing

Because when unemployment is high there is NO WAY H1B visas are going to pass
if you want to correct the shortage start doling out salaries of over 100,000 that will get them into school

[Xithras]

30. I'm an adjunct CS prof and own a small tech company

Before anyone asks, we're not hiring.

My perspective is that there's a lot of unnecesary pessimism about the future of the IT job market. It's smaller than it was at one time, and many jobs did go overseas, but there are still a HUGE number of programming jobs in the United States that will never be outsourced. Outsourcing is primarily embraced by the large mega corporations, which only make up a portion of the overall job market for software developers. Most corporations and large companies have a relatively small IT staffs in the first place, so outsourcing provides minimal gains in return for large time investments. Even smaller companies, including the retail stores my company targets as clients, tend to have no IT staff at all, and instead rely on outside service firms to maintain their software and hardware. These types of clients generally require actual interaction with the people they contract with, which rules India and Brazil out completely. The companies they hire, like mine, almost always hire American talent. We're too small to deal with the H1B paperwork.

The positions are there, and the pay is decent (though the days of six digit wages for programmers are history), you just need to know where to look. One of those 2004 graduates in the OP is among my employees (I hired him straight out of college).

As for the older programmers issue, I tend to find that they not only RARELY APPLY to work at smaller companies (despite the fact that smaller companies offer the bulk of modern programming positions), but they tend to have dated skillsets and are reluctant to update them. I don't need C or C++ programmers anymore, and even the ever popular Java is beginning to lose a little of its relevance among my clients. I need C# programmers nowadays, not Cobol programmers. VB, even VB.Net, is a rapidly dying language. Do you know how few 30+ programmers apply for jobs with my company who have a solid understanding of C# and Java? Technology changes, and languages change, so to maintain employment programmers have to change with them. I've actually had older applicants argue with me in interviews that the older languages can work just as well as the newer ones. They're right, but .Net and Java are the platforms du jour. You want to write reports? You'd better know the latest Crystal. If you know how to develop wrappers to interface newer applications with older languages, that's an even bigger plus. Don't argue with me about what is better. I'm a geek at heart and can discuss the pros and cons of the various technologies all day long with you, but at the end of the day the only technology that matters is the one the client is requesting, or the one mandated by their existing infrastructure. You want to know what my companies biggest project is right now? We're rewriting an old POS/Inventory application for one of our customers. The owner of the company decided to upgrade the computers used for inventory control and to power his POS terminals, and ordered a bunch of Vista boxes from Dell. We're rewriting the applications from scratch in C# .Net 3.5 to take advantage of the new platform. It may not be the best technology available, but its the best for the platform selected by our client. Despite my personal technology opinions, I must run my company according to my customers needs, not my own. I hire accordingly.

The thing I see a LOT of is older guys walking into my office with a 1998 skill set demanding 1998 wages in a 2008 market. My programmers average about $85k a year, and that is a good wage for most people. I know the wage sucks for people who were making $120k a year during the bubble, but those days are over.

[cap]

44. No older person would risk not applying to every single job out there

if he is at risk of losing his house. The smaller companies wont hire them. They dont fit the corporate culture. There are over 40 people who have sent out 1000's of resumes.

[Xithras]

48. My oldest programmer is 44, but I receive 5 apps from under 30's for every 1 app from an older one.

I certainly don't know how to explain it, but my positions, when opened, are well advertised everywhere from the SJ Merc to Dice. I do get a lot of applications, but the vast, vast majority are from younger less experienced programmers.

[cap]

45. you are defining the skill sets too narrowly...

it takes about 3 weeks to move from c++ to java or C#.

[Xithras]

49. Perhaps, but experience counts.

Even if that experience is nonprofessional. I've had applicants make that same argument to me: "I don't program in C#, but I have X years of C++ development and can be up to speed in C# in a few weeks."

That argument frustrates the hell out of me. If a programmer can be "up to date" on one of todays most in demand languages in a few weeks, why didn't they start working on it A FEW WEEKS AGO?!?!? I'm ten times more likely to hire someone who says "I have 5 years of C++, but I've only been working with C# for a month or two," than I am to hire someone who says "I have 5 years of C++, and I'm sure I can learn C# quickly". With the first I can quiz the first applicant to make sure he or she really gets the language, and their previous experience acts as a guarantee that they will be able to complete the jobs given to them with a bit more practice. With the second applicant, I'm being asked to take the word of a stranger that he or she can really learn that quickly. I've known a few programmers who could pick up a new language in under a week. I've known others who struggled for years before becoming really proficient. If the applicant has no experience with the language, I have no way of gauging their aptitude for the job. This is especially true if the programmer has been unemployed for a while. I do sometimes make allowances for programmers who are currently employed with companies that demand long hours and are looking for something a bit more laid back (as my company certainly is...overtime is generally prohibited), but if you come to me telling me that a particular language is EASY to learn, and your resume shows that you've been out of work for three months, I have to wonder why you haven't been busy learning it. Keeping skills current is just as important as handing out resumes.

[cap]

67. No one accepts learning the language at home as proof of

experience during an interview anymore. So applicants dont bring it up. I think the requirements need to be looser rather than the typical laundry list.

As for age, there are a lot more 44 and 50+ year old applicants than what you think. There are a lot in that group who have given up after a year or two of unemployment.

People don't hit 40 and then stop learning. They are just tracked out by the employers. Many older applicants get tracked onto working on the older technologies and not given assignments on the newer ones. Also, people just don't want to be staying up late night after night (especially over a manager's mistake).

What do you plan on doing in your 40's, 50's, and 60's? If there aren't programmers in your profession, you better think of doing something else. Also, people that age get tired of dealing with the problems that younger supervisors are muddling through.

What's your plan for being in IT in your 50's and 60's? If there aint nobody there now, why do you think there will be opportunities for you later? Or do you think that you will be the first one who will be "keeping up your skills" and make it through till retirement age? Why do you think someone will hire you when you are 60 years old?

[Xithras]

71. I was only speaking to my own experience.

And, for what it's worth, employers do accept learning a language at home so long as you have an independent way to verify it. When I was laid off at the tail end of the dotcom bust (before I started teaching, and before I started my company), I kept myself busy writing shareware and freeware apps. I tossed together a quick but professional looking website and posted the apps online for download. When I wasn't doing that, I also offered my programming services for no charge to nonprofits who couldn't otherwise afford it (something I still do with my company today). When I turned in applications for jobs, I was not only able to demonstrate that I'd learned a new language (.Net at the time), but that I had documentable experience using them. In the end, those shareware apps were downloaded less than 100 times, but they looked great on my resume and were essential to landing another job.

As for the older developers, I can only speak from experience. I'm 33 and wouldn't think of discriminating in my hiring, but I don't see the applicants. When I advertise a position I always get plenty of applications from the under-35 set, but resumes from older developers are few and far between. It's possible that you're right and they've given up, but there's little I can do about that from where I sit. If they apply to me, they have the same shot (and must meet the same technical requirements) as any other applicant.

As for me, I intend to be teaching when I hit that age. If not for the fact that doing so would screw my employees, I'd close the company and teach full time today. Including spouses and kids, there are almost 40 people who's financial security is dependent on me writing those paychecks every month, and I have no intention of letting them go when it isn't needed. I make decent money doing both, I have enough free time to hang out at DU during the day, and I've managed to get my workday down to a reasonable 10.5 hours, 5 days a week with both jobs. If I can maintain this until I retire, great. If not, I'll try to teach. If I can't do that, I'll do my damndest to get another programming job some other way. What I'm not going to do is spend the next decade worrying about what I'll be doing in a decade.

[BearSquirrel2]

59. Your a CS prof?????

If you're a CS professor than you know damn well that anyone with a firm grip on C++ (really not just cursory) can bang out C# with the wiz-bang Visual Studio interface, a keyword reference and a class diagram. Besides if you type a scope resolution op (.) the damn IDE pops up a list of methods C# (the language) didn't add anything new besides interfaces and properties and actually took a LOT away (intentionally (and sometimes quite rightfully)). So I don't see how a C++ skillset is so outdated?

I would think that you would be more interested in them describing algorithms, data structures, object oriented methodology, database paradigms and design patterns to you so you know they have a firm conceptual understanding of what there doing instead of banging away at their "language" like monkeys.

BTW, I'm still waiting for my function destructors!!!! That would clean up SOOO much mess.

[Xithras]

60. See my #49

Look, I know full well that any reasonably skilled C++ programmer can get up to speed with C# relatively quickly, but for an employer that's not good enough to get a job doing C# coding. If I have a C# position open and am deciding between a guy with 4 years of C++ & 1 year of C#, and another applicant with 10 years of C++ only, the C# applicant is going to get the job. Why? Because he can hit the ground running. He's not going to be messing around trying to learn the differences between the languages, or waste time trying to figure out the different syntax for things as simple as casting a datatype. The guy with a year of C# is already going to know that. The guy with no C# will have to learn it.

I do ensure that applicants know OOP, data structures, and design patterns as well, but any qualified applicant proficient in any language should know those. The deciding factors typically come down to the smaller things, such as familiarity with the specific languages and technologies the position will be dealing with. The fundamentals are universally needed, but it's the details that will land the job.

[BearSquirrel2]

63. Waaah ...

You're saying any code monkey knows CS fundamentals and you make your decisions based primarily on SYNTAX. A good CS grad has WRITTEN a compiler, knows how a lexer work and quickly replace one keyword with another referring to programming structures rather than keywords.

And you don't value experience??? You don't value the ability to negotiate the product development cycle having been through it so often? You don't value the ability to effectively interact with non-technical stakeholders and have a general understanding of underlying business requirements????

You're the first CS professor I know who has taken such a narrow stance on something like this. You don't sound like any CS prof I've ever known. You sound like a headhunter.

[Xithras]

69. I take the narrow stance with my company, not my classroom.

There is a world of difference between how I teach (and how most CS professors teach), and how I actually handle the hiring for my company.

Hell, I don't even typically teach C# in the classroom. I still teach C++ because that's what the curriculum demands, and in doing so I make it clear to students that they should be paying attention to the underlying concepts of OOP, not the specific syntax of the language itself. This semester I'm not even teaching programming, but am instead teaching Fundamentals of Programming Logic, and the only programming involved are some simple proof of concept snippets developed in REALbasic.

When I'm hiring a programmer, however, I'm typically hiring for a specific position. In doing that, SYNTAX becomes very important. All of my employees can develop in multiple languages, but we're set up so that we have at least two "specialists" who are masters in each one. When I open a position for a C# developer, I need someone who knows C# first and foremost. Knowledge of other languages is a big plus, but knowledge of that positions core duty language is NOT OPTIONAL. Understanding development cycles is also a plus (especially if you want a higher paid project lead position), but again it's not core to the job. If I'm hiring because one of my C# developers leaves, knowledge of C# IS core to the job for any replacement I hire.

Like it or not, this is the way a lot of hiring works in this industry. Employers increasingly are not looking for the classic "jack of all trades" developer who can muddle through the development process in any language because he understands the fundamentals. Employers today, more often than not, are looking for an employee to fill a specific need and position within their company. The person hired for that position will be applicant with the skills (including language syntax mastery) that most closely align with the needs for that specific opening.

You said I sound like a headhunter. Why do you think headhunters hire this way? Increasingly this is how the industry works, and headhunters have learned and adapted to this reality. They are specific about skills because the employers they are hiring for are demanding it. For better or worse, this is the future of programming jobs in this country.

[cap]

70. once you define skill sets that narrowly you create the case for H1Bs

that simple. You don't have the experience...Employers wont accept studying at home as experience.

Other professions don't define skill sets as narrowly as IT. It's a complete joke. You would never have become a teacher if they defined teaching this narrowly aka having an advanced degree in CS, specializing in the exact course that you are teaching, lots of academic publications under your belt on the topic that you are teaching in plus education classes that train you in teaching the material.

[Xithras]

72. Which is why there are so many H1B's today.

I don't really know what to tell you other than to reiterate that hiring programmers is increasingly done this way today. Even if I stopped doing it, I'd simply be the lone man facing the raging flood. This is how programmers are increasingly hired industry wide. I didn't invent it, but it's considered "efficient" and reduces the number of bad hires. It's tragically effective, so I don't see it going away.

I understand the irritation about it. Programming wasn't like this when I first stepped into the marketplace in the pre-boom early 90's, and in fact most of this change has only come about in the past five or six years. It's being driven by the MBA types who know nothing about programming and only care about the bottom line. But the reasons behind it, for those of us who have to survive in it, aren't really all that important. What is important (if we want jobs) is to recognize the trend, to plan for it, and to adapt to it. There's nothing I can say that makes it palatable, it simply IS.

As for the home learning thing, look at my other post to you in the other branch of this discussion. There are ways to get employers to look at it, but doing so requires a little creativity. Simply reading a book on the language is rarely enough to get you hired. You need to do something that documents and demonstrates that knowledge. Write some shareware and post it to the web. Join an OSS project. Volunteer your skills for a local nonprofit or children's group. There are things that unemployed programmers can do to gain experience with a new language, even if it isn't earning them a paycheck.

[Nutmegger]

33. A friend of mine gave up looking for a job a long time ago.

She's a CS major, and spent a fortune on her degree but when it came time to find a job she kept getting bombarded with jobs that are looking for 10+++ years of experience in this or that. She gave up, and found a decent job down at Foxwoods.

As a CS major myself, I wonder how many students choose not to get into the field because they're worried about outsourcing versus students who give up because of the work load. I'll speak for myself and my university ... I have a few friends who have switched majors mentioned to me that they couldn't handle the rigorous math requirement, and switched from CS to something else. Granted, my university is more stringent than others when it comes to the math requirement so that may not be comparable to the whole situation. I have noticed that my math classes will be filled, then two weeks later after add drop the classes shrink down to half or a little over half of the original size.

I always tell people who are late signing up for a particular math class only to find out that it's full to wait it out a week; chances are good that more than a few students will drop.

[lovuian]

35. At Austin they put Computer Science in Natural Science group

imagine a parent all excited about their kid going to college and then gets a welcome speech grom natural Science which is filled to the brim of eager parents thinking their kid is going to be a Doctor The speech wasn't We love your kids and we will do everything we can ... No the speech was Brutal take a look at your neighbor cause they aren't going to be in natural science for very long


where the Business school was encouraging and helpful

thats why the kids switched because
there is a kick as many as you can out

and the IRONY of the whole thing is the kid who got the Computer Science degree is doing MIS work in New York
and the kid with the MIS degree is doing programming at a Software company

America is so screwy!!!!
but my point is the Colleges are NOT HELPFUL

but I do know that one of the kids went to their MIS teacher and asked if there was going to be a job out there and the teacher agreed with guy with his own Software company there will be a job

and there was as they get experience you get more valuable

[superconnected]

37. I have so many friends with experience and degrees that never got

back into the computer industry after the early 2000's when there was an average of 800 people in line for every job in the Pacific Northwest.

I'm one of the lucky ones because I always stayed employed and have such a range of experience I could constantly get my resume past everyone elses. I'm still lucky.

For the last two years IT companys have been hiring but they're still doing what companies have done all through the 2000's, outsource as soon as they get stable in what the IT job is.

I've seen it over and over and over. The only company that hasn't done this is the City IT job I held (City of Seattle).

The jobs these people are talking about - on the market right now - are very temporary.

If they don't get used to switching companies often and keeping their certs up-to-date they will be left behind like nearly everyone I've seen. College grads right now have no clue what their future will be. Very unstable, very temporary in employment. I have seen NO IT/Programming jobs that are safe over even 3 years that are not City/State jobs.

[Vext]

34. My daughter was one of those grads

There were only 15 CS grads total at her school. I think in previous years there were as many as 60.

She's postponed the job search by going on to grad school. I don't think she would have had much trouble finding a job, though. But it had been a little tough for her to find a summer internship but one of her professors came through with one of his contacts. So she's staying at school for the summer instead of coming home. :(

[Endangered Specie]

41. thats gotta be rough being female and in CSC...

Im sure she has to beat the guys back with a stick!

[Vext]

75. It's a family tradition

I've got a BSEE and often I was the only female in my classes. Not always, though.

She's a bit of an introvert and didn't hang out with the CS crowd very much. She mostly hung out with her roommates and apartment mates who were mostly psych or theater majors.

At grad school it is totally different. I think the only people she knows are the other CS grad students. Her new school is almost 30% women. They work really hard to recruit women and also build a sense of community.

[cap]

46. If she really likes CS, have her take a double major

in something else... Biology, Business, etc. If she knows the industry vertical, she will make herself more in demand. Also, the interface positions between a business group and IT are less likely to move overseas.

[Xithras]

50. Business and CS if she wants the private sector. Math and CS if she wants to teach.

There's a huge shortage of math teachers out there, and math curriculum dovetails nicely with many of the courses she's already taken for CS. When my CS students ask me about double majors, that's where I point them.

If they want to fall back to a government job, go with Math for the second degree and look into teaching. If they want to stay in the business sector, look at a business degree. An MBA + CS degree is practically required for most IT management positions nowadays.

Other than that, I tell them to look at the particular industry they want to target (specialization is the ticket to good wages). One of my former students works for a big coal company today writing ground penetrating radar analysis software that is used to map new deposits (before anyone jumps on the kid, his dream is to one day use his knowledge to search for dinosaur bones, but he first has to pay off his college loans). His first degree is in CS, and his second was in Geology. The knowledge gained from the two degrees together has made him quite in demand within that field, and he makes a hell of a lot more money than I do nowadays. The last time I talked with him he was making $150+k, and he's only 25 years old. He'd never have a job like that with just a CS degree, or just a Geology degree.

Another good one right now is biology or anything related to biotech. The pharma's are always looking for people who can program drug simulations, but doing so requires more than just an understanding of CS.

[cap]

68. Math is also good for finance on Wall Street...

Stochastic calculus and monte carlo simulations are big there. Can do a pure math/cs combo and do risk management on Wall Street.

[Vext]

76. Actually she did get a dual degree, CS & math

But for grad school she's just doing CS. I think the math degree helped her get into this particular grad school. It's supposed to be in the top 10 in the country for CS. It was very competitive to get in,
900 applicants for 80 offers (of which about 30 actually accepted).

Right now she's interested in computer graphics.

[AndyTiedye]

42. Anything to Do With Network Security

[CatholicEdHead]

61. Well, I plan to have my Security+ in a couple weeks for a start

Then probably along some CCNA and/or MCSE route.

[cap]

47. 40% of all IT jobs are now contingent labor...

it's not a field to go and expect stable employment.

[NashVegas]

51. Maybe They Figured Out the Economics Program Is Where It's At?

Here's what IT professionals face every fucking day in America:

They go into an office where their supervisors are dullards with better skills for office politics than management, but they've got that Business degree.

What do you think a smart person who wants to make a decent amount of money and not have their career put in jeopardy by management is going to do?

[Deja Q]

52. I'd like to see numbers increase in all countries.

They're going up in other countries, so why not the USA?

If money is no longer an incentive, what is?

Well, money.

[snooper2]

66. There is another side to this...

From 1997-2000, a flood of people jumped in to Telecom and IT, some with little to no experience. Also, there was a LOT of nepotism during those years. Brothers, sisters, husbands, wives and friends getting hired galor. Think project management titles....

From 2002-2006 essentially, during layoffs at many of these places, not to mention the ones that folded, a number of these folks were "weeded out". There are a percentage left I still work with to this day who had the apptitude; and moved up the ranks over the years.

Just a thought, and yes, there are still plenty of Americans to do all these jobs. Don't believe for a second we "need" these Visa folks; its simply all about cost. ( Of course quality goes down )

[kestrel91316]

74. Why should people bother to get a degree where 99% of the jobs are outsourced.

Enquiring minds want to know........