I guess this thread is pretty much dead but I have some time to kill. It's been 2 years since my last post in this forum and have since graduated from University. Instead of looking for a job in the IT world and being an employee, I made myself a job with a friend and became an employer in the IT world. My friend and I started an IT company offering all kinds of services from server hosting, to website design/hosting and of course network support. We are doing pretty well with a good sized office, company cars, 1 employee, meals paid and all that with a 70 000$ salary each. We have been very lucky because we have found a market where we are nearly the only company in the country to offer our kind of services and cater to a very specific market that is very hard to enter. We set up networks and offer support to clients that are located in other continents as well as locally. We have achieved all this with NO publicity but just with word to mouth from one client to another. We work very hard and very long hours and we don't think anything for granted. We easily work 16 hour days and 60 or more hours a week because of time zone differences of up to 5 hours with our clients. There is hope out there and it's all about contacts. We obviously have the right contacts so all we had to do is followup and deliver. I have to admit that if it weren't for those contacts we wouldn't be nearly as successful as we are now. Most if not all of my collegues that graduated with me or before me are still in the same situation with a not so satisfied job. The IT market is still very hard to enter if you are starting from the bottom of the organisations. We fortunately already knew and deal with the industry leaders so we are actually starting from the top of the pyramid of organisations and going down the list. New potential clients are actually calling us because we have very good references saving us the worry of finding new clients. So for those who have a pessimistic (like I had) views of the salary offered in the IT market, don't give up hope... We plan on a good growth for next year and adding a few more employees for 24hr tech support for our clients. Since now being an employer and looking for good employees here are a few things that we look at :
* We don't expect the employee to know everything and work for a salary of 30K but we do expect an employee to be able to dig and find solutions.
* We expect employees to have a good inter personal skills because we know all our clients and their employees on first name basis and it takes skills to develop that kind of relationship (which helps us to get very good recommandations)
* We don't expect to teach the employee everything. The employee must already have some skill sets. The more you touch, the better. Cisco Routers/Firewals, network wiring, MS Exchange, Windows servers and workstation versions, hardware maintenance... If you have a good mix of knowledge, you'll certainly catch our eye.
* Hopefully this doesn't discourage you guys out there but we don't actually look at certifications. We actually offer to pay for the certification. One trick is to buy the books, read them on your own time and for sure you'll learn. With this knowledge, you'll be able to get the job and then have the employer pay for the certification. I would actually be hesitant to hire somebody with full certifications because I would expect him/her to ask for a high salary ! But if he's already able to do the job then I'm willing to reward him. We go with this route because we are still a small (if considering the number of employees) or medium (if considering our business revenue) sized company. If you are looking for a job in a large enterprise with 50 or more employees than I suggest you go get your certs first.
One other thing, every single thing that I'm doing day to day to run my business and all my IT stuff was learned while on the job. I haven't used ANY of what I learned in school (which was mostly software oriented even though it was a bachelor in computer management). The one tool that I do retain from my education is the know how to dig and search for the answer. Now being an employer, I must be the one with all the answers. If my employee can't find the solution, I'm stuck and have to do anything and everything to find the solution or risk loosing the client. I don't have the luxury of depending on someone else other than myself. This is a lot of added pressure. So good job hunting !
