| Whether it's your first professional job after you graduate, or landing that first IT job after you complete training, getting your foot in the door can be really tough. I've gotten a bunch of emails over the last year from people who are having a very hard time, despite all the hoo-ha about IT shortages. Pretty discouraging after you've invested a lot of money and time preparing for a new career to find out that everybody wants experience… and you don't have any to speak of.
What to do, what to do? I thought I'd ask a few people who ought to know, like employers themselves and placement counselors from IT training schools. Here's what they had to say:
The Consulting Catch 22
It's the sad truth that employers would uniformly prefer to hire candidates with documented experience. However (job seekers: perk up now), they aren't always able to find enough of them. Stacey Denton, Technical Recruiting Supervisor for FutureTech Consulting (www.futuretech-consult.com) explained that most of the requests they get from employers are for experienced people . FutureTech supplies both staffing and permanent placement services to companies ranging from small startups to multinational enterprises.
Says Stacey, "Most of our clients need help yesterday and don't have the time or capability to bring beginners up to speed. But there are exceptions. We have some entry-level help desk positions right now, where the employer will consider people who are brand-new to the field." She added that they also get entry-level training positions pretty regularly and these jobs are particularly well suited to those with a teaching or training background.
"It's tough for programmers, though," she said, " most junior programming positions require a minimum of six months experience in web development these days." Stacey suggests that beginners look to a large company with an established training program as a way to get that first real job. Large firms also tend to promote from within, she says, giving newbies a head start on their career paths.
The Start-Up Dot Com
"Of course, we'd prefer experienced candidates, but we'll hire entry level ones too," says Alex Godin, Human Resources Director of eCal, a Philadelphia-area company providing an online calendaring application. "We've grown from a staff of five to over 100 in the last year and our needs are constant." He adds, "But it's important to remember that we only have a limited number of entry-level jobs at any one time. We're going to be scrutinizing candidates for these positions closely."
I asked Alex what he looks for in an entry-level candidate. He answered, "I'm looking for a hard worker who demonstrates her/his enthusiasm and ability to learn quickly." As we talked, I mentioned that some readers had written to say that no one would give anyone with a tech school certificate a chance. Alex replied, "School is the opportunity you make of it. I've seen great candidates from crummy schools and terrible candidates from well-respected universities. It's all in what the person brings with him/herself. I look at the person, not just the degree."
The Academic Perspective
There's an ever-increasing number of schools (vocational and colleges/universities) which offer IT training to the career changer or new entrant. I spoke with Sandy Karian, Career Services Director of the Chubb Institute, to ask about their experiences with first time IT job seekers. Sandy said that job search success for the first-timer is "in direct proportion to the effort put behind it." The better job someone does of presenting his/her knowledge and capabilities to an employer, the sooner that first position is landed.
Chubb's Keystone School branch (Delaware County, PA) reports a combined placement rate of 90% for all of its courses, naming Vanguard, Anderson Consulting, and Temple University among many others as employers of their grads. "Sounds good," I said, "but a few people have told me that these statistics have to be a crock, based on what they experienced when they attended schools like yours."
Sandy smiled and said, "We're required to report our results to the state Department of Education and they verify our statistics. We'll stand by our placement numbers." She continued, "the unfortunate 10% mostly fall into the category of 'not actively seeking employment,' which means they have health problems that keep them from working or that they disappear and never let us know if they're working." (Sandy thinks many of them might be.)
The Well-Known, "Cool" Place
Once a start-up dot com itself, CDNow (www.cdnow.com) has parlayed its first-mover advantage to establish itself as a major eCommerce player. Says Leslie Hufter, Senior Staffing Consultant for Development, "People want to come work for us because we're so well-known and stay on the edge of new technologies. Virtually all of CDNow's entry-level recruiting is done on the campuses of four-year institutions. "We rarely hire people from tech programs and they must have prior experience before we'll consider them."
A company like CDNow runs at a ferocious pace and this means that new employees have to hit the ground running. "Most entry-level types can't do that," Leslie says, "Training does not equal experience." For that matter, experience may not equal experience."
"Um ... what?" says I.
"We see a lot of candidates with real job experience, but in a much less complex or robust environment," she replied. "Their experience has no bearing on our reality." In other words, thanks, but no thanks if you haven't faced the challenges that CDNow sees daily.
Who Me?
Here's a reality check from these folks. There are some basic reasons why people don't get hired for the entry-level opportunities that do exist. First and foremost, employers pick whom they think is the best candidate. Being that best candidate isn't anybody else's responsibility. It's yours. Look at this list they gave me and honestly ask yourself if any of them fit you:
- Candidate can't express him/herself clearly
- Candidate repeatedly postpones/cancels interviews
- Candidate has obviously exaggerated on the resume
- Candidate isn't appropriately dressed for an interview
- Candidate is lying about something (a good screener can tell)
- Candidate is waiting to be handed the job opportunity
- Candidate has poor interviewing skills
- Candidate has not done his/her homework to learn about the company
Salary Realities
"Outrageous." "Out-of-Line." "Just plain Out There."
Every person I interviewed had the same thing to say about the salary expectations of entry-level candidates. Evidently, new entrants to the IT field have taken those $50K, $75K, $100K and up average levels cited in compensation surveys as the gospel truth. They're asking for salaries in the stratosphere according to my sources.
FutureTech's Stacey Denton looked exasperated when I asked her about the salary issue. "People conveniently forget that these are average or median figures,' she said, "they don't apply to people who are just starting out as beginners." She said that her entry-level positions tend to start in the upper twenties to low thirties for first level help desk techs and you need prior customer service experience to get the upper part of that range.
Sandy Kerian of the Chubb Institute would agree. She says that their grads who go into tech support or networking typically command compensation in the mid-twenties to low thirties. For programming grads, the rates are a bit higher, from mid-thirties to low forties. Sandy explained that re-setting salary expectations is an important part of their placement assistance, "But there are some people who just won't accept reality. They're stuck on a salary target that's more than they're worth to a potential employer. It's one of the major reasons why people say they can't get a job."
Said Alex Godin of eCal, salaries can be higher than this level, but only if the candidate has prior, relevant business experience. Otherwise, he says these numbers are right in line. For basic beginners, he adds, "Once we hire someone, we use the first three months as an evaluation period to let the new hire prove her/himself. If the person works out, we generally offer a respectable increase after 90 days and more after another 6 to 12 months."
More...
The bottom line is: be realistic about what you can or should expect and present your best self. Job search is always hard, no matter how good the market is or what you're looking for. I really appreciate hearing from you, so send me your questions and your stories- jamie@jobcircle.com.
Next month, My Value Proposition.
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Jamie Fabian spent more than 15 years as a human resources executive before changing careers to become a senior project manager for a growing IT consulting company. Now in management consulting for a large Pharma company, Jamie would like to be seen as a hybrid of Tom Peters, Tom Jackson, and Tom Wolfe, but spends too much time working, driving carpool and watching mindless TV to write more than this column. You can contact Jamie with questions and comments at jamie@jobcircle.com.
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