VA is where it’s at man, come back 
Watching porn on a high speed fiber ring is not “research”
On a side note it looks like pay for IT jobs in WNY is starting to rise…
Just noticed a bunch of 65k-85k jobs showing up lately and they don’t seem to a crazy list of requirements/skills.
Overworked, Overlooked, Under Paid
Just depends where you work lol
On another side note InfoTech Niagara is doing a revamp and trying to make themselves more useful to the community this might provide more job opportunities and networking events for people trying to move up.
Ill believe that when I see it.
I think the Bills/Sabres have a better shot at winning a championship before that happens.
They already fired/removed a couple people so who knows…
Maybe I will make a run for a board position lol
You can fire who you want but if you still have shit people ultimately in charge, you will still suck. For example: buffalo bills.
They should model it off what RIT does and allows companies to come in and express what they are looking for in candidates for jobs, the talent and technology pool they are looking for, useful skills, etc. IT is such a large field they need industry people to come in and let them know what to focus on that year and then take that information to build a forum to not only show people looking for jobs whats out there but also how to help them better their skills by exposing them to local training and college certificate programs.
Just my $0.02 but what do I know. I only have been working in this field for 9 years.
InfoTech Niagara came into UB to talk to students a few times about employment. I was not thrilled with what they had to say.
The one guy was the president of some temp/contract firm and came in spewing shit about how we should all be willing to work for 13/hour for the first bunch of years. That we should make enough to pay rent and for a shitty car and that’s it, until we get some experience.
That left a REALLY sour taste in my mouth If I go to these meetings, is that how everyone is going to look at the recent grad? I busted my ass in college learning TONS of valuable skills, and people think they are just going to offer me some shitty job and I am going to slave over it to barely pay for my shitty apartment and car. That guy can shove his advice up his ass. I walked into my job in NC making nearly double that right out of college. I mean, if I had no degree and no experience, then MAYBE I would be willing to do that shit, but this guy is making blanket statements to students that have done internships and gotten BS/MS degrees. Some of those indian kids could probably program circles around that guy.
Idk I worked with a lot of people right out of college who don’t know shit…
The stuff they did know was 5+ years outdated which is huge.
I prefer the way I did it work my way up and jump around jobs etc…Now I am taking online courses to slowly get my degree.
You can’t make that blanket statement to EVERYONE though. Not to mention, it doesn’t give people confidence in the market. The people that go to these events are generally people that DO care. A lot of people that I know that worked help desk went, a lot of students that I worked with on projects that did coding internships at MAJOR companies/institutions went. I know there are a lot of lazy college students that don’t take the time to get experience during schooling, but who is he to make that judgement?
I just felt like he was purposely trying to knock us down 2 pegs. Yeah, that will keep us around and keep us confident. I think he should have been giving more advice on how to score jobs, and less advice on lowering our standards.
You can’t possibly expect IT to grow in WNY when you have people with that attitude giving advice to young people. I strongly believe that recent college graduates bring TONS of value to the table, especially when it comes to computer programming. I know A LOT of people that I studied with that were VERY good at writing efficient code. We were also using cutting edge APIs to build awesome stuff during Sr level classes.
LZ, I know tha you spend most of your time focused on infrastructure. Most of that stuff is NOT taught in a Computer Science curriculum and so I think you may get the wrong idea about the preparation that students are actually getting. Maybe a few classes here and there on the topics, but most focus on programming theory, algorithms, data structures, etc… Computer Science students who LIKE to write programs are generally REALLY good at those apects of “IT”.
I went to a couple of those events when I was in school as a Finance major/IT minor. It solidified my intent to stay with Finance when I was thinking about switching the two.
Don’t even get my started on people with computer science degrees…
When I worked at ComputerSOS back in the day they would hire tons of kids fresh out of UB a quick list off the top of my head.
- Nobody had any idea about secure coding for webapps
- Most of them didn’t understand that getting a job writing code meant spending 7-8 hours a day writing code
- How to come up with an intelligent design
- Writing things that scale
- Combining multiple technologies like apps that hook sql databases
I would 1 out of 10 we would get from there would have skills and will probably do well however most of them were already huge nerds.
Maybe its just UB…I have friends who went to RIT and came out and have done great RIT made them do a internship and they really used that to develop their skills.
I realize a lot of what I do isn’t taught however a lot more colleges are offering InfoSec, Cisco, and a variety of other programs it will probably another 4-5 years before college grads come out with some what valuable skill sets.
On the $$$$ side I know a lot of local HR/IT managers who have been getting push back about the lower pay Buffalo has offered historical in the past. I know a lot of places have been upping the salary to bring in talent because they were not finding it for the little money they were offering
Infotech has been an epic failure so far its a popularity contest for a bunch of locals who have been in the industry since infotech formed.
I don’t disagree for the most part, on the college grad thing. You need to find the students who cared enough to get internships though. UB isn’t a “hold your hand” college. It’s up to the student to do summer internships/part time work in their field. That’s the best way to get experience with scalable enterprise apps. It’s difficult to TEACH enterprise without an actual enterprise environment (massive datasets, thousands of client connections ,etc…)
It’s a shame that colleges don’t push students to use databases in their programming more. Almost every enterprise application out there requires a database and since degrees don’t give that training, the databases end up being a BRUTAL mess of data.
I don’t know I mean if you are a n00b out of college with no internships, no experience, and a small degree (<–me) then I wouldn’t be expecting to be making 50-60k. I make 30 now as entry level and I’m satisfied with the experience I’m getting and the pay considering my credentials.
no offense, but you could make SO MUCH more money at other places in the country with similar living expenses.
At this point, I probably couldn’t even live on $30k/year
Well with students loans it is a kick in the dick. I’m happy with my job, of coarse I’d like to move up and make more though. I didn’t do internships and I really regret it…a lot. But I’ve learned a LOT here so I feel I kinda made up.
Haha ya. I think I was there. All recuriters seemed to talk about how most college grads are lucky to make $25k a year and they dont look at candidates who want more. I told the one lady I made that while I was in school so go F yourself.
The IT divide is huge. The big technology changes quick and companies dont plan well to keep track of it and keep up. I know companies all over that do work and the divide between the people who have been around a while and people who are coming into fresh out of school and into it is huge with skill set. The older people may have a lot of knowledge that was relevant maybe 5-10 years ago but its useless now.
There is a lot of reports about how 1 in 3 IT works are under paid and over worked esp now with the recession. Most are looking for new jobs and its sad that the only way to make money in this industry is to move between companies or go on your own. People they hire and grow from college usually are more savvy and have more to offer but companies just dont want to pay them right to keep them around once they prove they can be an asset so if they are good at what they do, some other company will snach them up and the talent pool will continue to decrease.
A lot of my team members at Yahoo are from RIT and they are very smart.
I didn’t get the best college education but I say I got smarter with my first full-time job in IT at Delaware North Companies during my first semester of my junior year. They had me for an internship, and they saw my potential after 1 month, so they hired me full time. However, I left after 4 years but they did pay a lot of my junior and senior year of college and I was promoted 4 times before I left 
What position are you over there? Do you work directly for Paul?