IT Consultants embrace change and learn to
"Deal with it".

IT consultants share their insightful perspective about being on the roller coaster of change.

  "It seems like just yesterday..." was how one respondent put it, continuing to describe those heady heydays of offers and counter offers and employers and staffing companies calling at all hours of the day and evening with a better job opportunity. Things have changed a bit, but you'll find by their responses that they're a resilient bunch and aggressive as ever.

   P.M., a Senior Systems/Analyst and Architect reflects back and puts a timeline on events.

"During 1999, staffing companies were popping up like popcorn during a Saturday evening matinee. Assignments were plentiful, with a majority of them for Y2K last minute fixes. Personal attention was a must. I received 40 phone calls per month during the last 8 months of 1999.

2000 came and the Y2K scare was over. The dot.com's took off with a majority of the contracts shifting to e-business solution, with a rapid turn around time. The marketplace felt like a pack of hungry wolves waiting to devour the next contractor that came on the market. Competition was fierce; several agencies would compete with each other, trying to out do one another for the fresh blood in the IT industry.

The fall of the dot.coms was pretty much over with early this year. Several of the staffing companies that survived the Y2K and dot.com push vanished. More people are being laid off, flooding an already saturated market of IT professionals seeking their next assignment.

And the future? Unless you are expert in several skill sets, especially the next generation ones, marketability will fall. Some time in 2003 the bottom will be found and companies will begin to re-staff projects."

  M.H., Unix Analyst, answered questions about the last few years, the dot.com era and what he looks for in a staffing company.

"The last few years have been very volatile. I've had to change some fundamental aspects of my 'job-view'. I used to expect to be at a single company for years and years. Now that I've experienced just how mercurial the market is, just how easily jobs disappear; I've become more self-sufficient, more 'adaptable' to a variety of structures and needs of clients. I learned to come in fast and make things happen (this tends to make continued employment more likely).

I always thought that the dot.com revolution was a pipedream with little actual value. I was amazed to watch the market escalate like it did, and expected it to crash once enough people buying the stocks realized how little 'actual value' they held.

With a staffing company, the first thing that I look for is comfort. If I'm not comfortable working with them, they probably can't market me properly. Attention to details. Rapid response. Close communication. Nominal comprehension of the technical requirements and abilities. All important."

More comments about staffing company services and incentives:

  O.R., Technical Consultant: "Benefits, although the cash for work premise is very enticing. I think that ultimately it would be more beneficial to get the company to handle benefits for the employee. We had to go through the painstaking task of shopping around to find dental and medical insurance while stepping into a new job. 401k and stock options would also have to be addressed. Computer-based training is fine but actual school and certifications are what people are looking for. There is no substitute for experience, but labs and hands-on experience get you closer to knowing how things work."

  From W.D., Network Technician: "IT staffing has been, by design, held to a higher standard than other employment options. They stay 'balanced' by finding clients that are good employers, which draws good employees looking for those positions. It's a 'Geeky Love Connection' - finding the client-to-consultant match."

  Consultants offered comments about change and, as one put it, the dot.BOMBS.

  O.R.: "You got kind of a feeling that it wasn't going to last too long. Looking back, it could have been very easy to join up with a company that is no longer here today."

  W.D.: "I went from everyone telling me 'you'll have no trouble finding a job...', 'that's such a great field...' to everyone saying 'nobody's hiring...' and 'IT is over-populated, over-used, and over-paid...'. Some of us are actually happy that it happened. It scared a lot of people who were unqualified. Also, and more importantly, the shake out in the industry shook off unqualified people who were able to attain positions during the 'spend-happy' days a few years ago."

Final thoughts about the future:

  X.W., Business Intelligence Specialist writes, "Both supply and demand will stabilize. Requirements on skills and recruiting processes will become more in-depth, rather than more urgent. The next wave of new technology will not come from isolated super individuals or small start-ups, but from longer-term developments (life science, quantum computing, etc.)."

  C.M., Help Desk Analyst: "I believe that application and web developers are going to compete for the best jobs."

  E.B., Systems Specialist: "Job opportunities will increase. Certification is more difficult to obtain, but is of greater value."

  W.D.: "I feel the last couple of years was a correction. The economy was over-inflated, and needed to be reduced somewhat to compensate. This is much better for us in the long term, and IT will continue to grow. New innovations, new products, and a better understanding of what IT can do will help the industry and the country."

  C.D., Support Administrator: "Continue learning and gaining certifications to be more marketable. In the IT industry today you have to be the cream of the crop; there is a huge amount of people that are out there with paper status (no experience but certified), and a lot that have been in the game a long time."

  J.B., Project Manager: "Over the next two years, I forecast a trend back to the basics: investors demanding profit and cash flow from companies and they must continually redefine strategy and direction so they can be able to react quickly. I suspect the B2B growth to be the highest in the future, and the consumer use of the Internet to grow, but at a declining rate. The growth of jobs will not be like the late 90's, though."

  X.W. on careers and help from employers and staffing companies: "IT professionals have to make major improvements on their core competencies several times over their career. They will need some kind of management. Long-term attention to their professional life is the key, for they may not be best at managing their own careers."