I've been wondering about this one for a while... Just thought I'd get a general concencus here.

How viable do all of you think the IT field is for people to work in nowadays? It just seems to me that today's red hot IT specialty field is yesterday's old news near minimum wage job for amateurs. Web design being a great example IMO. hat used to appear to be a pretty promising field. Now places like Tripod make it child's play for a trained monkey to develope a top notch looking web site.

Another example that comes to mind right now is networking, which looked like a fairly hot field a year ago. Plug & play home networks that any fairly computer literate person can set up are fairly commonplace now though.

The one IT field that I have a hard time seeing going out the door anytime soon is the fairly new IT security specialist certification/field. As long as there are morons who hack & plant viruses, there'll always be a need for security specialists.

Any thoughts from the rest of you???

Depends what sector you're talking about. If you're John Q. Public who sells soap for a living, you will never have enough volume on your website to even need an IT guy, besides, your first priority would be something like a plant or operations manager.

As for information and technical firms, its crucial that they have IT guys. The reason for the field slowing down probably had something to do with market saturation. Every stupid ghetto fabulous kid goes and takes 2 classes at ITT Tech, and all of a sudden, he's a master of IT. Kinda reminds me of going into Best Buy or CompUSA and having to explain what SCSI is.

To those people who are very skilled in things like Java, Flash, CGI, VB, Hardware/Desktop Support, and Cisco routers, they will always have a job waiting for them. See, the one things those places don't teach you is creativity and how to do things outside the book. If you're getting hacked, maybe running the Microsoft Network Wizard won't be able to help you, where skilled professionals start checking CERT bulletins and start looking at the userlogs.

Sure the field now starts at 50k as opposed to the 80-110k we were seeing 2-3 years ago, but its higher than any other BA/BS I can think of off the top of my head.

The IT field will remain viable as long as PCs are being used in the workplace, nuff said, really.

Rob-

You give some great examples, but I don't think it is an example of a LESS viable field, but one that shifts more dramatically and evolves more quickly.

You're definately right in saying that web design has become something that more 'amateurs' can do, and do well. But the nature of the web itself has evolved.

Two years ago, a nearly static page with no interactivity was the mainstream norm, now a days for a large site that just doesn't fly. The field has evolved. People need interactivity, backend programming, and designs that are easy to update and easy to maintain.

Networking is the same way. "Today" it is MUCH eaiser to network a home or small office than 3-4 years ago. But try just taking a bunch of linksys routers or switch into a 10,000 person company and expecting the same easy with 'plug and play' networking.

Large companies have always been the main champions of IT guys (save for the .com craze) They still have the desire, need, and demand for IT. (in fact a recent article I read was saying how average IT spending is back on the rise at companies.)

The biggest difference I see in the IT field is that 2-3 years ago, a lot of people without any knowledge, without any training, or without any real hands on experience saw the field as a viable option to learn and get into. Now the field is less promising due to increase demand on knowledge/skills, less demand for employees, and less salary.

You could call it skills-inflation, where the value of a given IT skill will fall with time and you simply need to keep learning new ones. Like you say, web design today has become about as common and difficult as desktop publishing, in that it's expected that anyone could do it. But good experience with architecture, networking, databases, and bread and butter languages like C/++ and Java will always be important to employers.

I suppose you've just got to get qualified, get experience, and market yourself like a dirty prostitute. The industry is still viable, but skills-inflation will always keep happening.

Now is not a good time to be a techie. The market is inflated, and the money is not there to hire everyone.

Web-design and other specialized yet popular careers are not a stable place to be. I learned html, and it is not that tough. Web design was over-rated in importantance, and its not a complicated job, untl you become very multi-skilled...

As for IT- as long as there are networks that need people to adjust/fix/etc, there will be an IT market. It may also be a tech career, but much more stable, and will continue to be in demand.

Well now a days, the market is flooded with fly-by-night companies promising everything but the moon in certifications.

There's a local radio ad that had one guy saying "6 months ago I was waiting tables and thanks to TechSkills I have my MCSE and just bought my first house"

With crap like that every Tom, Dick and Harriet is trying to get into it.

I took a couple of classes at a local school a while back and the freaks came out of the woodwork for the Microsoft classes. The Cisco classes were just as bad. One girl I know went through portions 1-4 and is now back teaching it.

Tech Support these days is either being a Swap Monkey and swapping parts or a Script Monkey reading off of a prepared troubleshooting script with no real knowledge of what they are doing or why they are doing it.

Web design was over-rated in importantance, and its not a complicated job, untl you become very multi-skilled...
I disagree entirely. HTML is quite easy, but making a good, functional, and pleasantly looking site is not.

if it is a site with just html, its not that hard to make. But when you have an interactive database, java, flash, and the rest...thats a different story.

I wasn't one of those Junkies that went to ITT Tech just to get a degree because I could buy a house (What a crock that crap is) I did it cuz I like working with computers ( I know what a sick thought) I'd gone to Junior Colleges but they teach differently there than tech schools do. I came out of ITT with a AA in IT (now they've taken the same major and divided it into 3 majors)
Anyways I'm a retail store manager and out of my class of 12 only 1 is actually in a computer related job (Apple Helpdesk) I can't get a job in my field since everything now wants a BA with Experince
it maybe just where I live that it's like that.

Crunchy-

Given the glut in the market, many people are looking for a BA or a BS as a minimum requirement.

The 3 main things for an IT job are

1. Experience
2. Certification
3. Degree
(4. Personality)

I added the 4th in there just because if you have the other 3, and the 4th, you are usually a shoein for a helpdesk position.

The idea in the IT industry is that it is not about who you know or what people (college) says you know, but what you actually know. Their best measure for this is by experience. I'd argue that is still the primary need for an IT job.

Next is probably certifications as they are specific vocational tests that show what you 'should' know.

Lastly comes a degree which is mainly used as a 'weeder' to lessen candidates.

There is a lot of change going on right now.

I am a senior network engineer for the City of Chicago, a nearly 20,000 user network with over 1,000 servers spread across hundreds of locations. Previously I was a network engineer for the Chicago Transit Authority, a 2,000 user network and 30 locations. Prior to that I was a IT Infrastructre co-ordinator for a national e-business company. In all places I have seen what I call a 'shakedown'.

Let me explain: Over the past few years everyone and the brother has thought that because there is so much money in technolgy related fields that I better learn something and jump in. What happens is you have LOTS of beginners, and LOTS of people just in it for the money. This wasn't a problem because companies had lots of tolerence for hiring beginners, relatively speaking, due to the fact they had 'big plans' for the future.

Now that the economy has 'tightened' companies have lost that 'big plans' view and look at thier talent and resources and how they are allocated. Now to get a job you can't just flash a resume, they expect you to walk the walk if you're gonna talk the talk.

Simply put they don't want tech-nerds running the companies IT infrastructure. They want skilled, dedicated, professional indviduals with communication and organization skills. If middle management is going to be embarresed to have an engineer in a meeting then that engineer won't be working there long. 3 Years ago if you could setup and troubleshoot cisco routers you had a job. Today you better be able to write and present a 20 page report on how you are going to setup those routers, complete with references to the manufacturers best practices, etc.

I feel that the field is just as viable as it was in the past, we still hire engineers here when needed. Its just that if you want to work in the field you need to be dedicated, professional, and educated. A guy walks in wearing jeans and a t-shirt for an interview, he has the highly coveted CCIE certification and when asked how he would handle a specific network failure he spits out techno jargon in a mumbled voice. They guy after him comes in dressed well, and when asked about the same situation said he admits he doesn't know the quick fix, but knows where to go to research and find help and would follow the proper recommended proceedures to fix the problem. Needless to say he got the job.

Good Point AdamJ
Thats probably one of the only things I learned at ITT was where to find the information to fix or create something.

Thats a good point Adam about resources. A lot of it comes down to just how you're able to handle the unkown situation.