Harsh maybe, but I really do feel that in today’s competitive global economy we need to start addressing the fact that we’re ill equipping people for the expectations we have of them if we let sub-par performance go unchecked. Now I recognise that for there to be high performers there must be those who are not and indeed there then exists in-between the two poles a raft of average performers. Interestingly a speaker recently suggested to his audience of business professionals that most people in the room were probably good at what they did, but that being good was the new average. Quite simply he said, “you need to be exceptional, you need to stand out and you need to be very, very good”.

In the past ten or twenty years we’ve propagated at every opportunity from kindergarten through to the boardroom, this idea that doing your best is all you can do. Everyone is a winner if you’ve tried your hardest and thereafter you should just be proud of your efforts.

We increase the debilitating effect of accepting average performance with a social phenomenon known as Tall Poppy Syndrome (TPS) whereby people of genuine merit are resented, attacked, cut down, or criticised because their talents or achievements elevate them above or distinguish them from their (more average) peers.

I suggest it’s now time to shake off the need to encourage everyone with false praise and recognise the realities of competitive markets. There are winners and losers; there are people who excel and those that don’t. We certainly need to help people identify their place within this sphere and we also need to help them develop (if they want to), but let’s not call everyone a success unless and until they actually succeed.

This one’s an interesting question because as a six year academic graduate myself, I would strongly advocate the need to pursue and attain formal recognition of your skills and abilities. These skills offer business grounding, they offer a learning framework for the future and they offer evidence of your commitment to see a course of learning through to completion. But those six years were quite a few business cycles past and when I reflect now on whether they currently aid me in my day-to-day job I would have to question at least some of the content I studied.

Today more than ever we live in a world that’s pacing itself for a sprint race and without doubt the drivers in attaining formal qualifications have changed substantially to those of past decades. Consider in the past, the essential requirement to hold a degree before any blue chip employer would consider you having the aptitude to work in their computing/technology department. Similarly business and trade qualifications were of a value that appears to be dropping year on year as employers place more significant value now on whether an individual has successfully demonstrated the skill rather than whether a certificate says they have that skill.

The telling marker in this story is perhaps best indicated by the fact that the learning landscape itself has changed. In the past knowledge was passed quite deliberately and structurally from person to person (think teacher, student) but today with all the available mediums this is no longer as doctrine a process.

Always on, self-serve, immediate access, instant gratification are just a few of the catch-phrases which embody the learning environment we now find ourselves within, and if you don’t believe me then go Google it yourself!

So are we beyond the academic measures of the past? Well we know Universities are struggling to fill places as they wrestle with a youth unconvinced of the value proposition for three of four years of degree level study. Perhaps its cyclical and once the learning Institutions create a new, modern approach to meeting the educational needs of today then demand will increase again. Perhaps indeed.

In the meantime for many today it appears more important to achieve the Foursquare Major of Starbucks than it is to hold a bachelor’s degree.

I’m sure we’ve all seen those job advertisements stating 10+ years relevant experience essential. But what does that really mean?
Learning and development models today no longer follow the same linear model they did twenty or even ten years ago. Classroom led training has been supplemented and sometimes replaced wholly by computer based training (CBT). What this has created is an ability for self-paced learning that can be accelerated, paused or protracted to meet the needs of the learner.

And therein lies the dichotomy with the traditional request for years experience when hiring employees. There is a diminishing correlation between the ability or skills of an individual and their likely performance, when based solely on years’ of experience. Put more simply a twenty-one year old who has a passion for a skill and who spends all his or her time bettering their ability with it, is often more capable than a forty-one year old with 10+ years’ work experience. It’s a notion backed by common sense in a lot of ways yet still somewhat perversely, far from commonplace as a method for employers to filter appropriately skilled candidates from the rest.

So what can you do about it?

Well as a recruiter I advise my team to probe for evidence of ability to perform the tasks to the required skill level, irrespective of how long the applicant has been practicing said skill. And for job seekers I’d recommend a strategic approach to any job search that pits your ability to actually do the job verses the employer’s belief in what they think you need to do the job.

Trust me it isn’t easy to change engrained and long-standing beliefs but the times they are changing and if my six year old can use MS Word now then he’ll be well equipped to tackle an office administration role in say two or three years!

I could start by qualifying these comments as specific to a job interview but in fact they’re not, they can actually be applied to any interview situation you face. You see an interview by definition is or should be a two-way flow of information between parties. The key element being the need for everyone involved to gain information from the process, save the interview (at best) be found lacking or (at worst) becoming a complete waste of time.

And in that first paragraph is the key to overcoming nerves for most candidates. Too many interviewees view the interview as a test which they must pass to be successful else fail under the guise of personal rejection!

Take a step back and re-read the first paragraph. The interview may still be a test but it’s a two-way test not one-way. If the interviewer doesn’t impress me with his job, or company information or even his personality then I may not accept his offer should he decide I’m the employee he wants in his business. On the more traditional view If I don’t represent myself in the best light, summing up skills and experience and demonstrating a personality matching what’s being sought, then I’m unlikely to be offered the position on offer.

Now with a more level appreciation of the process that’s taking place in an interview, I’d invite you to refocus your approach to interviews in the future. Sure you should prepare and invest time in performing your best at an interview but only in return for an expectation that your interviewer does the same. When you view the balance of power as equal you are much more likely to relax and perform naturally to your best ability.

Salaries within the Infrastructure space continue to be stable rather than spectacular. Nervousness surrounding economic conditions in Europe is tempered by China’s continued rise to prominence and our own resources boom, creating somewhat of an impasse in permanent salaries especially. Contract rates are more open to fluctuation and are increasingly influenced by client and industry sector.

In contrast to the Applications market we are seeing an increasingly popular trend of on-shoring/insourcing of local customer facing IT support functions. Subsequently and more-so in a contract context this is somewhat inflating rates at the lower end of the market as companies scramble for the limited number of available talent. It will be no surprise to see that as a consequence of this lower end elevation there may well be some fluctuation in rates in the coming 12 months at the higher echelons.

The expected redefinition of rates is due to the take-off of large scale projects, the most prominent of which being the National Broadband Network, has not so far come to prominence. There was a fear that this would destabilise the permanent and contracting arenas with gross over-payments however at this stage there has been a collective sigh of relief that no further strain is being put on already tight budgetary constraints.

As has been the case for the last number of years, the moves to virtualisation and the cloud will continue apace. Certain trends to watch out for will be wider scale and next steps of virtualisation (of everything – desktop/network/apps/servers/storage) and further diversification into fabric computing, the concept having been muted for a few years now. ITIL and Process Management will continue to evolve and an increasingly hot topic and focus will be the management of the unprecedented growth in data storage.

Employers are increasingly looking for more value from their existing and potential employees – the term coined some years back being “T-shaped staff.” Specialisation will continue to be sought at the highest, niche levels however the preferred modus operandi will be for Infrastructure staff in particular to diversify their skill sets and thus increase their operational value.

What Next?

I expect that salary wise 2012 will be shrouded in an air of uncertain expectation, in so much as a change is expected but nobody is quite sure as yet what form it will take. If global economic conditions worsen then we may see a return to less projects, higher unemployment and lower salary levels however if we are again fortunate as a nation and get shielded from any impending doom then we could well see rates stabilise and potentially increase as investment in the sector grows.

Your Comments

Do you agree with my comments or want to offer a different perspective to salaries and/or trends in IT Infrastructure? If so please feel free to add your comments here or email me directly at neil.linz@ambition.com.au

Infrastructure support is an interesting area in the market place right now. As the common market entry point for recent IT graduates, it can present some very frustrating challenges. Typically a candidate is stuck in a catch twenty-two; “I need an entry level position because I don’t have experience, but…all the jobs require at least 6-18 months experience. How can I get experience if no one will give me a chance?” The answer, you need to understand the market.

You have two options to enter the market;

1) Apply to companies that are considered training grounds in the industry

These companies typically have lower requirements than working for the internal IT staff of a large ASX-listed company. In addition to this, they hire year-round and often take people on straight out of TAFE or Uni, with the easiest job to secure being a customer support or call centre type role. The key to making the right career choice here is, choosing a position in companies that are either IT companies themselves or have room for you to move into the IT support side of the business. Working 12 months with one of these companies will give you the experience you need for other opportunities and also give you the right kind of customer service training required for a Service Desk position.

2) Look for a company that is willing to train and mould you to their way of operating

These companies can come in all different shapes, sizes and industries. The key thing they are looking for here is; drive, ambition (but not too much), aptitude, the right attitude, clear and professional communication, proper understanding of what good customer service is and obviously a demonstrated commitment to a career in IT. All of which can be quite difficult to portray in your CV, nevertheless, a poorly constructed or laid out CV can see you overlooked during the application process. Likewise, using language that oversells what you have done in the past can make you come across as arrogant and unwilling to learn/be trained, which goes back to having the right attitude.

Making a career move

So let’s assume you’ve had a job for a while, but now you have thought to yourself; “I’m not getting where I want to be with this company” or “It’s time for a change of scenery” or “My friend just got a job paying $10k more per year than me and he has less experience”. Here is where it can get tricky. You are about to try and move companies, but you only understand the market from your perception. This is where speaking with recruiters really comes to your advantage.
A good recruiter will be able to help you with the following:

• Show you how you need to have your CV in order to put you forward in the best light possible
• Explain how the market is at the moment with regards to the availability of jobs
• Explain the different types of jobs you have a good chance of getting at this point in your career based on what is available
• Inform you of what the market is paying for someone with your experience and qualifications
• Illustrate areas of your interview where you were not strong and required improvement

In order to make the right choice, it is very important you are flexible on certain things. Moving jobs for $5k extra per annum doesn’t make any sense if the company you move to has no room for you to develop. Understand that the market hires people at certain skill points sometimes, and different skill points at others.

If you are getting paid $70k P/A with one company as a Senior Desktop Analyst and want to move into a Junior System Administrator or System Engineer role, chances are you won’t have the experience required yet to move straight into that role in one jump. Understand that to get that role, it is often better to find a company that has people in that space already and has plenty of market activity. Applying for a Desktop role in a company where the salary may only be presently paying $60k, demonstrates that your motives are not purely financial. Rather, you are a careful and thought out individual who takes into account all the factors in a given situation, this will certainly come through during the interview process.

So when trying to enter the market or change jobs, take everything into account, figure out what is really important to you, what the real reasons for moving are, and seek the advice of a professional recruiter, one that gives unbiased advice, constructive feedback, and actually tells you how you are likely to stake up in the market place so that you can see the process from both sides of the coin and make the best possible decision.

If you need any assistance in this area please contact me on the details below:

Simon Ogilvie-Lee
Consultant – Infrastructure Team

Simon.Ogilvie-Lee@ambition.com.au
02 9248 6254

For as long as they have both been around, the Linux versus Windows argument has raged on amongst their respective loyal subjects. On the surface, Windows is more widely adopted, is the standard business environment operating system, is more end-user friendly, and has more commercially developed programs supported than Linux. Linux on the other hand, is being adopted exponentially faster, is free to download, use, distribute and modify as needed, has an open source version (albeit not always up to the same capability) of just about every commercially developed program a windows environment can offer, and because of its design, is not susceptible to viruses or spyware.

Whilst there are literally thousands of Linux distributions (or Distros) available, there are only a few major players, with most others being variations of these, namely; Ubuntu, Fedora, OpenSUSE, & Debian. In recent years however, one of these has been specifically edging out in front as a contender against its Windows rivals, Canonical’s Ubuntu. With major releases every April & October, the last three years has seen it improve not only in the traditional points, but also one of the primary measures of comparison between OSes, User Friendliness. Some dramatical changes were made to its internal workings with the release of Ubuntu 10.04 (which were further refined in version 10.10), resulting in Ubuntu finally going head to head with Windows 7, not only on speed with its 30 second average boot and 5 second shutdown times, but also usability and design.

Now personally, I am an avid Ubuntu supporter, and have been since the release of version 9.04, so much so that when the Alpha 2 is released for testing just weeks after an official release, I’ll gladly suffer through crashes and missing functionality just so I can have a taste of the next release. So for many months I suffered through testing phases of Ubuntu 11.04, first Alpha 2, and then the following Beta releases. Finally, on April 28th, 2011, I did my final upgrade. WOW! What a radical change!

Never have there been so many structure system design changes in a new release. Having previously not been impressed with Unity as a desktop manager, I found my transition and adaptation to the new desktop surprisingly quick. It wasn’t until a few weeks passed when I noticed errors occurring that should have been sorted before the final release, things like the sound cutting out randomly when playing movies or Skype not liking ANYTHING else to happen while a call is in place. So after weeks of updates, and still experiencing these painfully annoying issues, I found myself downloading Ubuntu 10.10. And whilst I now have a more stable system, I do miss many of the new features I no longer get to use, like the meta key opening a system-wide live search function, finding both programs & files within a few short keystrokes.

So I leave you with these questions; when was the last time you downgraded your OS? (Shortly after Vista came out?) And, are you one of those people who not only wants, but NEEDS to experience the newest version of whatever technology you use? If so, what was your latest must have experience?

Contactors have been part of the IT landscape since the early 1980s. Large project teams were formed to rewrite or convert manual paper based legacy systems and processes to computerised/automated processes. Contractors came into their own as a highly skilled, mobile workforce whose expertise could be used for the duration of the project and then let go when no longer needed.

Despite their long history in our workforce landscape myths still abound around the perceived disadvantages of contracting.

MYTH 1.  YOUR SKILLS WILL BECOME OUTDATED

This is a common fear that, over time and without training, your skills will become redundant and it will be hard to find work. This can be a problem not only for contractors but also permanent employees who don’t invest time inself-training. You do need to work hard at keeping your skills updated and there are many courses and training materials out there to help you do it.

MYTH 2.  YOU GET ALL THE BORING WORK TO DO

There are contracts out there to do the donkey work no one else wants but there is nothing forcing you to take these types of contract. A lot of contract requirements are project based using new technologies, new designs that will certainly keep the grey matter ticking over.

MYTH 3.  YOU DO NOT GET BENEFITS such as sick pay, holiday pay.

This is certainly true and usually there is no “overtime” for weekend work. However these benefits are built into the increased daily rate a contractor receives over permanent staff and more than compensate for this.

MYTH 4. IT’S A HASSLE TO SET UP A COMPANY AND DO ALL THE ACCOUNTS

Yes it can be and will require the services of an accountant. However a company structure is not the only way to go contracting. You can also join a management company or simply go PAYG with the agency covering you for all your insurances and deduct tax and super for you.

If you’re thinking about going contracting but not sure what’s involved why not call for a confidential chat?

As the years go on and technology continues to improve, more focus is going into implementing different technology devices into the education system. In 2005 Parsad and Jones did a study that showed in the year 2005, 99% of schools with computers had access to the internet versus 35% of schools in 1994.

Over the last 10 years, government officials have started emphasising the importance of creating a technology-rich school environment. Recent studies have shown that children who have learning assistance from technology based tools are receiving higher test scores, making significantly higher academic achievements, and have higher performance scores across all subjects.

The Information and Communication Technology Literacy Group believes that the use of technology improves students’ abilities to communicate, analyse and interpret data, prioritise tasks, understand conceptual modeling, and engage in problem solving.  These are critical areas for a student as well as for people in the work place. Someone who has strong skills in the above areas is much more likely to be successful in a business environment.

The article I recently read suggested that basic computer systems, tools and applications that we take for granted like Microsoft word, Microsoft excel, powerpoint, email, internet etc. are all increasing our communication and analytical skills. If this is the case, are people who are exposed to technology at a younger age predestined to do better in school, develop better communicative and analytical skills, and thus be more successful in their job?

Is it appropriate to attribute the development of these skills purely to technology? If this is the case, will there eventually be a need for teachers, classrooms, and schools or are computers and the internet going to become the global education system?

In the office my colleagues call me the Christmas Grinch, Bah Humbug and The Scrooge so to make sure I live up to my reputation I will not mention a thing about that C word!

The Year 2010 in Review

January 2010 – This was a crazy period of time for me, recruiting in the infrastructure space during January was like opening the flood gates. Budget had finally been allocated for extra head count after the GFC and managers didn’t hold back. They wanted to make sure they gave some relief to their teams before upper management changed their minds. This is traditionally the quietest month of recruitment in the year but definitely not for me in 2010. This was a good sign of things to come for 2010.

February > May 2010 – Things incrementally picked up from here as more and more uncertainty was waivered and good financial results gave companies across various sectors more budget for both permanent and contract positions. Although there were additional requirements and companies were performing well there was still the hangover of the recent GFC on everyone’s minds and threats of a double dip recession kept salaries and over hiring down. Overall, steady increases in hiring and vacancies for Infrastructure professionals continued throughout the first two quarters of 2010.

June > August 2010 – The Infrastructure recruitment market plateau happened during these months but projects started to kickoff and the business information team were very busy throughout these months employing PM’s, Business Analysts and various project leads / designers. This would impact the infrastructure market later on down the track in 2010 and 2011. Throughout the year to date companies had been cautious not over doing salary increases and were being very selective with who they brought on board to their teams. With the steady increases in staff hires throughout the year the first signs of real skilled staff shortages started to peep through the cracks and recruiters were starting to find it harder to deliver on client requirements. Honest and Smart Recruitment Consultants indicated these changes in the job market and set realistic expectations with their clients.

October > December 2010 – Things really ramped up, the GFC was now deep in the back of the minds of everyone, business confidence hit three year peaks, company financial results remained strong and Australia had its largest ever increase of new fulltime roles in a calendar year (across all industries). There was a healthy statistic of 40% more vacancies open in November/December 2010 than 2009. Companies turned to permanent recruitment over contract generally speaking and due to candidate shortages a large percentage of my clients increased salaries to attract the right candidates to their vacant positions. This quarter has been the real start of the candidate short market, salary increases and staff retention incentives. Cloud computing has been the real buzz word in the IT industry throughout the year and this quarter I have been to no less than 5 seminars on it, it definitely has a large push going on right now.

The year 2011 - What to expect for the IT infrastructure job market?

My prediction if no unexpected market disturbances occur is a continued increase of staffing demands across IT Infrastructure resulting in extensive candidate shortages by the end of 2011 and rate increases reminiscing of 2007. Although we are starting to head to candidate shortages and the NBN will contribute to this I don’t believe it will get to the levels of 2007. I believe this will be offset by current trends in the IT Infrastructure market of outsourcing, off shoring and cloud computing. These all seem to be happening at an increasing rate but I still believe organic growth will keep infrastructure specialist needs in Australia incrementally high.

I have heard of a number of infrastructure managers showing real concern of the effect cloud computing could have on their team and individual careers. Personally I don’t think they have too much to worry about as when a new technology is supposed to save man power, requirements generally in the past have actually increased in other areas of IT. All new roles are produced and people slide their careers in those directions. Also companies absorb new technology at differing rates so there will always be a need for an abundance of skilled infrastructure specialists for our generation.

2011 will be a year to cement your career in a role that is future proof and rewarding you financially well for the skills you have developed. Let’s hope I am right and 2011 can be a great win year for most like 2010 was.

These are my individual opinions formed through experiences and conversations throughout 2010. Does anyone have anything to add or challenge?