On the other, the vast majority of people who could fill their roles are turned away.

No - the whole point of them being turned down is because they AREN'T the right people to fill the roles being offered. The candidates being sought are able to intergrate quickly, have top marks, and the attitude that fits the business. We're talking about someone who in 6-12 months time could be achieve the same output of an average IT Grad who's spent 2 years at the same company.

Granted, I've been out of theIT job market for some time (thank God) however I still remain in contact with ex-mates and colleagues that elected or were forced to remain in the crappy IT game.

Aside from a few months last year and the early part of this year where things did turn around, they are facing christmas either unemployed, grossly underemployed (i.e. developers writing shell scripts) and/or very worried about next year (based on some emails they've shown me from their managers/bosses).

In two instances, I've seen emails that warn of "restructures in the face of volatile revenues" .... which, in my experience, is shorthand for pink slips.

Mind you, these guys are all over 45 so maybe the IT age thing is kicking in again. Poor buggers :-(

Gloomyshoes,

We all hang around with like minded and skilled people because it gives us something to talk about… therefore whilst you can argue times are tough because that is your experience and that of your friends in your field, I can argue exactly the opposite. We need some decent stats in Aus such as http://www.itjobswatch.co.uk/ however even then there will be a minority who wouldn’t believe it. Suffice to say Gloomyshoes, I fear your experience is the old ageism issue once again.

Belair writes:

The candidates being sought are able to intergrate quickly, have top marks, and the attitude that fits the business. We're talking about someone who in 6-12 months time could be achieve the same output of an average IT Grad who's spent 2 years at the same company.

Perhaps this is happening in the US, I don't know. But here in Australia no such money is being spent on recruitment. But moving on...

In Australia, the current problem with Graduate Recruitment is that the quality of available graduates has dropped, drastically!

4-5 years ago, the graduates available in IT was nothing short of incredible. Double degree's in Commerce/Eng, candidates that had their own website literally showing their skills. You could pay them peanuts..etc

However the market has corrected, high-schoolers with top marks turned away from IT and the current grad's are not fulfilling the expected roles.

Perhaps this is happening in America, I don't know. But the key difference is that, during that period, Australia viewed IT degree's as an export market, with the small handful of non-full fee paying students allowed to enter so as to make the figures look right.

So naturally the bar in Australia has been lowered.

The problem is, it has been lowered to the point where an Australian IT degree is as much worth as any other IT degree in Asia.

It's been two years since I decided to abandon a career in IT. I'm glad I got out and didn't stick around hoping to land a job. That thing about "having top marks, own website" is not true. I have both of those amongst other things and still had trouble landing a job. I'm certainly not the perfect candidate but the pickiness amongst the employers show how man candidates are competing for that one job.

I have both of those amongst other things and still had trouble landing a job

You HAD trouble landing a job, you wouldn't have trouble now.

Alot of graduates had trouble landing jobs back then, an incredible number of graduates.

gloomyshoes is a person(s) who has ranted and raved on various message boards about how bad IT is.

He says he got out years ago - at least since 2000 - right in the down turn and has bagged it ever since.

Like most developers of his age, he never improved his skills and thought the world owed him something. I told him time and time again, if you are a developer and as good as you said you were - SAP coders we and are still in great demand here in OZ and anywhere else.

He also knows nothing about the hardware side of things - ask him a few SAN questions he can't get off of google - since good SAN people make really good packets.

Now we are in 2008 virtualization is starting a whole new industry. Heaps of jobs for VMware engineers, etc both with the vendor and in the customer base needing those skills.

He says he is doing pharmacy training and will be going to Med-School - I don't think so - plus on other arguements in the past it was proven salaries for pharmacies are not much more than good IT people. If you are in IT sales - you are making doctors wages.