Lisa Vaas

Many people would see a one-year, minimum-wage, entry-level network support apprenticeship as a job from hell. To Shellie Chambers, its a gift from heaven. Chambers, now in rehab, has been plagued by drug addiction for the past 28 years, the last eight of which she spent working in a dry-cleaning business. Chambers escape from all […]

For the third month in a row, application programmer/analyst was the most popular job title posted last month on IT job board Dice.com. There were 5,389 application programmer/analyst jobs listed as of May 31, according to Dice Inc.s monthly Dice Report. Top technical skills listed in ads were: C++, at 5,876 listings; Oracle, at 4,354; […]

Until recently, Microsoft Corp.s attitude toward certifications for its platforms and technologies felt to many IT professionals more like a love-em-and-leave-em fling than a long-term relationship. IT professionals could cry all they wanted over the Redmond, Wash., companys penchant for decertifying old designations to no avail: When the certifications and the technologies got old, they […]

Sixteen percent of CIOs say they expect to increase hiring of IT professionals in the third quarter, according to a national poll conducted by Menlo Park, Calif., IT recruiting firm RHI Consulting. Of 1,400 CIOs surveyed, 80 percent said they expect no change in IT hiring, while 3 percent said they expect to cut the […]

Lets say that after a tiresome job hunt, you finally get hired into the Internet group at Cable & Wireless Global Internet Group, one of the telecommunications big boys. It is now time, is it not, to kick back, start pocketing paychecks and find out where the Cremora is in the kitchenette? Not so fast. […]

Final Windows .NET Server exams will be released starting next summer (2003), a Microsoft Corp. certification strategist said this week. The MCSA version will come out next summer, and the MCSE version will be out in the fall of 2003, according to Dan Truax, Group Manager of Microsoft Certification Strategies, in Redmond, Wash. Beta exams […]

Rather than hunkering down during the recession, IT workers last year actually left jobs voluntarily at rates as high as 20 percent in some sectors, according to Meta Groups recently released 2002 IT Staffing and Compensation Guide. The report said the results suggest widespread morale and other problems in the IT workplace. The report–which scrutinized […]

When, 18 months ago, bank of America Corp. moved to outsource IT support for human resources and other internal functions, Tom (not his real name), a Bank of America programmer, thought it might not be such a bad deal. Not only would the IT veteran get a severance package from the bank, but hed also […]

How do you know for sure whether your outsourcing provider is using domestic, H1-B or offshore IT workers? Sometimes, its not easy to tell. Just ask members of the Charleston (South Carolina) County Council, whove been facing a constantly shifting storm of lobbying and controversy since questions arose recently about whether their decision to change […]

ARLINGTON, Va.–The chronic drip-drip-drip of IT job losses has finally stabilized, said IT job board Dice Inc. President Scot Melland, here at the Information Technology Association of Americas IT Workforce Convocation. Over the past four months, Dice has listed between 30,000 and 31,000 job openings. Thats not a lot, compared with the 100,000+ that the […]

ARLINGTON, Va.–Technical support workers apparently wont be among those IT workers enjoying a rebound in hiring demand, according to IT hiring managers surveyed for the Information Technology Association of Americas 2002 IT work force study, “Bouncing Back”. Although the report forecast that companies will fill 281,406 new tech support positions in 2002–the largest number for […]

First, the bad news: The U.S. IT work force shrank by an aggregate of 528,496 workers in 2001, with companies hiring 2.1 million IT workers while laying off about 2.6 million, according to the Information Technology Association of Americas third annual IT work force study released Monday. Next, the hopeful news: IT hiring managers are […]