Lisa Vaas

About

Lisa Vaas is News Editor/Operations for eWEEK.com and also serves as editor of the Database topic center. She has focused on customer relationship management technology, IT salaries and careers, effects of the H1-B visa on the technology workforce, wireless technology, security, and, most recently, databases and the technologies that touch upon them. Her articles have appeared in eWEEK's print edition, on eWEEK.com, and in the startup IT magazine PC Connection.

IT Workers Skills Tested

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. […]

Certs, Exams for .NET Server Due Next Summer

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 […]

Surprise: Voluntary IT Turnover Remains High

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 […]

Wheres Your Contractors Work Force?

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 […]

Fair Trade on Jobs?

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 […]

Job Board Sees Uptick in IT Listings

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 […]

C++ Skills Hot; Tech Support Not

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 […]

IT Work Force Contracts

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 […]

It Pays to Be Outstanding

Once, IT job seekers could post their résumés on Monster.com or HotJobs.com and expect at least a trickle, if not a deluge, of offers. No more. The slow economy has inflated the number of résumés competing for attention on popular job boards, and it has also reduced the number of jobs. Monster, for example, currently […]

Oracle Bows Out of jCert

Oracle Corp. has quietly slipped out of jCert, a skills testing and certification-focused consortium of Java vendors whose mission statement is “Certified once, recognized everywhere” and whose aim is to reduce exam redundancy. As a result of its defection, Oracle certifications such as Solution Developer from Oracle; tests such as Test 1Z0-501, Sun Certified Programmer […]