Interesting Email from Mark.

I suppose in some this had to happen, I've been in the consultancy game for
8 years now and have enjoyed a healthy income in that time (still I have
nothing to show for it, apart from a large liver), but was expecting the
bubble to burst at some point.  I think the point is now.

I'm British, but choose to live in mainland Europe, Belgium actually,
occasionally I glance at the job offerings in the UK and am shocked by the
salaries, 20 - 30k, I left the UK 8 years ago, ok on 24k, so I would hope to
earn a lot more than that now.  I had a stint in Australia, Brisbane (worst
place in the world, BTW) as a permie, ok a manager, but got the equivalent
of 40k GBP and could barely make ends meet.  Ok my finances are my problem
and especially my wife's.

I always thought it's an HP skill, problem, but judging by my friend, who's
an Oracle expert, he can't find a decent contract anywhere.  The problem for
me, is how easy it is to get into IT.  I've met so many contractors who can
barely do their job, don't even know the most basic of computer skills, yet
still manage to find work as the market was desperate.

The problem has been supply and demand, whenever you have a get rich quick
scheme, like being an IT consultant, you get everyone jumping on the
bandwagon, so few managers, have any idea about IT, so even the most
inexperience contractor can blind the boss with science.  The biggest 'con'
seems to be NT Network specialist, nearly everyone I've encountered, has
been utterly useless.  As a result the supply has finally outweighed the
demand, IMO.

I also have started learning Java, which I'm finding extremely difficult,
I'm still not convinced by the hype.  As the most basic demands of an IT
language, Database interaction and Reporting, seem to be the most difficult.
Even when I did the Sun course, the teacher, couldn't understand why I would
even need to access a database.



-----Original Message-----
From: Mark Wilkinson [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Thursday, January 31, 2002 2:16 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: [HP3000-L] Employment


I, like may others have been sat on my butt for quite a few weeks now trying
to find suitable employment without much success. OK, I've had a few phone
calls and a couple of interviews but I'm 38 years old and the number of jobs
that my diverse experience and skillset "fits" is diminishing. J2EE is the
flavour of the day even though (IMHO) is it the biggest, most cumbersome
sledgehammer I've ever seen trying to crack relatively small nuts.

* To join/leave the list, search archives, change list settings, *
* etc., please visit http://raven.utc.edu/archives/hp3000-l.html *