It is sad and it truly hurts the communities and families so much it just needs to stop, in my view anyway.

I completely understand what you are bringing up.

I also agree on the outsourcing. The funny thing is, I charge between $25-55 per hour, depending upon which skill set is going to be used for all of my freelance and consultancy work. Standard web development, including database, PHP, HTML, CSS – layout and logic – is $35 per hour. My salary expectations for a full time position are between $55,000 and $65,000 per year. Modest compared to what many others with comparable experience and education expect.

Re-working 2 complete web sites, creating one from the ground up within a 3 month time frame – all which were successful attests to proper management of projects, time and resources. Add into that creating 10-12 videos that went to various vendors, partners and performing enterprise wide desktop/laptop support and server administration I think my resume and experience in project management dictate I can handle multitudes of projects, of varying disciplines and get them done in amazing time, tested and providing a good ROI that generally will exceed expectations. In fact, my prior employer got angry when one product line exceeded expectations. I was told they were a “toy” company not a “parts” company – and they didn’t want to focus on selling replacement parts because it wasn’t their product line focus. The problem is, customers were dying to have this more available – a quick search through any forum on the product line, and there are many, proved this fact. In my sales reports I ran, spare parts sales were nearly doubled and could have been taken to be nearly $1 million a year had a small initiative and one contract agency shipping clerk have been brought on. That would have been triple what they were when I started – as it was, when I left they were doubled. The company has now gone from nearly 200 employees down to less than 40 and is currently for sale.

I should also mention, that in my resume I send to potential employers, as well as touching on it elsewhere, I wrote a complete portal for file management of our overseas vendors becuase FTP was no longer a viable option to use with the growing number. This cut down on phone calls, emails and other support issues dramatically, and increased the ability to get product information to them in a much faster and effective manner.

I guess that is what I was saying – if an employer cannot understand what my skills are, how I can use them to build their numbers after talking with me, seeing resumes and other proof or they just want to waste time by not actually filling the position, I would rather not even talk to them.

I have a story I will email you that you might find interesting.

It’s probably because of the economy that a lot of companies will think they can treat people any way they wish – what will the jobseekers/employers do, they have bills to pay?

The thing is, though, that these companies will be called out by more people and hopefully enough people will see them for what they are. And that’s when the karma will come back and bite them.

Good luck with your consultancy, fella – their loss.

As you mentioned we are in a downturn economy and let’s face it, the tech industry is going to feel the hurt from this really bad. Companies don’t want to pay the high prices anymore for this kind of work; this is why outsourcing has become so appealing. It’s cheaper than your $120.00 and hour contractor and it gets the work done. Notice I didn’t say it was quality work.

Numbers are a huge part of today’s business, not necessarily your skills. If you can provide the kinds of numbers a company wants to see then you are golden. You could be the most amazing developer but if you can’t get those companies numbers where they want, they aren’t interested.

Project management is another big thing. Even though you may be a developer you need to show how well you can manage the multiple projects assigned to you. If you can provide timely updates and statuses on your assigned projects, life is good.

Most of your companies out there really have no clue as to what Web2.0 really is. Social media is one of those aspects. Most companies see it as a waste of resources, “Why should we pay a guy to sit here all day and play on the internet?” This is where you need to really sell them on the concept of social media and bring some numbers (there’s that word again) to help sell the idea. However, your audience will probably be comprised mostly of management types who probably don’t understand a thing you are saying. Put it to them in ways they can understand, numbers, charts and graphs, timelines or milestones and how it can increase their profits.

I am now working with Web2.0 technology and it has generated a nice buzz at work but what I have found out is that the knowledge base of Web2.0 is very limited. People like the idea of what can be done with it but don’t understand how to use it to their advantage. The thought of integrating several systems into one dashboard where managers and such can get all their data without having to go from one system/application to another, gather it all up in Excel and spend hours trying to piece it all together really gets them salivating. However getting them to understand that it can’t be done overnight is the trick. We’ve become slightly jaded by the internet and technology thinking that if we want something, it will be there the next day. The problem now is that there are so many out there trying to accomplish this; it has saturated the market with half finished or products that don’t do it all. Companies want the one single solution to fit all their needs. The moment a company or individual comes up with that, they will rule the world.

Fortunately I work for a company that is pretty open to these things and has been very patient. I am extremely busy at work and have at most times more than I have time for. If I let myself, I would be working 24/7 and never see my family. I’m so overwhelmed at times I started smoking to force myself to step away for a bit. LOL. The main things I have to keep in mind is are these projects meeting the needs and goals of the company, are they achieving the numbers the company wants, is this cost effective for the company and are they meeting the ROI (Return On Investment). In a sense, I’m actually doing project management even though I’m not a project manager.

Thanks for the comment and the input.

Poten… [link to post]

– Posted using Chat Catcher

I LIKE being on my own… partly because I don’t have to kowtow to the types of behaviours you’ve described.

My suggestion? Strike out on your own. You won’t regret it. It might take a while, but the security of depending on your own actions is more liberating than you can know at this point.

Cheers
Illigitimus non carborundum
Peter de Jager