by Mervyn Cooke, Senior Account Manager, JB International. JB International is a leading provider of Java development training and has help many programmers to cross-train to Java and go on to succeed in Java programming jobs.
Mervyn Cooke can be contacted on 0208 46 7555 or e-mail mcooke@jbinternational.co.uk
I once worked as a samaritan back in the late 70s. A guy rang me up about to commit suicide. He had the motive, the weapon and the wherewithal to do it. I mentally agreed with his checklist and said that if he had made his mind up, well go ahead. There followed a string of expletives. He slammed down the phone and that was the last I heard of him.
It seems that we commit suicide regularly in a professional capacity. I mean over the last few months I get regular calls from guys over 40. They have been in programming for years. You name it and they’ve done it. PL/I, Cobol, C, Fortran, SAS, Basic this and Basic that, 3GL, 4GL ……
They were around the time of Ashton Tate, Gupta, DEC and a lot more stars that slid down the horizon never to rise again. Then along comes the E-commerce / Internet explosion.
...and they have been senior managers and maybe their teenager sons know more about Java than they do. And they’re forty something.
And the Java industry is young people and it’s informal and they wear casual clothes and they sit around the warm embers of a website waiting to get rich. And it’s click and bricks and dot com this and dot com that and IPOs and you know what I mean.
And they ‘re lost, they’re completely lost. And they don’t have the right skills, and no-one wants their legacy background, and they believe that over 40 is over the hill. Still some years to pay off the mortgage, the school fees, the university fees, that extension at the back of the house. The grey hair and facial lines loom larger in the morning light. All alone.
So I find myself back in Samaritan mode, twenty years later, twenty years wiser and all I have is my own experience to go back on.
In the space of the first few months I signed up a clutch of corporate clients. From a sales perspective the challenge is the greatest and most exciting thing that has happened in my 20 odd years in the IT industry.
The IT industry, famous for re-inventing itself, is in the throes of massive investment in the java systems. And the guys who program this and the account managers who sell it and the project managers who project manage it will be very successful.
Sure currently the industry is biased towards recruiting younger staff, however what the industry needs are mature guys with experience of legacy systems and man management skills.
Sure you need a mix of young and old. The younger staff gravitate naturally to the more mature guys. You know more solid, more paternal, more world wise. And they in turn in learn. If you think that experience confers any degree of superiority or preferential treatment forget it.
Throw the rulebook out of the window. Start afresh. Write down where you are. Write down where you want to be in 1 year, 2 years, 5 years time.
Create a diary, set goals. Create a warm fuzzy file. Write down a list of things you have achieved in life. Do a skills audit. Strengths, weakness, opportunities, threats.
Research the industry by sector, technologies, platforms, and players. Visit the exhibitions. Accumulate press cuttings about the technologies and players.
This is serious research. Speak to someone you know in the industry. Speak to someone you don’t know. Amass, accumulate, acquire information. Read every day, every source you can lay you hands on.
Identify companies, visit their websites, check out the key directors, who are recruiting, what skills set. How well do fit, how do you handle the gaps? How do you re-train?
The opportunities out there, and there are plenty, are your chance to provide a solution to someone’s problem. You. How do present your features as benefits? You know " I have 10 years experience in mainframe development projects in the financial sector which means….?"
What does it mean? What can you bring to the table? Can you save your potential employer money, time? What’s in it for him?
Undoubtedly, this is the year of the Internet. Business confidence has never been as high as in the IT industry. Opportunities abound. Fortune can be made. Are you prepared to invest time and money to market yourself to that potential audience?
Someone once said…
" People will help you when they sense your desire. We all stand blind to the future and our prospects may seem bleak and dark. But if we communicate our needs, hopes and desires to others we may see the bloom of bright new possibilities."
So, if you’re thinking of ringing the Samaritans, forget it. I might just give you a sympathetic ear this time round.