IT Job opportunities in JAX?

[TD*]

I live in Tallahassee, and am considering moving to Jax for a chance at a bigger job market.

I want to know if there are significant job opportunities in Jax in the IT profession.

I also want to get to know some people in the profession, seems like only way to get jobs is through knowing people.

[sonicsurfer]

It depends on what kind of work you do. If you're in programming, Java, vb then i think there are lots of jobs out there, if you are in support industry then I think then it's a bit of a fight but position do come up from time to time. Merrill Lynch, BOA, CSX, Fidelity, deutsche bank are all major recruiters here. Good Luck in your job search.

[mtraininjax]

Get on LinkedIN and join some of the networking and IT groups. There are 300+ recruiters in Jacksonville and most of the people with 500+ connections are recruiters. Start with LinkedIn and build a network of people who can help you from there. Let the power of the network work for you!

[David]

I've been making my rounds through the IT Job market in Jax since 2004 (1998 if you count AOL) help desk and desktop support jobs are fewer and fewer these days, but there seems to be a decent amount of network engineer, system engineer jobs to go around, although it has been super competitive since "THE GREAT RECESSSION"

Enterprise Integration is where a lot of my former coworkers wound up at & they seem to be always hiring & expanding

http://www.entint.com/careers.asp

LPS/FIS has a pretty large IT department, but I believe LPS may be on a hiring freeze currently.

If you want to get your foot in the door via contract jobs there's plenty of recruiting agencies around town. Modis, Ettain group, Technisource, KForce

Dice.com & Monster along with a side of Careerbuilder is where i've done most of my IT job hunting. Plus scouring craigslist for ads doesn't hurt either.

Most of the recruiters just scan certain keywords on your resume when searching for candidates so if you have it posted on any of those sites you should get a few calls from recruiters within a week's time. 

Like Sonic said above though, IT is a broad term these days. It emcompasses anything from taking helpdesk calls, to writing scripts to laying down network infrastructure. Is there a particular type of IT job you're looking for?

[RiversideLoki]

Sr. Network Engineer here. I'm lucky to have a stable job, but half of my I.T. friends are either jobless, or underemployed, or running break-fix out of their houses.

Jacksonville isn't a technology economy, no matter what anyone tells you. Our economy is built around land development, mortgage scams, and manufacturing.

I've heard many horror stories for people that have worked for EntInt. But a job is a job. You can find a better position if you're diligent. FIS/LPS, CSX, Vistakon, Medtronic are probably your best bets. Also, the hospitals here are nice to work for if you can ignore the red-tape and bureaucracy.

+1 on the linked in. However every offer I've gotten has been grossly underpaid for what they're expecting of you. And the recruiters generally only want you if you already have a job.

I hate to sound so negative, but that's pretty much what's up.

[Sigma]

I'm actually about to post very soon for a network administrator position.  If you are interested, pm me so that I can refer you to the sites where I will be posting (Dice for sure) as soon as I have the postion details lined out.

We are really looking for someone with a good background with Infinitt - PACS/RIS.

Good luck to you.

[jandar]

Jacksonville isn't a technology economy, no matter what anyone tells you. Our economy is built around land development, mortgage scams, and manufacturing.

+1 on the linked in. However every offer I've gotten has been grossly underpaid for what they're expecting of you. And the recruiters generally only want you if you already have a job.

I hate to sound so negative, but that's pretty much what's up.

Hit the nail on the head. The jobs that are there are grossly underpaid anymore. Seriously, you can make more doing menial labor than IT anymore it seems around these parts. What used to pay 60-70K you're lucky to see pay 40K.

I've seen jobs where they pay less than 20$ an hr and want a 4yr degree and a few years exp.
There are still some good jobs out there, but as a whole, JAX sucks for IT jobs.

[mtraininjax]

Hit the nail on the head. The jobs that are there are grossly underpaid anymore. Seriously, you can make more doing menial labor than IT anymore it seems around these parts. What used to pay 60-70K you're lucky to see pay 40K.

I've seen jobs where they pay less than 20$ an hr and want a 4yr degree and a few years exp.
There are still some good jobs out there, but as a whole, JAX sucks for IT jobs.

I'd swear, but I'd be afraid I'd hurt Alvin Brown's ears. You gotta be kidding me. There are lots of IT jobs available, but like most spoiled Americans, we think we are worth more than what someone is willing to pay for the job. Before the Dot Com bust, you could throw a dart at the job board and pickup job to job to job without fail. So now you need to be specialized since people flooded the IT market.

You can't take the same old MCSE or SQL programming jobs, those can be shipped overseas for pennies on the dollar. You have to specialize and follow the money. Jax has 10+ specialized facilities for medicine, and if you have not been reading the Obama Times Union lately, he spent 20 billion on giving docs 65,000 to help them pay for their EMRS. So follow the money, follow the jobs that the govt show are woefully understaffed, because pretty soon, everyone else will be trained and educated and the jobs will be filled, or bury your head in the sand and try doing the same thing as everyone else. PACS system knowledge is an excellent field!

[RiversideLoki]

I'm currently focusing on implementing PACS/EMR solutions for smaller practices in the area. You are correct in that there is a major problem with over-saturation of the IT market in Jax, however. When you have firms offering to do what you are proposing to do *the correct way* for half the cost, it's hard to make a dollar. (Though we do get them coming to us after the fact asking to "fix it". So that's a plus.)

I think that after 15 years in the field, I'm entitled to expect pay commensurate with my experience and knowledge, Mtrain. I would expect anyone who either has spent the time for the certifications, or had hands on experience, or has any sort of specialization to feel the same way.

Not to commit to some lengthy diatribe, but It's all about the value of the work you do. IT managers, CTOs (and even Geek Squad) have undervalued the IT field precisely because they know that they can get someone who's desperate enough to take low pay just for the job. Even if that job is routinely ensuring the operation of vital IT systems and data.

What would happen if just one PC housing customer information was leaked into the wrong hands? What would happen if all your databases became unreadable because you had an unreliable database admin? What happens to a small business when a fly-by-night IT firm doesn't set up the correct backup system, and they lose everything in a matter of minutes?

In a time where PCs are a dime a dozen and it's cheaper to just throw a computer out versus fixing the problem with it, IT services are undervalued because people take them for granted. When in actuality, what most good sysadmins, network administrators, programmers, and database admins do is closer to the service a physician, surgeon, or specialist provides.

Off my soap box.

[Sigma]

I'm actually about to post very soon for a network administrator position.  If you are interested, pm me so that I can refer you to the sites where I will be posting (Dice for sure) as soon as I have the postion details lined out.

We are really looking for someone with a good background with Infinitt - PACS/RIS.

Good luck to you.

Good info - please keep in mind, and if you know any candidates, please pm me.

[jandar]

Hit the nail on the head. The jobs that are there are grossly underpaid anymore. Seriously, you can make more doing menial labor than IT anymore it seems around these parts. What used to pay 60-70K you're lucky to see pay 40K.

I've seen jobs where they pay less than 20$ an hr and want a 4yr degree and a few years exp.
There are still some good jobs out there, but as a whole, JAX sucks for IT jobs.

I'd swear, but I'd be afraid I'd hurt Alvin Brown's ears. You gotta be kidding me. There are lots of IT jobs available, but like most spoiled Americans, we think we are worth more than what someone is willing to pay for the job. Before the Dot Com bust, you could throw a dart at the job board and pickup job to job to job without fail. So now you need to be specialized since people flooded the IT market.

You can't take the same old MCSE or SQL programming jobs, those can be shipped overseas for pennies on the dollar. You have to specialize and follow the money. Jax has 10+ specialized facilities for medicine, and if you have not been reading the Obama Times Union lately, he spent 20 billion on giving docs 65,000 to help them pay for their EMRS. So follow the money, follow the jobs that the govt show are woefully understaffed, because pretty soon, everyone else will be trained and educated and the jobs will be filled, or bury your head in the sand and try doing the same thing as everyone else. PACS system knowledge is an excellent field!

And in a few years PACS (and even most EMRs) will be overfilled with underqualified idiots that the tech schools will churn out. My brother worked for a company and helped developed some PACS style systems 5+ years ago, what did they do with his work? Yup, overseas.

I've been in IT for over a decade and have watched the income come way down on every job. I made more in 2000 than I have any year since. I watched a friend take a 20K paycut just to get back to work recently.

Thats why my degree is not in IT.

Keep thinking that PACS will keep you going for years, it will be good until it is outsourced (whether offshore/nearshore/onshore) to the lowest bidder. Why pay you to manage it, when they can hire 2 others for less than your salary to do the same?

Engineering is the next to go, same with medical research.

No, not a pessimist, I just see what is actually happening and don't put my head in the sand as you so wrongly assume.

BTW. great post Riverside.

[mtraininjax]

When in actuality, what most good sysadmins, network administrators, programmers, and database admins do is closer to the service a physician, surgeon, or specialist provides.

I don't think so, if that were the case, you would make the average 200,000 like surgeons, but since you operate on a hunk of steel instead of a human being, your job and experience can be tagged and referred to someone half a world away who can do the same thing for pennies on the dollar.

If you are in IT and you plan to be there a long time, you have to be ahead of the curve, in technologies that make you a SME, or Subject Matter Expert. Not all SMEs are paid the same, so even if you are the best Powerpoint expert who knows how to create mail merges for all the X-mas holiday cards, while you are important at the holiday season, your pay will most likely be less than the MCSE who manages the "guts" of the network.

You need to find that one area of IT that is very specialized to where you cannot be outsourced overseas. They are there. Why else are there 100+ IT companies in Jacksonville? Why not consider your own business, stop working for the "Man" and BE the MAN! There are hundreds of IT companies in Jacksonville that manage less than 10 clients and half a million bucks worth of support each year. You don't need to be an EI, ARCO, Scarlet Company to have and build a great IT Management company. Every business has a computer, you just need to get people to trust that you know what is best for their network.

[mtraininjax]

And in a few years PACS (and even most EMRs) will be overfilled with underqualified idiots that the tech schools will churn out. My brother worked for a company and helped developed some PACS style systems 5+ years ago, what did they do with his work? Yup, overseas.

It will be longer than a few years, not sure if your brother was doing something that could be quantified and measured, in which case it would be outsourced overseas, for sure, but PACS systems and building them are complex as are HIE systems, Follow the money. What is going to happen with all of this medical information in the hands of insurance companies? Naturally, they will begin selling it back to drug companies, other insurance providers. If you have an EMR, get out of the business, EMRs will be dead in a few years, there are already 2 that offer a free EMR. Watch what is happening in the business world to the data. Follow the money. HIE are the best place to be right now and that will change too.

2000 the bubble burst and if you thought your skills from 2000 were enough for 2010, you were wrong, which is why smart people re-invest in themselves and look for trends to spot the future. Health Information Management is a hot area and is only going to get hotter as boomers retire, live longer, and the government works to cut down healthcare costs and wants all records in an electronic format.

[jandar]

The company was very much an early PACS pioneer, they were even big enough to send trainers to hospitals for weeks at a time to train and setup the systems for them.

Once the system is setup, most of them can be run from anywhere in the world.

SysAdmins and DBAs are treated like a cost for a company, that is all. And that is the reason why they are paid like they are.

If a salesman makes a 1 million dollar sale, he gets a nice commission check.
If a SysAdmin or DBA finds an issue and saves the company 1 million dollars, he might get an atta boy and a plaque with his name and employee of the month.

That in a nutshell is whats wrong with all of IT.