Big demand for IT professionals in SA

[zippy]

How does one define a IT professional?

Someone in IT who has emigrated ?

 

[Spontaneous Interruption]

Would having a A+, N+ and CCNA constitute as a IT Professional?

No, I think you have to be able to root a phone in under 13 seconds and also repair a fax machine with your eyes closed ...and then you can call yourself an IT Professional.

I'm not 100% sure though so I wouldn't take my word for it. Come to think of it, I'm probably not even 1% sure so rather just ignore my post.

 

[MagicDude4Eva]

So much for supply vs demand.

Or people's sense of what they are worth is off.

The demand is high and I could easily fill a number of positions, but to be honest when snr developers asking in excess of 50K/pm salary and could barely answer mid-level programming questions, there is not much to hire from. Majority of people I interviewed this year are overpaid and underskilled and will seriously struggle moving on from current jobs. I blame big corporates for this as weak skills or outright lazy/incompetent people can linger in such work-environment for ever.

 

[ToxicBunny]

The demand is high and I could easily fill a number of positions, but to be honest when snr developers asking in excess of 50K/pm salary and could barely answer mid-level programming questions, there is not much to hire from. Majority of people I interviewed this year are overpaid and underskilled and will seriously struggle moving on from current jobs. I blame big corporates for this as weak skills or outright lazy/incompetent people can linger in such work-environment for ever.

This I will agree with, there are a large number of people that are put into positions like snr develop, senior server engineer etc etc.. but they are nowhere near a senior level.

 

[biometrics]

Would having a A+, N+ and CCNA constitute as a IT Professional?

Wtf is that?

 

[froot]

Would having a A+, N+ and CCNA constitute as a IT Professional?

I did all those and more while I was still studying.
Definitely didn't make me an "IT professional".

 

[froot]

This I will agree with, there are a large number of people that are put into positions like snr develop, senior server engineer etc etc.. but they are nowhere near a senior level.

But that always happens.
At my workplace developers really have to prove themselves to move from junior to dev or from dev to senior. It's no willy nilly change.

 

[irBosOtter]

Would having a A+, N+ and CCNA constitute as a IT Professional?

Nope, will maybe make you a entry level desktop support person if you are lucky, but that's about it lol

 

[abandonallhope]

Nope, will maybe make you a entry level desktop support person if you are lucky, but that's about it lol

yeah only people with mad qualifications get to be professionals lol

...

what a tard

 

[The_Unbeliever]

Meh

I can't just switch over to freelancing, will need to build a client base first.

 

[DominionZA]

Meh

I can't just switch over to freelancing, will need to build a client base first.

Do it while working full time. How u did it.
Over about 1.5 years I worked in the evening and gained clients. Eventually my evening income matched my day income and I went solo. Bonus was my day job company asked if they could become a client then, so I really landed with my ass in the butter.
Then this year I went perm with an old client from 2006. Made me an offer I could not refuse with ultra flexible hours and some great perks.
I still maintain a few clients with the help of contractors when the load gets too much.

The short version... Don't wait. Give up your evenings and start building that client base.

 

[¯\_(ツ)_/¯]

The demand is high and I could easily fill a number of positions, but to be honest when snr developers asking in excess of 50K/pm salary and could barely answer mid-level programming questions, there is not much to hire from. Majority of people I interviewed this year are overpaid and underskilled and will seriously struggle moving on from current jobs. I blame big corporates for this as weak skills or outright lazy/incompetent people can linger in such work-environment for ever.

I'm with you.

From the article:

The report further showed that there is also a very high supply of IT professionals in the country, which means that there can be strong competition for some IT positions.

As a consultant I've been asked to evaluate applications from time to time. In the last one, a "Senior **** Administrator": Out of about 70 applications for the applicable field, I whittled it down to only a handful. Some of the more hilarious applications included an administrator's clerk wishing to now be an "administrator". Most were people that actually knew nothing about what the job entailed. The level of literacy also left a lot to be desired for those that actually understood to any extent, but it was a senior post. Some were clearly pushing their luck. We also had quite a few job hoppers which resulted in the candidate's current position and remuneration not commensurate with experience. The the real fun started, interviews. Throwing in real world scenarios and asking the candidates what they would do. It showed one successful shortlisted candidate had all the qualifications, but out of the test scenarios, could not apply what he had learnt (may as well memorized the course notes with zero understanding, triggering on buzz words).

Three potential candidates were given to the company as able to do the job, out of those 70 initial applicants.

 

[NeonNinja]

I'm with you.

From the article:


As a consultant I've been asked to evaluate applications from time to time. In the last one, a "Senior **** Administrator": Out of about 70 applications for the applicable field, I whittled it down to only a handful. Some of the more hilarious applications included an administrator's clerk wishing to now be an "administrator". Most were people that actually knew nothing about what the job entailed. The level of literacy also left a lot to be desired for those that actually understood to any extent, but it was a senior post. Some were clearly pushing their luck. We also had quite a few job hoppers which resulted in the candidate's current position and remuneration not commensurate with experience. The the real fun started, interviews. Throwing in real world scenarios and asking the candidates what they would do. It showed one successful shortlisted candidate had all the qualifications, but out of the test scenarios, could not apply what he had learnt (may as well memorized the course notes with zero understanding, triggering on buzz words).

Three potential candidates were given to the company as able to do the job, out of those 70 initial applicants.

Woah. People want money for nothing.

 

[MagicDude4Eva]

<snip> Most were people that actually knew nothing about what the job entailed. The level of literacy also left a lot to be desired for those that actually understood to any extent, but it was a senior post. Some were clearly pushing their luck. We also had quite a few job hoppers which resulted in the candidate's current position and remuneration not commensurate with experience. The the real fun started, interviews. Throwing in real world scenarios and asking the candidates what they would do. It showed one successful shortlisted candidate had all the qualifications, but out of the test scenarios, could not apply what he had learnt (may as well memorized the course notes with zero understanding, triggering on buzz words).

Three potential candidates were given to the company as able to do the job, out of those 70 initial applicants.

That is pretty much my experience. I would think smaller companies are more diligent when it comes to interviews as a wrong candidate can really mess up things. Last year I decided to go on an "university internship drive" with the intention of targeting people in engineering/IT and the only pre-requisite was to find people with good mathematics skills (my thinking was: "if you good in math and can apply logic, working in IT will be easy"). 250 CVs later I managed to shortlist 10 candidates of which I could hire none as it was either a salary issue (we pay 7,5k for an intern, but some of the guys wanted to earn 15K, "because this is what Accenture/PWC etc pays") or candidates lacked any sort of enthusiasm.

Listening to news last night and hearing that University of Joburg has sofar received 130,000 (!) applications and can only fill some 10,000 is really scary, considering that whatever the university produces is generally not great and made me think what will happen to those other 120,000 kids having finished school?

TBH, the best employees I have found were

• people in their mid 30s wanting to change careers and willing to start from the bottom. This is tough for me as an employer, as I know that out of fairness I can not pay them more (due to the skill-level) and that they decided to financially struggle to enjoy a new career path. The only consolation I have is that they are all achievers and we can fast-track salary adjustments as they will generally progress very very fast.
• foreigners - they have similar thoughts as the guys changing careers
• people being laid off due to restructure/BEE
• youngsters without university degrees who worked in retail and got into IT

Even not highly demanding jobs (from a skill perspective) such as receptionists or call-centre agents seem to be difficult to fill as people answering phone-calls for 8 hours a day are now asking 20K which is just insane in my mind. Something has to give very soon, I doubt that the economy is driving high salaries and to me it is merely based on people wanting to have luxury items which should really be completely out of their reach based on their qualifications.

BTW: I noticed those trends over the last 8 years across a number of industries (financial, industrial, anything IT, retail), but I must say, that I have never ever stumbled across the same when interviewing candidates internationally (across Germany) and tend to think that this might be a South African problem - or?

 

[2026]

Even not highly demanding jobs (from a skill perspective) such as receptionists or call-centre agents seem to be difficult to fill as people answering phone-calls for 8 hours a day are now asking 20K which is just insane in my mind. Something has to give very soon, I doubt that the economy is driving high salaries and to me it is merely based on people wanting to have luxury items which should really be completely out of their reach based on their qualifications.

BTW: I noticed those trends over the last 8 years across a number of industries (financial, industrial, anything IT, retail), but I must say, that I have never ever stumbled across the same when interviewing candidates internationally (across Germany) and tend to think that this might be a South African problem - or?

Among other suspicions, I believe from the 90s until the economic collapse we've had good prosperity and growth. We've had it good - but now we need to pull back on the expectations of salary growth but people are not doing so.

I also stand by the fact inflation is much higher than official stats, and people have grown accustom to living conditions. e-tolls, price increases, extra taxes, extra expenses are adding up.

 

[ToxicBunny]

That is pretty much my experience. I would think smaller companies are more diligent when it comes to interviews as a wrong candidate can really mess up things. Last year I decided to go on an "university internship drive" with the intention of targeting people in engineering/IT and the only pre-requisite was to find people with good mathematics skills (my thinking was: "if you good in math and can apply logic, working in IT will be easy"). 250 CVs later I managed to shortlist 10 candidates of which I could hire none as it was either a salary issue (we pay 7,5k for an intern, but some of the guys wanted to earn 15K, "because this is what Accenture/PWC etc pays") or candidates lacked any sort of enthusiasm.

Listening to news last night and hearing that University of Joburg has sofar received 130,000 (!) applications and can only fill some 10,000 is really scary, considering that whatever the university produces is generally not great and made me think what will happen to those other 120,000 kids having finished school?

TBH, the best employees I have found were

• people in their mid 30s wanting to change careers and willing to start from the bottom. This is tough for me as an employer, as I know that out of fairness I can not pay them more (due to the skill-level) and that they decided to financially struggle to enjoy a new career path. The only consolation I have is that they are all achievers and we can fast-track salary adjustments as they will generally progress very very fast.
• foreigners - they have similar thoughts as the guys changing careers
• people being laid off due to restructure/BEE
• youngsters without university degrees who worked in retail and got into IT

Even not highly demanding jobs (from a skill perspective) such as receptionists or call-centre agents seem to be difficult to fill as people answering phone-calls for 8 hours a day are now asking 20K which is just insane in my mind. Something has to give very soon, I doubt that the economy is driving high salaries and to me it is merely based on people wanting to have luxury items which should really be completely out of their reach based on their qualifications.

BTW: I noticed those trends over the last 8 years across a number of industries (financial, industrial, anything IT, retail), but I must say, that I have never ever stumbled across the same when interviewing candidates internationally (across Germany) and tend to think that this might be a South African problem - or?

I would tend to agree with you on this, it is something I noticed when I was responsible for hiring at a previous company. The salaries guys were demanding for their skill level was just stupid, especially University graduates with absolutely no experience, 5 years ago the guys were thinking they could walk into a job earning R10k+ because they heard that was what they should be earning, or one of their friends who had been top of the class etc etc was earning that at Accenture... didn't really want to listen to me when I tried to explain reality to them.

 

[Malasius]

There is a strong demand but not the will to pay ppl what they are worth... Or the companies want some mythical expert that knows how to code in all languages and be a super duper systems admin and network guru etc etc all in one

+1 There is a very strong demand for a huge skill set but the companies are not willing to compensate for them!

 

[diabolus]

In my time of job hunting and doing both combinations of working for a corporate and freelancing , i've found alot of the problem is companies know they need IT people , but they don't actually know what.

I've been in interviews where the spec said "SQL Developer" , because they have this one application that no one knows what to do about, that runs on SQL Server . Yet, it's clear they need someone who can give them "Solutions" , regardless of technology. So they instantly cut out like 80% of the candidates that didn't consider themselves a "SQL Developer" (i mean how many snr devs , that know their stuff will ever limit themselves to such a job title? SQL is a database language, and if you created a application with a database you would have encountered this).

I think the industry is imposing arbitrary constraints on themselves because someone decided something needs to be in Java or C# or SQL , instead of looking for someone that can actually adapt and learn and make a decision based on "best fit" .

So now you end up with a hardcore SQL or C# dev, and that's all they can do, and that's all they will ever do for you. 2 years later, when that Sharepoint project is live now you suddenly need yet another dev (meantime candidate #1 is happily idling his career away, doing maintenance on C# apps he created 2 years ago).

Also people are totally unwilling to sit on their arses, research and learn things. This is not an IT specific problem, but IT -requires- it alot more. You can get away with this for 5-10 years being a "Procurement Professional" or "Banking Professional", but not in IT, tech moves too fast.

I must sadly admit there seems to be this mentality coming from the juniors that anything they did not have on their CV originally , is either not their job or you are required to send them on extensive training before they will even consider it. Zero initiative. You'd think if someone can code C# and suddenly the requirement is it needs to run on iOS you won't need to now hire yet another It Dev for this...but this is what happens.

So end result? A company now needs 10 devs instead of 2 to do the same thing and thus can only afford to pay peanuts to these 10 devs because they can only work with very specific skills. If they could get away with 2 devs they would obviously pay them quite well...and suddenly there is a shortage.

 

[Messugga]

Among other suspicions, I believe from the 90s until the economic collapse we've had good prosperity and growth. We've had it good - but now we need to pull back on the expectations of salary growth but people are not doing so.

I also stand by the fact inflation is much higher than official stats, and people have grown accustom to living conditions. e-tolls, price increases, extra taxes, extra expenses are adding up.

It'd be easier to cut down on salary expectations if inflation was lower. I maintain that it's significantly higher than the stated figure, if you're at the upper end of the market.
Look at how much cars cost these days. Hell, even property is nuts in the better areas of Pretoria. I need that 10% increase every year or I'm moving backwards. The problem is, getting that 10% every year isn't going to happen for me or most other professional people.

 

[neilronaldson]

@zeely, can i come work for you?