The grass is always greener when you're picking crops for a living
10 alternative careers for recession-hit IT pros
08 Apr 2009, Martin Courtney, Computing
http://www.computing.co.uk/ctg/feature/1848535/alternative-careers-recession-hit-it-pros
RBS and HSBC are the latest in a long line of companies making swingeing cuts to their IT department headcount over the past 12 months, with economic forecasts suggesting things are going to get worse before they get better.
Amid all the uncertainty, it might be time to mothball those in-house IT skills and use the time (and hopefully the cash) that redundancy offers to take a new direction.
We’ve listed 10 tongue-in-cheek backup plans below, but feel free to write in and suggest your own.
Self-employed PC configuration, repair and upgrade service
provider
As anyone with a lot of relatives and friends knows, only a fraction of those
using IT on a daily basis have any idea how to actually fix things when they go
wrong or set things up for the first time, including the supposedly IT-savvy "
Y generation". Why not formalise your current ad-hoc helpdesk agreement and ask
for payment in cash rather than beer, cups of tea and flapjacks.
ICT teacher
Teaching may not be quite the open door career that government
ministers like to suggest, but information communications technology (ICT)
remains a staple subject in most schools and colleges. But with so many recent
polls indicating young people’s apparent lack of interest in studying IT, will
there be anyone in the classroom to listen?
Freelance contract software developer
An assumed name and a PO Box on the Indian sub continent could help put
more contract software development work your way – why not even move there and
balance the modest rate of pay against a much lower cost of living and better
food. Alternatively, take the time to familiarise yourself with Java, J2EE,
.NET, PHP and other mobile application development skills that might help you
find work at home.
Hacker
If you feel the risk of being jailed for fraud outweighs the potential financial
rewards of hacking, there are always roles within IT security companies employed
to test vulnerabilities in software and corporate data security defences that
are less likely to land you in the clink.
IT recruitment company
Fewer in-house IT staff means more contractors are needed, right? And companies
with fewer internal vacancies for their own HR department to fill often turn to
recruitment agencies to find them those contractors, right? If things do go
quiet, you can at least occupy your spare time by concocting polls that big up
the job market and produce spurious "Top ten IT skills in most demand" lists for
others to peruse.
Data protection lawyer
Your detailed knowledge of USB sticks and how to smash up a hard drive with a
hammer good and proper may stand you in good stead for a legal career, poking
holes in corporate compliance strategy and punishing failures to adequately
protect individuals' private information with extreme violence.
Nurse
Bring out your caring side by helping fill the UK shortage of skilled
nurses. After a couple of years on the wards watching how IT is supposed not to
work, you might even persuade the local health authority to resurrect your
former career as an in-house consultant.
Consultant
The dreaded C-word, but many IT professionals' dream job from a fiscal and
gardening point of view. For those willing and able to break on through to the
other side, extra bonus points if you can get taken on to perform your previous
in-house role for one day a week at four times the salary.
Corgi gas-safe registered engineer
Bit of a departure this one, but surely it’s only a matter of time before
domestic heating systems are IP-enabled? Anyway, you can’t argue with more work
you can shake a stick at and a minimum £60 per hour call out charge. If you have
the cash to retrain
(around
£8,000 minimum), it might be the guaranteed, recession-proof living you’ve
always dreamed of.
Crop picker
Fresh air and exercise guaranteed, a world away from the muggy IT basement. A
predicted exodus of east European and Portuguese workers in the face of a pound
that is worth much less than it used to be against the Euro may soon leave
Britain’s farmers begging for extra staff. And the minimum agricultural wage of
£5.73 per hour isn’t actually that bad providing the gang master doesn’t take
too hefty a slice.
Reader comments
© Incisive Media Investments Limited 2012, Published by Incisive Financial Publishing Limited, Haymarket House, 28-29 Haymarket, London SW1Y 4RX, are companies registered in England and Wales with company registration numbers 04252091 & 04252093
Crop Picker?!
Are you seriously suggesting that we become minimum wage crop pickers? I refuse to believe that anyone with an IT background cant get a job above minimum wage. We are an able and flexible workforce, and this suggestion belittles the whole industry.
Posted by: SL 09 Apr 2009
CORGI No longer exists
This has been replaced as of 01 April by the Gas Safe Register managed by Capita. I am disappointed in the lack of research invested in this article. There are many IT professionals who have both networking and electrical backgrounds that have dreamed about implementing a "firewall" between their boiler and IP enabled radiators. Variable Valve Radiator Control Protocol is an "untapped" market. This poor advice you provided could, for them in their hour of need, have wasted at least half the same time it took me to write this nonsense.
Posted by: Fraser King 09 Apr 2009
Chillax
I think some people are taking your "tongue in cheek" suggestions a bit too seriously...
Posted by: ADe 23 Apr 2009
IT to crop picking
a large number of IT people I know could not go crop picking it would take them too long to decide what to do and how to do it by which time the next crop would be ready ;-)
Posted by: Johnny B 23 Apr 2009
Funny, but not.
I appreciate the humour, but it is a serious career decision for a lot of displaced IT staff at the moment. Hopefully, some sound advice will be forthcoming too?
Posted by: Dave 02 Jun 2009
What?
What? People are too posh to go and pick fruit to put food on their families table? I've been out of work for nearly a year now (the situation is even worse in Ireland than in the UK) and believe me, I would......... but you can't get in because all the gangs are East European and they aren't interested in hiring an Irish person as they actually pay a lot less than minimum wage. We all know over here that 'English language schools' are just a front but still the government does nothing about it. I wish I could find an alternative career that paid reasonably well. I've gone from 6 figures to zero (I don't even get the dole as I have too much in own savings), with associated mortgage and outgoings to pay every month, and it hurts.
Posted by: Joe 12 Aug 2009
Tongue in cheek indeed!!
Self-employed PC configuration, repair and upgrade service provider - Yeah, but it is still IT and retailers will give you massive competition.
ICT teacher - sure.. perpetuate the chain of misery. There are very few positions anyway.
Read more: http://www.computing.co.uk/ctg/feature/1848535/alternative-careers-recession-hit-it-pros#ixzz1SKXEeYLG
Computing - Insight for IT leaders Claim your free subscription today."Freelance contract software developer "? For a guy who is trying to get out of IT? Hacker?? You mean security consultant, right? Still IT. IT recruitment company? In a jobless "recovery"? Nurse... oh yes, back to school! Great! That will pay the bills! Consultant - sorry, still IT!
Data protection lawyer - if you know how to properly market it, sure.
Corgi gas-safe registered engineer & and crop picker... well... if you pick enough beans and eat them, you may get enough of a flatulent build up to write an article like this and suggest the Corgi gas safe "opportunity"
which is totally unrelated.
Dude... lay off the pot... please!
Posted by: Mark 17 Jul 2011