RE: Midrange Jobs National Discussion

The issue of out-sourcing is at the heart of all the lack of adequate

employment

we're all experiencing these days. 

Sorry, but I find that to be the biggest bunch of bull I've heard in a
long time. 

The lack of adequate employment is more based on the employees
unwillingness to learn new things than the fact that jobs have been
moved offshore. Maybe you're in the wrong geographical location, maybe
it's just bad luck, but speaking both as an employer in the NYC metro
area and as a friend to other employers in the area we're in need of
people that know .NET, c#, Java and web programming. 

This shouldn't be a surprise to anyone. These technologies didn't just
appear yesterday, they didn't  come out of left field, and the barrier
to entry isn't very high. For the cost of a cup of coffee and a seat at
the local bookstore you can learn the basics of any of the mentioned
technologies.

Both .Net and Java are supported by communities that are incredibly
active on the net. Some sites are good, some are bad, but you can take
the time to visit them. The java community has the Eclipse IDE and the
.NET community has Visual Studio, both available for the cost of the
time to download free from the net and they both run on the PC you have
at home, so there's no excuse for not having experience with them. 

Sure, as an employer I _could_ hire an RPG programmer and teach them c#,
but why should I? If they're not willing to spend their own time to
learn these technologies, why should I spend my money to teach them? If
an out of work RPG (or, um, Cobol <G>) programmer showed up at an
employers door and said, "I've got 20 years experience designing and
programming enterprise applications AND I've learned C#, gotten my
Microsoft certification, I'm an active participant on CodeProject.com
and I'm writing this ASP.Net application" I think they'd have a good
chance getting hired. But if they show up and say "Java what? Sure I can
learn it, just hire me" well, sorry, there are other more qualified
candidates out there.

JMTCW.
-Walden