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Profile: Surviving the ICT job crisis

Graeme Bond, Information Age

10/08/2002 17:13:29

Surviving the ICT jobs crisis

The downturn in the ICT industry has affected hundreds of thousands of ICT professionals around the globe as corporate users slash IT budgets and vendor companies downsize in the wake of reduced demand.

Here in Australia, some analysts have suggested that up to 20 per cent of the industry could be out of work. While numbers are important, particularly in terms of tracking how the industry responds to the downturn, they tend to dehumanise the impact of such large-scale job losses.

It is only when you hear people's stories and discover how individual lives are being affected, that the real and personal impact becomes clear.

For Melbourne contractor, Graeme Bond, the last 18 months have been more than a little frustrating In an industry where skills, knowledge and experience count for everything - and Graeme has all of these in spades - intense competition for a diminishing supply of available positions has left him sidelined since January 2001.

Despite his recognition that this is the worst recession the industry has experienced, Graeme refuses to give up hope or become despondent, although he said people in his situation often feel a sense of exclusion from normal life.

He has applied for over 400 jobs, enrolled in a Master of Information Systems degree at Swinburne University where he maintains a high standard of academic achievement and has also subsequently taken on a tutoring role. He's also become more involved in ACS Special Interest Groups and the Project Management Institute to help maintain, update and broaden his knowledge.

"I've found the SIGs to be good value," said Graeme. "I've attended meetings of the Quality SIG, the E-commerce SIG and others in Melbourne and find they help me keep in touch with the industry from a number of different perspectives and to maintain a broader industry view than I otherwise would."

With over 25 years experience in the ICT sector spanning a diverse range of jobs and projects, Graeme is justifiably proud both of his skills and knowledge, and of his finely-honed capacity to assess project feasibility, cut through hype and identify critical issues that need to be addressed to meet business requirements. He has contributed major articles to the computer press and appeared on the 7:30 Report as an acknowledged expert in his field .

He has managed or played a significant role in large-scale enterprise projects for companies like ANZ Bank, Hillside Trains GE Capital Finance (Japan) and Defence Department, and is committed to managing projects to meet or exceed client expectations at least cost.

Perhaps surprisingly and unlike others, Graeme is understanding of the dilemma confronting recruitment agents who find themselves in the unenviable position of having to wade through hundreds of CVs for a single ICT position.

"I realise recruiters have to choose arbitrary criteria as a first pass to help them cull such a large number of applicants to a more manageable level. I don't envy their task and it is easy for people to vent their frustration on them," he said.

Graeme says the Masters degree studies and his tutoring role are invaluable in helping to keep him positive, intellectually stimulated, and utilising his skills and knowledge.

"I have to be almost dead not to attend a lecture and really enjoy the interaction with both my fellow Masters students and the under-graduate students I tutor. As much as possible when tutoring, I try to relate the subject matter to actual experiences I've had and the feedback from the students' course evaluation has been that they find this particularly valuable and interesting," he said.

"The IT Strategies subject in which I tutor encourages students to develop their research skills and to become more critical and questioning so they don't leap into believing all the hype that often substitutes for analysis in this industry.

"The Software Engineering Project for third year undergraduates is based on teams of students completing a software development project for a real client and puts me in a similar position to a Project Manager and mentor to the teams I supervise. It is not far removed from working in the corporate world except for the greater academic rigour required."

Despite having been out of mainstream IT employment for over 18 months, Graeme is confident things will improve and encourages other out-of-work colleagues to keep looking.

"Different people will react in different ways. There may be some who feel they have other skills and opportunities that enable them to shift out of IT, at least on a temporary basis and some have already done so.

"For those, like me, who've spent most of their working life in ICT, really enjoy it and don't want to change, all you can do is hang in there," he said.

"There are signs that things are starting to pick up. I first started noticing a couple of months ago that more jobs seemed to be appearing, but it will be a long time before they soak up the number of people who are out of work.

"I live in hope that I'll land a position at a similar level of responsibility to what I have previously held. By nature I'm an optimistic and robust sort of person and I never quit. I'm not vegetating. I'm pressing on with my studies and adding to my experience by what I'm doing. When the opportunities are there, I'll be ready to make the most of them," said Graeme.