[Sigia-l] is it just me, or is it really hard to find IAs right now?

[George Olsen]

> When you have scarcity of Sr. IAs, and when some Sr. IAs are not
> willing to commit to full time, probably hiring managers must take
> risk and turn towards new comers.

Part of it may stem from the "lost generation" issue, i.e. there's people
with 5+ years experience and new grads -- and not a lot of people with
intermediate experience.

So for projects requiring intermediate-level skills, hiring managers are
likely to lean toward hiring a senior person rather than risk handing it to
a newbie.

The good news for people new to the field is that the shortage of
experienced people will eventually mean companies are going to have to look
at newcomers.

Just as managers need to think innovatively about this issue, if you're new
to the field, you should think innovatively about how to defuse the
perceived downsides of your inexperience. (For example, perhaps you and
another newcomer can be "design review buddies" who can review each other's
work.) 

At the very least, proactively acknowledging -- and preferably addressing --
these concerns will likely move you up a notch in the hiring manager's eyes.

BTW, regardless of this specific issue, the best advice I can give newcomers
is to build your portfolio, even if you have to do fictional projects . This
can either from scratch or redesigning an existing site -- if you do the
latter you might want to consider redoing a non-profit's site, since you can
offer it to them when you're done (or take it on pro bono from the start).

This is also good to do if you're not working on the sorts of projects you
want to be doing -- do a fake project that shows what you'd like to be
doing. 

In either case, not only does it give you chance to show what you can do,
but it also shows the hiring manager you're really motivated.

George