
Ask HN: How to get a job in old-school IT in 2019? - asqetique
Hello HN,
how does one find a  job in an old-school IT environment in 2019? I mean no missions to change the world, diversity, yoga, snowflakes, pets in the office, etc.<p>I don&#x27;t have much against but I do my work more or less for money. Playing that I support and care about those other things feels odd and unfair for such employers. On the other hand, I still need to earn my living somehow. I&#x27;d rather work for a company like the one I worked for decades ago, but finding a smaller one without &quot;specialties&quot; appears to be challenging nowadays.<p>So how would you look for a job in 2019 where you code or manage like it still were the 00s? I&#x27;ve checked quite a bunch of job postings and most of them are advertising quite the opposite of what I&#x27;m looking for.
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mxuribe
At some non-tech companies nowadays (like manufacturers, etc.), I.T. senior
leadership wants the dynamic sorts of start-up-minded, agile-like people to
work in I.T. But, the business users within these companies - at least in the
U.S. region - do NOT want that their I.T. to be like that. These business
users just want someone local/on-site to help them with basic things like
outlook assistance, resolving network (more likely wifi) issues, etc. At least
in the U.S (at least for the numerous firms that I've worked for), the
business users are totally fine with just giving "app-building" (and other
fun, "advanced" types of work) to vendors/suppliers/bigtime consultants. And,
then you have the senior leadership on the business side that actually prefers
to outsource (get rid of) the local/on-site I.T. people...who suffers?
Primarily, the non-senior business users suffer, and then the people who don't
want to do the "advanced, agile, app-building" work suffer also.

I think one way to "look for a job"...is to make one...That is, start your own
business...where YOU become the respected, hopefully high-paid
vendor/supplier/bigtime consultant...And then sell your services to non-tech
companies, so you handle their traditional I.T. needs. You will get price
pressures to lower your costs, because you'll be competing against the TCS,
WiPro firms of the world. But i imagine - at least at some small scale - there
must be local markets for small/medium businesses that want a local/on-site
presence of IT support. This might be worth a shot! Good luck!

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hindsightbias
[https://www.ibm.com/it-infrastructure/z/education](https://www.ibm.com/it-
infrastructure/z/education)

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sarcasmatwork
Word of mouth, Job hunt every day for job B while I have job A.

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CyberFonic
I think you need to read between the lines. These days a lot of companies are
trying to attract people who otherwise would join a startup. But there are
dozens of "traditional" companies for every startup out there. So do a bit of
homework and if the job posting is with a non-IT / startup biz then you might
be find what you are looking for.

