Meghan McAneny has been in the cosmetics industry, off and on, for seven years, rising to regional manager. She feels she is good at what she does. "But $40,000 a year isn't going to cut it for the rest of my life," she complains. And she fears her small company will be swept up in merger fever.
For all those reasons, the computer neophyte has crammed, with dozens of others, into a small room at the Dallas offices of ExecuTrain, which offers training in information-technology disciplines. She wants to hear about a career loan program Microsoft Corp. is sponsoring around the country to get people to learn IT skills.The year-old program offers financing packages of as much as $25,000 that help applicants buy classes and equipment from Microsoft, toward a certificate in a number of software specialties.
Like McAneny, many of the people here come from other professions. They feel underpaid or stuck in dead-end careers. They're fearful their industry will be roiled by mergers and restructurings. They have also heard about the growing information-technology employment gap and the high pay the industry offers, and they want in.
"It's constantly being thrown in your face that this is the wave of the future," McAneny says.
It's part of a national feeding frenzy spurred by the technology boom and its voracious need for new bodies. "The latest number I've heard for IT openings nationwide is 348,000," says one of the evening's speakers, Timothy Hand, vice president of Western sales operations for Matrix Resources, an IT recruiting firm.
In his region alone, he's trying to fill 650 openings for network administrators, programmers, software engineers and data managers -- jobs paying $40,000 to $150,000 a year.
No wonder this has become the dream of so many career switchers. But the odds are stacked against career changers, Hand says, because companies want people who already have experience in the field: "They have problems that they need to have solved today."
Still, some have broken through. Microsoft brags about the policemen, teachers, musicians and others who have successfully transformed themselves, thanks to these certificate programs. They take their seats in the classes alongside workers in the computer industry who want to expand their expertise.
Once you've gotten your foot inside the industry door, Hand says, the prospects widen, thanks to the industry's incessant internal raiding of personnel. He says IT professionals stay in jobs only 14 to 18 months on average before moving on to better positions.
The certificate has led some without experience to get jobs as software engineers, programmers or network administrators. But Hand says in an interview that getting your first job isn't easy. He believes some of the jobs that companies have are ones connected to theoretical projects they are in no hurry to start.
He says people have to find creative ways to get experience. He suggests seeking out the information-technology specialist at your current employer and volunteering to help after hours in exchange for some instruction. You might also apply for information-technology internships at universities.
Gayle Heizer's experiences point to some possibilities. A 32-year-old former elementary-school teacher, she didn't like the prospect of retiring at $40,000 a year. "I wanted to see if I could change my life," she says.
She considered pursuing a doctorate and a professorial career. She also considered occupational therapy. But she felt she could get trained and employed more quickly in the computer field. Heizer started software-certification courses at a community college's night school two years ago. "I'm a risk taker," she says. "Even if I'm scared about something, I'll still do it."
Outgoing and confident, she decided late last year to start interviewing for jobs, even though she doesn't graduate until May. It was "just for the practice," she says The result: two job offers. One job, setting up network training for a telecommunications firm, paid more, but she says she couldn't see much job advancement there. She grabbed a job as a network administrator and has been working for the past six weeks, while still in school.
The company interviewers told her they offered her the job, she says, because she had a college degree, which showed she had basic skills; because as a teacher she had good communications skills; and because she was making good progress toward her Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer designation.
She's still busy networking, visiting the ExecuTrain seminar to make more contacts and learn about salary levels from the speakers. (She's already preparing for her first performance and salary review.)
Hand insists Heizer's experience "isn't the norm," but in an industry moving so fast, you can sometimes get lucky. "Timing is everything," he says.