Unless of course you're ignorant about the facts of life as they relate to un/employment.  I guess it's time for the talk...

1. The Law of Supply and Demand Applies to the Labor Market

When there is an overabundance of supply or demand is down, prices drop.  When supplies are scarce or demand skyrockets, prices rise.  This is why IT salaries were astronomical for the last couple of years.  There were job opportunities out the wazoo and not all that many (seemingly) qualified folks to fill them.  This is why we all read stories about BMW leases dangled in front of Java developers and dared to dream.

For a while, some of us got lucky.  Then, as venture capitalists returned to sanity and the idea of business models that turn a profit caught up with the MBA whiz kids, many of those big-time jobs disintegrated. Can't pay those hefty salaries if you already churned through your stake with fancy parties and lots of advertising.  A lot of people forgot that you don't just build a brand - you have to build a business.

So most of the dot.coms are gone, and along with them for now, a fair number of technology jobs.  These jobs will return - and probably sooner than the technology pundits predict - but they'll be with established brick-and-mortar companies.  On balance, they won't pay tremendous salaries, or provide the opportunity to play with bleeding-edge technologies.  They'll require workers to fit within established corporate structures and play by the rules (which we all hope will be different as a result of the impact of technology on the corporation.)

As I wrote last month, the balance of power in the employment relationship has shifted back to the employer.  Where it's nearly always been.  The option still exists to control your own destiny by acting as a free agent - but there are more, and deeper, tradeoffs these days.

2. Private Training Schools are Businesses

Maybe this one should have come first.  I get more feedback on the evils of training programs and tech schools than any other subject.  People are shocked … shocked, I tell you … that the door to high-paying tech jobs doesn't magically spring open for them once they clutch that diploma.

Private schools and training programs are businesses.  They sell a product - education - and they do it to make a profit.  Got it??  These schools don't exist to better the industry or selflessly help you to improve yourself.  They offer their product and you decide whether to buy it.

It's the same as getting a shirt at Macy's.  It costs a hell of a lot more and there's no way you'd expect that it would change your life.  But at the end of the day, the result is the same - you like it, you think it will look good on you, you can afford it (even if you have to charge it), so you buy it.

Okay, a couple of key differences.  If you decide you don't like it, you can't return it and get your money back.  And it costs so much that you might have to go into serious debt to afford it.  All the more reason to think very carefully about what you're buying.  Don't just take the word of the school's enrollment counselor.  Do some real-world research, like asking employers (maybe at a job fair) from which schools they hire graduates.

Remember, any private educational institution is required to be licensed by the state in which it's located.  There are stringent requirements for licensure and one of them is that they can not guarantee students a job after graduation.  They can imply that you'll be promised a job.  The words they use to talk about it are carefully chosen to make you think you heard that they're promising you a job.  But they aren't.  They didn't.  You heard what you wanted to hear and you enrolled.  That was their goal.

There are reputable tech schools which are well regarded by employers.  Most of them are four-year universities.  Some are two-year community colleges.  A minority of them are private vocational training programs. Caveat emptor (Let the buyer beware.)

3. Getting Certified Does Not Guarantee a Career Path

Whether you plunk down a tidy sum to go to MCSE bootcamp or slog through months of late nights to get that CCE, certification is no longer enough.  Used to be, getting that piece of paper gave you a tremendous advantage in the labor market, but no more.  Now it's table stakes (see rule #1 above.)

Oh, you'll need to have that cert, but you'll need hands-on experience too.  It's not enough to have built a server in the lab under controlled conditions.  Employers realized that to pass most certification exams, all you have to do is spit back stuff you memorized.  Certification is no measure of ability to perform in the real world.

The ideal situation to be in is to have credible job experience and the appropriate certification.  Great, a catch-22.  How are you supposed to get experience if you need to get trained to get that job that'll give you the necessary experience?  Well, if I had a good answer to that question, I could quit my day job. In the meantime, reference rule #2 about the value of certification prep programs.

4. Not Every Advertised Job is Real

Some times, employers like to test the waters.  They advertise fictitious positions to see what kind of applicants they'll get.  That way, recruiters get to look over the labor pool ... see who's looking and what kind of skills/experience candidates have.  It's a way of reviewing and banking potential employees against medium - and possibly long-term needs.  Sometimes a great candidate turns up and the employer is so impressed that (s)he creates a job opportunity where one didn't exist before.

But more often than not, it's just a method for seeing who's out there.  I've gotten a number of emails from people who are incensed over this practice.  First off, unless a hapless recruiter actually tells you that there's no job, how do you know whether an ad is real?  Second, even if the position isn't real, what's it to you?  Sure, you may get your hopes up, but until you get called in for an interview, every advertised opening has the same potential.

Sometimes they call you, sometimes they don't. As far as you, the jobseeker, are concerned, a phantom opportunity is no different from an opportunity that passes on you.  Chalk it up to the search process.  If you're this thin-skinned over some perceived injustice, you're likely to be letting your frustration show in other ways.  Like in front of a recruiter.  Get a grip and move on.

More

Please, don't ask me which tech schools are the best ones/worst ones.  I don't think it's ethical for me to express my personal opinions on this subject.  I'd particularly like to hear from the folks out there who attended private training programs and got great jobs.  You'd think that there would be a lot of people in this category, given what enrollment recruiters tell you, right? Write to me at jamie@jobcircle.com and tell me about it.  Next month, Recruit Yourself a Recruiter.

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Jamie Fabian spent more than 15 years as a human resources executive before changing careers to become a senior project manager for a growing IT consulting company.  Now in management consulting for a large Pharma company, Jamie would like to be seen as a hybrid of Tom Peters, Tom Jackson, and Tom Wolfe, but spends too much time working, driving carpool and watching mindless TV to write more than this column.  You can contact Jamie with questions and comments at jamie@jobcircle.com.