December 12, 2011, 6:16 AM — It's not a myth. The technology industry is in the midst of a hiring surge stronger than any we've seen since the days of the dot-com boom. InfoWorld's interviews with economists, technology executives, job seekers, and hiring board managers indicate that employment in the tech sector is up a solid 10% this year -- by some bullish estimates, closer to 20%. And despite the tendency of the media to fixate on California's Silicon Valley, the hottest job markets are in places like New York and Washington, D.C., where firms in financial services and the federal government hire droves of IT hands.
But don't make the mistake of thinking that jobs are going begging. They are not. Landing a position as a programmer, developer, database analyst, or support desk jockey still takes the right experience, the right education, and a willingness to chart a new career path when necessary.
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If anyone exemplifies that last point, it's Cyril Fluck, a 33-year-old software engineer now employed by Vertical Response, which does email marketing surveys.
The French-born Fluck came to the United States in 2008, armed with a master's degree in computer science and more than seven years' experience coding in C++. He quickly found out that a job seeker in 2008 was facing one of the worst markets in years, and his prospects were even dimmer because employers wanted people conversant in newer programming languages.
