Maybe a move from Seattle to Madison (job market, university)

[mr tilly]

I am planning to vacation this summer in Dubuque, Iowa ,since i am orginally from there. I been in Seattle, WA for some time now and working IT field either Desktop or Helpdesk level 2 how is the job market with someone of my eight years of experince plus A+ certification and with background CCNA (never took the final test) but study two years with Cisco. what is the pay scale starting there? Thank any information would be great. Mr Tilly

[lokimc]

madison is no seattle, but it is better than dubuque in terms of its urban nature. i think of madison as a "cow town" that is "hip" [since the university and Capitol are both here]. Burbee and Epic are the 2 big software/computing companies out here and i think the pay is quite good in your field!

[remcycle]

Originally Posted by mr tilly

I am planning to vacation this summer in Dubuque, Iowa ,since i am orginally from there. I been in Seattle, WA for some time now and working IT field either Desktop or Helpdesk level 2 how is the job market with someone of my eight years of experince plus A+ certification and with background CCNA (never took the final test) but study two years with Cisco. what is the pay scale starting there? Thank any information would be great. Mr Tilly

Mr. Tilly...I'm an MCSA (also carrying A+, Network+ and Security+ certs) with 13 years of experience administering enterprise deployments. I was one of the first Active Directory admins in the world after being a dev. tester/admin on the Windows team at Microsoft in Redmond for three years, and also have top-notch customer service and troubleshooting skills. So obviously, in a good market I should be fetching $65000+.

However, in Madison I'm getting $20K less than that...and it doesn't go much higher here either for this kind of work. If you're a CIO there are a ton of opportunities. Likewise, if you're a Tier 1 part-time phone support jockey, there's plenty of $10/hour work for you here too. But mid-level positions here are very hard to find. I was lucky to find this job.

The fringe benefits for working for the university or the state are *alright*, but you'd be far better off rounding out your experience and certifications out in Seattle where the wages will be far more commensurate as your credentials grow.