Been lurking in this thread for a while and wanna add a little input based on my experience and the current situation I find myself in.
First off, i have 12years of IT experience and a degree in Networking and Communication Management. From what Ive seen, its always been who you know rather than what you know. Certifications really dot mean much as long as you have the experience and can show it. Lots of guys ive worked with have nothing to show for as far as schooling or certs but are just smart guys that learned a lot on their own.
For me personally I started off in High School as a campus tech then went to work for a large retail store as the in store IT tech. With that same company I've moved up the ladder and 7.5 years ago i joined their Helpdesk as a Support Analyst. The company has been VERY good to me. Paid for some of my school, paid for my passport and has sent me to some countries that I would have never In my life visited if it wasn't work related. No to mention a few states as well. I also met my wife there 9 years ago
Our headquarters is on the East Coast and with a remote office in Canada and in LA (which is the one I work out of) . No office drama, no real supervision which is not bad..A few years ago I started to feel stagnant in my position. Even though I was traveling, I didn't feel like i was being challenged or I was growing as a professional. Around that time they flew us back East to a meeting where we found out a lot of people throughout IT were getting outsourced. Since then we have never felt safe even though they told us that It will never happen with our department. Last year we had a meeting with one of the big shots but some of the stuff said in the meeting really made me feel uneasy. I finally came to terms that I was able to let go some of the familiarity of my job and the comfort and started looking to see what else was out there and actually sent out a few resumes.
Flash forward to now. Two weeks ago I get a call from my manager with the normal small talk and before we hang up she mentions to check my email. My coworker and I got a mail saying that she along with HR were coming out to see us in 2 weeks to discuss some "Organizational Information" and thats all the information they have at the moment. I signal to my coworker to check his mail. While I'm wrapping up this conversation my coworker gets a call from our guy in the Canadian office asking if we just got the same email. On the same day our other manager and the HR Manager will be going up there to see him. For the last two weeks we've been sitting here thinking about so many different scenarios but ultimately come up to the most obviously one which is that we are gone. A short notice visit from your manager with HR is never a good thing. Not to mention a bunch of other clues we've been noticing but the end of the fiscal year for our company is at the end of this month.
So with that going on it looks like I'm hitting the market soon like a few other people in here looking. Not sure what its gonna look like out there (especially in SoCal). Sorry If I went a lil off topic here with my personal stuff( I admit i did need to vent a little) but I think outsourcing is a big problem for those in our field and I may soon be a victim of it. Most of these jobs can be done from anywhere. And some companies are willing to settle for bad, slow crappy service for big savings.
Anyways, thanks for reading guys.