NO MORE INTERNET LOTTERY

And - The Truth About Internet Job Postings

Jobs in the Internet Industry
The Internet lottery is over, thank goodness, and now it's back to business as usual. Many people joining the dot.coms were not interested in the businesses themselves. They were not interested in the products. They were not even interested in the business proposition (that is, did the business really have a chance of making money?).

They were interested in getting into a pre-IPO that would soon go IPO and then cashing out. They simply wanted to make quick and easy money. Some Five O'Clock Clubbers also were playing the lottery: "People are making gobs of money. I don't want to be left behind."

Of course, most people were not making gobs of money. You probably read about the few who did in the papers. We encouraged Five O'Clock Clubbers to go for higher base salaries and then try to get options. One poor job hunter (not a Five O'Clock Clubber, of course) planned to do consulting work for a number of dot.coms, getting a large part of his pay in options. He figured one of them would pay off and he'd strike it rich. The odds are against this strategy. Like most start-ups, most dot.coms go out of business.

 Even now, many of the Internet companies have business propositions that will never make money. Their business proposition is the stock price alone. That's not a business. That's Russian roulette.

Even if you don't make millions,  Internet experience makes you marketable. Five O'Clock Clubbers with Internet experience are finding other jobs easily—Internet and otherwise. In fact, a good number come back to us after they've been in an Internet job for a year. They want to  move up in their present companies (in a way that fits in with their Forty-Year Visions) or move on. The Internet window of opportunity is still open. Even though some e-commerce companies may be laying people off or shutting down, other companies are growing quickly. 

Consider Internet Job-Posting Sites
Although the Internet can help job  hunters find Internet-related jobs, it is not as helpful for other fields and industry:

"Despite the increasing use of Internet job sites, most employees still find their positions by traditional means. In an on-line survey of 3,000 job site users this year by Forrester, only 4% found their last job through the Internet, behind 6% through temp agencies, 23% through newspaper ads, and 40% through referrals."
("Businesses give job sites mixed evaluation," by Charles Keenan, Crain's New York Business, August 28, 2000, p. 15)

Surveys usually don't ask about those who got jobs through direct contacts. Respondents usually include networking as well as direct contact under the term "referrals."

So, after all the brouhaha, Internet businesses are still businesses. It's an exciting industry that will continue to grow and one which will impact most other businesses—just as computers impacted most businesses starting almost thirty years ago. Those with Internet experience bring something extra to the party. So keep on partying—but let's also get real.

 Kate Wendleton 
 President and Editor-in-Chief