Tech Careers Blog

Apple is reporting this week that its iOS devices like the iPhone and iPad has helped create over 275,000 jobs in the U.S. with another 6,000 openings posted in want ads across the country.

So far, Apple reports it has paid $6.5 billion to developers through the Apple App Store. Of course, none of these numbers include developers building apps for other platforms like Android or Windows.

This works out to just over $23,000 per developer, but it doesn't take an expert to know that apps like Angry Birds, GarageBand and Minecraft put these earnings on a steep curve. It's also difficult to determine how many registered app developers haven't yet put out an app. But how big is that curve and what can the average mobile app developer expect to make in a year?

An informal survey of 252 developers done by Steaming Colour discovered that 36 percent were full-time game developers. The rest were part-time and only 4 percent worked for a game development company. About 14 percent made under $100 so far. A quarter made under $1,000. A quarter made under $10,000 and about 22 percent made under $100,000. About 15 percent have made over $1 million in lifetime revenue from the Apple App Store.

Ethan Nicholas was one app developer who made it big in 2008 with an artillery game app, iShoot, which he wrote himself in six weeks. It sold 17,000 copies and returned more than $1 million to him, according to a recent article in the New York Times. His subsequent apps barely brought in any revenue at all.

It's much harder to make it big in app development today simply because of the quality of the competition and the sheer number of apps available - over 700,000 and counting, he explained. For his own success, Nicholas chalks it up to "sheer dumb luck and being in the right place at the right time."

With over 517 million accounts in 2012, with 147 million being in the U.S. alone, despite it's shortcomings, Twitter is still a preferred social media platform for those in the IT industry.

Certainly Twitter is not the social media darling for everyone in the tech industry. Many have gone to Google+ never to return, and others prefer LinkedIn or Facebook.

For the past week I've been sorting through my lists, most saved from 2008 and 2009, composed of over 100 programmers, web designers, network architects and others in the IT industry, and discovered the overwhelming majority of them are still actively daily on Twitter today. In fact, less than ten percent of those who were active in those years have not posted on Twitter in the past month.

To help you get the most from Twitter for your tech career, we've begun compiling lists of some of the most informative, helpful and influential people to follow.

Here is a list of suggestions for web developers.

Here is a Twitter list for programmers.

If you're new to Twitter, here are some tips on getting the most of Twitter for your tech career, including how to find news sources, experts and job leads on the website.

If you're a web developer, designer or writer looking for work, here's a website you should check out. JavaScript Ninja Jobs posts full-time, part-time and contract positions for all sorts of JavaScript ninjas. A couple dozen positions are listed each month nation-wide from a variety of sources, including postings you may not see anywhere else.

Subscribing to the website's RSS feed will of course give you automatic notices of the latest openings.

The services is run by John Resig, currently the Dean of Computer Science at Khan Academy, but perhaps more famous for being the creator and lead developer of the jQuery JavaScript library. Resig is just one of the top Web Developers we have recently listed to follow on Twitter.

Image property of JSninja.com

Most companies today post hiring information on the career pages of their websites. Some use job websites and others use targeted ads on Google and Facebook.

I was surprised and delighted this week when opening one of my favorite stress-relieving, time-killing apps, Zombie Gunship, to discover Limbic Software is hiring software engineers. They placed the ad on the main menu, ensuring any software developers who love the app will be certain to see it. Tapping the the ad brings you to the job description on the Limbic website.

Limbic Software is based in Silicon Valley but hires developers world-wide to work from virtual offices. To apply, you will have to list your top five favorite mobile apps.

Trying to decide if you should change jobs or stay where you are? The Bureau of Labor Statistics released new data last week on job tenure averages. We examine that data and take a look at the myth of job hopping here.

Screenshot from Zombie Gunship by Limbic Software

In recent articles, we've been discussing the role of online branding and social media in the hiring process, nameplate services that aggregate your online presence, and using online tools to your advantage in finding a job. It's one thing to know that your future employer may have been looking you up online and browsing your Facebook profile, what if you're profile is private?

One solution that some employers have found and reported recently by the Associated Press is to simply ask for your username and password.

To-date this seems to be limited mostly to agencies like law enforcement, which do this to ensure that applicants are not involved in illegal activities or involved with gangs. However it is not limited to these agencies alone.

This can be a difficult choice for most job applicants. While most people are certainly not comfortable handing out passwords to employers or letting them browse through your personal messages, many don't feel they have a choice. Just as importantly, many are taken by surprise when they're asked and don't have the time to think it through.

Before going to an interview, it might be a good idea to consider what you want to say in case you are asked such a question.

Another thing to keep in mind is online services that allow you to log in using Facebook to submit an application for a job. As soon as you allow any third-party service to access your account, you are granting that service access to everything.In the majority of cases this may be harmless, but in the case of a job application, the employer may be able to use that functionality to access your personal profile.

While the legalities of such things are still being discussed, it's a good thing to keep these situations in mind.

While post-graduate university enrollment has declined, some tech-based disciplines have seen an increase. Have you decided to go back to school? Do you feel it's worth the time and money for your career? I'd love to hear from you.

As a writer, and as someone who has changed careers more times than I can count, I've always been irked by the whole idea of personal branding. I've always felt a better word for it was typecasting. Ask William Shatner what personal branding did to his career after Star Trek first went off the air. Or Christopher Reeve in the first years following Superman.

The same is true for tech careers. Ask a desktop technician with ten years experience how easy it was to get that first position as a network engineer, and there's a good chance you will hear about dozens of failed interviews with managers suggesting he sticks with what he knows best.

When it comes to online branding, the situation can become even more complicated. As I explained in a recent article, the majority of hiring managers do an online search for your name after reading your resume. Depending on what they find, this could drastically harm or help your chances at getting an interview.

While the majority of hiring managers currently limit their online searching to sources like Google, a significant percentage also look at your social media profiles, like Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.

Branding works well for corporations. Brands are what make it easy to swallow the fact that the same company making your frozen dinner might also be making your laundry detergent and your underarm deodorant. Much more difficult is slapping a single label on a human being.

Fortunately, as the Internet has helped us become more diverse in our interests, it's becoming a bit easier to convince employers or customers that you can be good at more than one thing. In fact, in the survey quoted in the above article, having a well-rounded range of interests and experience is actually something employers want to see when they look for you online.

The good news is that there are an increasing number of tools online to help you take some control over what employers see about you first when they search for you online. These include nameplate websites like About.me and Vizify.com, as well as presentation tools like Sliderocket, which we will be looking at more closely in the coming days.

Photo: Getty Images

I've been receiving quite a few letters from people who are looking for work. Some are short and concise. Others are practically biographies. Others have a resume attached in case I happen to know someone who might be looking for someone. Some letters are hopeful. Some are heartbreakingly sad. A couple people have expressed only their anger and frustration.

By no means are the articles here intended to suggest that it's easy finding work in any of the tech sectors right now. While unemployment rates go up and down, these kinds of statistics don't mean a lot when it comes to the individual. Finding the right job can take several months even in the best economy. I've been there too.

What I can offer you is about 20 years experience in the tech industry, including my experience recruiting, interviewing and hiring just about every tech position you could think of, from entry-level help desk positions to nuclear engineers.

So my question to you is this: How can I help? What kinds of information can I provide you with? Do you need more resume tips? More interview tips? More training and education resources? More links to job websites? What kinds of information are you looking for that isn't doing it for you?

You can let me know by posting a comment here, contacting me on Twitter, or sending me an email to jobsearchtech.guide at about.com. I get hundreds of emails each week so it's unlikely I'll be able to respond personally, but I do read them all.

I don't know about you, but for me September always feels like the beginning of a new year, more so than January ever has. Perhaps this is because I spent such a sizeable chunk of my life in school. And as a matter of ritual, I always spend some time in the summer looking at courses I maight be able to take in September.

If you've been thinking about going back to school to update your knowledge, but don't have either the time or the financial resources to do so, it may be worth while to check out what is now available online. Until recently, online education options have been quite limited, particularly for technical courses like software programming or computer networking.

This has been quickly changing over the past two years and this year there are a few new resources available with courses from excellent schools. Selections are no longer limited to a couple video-taped lectures on entry-level topics. As well, you can actually now get certificates for full courses from MIT, Harvard and Berkeley if you register at EdX.

I've put together a list of some of the best online courses from some of the top schools. I also hunted down the direct links to some of the technical courses.

If you're looking for your first tech-based job and have an affinity for Apple software like the iWork suite or Final Cut Pro, you'll also find a review of Apple's Associate Certifications for their application software. More and more companies have been embracing Apple in the office as the iPhone and iPad have re-introduced many companies to the Apple brand. So if you already work with these programs, having a certification to prove your knowledge may help you get that first interview.

Image courtesy of Harvard University

Anyone who creates websites, works in graphic design, or just generally does anything on the computer beyond reading other people's Facebook posts, eventually faces the same dilemma: Do I buy the new Adobe product or should I take that money and go on a vacation this year?

To buy Photoshop CS6 just by itself today, you're looking at $699, or $199 for the upgrade. If you want Creative Suite 6 Design & Web Premium Edition, you'll be shelling out $1,899 for the full package. (See what I mean, my last vacation cost less than that.) If you are upgrading from CS5, the cost is $375 for the upgrade.

Yes, it's a lot cheaper if you're a student. In fact, I know a designer who enrolled in a university course, just for the student card, just so she could get Adobe products. By her math, the course was basically free. Yes, it's even better if you work for a company that will buy the products for you. But for freelancers or those who work part-time, the bill is a hefty one.

Adobe has finally offered a new option: get everything with access to Adobe Creative Cloud for one monthly fee. You can download the software to your computer, use it as you need and, as long as you keep paying, the software stays active on your computer.

The cost starts at $29.99 per month, provided you have purchased Adobe products in the past and provided you buy an annual subscription. After the first year, the price goes up to $49.99 per month, which is the same price as if you've not purchased Adobe products before. When Adobe launches their next versions, you upgrade to those for free.

According to my math, even at fifty bucks a month, that's less than the cost of Photoshop Extended ($999), Flash ($699), InDesign ($699) and some of their other programs all by themselves.

Image courtesy of Adobe Systems Incorporated

Looking for a good job is a lot like looking for a spouse, but even more so. When you decide on a new job you've immediately tied your financial future to your new employer. You've decided where you will live for about half of your waking hours every work day. You've decided who you will talk to each day, who you'll probably eat lunch with every day, who your new working friends will be -- the people who will probably see more of you than your own spouse, children or pets.

Much like picking a spouse, your future happiness depends a lot on your choice. Pick the right one and your life could be heaven on earth. Pick the wrong one, your world becomes a living hell.

The difference between getting a new job and getting married is this: Few of us get a marriage proposal after the first or second date.

So it's quite refreshing to find a new job search website that treats finding a job like finding a relationship. Path.to describes itself as "eHarmony for IT jobs." Much like a relationship website, it uses compatibility scores to help match employers with future employees.

Registration is free for job seekers. Companies that want to use the service pay a fee comparable to other job websites.

Path.to has already launched in several IT markets across the United States. It just opened in Texas, Boulder, Denver and Los Angeles last week. It will be open for service in Atlanta and Raleigh August 28th and in Philadelphia, Pittsburgh and Washington, D.C. after Labor Day.

This new website features interactive design, software engineering and IT job opportunities from more than 400 companies in the major tech markets like Boston, Chicago, New York, and Silicon Valley.

If you're looking to change jobs, be certain to browse through the new articles here for tech careers on About.com. We've just updated new salary guides for IS management salaries,DBA salaries and web developer salaries with more to come soon.

logo property of Path.to