U.S. Employers Struggle to Match Workers with Open Jobs • Hacker News Board

Re: U.S. Employers Struggle to Match Workers with Open Jobs

#21

Post by expertentipp » Fri, Sep 01, 2017, 12:16 PM UTC

turk183 wrote: post #12

expertentipp wrote: post #7

There is flood of American outsourcing centers in post-Communist EU countries. Top salaries for software devs/eng, including seniors, are USD 40k gross annually. They can treat the employees in the worst "corporate America" ways - their offices, available hardware, policies, laughable benefits, annual leave, create a perfect package for miserable professional and private life.

Thomson Reuters did this using Belarus. Any systems in "maintenance mode" get sent to code monkeys in former Eastern Bloc nations. The quality is fair, but a lot better than what happened with India (sorry, India, I still love some of you guys, but the frustrations have left deep scars, too). It's not like American developers are faring much better in those items you listed--offices have become crap, hardware middlin…

What quality are you expecting?! The salaries aside, the policies (VPN only with permission, only Windows allowed, problems with remote working, getting paid to sit on chair 9-5, some weird virtual machine setups motivated by "security") are killing creativeness in the most talented people.

Re: U.S. Employers Struggle to Match Workers with Open Jobs

#22

Post by jdhn » Fri, Sep 01, 2017, 12:16 PM UTC

"They're just asking for the moon, and not expecting to pay very much for it," Cappelli says. "And as a result they [can't] find those people. Now that [doesn't] mean there was nobody to do the job; it just [means] that there was nobody at the price they were willing to pay."

In my opinion, this is the key paragraph in the article. I see this all the time when recruiters send me job postings, and they want someone with 5 years of experience for the salary of someone with 2 years of experience.

Re: U.S. Employers Struggle to Match Workers with Open Jobs

#23

Post by tcbawo » Fri, Sep 01, 2017, 12:19 PM UTC

crispyambulance wrote: post #15

fiblye wrote: post #4

To sum up the article, businesses are making ridiculous demands and expecting to pay prospective employees marginally above nothing. Aside from the people posting these job ads, nobody is really surprised.

Job postings are ridiculous, but one would think employers would gradually learn a lesson when not enough applicants come forward and relax puffed-up requirements. But if anything, job "requirements" in postings have been getting even more absurd and persnickety in the last 10 years or so. Are employers simply not adapting or is there something else more complex going on? I suspect the latter.

I believe many companies want to portray the image that they are successful, growing, hiring. Job listings are cheap. What is the real cost of advertising for many positions and hiring the good people that come along irrespective of the advertisement?

Re: U.S. Employers Struggle to Match Workers with Open Jobs

#24

Post by dilemma » Fri, Sep 01, 2017, 12:20 PM UTC

Employers always struggle to to fill openings. It's the same thing as selling a product - you have to work on marketing, promotion, advertising. This says nothing about the state of the job market.

Re: U.S. Employers Struggle to Match Workers with Open Jobs

#25

Post by csdreamer7 » Fri, Sep 01, 2017, 12:21 PM UTC

jdhn wrote: post #22

"They're just asking for the moon, and not expecting to pay very much for it," Cappelli says. "And as a result they [can't] find those people. Now that [doesn't] mean there was nobody to do the job; it just [means] that there was nobody at the price they were willing to pay." In my opinion, this is the key paragraph in the article. I see this all the time when recruiters send me job postings, and they want someone wi…

Indeed, I think something like it should have been the title.

Re: U.S. Employers Struggle to Match Workers with Open Jobs

#26

Post by vermontdevil » Fri, Sep 01, 2017, 12:21 PM UTC

surfmike wrote: post #10

qudat wrote: post #3

In my mind this is screaming for apprenticeship programs like in Germany.[1][2] Companies need a more streamlined process to get employers early in their career so employees have the necessary training and then get promoted within. All the while employees get paid to learn and work. This one-size-fits-all 4-year college track that every U.S. citizen is being pushed through is failing miserably. [1] https://www.theatl…

Even for people who go to college, more work experience is a huge plus. Waterloo's coop system (4 months of school, 4 months of internship, repeated) provides a great mix of practical experience and academics. It would be great if all majors could have an experience like that.

Rochester Institute of Technology has a similar program - Co-op experience. All students are required to complete a specific # of semester work experience before obtaining a degree.

I've heard often from employers that they love hiring RIT graduates because of this.

Re: U.S. Employers Struggle to Match Workers with Open Jobs

#27

Post by ptero » Fri, Sep 01, 2017, 12:22 PM UTC

fiblye wrote: post #4

To sum up the article, businesses are making ridiculous demands and expecting to pay prospective employees marginally above nothing. Aside from the people posting these job ads, nobody is really surprised.

IME, especially at larger organizations, the job posting passes several different groups, from upper management to HR, before it sees the light of day, each with an opportunity to add some junk to an otherwise clean and reasonable post. What one not infrequently gets is a crazy mix req for Go/scripting/web design/databases/UX/algorithms/office productivity/jira/scrum/independent contributor/team player/...; pick any 7.

Folks doing the interviews know what they want and ignore the rest when interviewing, but as the text of the job posting is a poor way to gauge real requirements in an automated / statistically significant fashion. My 2c.

Re: U.S. Employers Struggle to Match Workers with Open Jobs

#28

Post by avoutthere » Fri, Sep 01, 2017, 12:24 PM UTC

dkhenry wrote: post #17

The tech sector is the worst at this. The skills we test for are the ones that can be figured out in about a month, and the ones we don't test for are the ones that need to be learned over a lifetime

Well said. I've been telling people for years that tech sector interviews select for the wrong skill sets.

Re: U.S. Employers Struggle to Match Workers with Open Jobs

#29

Post by Mediterraneo10 » Fri, Sep 01, 2017, 12:24 PM UTC

expertentipp wrote: post #7

There is flood of American outsourcing centers in post-Communist EU countries. Top salaries for software devs/eng, including seniors, are USD 40k gross annually. They can treat the employees in the worst "corporate America" ways - their offices, available hardware, policies, laughable benefits, annual leave, create a perfect package for miserable professional and private life.

> their offices, available hardware, policies, laughable benefits, annual leave, create a perfect package for miserable professional and private life

I am from an Eastern European city with a major outsourced IT industry, and I often associate with these IT workers and I visit their offices for local programming language or Open Street Map meetups. I don’t agree with your comment. Available hardware is fine. Benefits include generous private healthcare in addition to the universal public healthcare, as well as reimbursement for taxis so no one ever has to use public transportation or drive. For lunch, companies order good food from local restaurants. Furthermore, the employees all get the minimum holiday set by European Union and local law, and they do use it; I have never heard of a culture here of not being able to take holiday like in the USA. Yes, salaries are smaller than in the USA, but by local standards they are very generous and people are starting to complain about the IT sector pushing up prices of housing and restaurants beyond what most non-IT workers in this city could pay, just like your San Francisco.

I agree that local call centers, another big outsourcing industry, are exploitative. But devs? No. Maybe that is only further away, outside the EU. Within EU countries, if you don’t treat your devs well, they won’t stay; they will leave for Western Europe.

Re: U.S. Employers Struggle to Match Workers with Open Jobs

#30

Post by ethmarch » Fri, Sep 01, 2017, 12:24 PM UTC

surfmike wrote: post #10

qudat wrote: post #3

In my mind this is screaming for apprenticeship programs like in Germany.[1][2] Companies need a more streamlined process to get employers early in their career so employees have the necessary training and then get promoted within. All the while employees get paid to learn and work. This one-size-fits-all 4-year college track that every U.S. citizen is being pushed through is failing miserably. [1] https://www.theatl…

Even for people who go to college, more work experience is a huge plus. Waterloo's coop system (4 months of school, 4 months of internship, repeated) provides a great mix of practical experience and academics. It would be great if all majors could have an experience like that.

I've heard great things about Waterloo's program. Just wanted to give a shout out to Northeastern for its coop system as well. I've learned tons of things on the job that I never would have come across in the classroom. Also, almost every student in every major participates in the program!