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

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

#111

Post by tambienben »

jordache wrote: post #105
altotrees wrote: post #91

Recently had a recruiter call me, interview me over the phone once, in-person once, and via skype once. The job seemed to be a great fit, the pay was there, everything seemed to be lined up. The recruiter called me again to tell me that they were going to be taking the next steps with me very shortly. A week of silence goes by, then another. I email, inquiring about the position. "Oh, we gave that to someone we had b…

how does that random candidate get a hold of you?

> It turns out I knew the person who did get the job I was all but promised.

You should have another cup of coffee.

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

#112

Post by avs733 »

tim333 wrote: post #42
notyourday wrote: post #32

Pay. More. Money. There, I solved it for every single one of the "struggling" employers. Money is a proxy for everything .

Though with unemployment around 4.3% you may be paying up for mediocre employees you are then stuck with for a long time.

You don't get to demand a free market out of one side of your mouth and complain about it from the other. When there is less supply and there is more demand prices generally go up.

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

#113

Post by cynicalkane »

altotrees wrote: post #91

Recently had a recruiter call me, interview me over the phone once, in-person once, and via skype once. The job seemed to be a great fit, the pay was there, everything seemed to be lined up. The recruiter called me again to tell me that they were going to be taking the next steps with me very shortly. A week of silence goes by, then another. I email, inquiring about the position. "Oh, we gave that to someone we had b…

I feel like there's two tiers of the software industry: those employable at AmaFaceGoogFlix or a competitor, and everyone else; but the "everyone else" is completely unaware that the first tier exists. It's like if minor league baseball had no idea about major league baseball.

You even see it on HN. Someone will come along and talk about how a senior dev at Google can expect $250k a year. You'll get two categories of replies: "I don't believe this at all, Glassdoor proves you are wrong, nobody I know makes that, blah blah" and "bro that is totally normal". $250k is honestly on the average-lowish end for a senior eng at a major SV company in 2017. Much of the industry is not only unaware of reality but refuses to believe in it. This includes real engineers who do real work at real companies and comment actively on Hacker News. $250k for a senior engineer is just completely outside their reality.

On my last job search, my best job offer was about 2x as high as the worst one. The guy who made the worst one--which was about 30-40% below my minimum stated range, depending on how you valued the equity, so he had been stringing me along, but anyway--he started arguing with me about my unrealistic expectations, and wouldn't stop talking until I told him I was going to hang up if he kept trying to talk me down.

I know it's considered bad negotiation, but if I can't figure out the salary range of a job opening, I'll name my requirements up front. Over 50% of the time the conversation ends there. I know at least twice people assumed I was over-highballing as part of some misguided negotiating tactic when I actually was a little conservative.

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

#114

Post by hueving »

pgwhalen wrote: post #57
avoutthere wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

What skill sets should they select for?

Implementing small algorithms in a vacuum.

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

#115

Post by icebraining »

learc83 wrote: post #110
icebraining wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How does that follow? You seem to be assuming a lot. If they're peripheral, optional tasks, like an extra service you could upsell to your clients for a small margin, it may not provide enough income for a market-level salary.

In most cases, you don't want to take a job that's worth say $100k, but not $150k to an employer. Either the value you're bringing to the company is somewhere less than $50k, or the company is irrationally tied to not paying more than $100k.

So what if the value is less than $50k?

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

#116

Post by expertentipp »

qaq wrote: post #37
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.

? Total misinformation. As applicable to Ukraine salaries are US salary - US tax -(20-30)% take into account cost of living and special tax treatment (3-4%). Workday is normal workday and not some unknown number of hours offices are way nicer then in US minus the usual suspects (Google FB etc.). You get way more time off plus there are like 3X official holidays in Ukraine. Running recruiting biz. on the side we had r…

> As applicable to Ukraine salaries are US salary

> remote product work 60K/year

60k USD gross anually in Ukraine? No. Sorry, but it doesn't exist. An unicorn salary, dozen of those lucky perhaps have.

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

#117

Post by altotrees »

jedmeyers wrote: post #108
jordache wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

how does that random candidate get a hold of you?

"It turns out I knew the person who did get the job"

They were in my Linkedin network, and a college friend coincidentally. I simply pinged them and asked them a few questions about the new job and interview process. I disclosed that I had also interviewed for it. They were a bit leery of their own skill level upfront, so even they were surprised when it was offered. An interesting situation.

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

#118

Post by tomjen3 »

altotrees wrote: post #91

Recently had a recruiter call me, interview me over the phone once, in-person once, and via skype once. The job seemed to be a great fit, the pay was there, everything seemed to be lined up. The recruiter called me again to tell me that they were going to be taking the next steps with me very shortly. A week of silence goes by, then another. I email, inquiring about the position. "Oh, we gave that to someone we had b…

The latter. At the market clearing price the market clears - that is what market clearing means.

Of course most companies are filled with people who don't get micro economics.

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

#119

Post by PaulHoule »

quantumhobbit wrote: post #94
jdavis703 wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is true in certain cases, but not all. I just offered an unemployed family member (and recent computer science grad) a freelance opportunity worth $100 an hour to build out a simple e-commerce site. They didn't want the work. I think part of the problem is that you can have a lot of "fun" these days for very cheap (video games, YouTube, etc). Maybe it's time for us to reexamine why people don't even want high-pa…

I'm in a pretty small secondary market and was recently advised by someone who knows what he is talking about to never accept less than $200/hr for contract work. That is the going rate around here and accepting less signals that you don't know what you are doing. Perhaps the $100/hr isn't as much as you think it is. More so if you are somewhere expensive like San Francisco or New York.

Many shops I know that charge $200/hr charge $200/hr to a customer and pay a developer $50/hr and then proceed to subtract value from the project because of agency considerations.

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

#120

Post by lloyd-christmas »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #86
thatcat wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It needlessly wastes peoples time.

If employers were required to pay for someone's time for an interview, you would see this fixed right quick. But because an employer can leave an unreasonable job req out there and interview as many candidates as they want, with the only cost being their own time, this continues.

Here's something I wrote on a different discussion about hiring:

Imagine I cost my company $50 an hour in salary, and earn them $150 an hour (revenue of 3-5x salary is ballpark for most companies, we'll go for the low end for some perspective). As a senior dev, I have to sit in all the interviews of people potentially joining my team. Imagine we have 10 people that make it through the HR round. I have to participate in 10 interviews, and then likely 3 more for the final round.

My cost for round 2 is: 10 people x 2 hours x (150 lost revenue + 50 salary paid) = $4k

My cost for round 3 is: 3 x 8 x (150 + 50) = $4.8k

My company has already dropped $8.8k on my involvement solely in the interview room for your typical entry level position. This doesn't even include my involvement in onboarding, training, pre-interview prep, post-interview review, etc. This is also JUST ME, and a very lowball figure at that. Now factor in the cost of the HR round, recruiters, background checks, the other devs in the interviews with me, etc. It adds up very, very quickly.

The "costs of doing business" can easily be reduced by not interviewing for shits and giggles.

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