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It's not a talent shortage, it's a hiring problem

fredandrandall.com

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Re: It's not a talent shortage, it's a hiring problem

#81

Post by georgemcbay »

kdommeyer wrote: post #55
georgemcbay wrote: post #19

A big issue in modern hiring, IMO, is the combination of diverging specialized platforms and languages combined with overemphasis on keyword-hiring. When I first got into the industry you had: --- * old fogey LISP programmers * old fogey FORTRAN programmers * old fogey COBOL programmers * Assembly programmers * C/Win programmers * C/Unix programmers * C/Mac programmers * some people on the cutting edge looking at thi…

Why did you list Ruby/RoR users as developers but list everyone else as programmers? I'm learning RoR so I'm curious if there's a specific reason for your wording.

I would have never noticed I did that if you didn't point it out, it wasn't intentional so I'm not sure how that happened.

FWIW I use programmer and developer (and coder, and...) interchangeably so that wasn't meant as a slight on Ruby programmers or to imply that they are somehow different from anyone else on the list.

Re: It's not a talent shortage, it's a hiring problem

#82

Post by RandallBrown »

danielrhodes wrote: post #77

Given the harm a bad coder can do to a codebase and the morale of a team, it is better to not hire a good coder than hire a bad one.

I totally agree. The whole point of the post was to point out that there are lots of good coders out there that are being labeled as bad coders because of poor hiring processes.

Re: It's not a talent shortage, it's a hiring problem

#83

Post by pinaceae »

the broader is issue is that learning has been replaced by hiring. the assumption now is that you already need to bring all the required skills to the job, to be productive from day one.

the concept of apprenticeship has been completely eradicated.

i work in a specialized area and had trouble finding candidates that matched my job profile. frustrating. but then i took a step back and looked at how I had gained those skills - through practice, through experience, not through formal education. so i started to look for good people, good learners, flexible minds. yes, there will be a ramp up time, but they also come with fresh perspectives. i can also directly influence their knowledge as i am their reference point.

and age is not a factor here, last guy i hired is 50+ - and i am 32.

Re: It's not a talent shortage, it's a hiring problem

#84

Post by randomdata »

suresk wrote: post #66
randomdata wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> they're discouraging college students from applying by having pointless job requirements that don't actually matter. From the opposite end of the spectrum, I'm always amazed at the jobs that slap on the computer science degree requirement. My small rural municipal government was recently looking for a web developer to work on their CMS. A CS degree was a requirement for the job, despite there being very little pure…

Playing devil's advocate here a little bit - If you were a small organization with little technical expertise, how would you hire developers? As someone who doesn't have a CS degree, I agree that it is frustrating to see hard requirements like this. But looking at it from the perspective of your "small rural municipal government", hiring developers is probably a pretty tough and scary endeavor. Lots of people hold th…

I think that is a fair point, but it seems akin to requiring a physics degree for the job of mechanic. Generally, the people doing the hiring decidedly know no more about mechanical work than they do about software development, so I do not think this is a unique issue.

Now, I am sure it would be useful for a mechanic to understand all of the properties of the materials to manually derive the torque setting needed for a wheel bolt and all, but in reality, you just follow the book. The science behind the application is not particularly useful within this context.

Hiring is hard, but I think this goes back to the original submission: If all you look for is a physicist, you're going to miss the master mechanic. You might even end up with someone who has no interest in tearing down engines at all. Is that really the better member for your team?

Re: It's not a talent shortage, it's a hiring problem

#85

Post by eshvk »

georgieporgie wrote: post #47
eshvk wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While, I'd like to agree with most of what you said. At least one of the parameters in the last statement you made can be statistically invalidated: Have you not seen the multitude of brown men in programming?

Well, honestly, no, I haven't. I've heard second-hand reports of some large companies that seemed to hire an amazing number of Indians, but I've personally worked almost entirely with white males (with a few East Asians and the odd female thrown in). Also, I think it might be pretty much the same thing: Indian workers might be given a pass because they're "cheap" (i.e. decision made based on instant impression and pe…

I think by law H1-B's are supposed to be paid the same as locals (so as not to undercut them).

Re: It's not a talent shortage, it's a hiring problem

#86

Post by ootachi »

There are simply very few positions for programmers throughout the country. That includes the Bay Area. As much as everyone wants to believe it isn't true, it's true. There's very little demand and way too much supply.

Programming is a losing profession, and if you're in it you should get out while you still can. Get into sales, marketing, and/or management instead.

Re: It's not a talent shortage, it's a hiring problem

#87

Post by ecaradec »

ef4 wrote: post #65
kenjackson wrote: post #8

Yes, there is something wrong. I had a good friend put himself on the job market six months ago. He has the total package -- has worked on and shipped well-known products, has reviewable open-source projects and contributions, great academic pedigree, nice guy, even good looking -- I said something like, "You'll have five offers at the end of this week". Three months later, no offer. What was most interesting was how…

> But the fact that someone who I would actually describe as top 1% of devs I've worked with can't get a job without relying on his network is kind of scary This is just one of those unavoidable aspects of human psychology. Ignore it at your peril. Lots of programmers seem to think networking is somehow beneath them. But it's the best way to sidestep most of the pitfalls everyone is amply describing here.

That's interesting, there is a recruiting process in place but the easiest way to get the job is to get informal and skip the process. That's really inline with the article ihmo, the process is broken.

Re: It's not a talent shortage, it's a hiring problem

#88

Post by smsm42 »

georgemcbay wrote: post #19

A big issue in modern hiring, IMO, is the combination of diverging specialized platforms and languages combined with overemphasis on keyword-hiring. When I first got into the industry you had: --- * old fogey LISP programmers * old fogey FORTRAN programmers * old fogey COBOL programmers * Assembly programmers * C/Win programmers * C/Unix programmers * C/Mac programmers * some people on the cutting edge looking at thi…

I suspect this has a lot to do with recruiters/HR being the intermediate. If I hire a programmer, I'd prefer him of course to know the platform he's working on and hit the ground running, but I'd much rather have a good programmer that can learn a new platform and become productive in a month than a mediocre one which knows the platform but will be mediocre forever.

The problem, however, is that if I am a software engineering team leader, there's no way I can talk (or have anybody from my team talk) to every candidate out there to see if they're good. I will have to use somebody to screen people, even before they get to the interview. So recruiters, etc. come in. And it's very easy for them to operate on the keyword basis and very hard for them to find out who's good and who's not. So they do what's easy, since otherwise they'd be out of business or seriously hurt their competitiveness.

Re: It's not a talent shortage, it's a hiring problem

#89

Post by smsm42 »

ecaradec wrote: post #87
ef4 wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But the fact that someone who I would actually describe as top 1% of devs I've worked with can't get a job without relying on his network is kind of scary This is just one of those unavoidable aspects of human psychology. Ignore it at your peril. Lots of programmers seem to think networking is somehow beneath them. But it's the best way to sidestep most of the pitfalls everyone is amply describing here.

That's interesting, there is a recruiting process in place but the easiest way to get the job is to get informal and skip the process. That's really inline with the article ihmo, the process is broken.

Networking is and always was the best and easiest way to make relationships, and hiring is a relationship. So no wonder going through friends works better than blindly sending a resume to somebody having to connection to you.

Re: It's not a talent shortage, it's a hiring problem

#90

Post by smsm42 »

georgieporgie wrote: post #33

A few years ago, I applied to a senior Windows dev position. As I recall, they needed someone primarily to port existing software. One of the first interview questions was about how I would optimize shell sort for some particular edge case. The interviewer did not appear to have any papers with her that contained shell sort. I don't know if she thought I would remember it (last time I implemented it was high school),…

"There's a reason that Silicon Valley is almost entirely white, male, and under 40, and it has nothing to do with technical aptitude."

Your Silicon Valley must be very different from one I had the opportunity to observe.

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