It's not a talent shortage, it's a hiring problem • Hacker News Board

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

#161

Post by smsm42 » Thu, Mar 15, 2012, 6:49 AM UTC

lrobb wrote: post #151

pyre wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not just an HR issue. I've come across a number of situations where developers are making hiring decisions and using arbitrary criteria to base them on. E.g.: * The fire storm over Deviant Art's 'we only hired 0.0000001% of people' blogpost/HN discussion. * I went through the application process at a start-up where they were "really excited" about me after the first interview, but dropped me after the second bec…

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These guys are trying to be funny, but in fact they probably are just limiting their available pool of talent. It's not a big deal - they probably need just one person, so they'd find that person anyway. But it does look somewhat childish.

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

#162

Post by doktrin » Fri, Mar 16, 2012, 1:16 AM UTC

match wrote: post #95

ootachi wrote: post #86

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.

Then apparently we're the only company that has crazy number of openings and I personally talk to people every week that aren't what we're looking for.

What hyper specialized positions are you hiring for that none of those you've interviewed can possibly fill? Did your job listing requesting a developer get answered by waves of auto mechanics?

To echo what others have said : are you sure you're not raising the bar to imaginary and unrealistic heights? You wouldn't be the first would-be employer to sigh woefully just because you couldn't find a mythical wizard-rockstar hybrid.

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

#163

Post by doktrin » Fri, Mar 16, 2012, 8:12 PM UTC

pyre wrote: post #97

smsm42 wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 en…

It's not just an HR issue. I've come across a number of situations where developers are making hiring decisions and using arbitrary criteria to base them on. E.g.: * The fire storm over Deviant Art's 'we only hired 0.0000001% of people' blogpost/HN discussion. * I went through the application process at a start-up where they were "really excited" about me after the first interview, but dropped me after the second bec…

Out of curiosity, how old were the candidates who were deemed too old to be junior devs? I'm in a similar situation myself (turning 29), and am concerned about my age being bad juju.