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Why Bad Jobs-or No Jobs-Happen to Good Workers

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Re: Why Bad Jobs-or No Jobs-Happen to Good Workers

#51

Post by randomdata »

wisty wrote: post #49
cafard wrote: post #16

"Steven Cherry: Employers can’t find workers at the going wage. True or false? Peter Cappelli: That’s false, and that’s almost by definition the case, because we know how markets work, and markets adjust and wages adjust. I had an employer write to me the other day saying they had a skills gap, and they really did. It wasn’t wages, because they did market wage surveys, and they were paying what everybody else was pay…

That seems pretty myopic. Let's say I run a coffee shop. I sell $3 cups of coffee, which is the market rate, but can't get any customers. I have no signage, don't advertise, and I'm rude to customers. That's what a lot of companies are like - they don't treat recruitment as a core business, but as an annoying distraction (like doing taxes). The best way to get a job is to cold call companies, or network. It's like if…

If you run a coffee shop, you would be the buyer in the relationship as it relates to this discussion.

A better analogy might that you surveyed Starbucks to find out how much they spend for their coffee beans. You then build the expectation that you should also be able to buy coffee beans for the same price as Starbucks. Of course, you can't, because you are small and don't buy enough beans to get Starbuck's volume price.

So, applying it to the topic at hand: Maybe Facebook can pay an engineer $150K to keep them happy because of the prestige and perks of working there, but your small company is going to have to pay $200K to get the same talent because, like in the coffee bean example, you are nobody special and do not have access to the benefits of being a "big deal".

Re: Why Bad Jobs-or No Jobs-Happen to Good Workers

#52

Post by vonmoltke »

wccrawford wrote: post #50
mratzloff wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's because companies don't give them raises commensurate with their new experience. Each year for the first 2-3 years or so a new employee that's any good should be receiving large raises on top of their presumably modest starting salary. The problem is that companies think they can get away with keeping people anchored to those starting salaries. It doesn't work; morale suffers and they leave. Finding a young em…

Exactly. My first company did this for me, and I stayed and was loyal for 2 years beyond when they stopped treating me fairly. I'd still be there, happy and productive, if they had continued paying me what I was worth instead of claiming the economy wouldn't let me. Shortly after I left, they put out a job posting for 7 people, each at more than I would have accepted to stay. The job I left for was paying even more t…

My last company, which is used to having lifers working for them, operated under the assumption that if they kept an employee for the first five years out of college, they usually had them permanently. They assumed people like me[0] were rare. This attitude persists in spite of their issues with college hire retention over the past decade. Its possible the management at your first company had a similar attitude.

[0] I left 5 months shy of my 10th service anniversary

Re: Why Bad Jobs-or No Jobs-Happen to Good Workers

#53

Post by berntb »

wccrawford wrote: post #50
mratzloff wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's because companies don't give them raises commensurate with their new experience. Each year for the first 2-3 years or so a new employee that's any good should be receiving large raises on top of their presumably modest starting salary. The problem is that companies think they can get away with keeping people anchored to those starting salaries. It doesn't work; morale suffers and they leave. Finding a young em…

Exactly. My first company did this for me, and I stayed and was loyal for 2 years beyond when they stopped treating me fairly. I'd still be there, happy and productive, if they had continued paying me what I was worth instead of claiming the economy wouldn't let me. Shortly after I left, they put out a job posting for 7 people, each at more than I would have accepted to stay. The job I left for was paying even more t…

I've seen it argued -- from people that seem to know much more than I do on this -- that HR knows most people will grumble and not leave.

Re: Why Bad Jobs-or No Jobs-Happen to Good Workers

#54

Post by gaius »

rprospero wrote: post #33
gaius wrote: post #29

I learned that the cat you let out of the bag is the same animal as the pig in a poke Nope, the cat is the cat o' nine tails, when it was taken out of its bag, it was because someone was about to be punished. No idea what he means by this comment.

You may have the etymology incorrect. The wiki lists two possible origins. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Letting_the_cat_out_of_the_bag Note that "letting the cat out of the bag" is used in cases where the truth comes out, not when someone is about to be punished. Consider the following two sentences. After the jury returned a guilty verdict, the judge let the cat out of the bag that the defendant would serve fifteen…

Oh come on - I don't care how thick the bag is, no-one would mistake a cat for a pig. That is obviously not where the sayings come from.

Re: Why Bad Jobs-or No Jobs-Happen to Good Workers

#55

Post by gaius »

If you go to India, for example, where the IT companies are booming, those folks are growing all their talent from within. They’re doing it because they have to, but it’s not rocket science as to how you can do it

I don't think this is true - everything I've read about outsourcing companies is that they have a very high turnover of staff.

Re: Why Bad Jobs-or No Jobs-Happen to Good Workers

#56

Post by dredmorbius »

excuse-me wrote: post #35
sparknlaunch wrote: post #27

> [Campbell talks about boom and bust cycles...] People always dismissed it, when I told them - if only I was born x years earlier I would have graduated at the start of the boom cycle. I would have landed a high paying role out of college/Uni and earned enough cash by the end of the cycle to see me through the bust years. With the work experience I would have a better chance competing against new grads. Considering…

That's also the reason why the job-hop to get a raise is so common. Pay rises are multipliers on your current salary - which is based on when in the boom/bust cycle you got hired. If you were hired in a bust you can get the maximum raise every year but at the end you will still be getting less than someone hired in a boom.

Which economists are now starting to realize has permanent lifetime effects on individuals (at least in aggregate): http://www.nber.org/digest/nov06/w12159.html

Re: Why Bad Jobs-or No Jobs-Happen to Good Workers

#57

Post by r00fus »

blindhippo wrote: post #8
fiatmoney wrote: post #2

Shorter version: If you want experienced, wildly competent workers, you'll have to pay for them. If you're not willing to pay for the experienced workers, you'll have to train inexperienced workers. Also, the requirements you're listing for the job is probably ridiculous, and your screening process is probably broken.

Soon as I graduated I encountered the experience wall - it was ridiculous. "junior" level positions required 2-3 years experience and paid less then working at Walmart. Now that I have over 5 years experience in my field, I'm rolling in offers and have my pick. I've had managers complain about lack of loyalty in employees. I typically fired back suggesting that if you take new graduates out of school and actually inv…

> Apparently I don't get management theory though...

The problem is that training requires long-term thinking. The entire problem is our economy has devolved into short-term thinking. Not much training and long-term in a quarter.

Re: Why Bad Jobs-or No Jobs-Happen to Good Workers

#58

Post by DugFin »

gaius wrote: post #54
rprospero wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You may have the etymology incorrect. The wiki lists two possible origins. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Letting_the_cat_out_of_the_bag Note that "letting the cat out of the bag" is used in cases where the truth comes out, not when someone is about to be punished. Consider the following two sentences. After the jury returned a guilty verdict, the judge let the cat out of the bag that the defendant would serve fifteen…

Oh come on - I don't care how thick the bag is, no-one would mistake a cat for a pig. That is obviously not where the sayings come from.

It's a little more complicated than that. The pig, in this case, is usually a piglet, which is roughly the same size and shape as a cat, and the trick is to show the customer/mark a real piglet being put in a bag, and then use sleight of hand to switch bags and hand him one with the cat in it, with the strong admonition not to open the bag before getting home lest the "pig" get out.

Re: Why Bad Jobs-or No Jobs-Happen to Good Workers

#59

Post by gaius »

pnathan wrote: post #42
gaius wrote: post #29

I learned that the cat you let out of the bag is the same animal as the pig in a poke Nope, the cat is the cat o' nine tails, when it was taken out of its bag, it was because someone was about to be punished. No idea what he means by this comment.

Erm, when you take a cat of a bag, you ain't putting it back in without more than a few scratches to yourself. Usually this is described in relation to a secret or a hidden truth: when it's out, you can't kill the truth, you have to live with the release of the information.

What do you think "room to swing a cat" means then?

Re: Why Bad Jobs-or No Jobs-Happen to Good Workers

#60

Post by rprospero »

gaius wrote: post #54
rprospero wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You may have the etymology incorrect. The wiki lists two possible origins. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Letting_the_cat_out_of_the_bag Note that "letting the cat out of the bag" is used in cases where the truth comes out, not when someone is about to be punished. Consider the following two sentences. After the jury returned a guilty verdict, the judge let the cat out of the bag that the defendant would serve fifteen…

Oh come on - I don't care how thick the bag is, no-one would mistake a cat for a pig. That is obviously not where the sayings come from.

While you'd never mistake a housecat for a full boar, mistaking a dead cat in a sack for a dead piglet wouldn't be that difficult. Especially if you'd been showed the pig before and the cat was only substituted in at the last minute to provide weight and legs.

Additionally, I'd point to the "pig in a poke wiki" page.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pig-in-a-poke

The page shows that variants of this idiom are present in hundreds of languages, often with the statement that a person bought a cat instead of a pig or, occasionally, as rabbit. In fact, more culture refer to buying a cat in a sack than a pig.

The wiki page mentions your cat in the bag theory as well. However, if you follow the references, you'll considered that it is seen as dubious and that the pig in a poke explanation is considered far more likely.

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