STEM Shortage Claims and Facebook's $19 Billion Acquisition of WhatsApp

If we continue to obsess over youth, the job market will be remarkably unpleasant 15 years from now.

Lets be honest here sometimes its cheaper to use foreign labor and that is why these companies are doing it. I dont necessarily agree with it but a lot of companies out there are doing it including my employer.

Whenever an article like this pops up the usual chorus is, there is no skill shortage, just a shortage at the price the employer is willing to pay.

Sadly I've seen myself as someone on the hiring side of the table fall into a few of these traps listed in the article.

A newly minted Phd, is one type of person that I've found myself having trouble hiring. Same with an newly minted Masters.

The reason is that often their area of specialization doesn't really help in the role I'm hiring and therefore I wouldn't give them any bump in pay for their extra schooling. On the other side of the table, especially for a Phd, they often expect a bump in pay for their additional schooling so its tough for me to hire someone like that.

EDIT to clarify, I don't reject these people out of hand, infact it helps them get an interview over others, but when it comes to offer time ie salary, I don't give any real value to a masters or Phd. Or put another way, if the salary I'm willing to offer is $125,000 its the same regardless of education.

To be clear, In a fund with 12 people, we have 5 Phd's and one more with a masters, so we do hire well educated people:)

Post grad education might get you interviewed first, but will have almost no bearing at all on if I extend a job offer or not.

The same can be said for what school you went to. MIT education, great I'll put you at the top of the interview pile, but when it comes time to extend an job offer, where you went to school doesn't factor into what we offer at all.

Too far along in their career can also be tough. Often this is due just to salary demands not fitting a junior role.

A new grad has no job they are quitting so they don't need a "bump" in pay to leave. Someone who is well into their career might be a good fit but is making a good salary where they are so they require a sizable pay increase to leave. Given this, it often makes sense to go with the younger candidate whose salary fits the role.

EDIT To flesh out the senior developer comment a bit more. There are really 3 areas I've had trouble with in the past.

1) The 10 year developer who has 1 year of experience 10 times over. This is just a junior developer who wants the salary of a senior developer.

2) Its harder to find senior developers, regardless of what you pay. As Joel once said the good developers always have jobs, hence his internship program.

3) the hire bar is, umm..., higher for senior developers as they are expected to do more, mentor, design architecture, etc. This means I'm more picky as to who I hire.

Having said that, there are times where experience rules, and in this case you get what you pay for.

NOTE This post has generated more upvote and downvotes than almost any other post I've written. So half the people agree with me and half disagree?

Given the numerous applicants they deny, what are the chances that a few of them get lucky? I'm estimating, with my limited math knowledge, that this will be closer to 1 than one may think beforehand.