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Why is it taking longer and longer to fill open jobs?

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11–20 of 178 posts

Re: Why is it taking longer and longer to fill open jobs?

#11
I would like to see someone quantify how many job listings are posted to meet H1-B requirements where there is no intent to hire. I've been hearing more and more stories of people trying to get interviews for jobs they see online only to find out the listing was to meet visa requirements for the person in the current role.

Re: Why is it taking longer and longer to fill open jobs?

#12
post #6

> What's changed over the past fifteen years is that the internet has dramatically decreased the cost of identify in an open job listing and sending in an application. The stack of resumes you need to read through in order to start scheduling interviews has just gotten longer. The easier you make it to apply for jobs, the slower the hiring process becomes. The above explanation of why it now takes employers longer to…

Posted a senior iOS dev position to Indeed, LinkedIn, Glassdoor where the company is paying 25%(maybe 40% if you include RSUs) above market here (although we don't put comp in the job listing) and only got 3 applicants in a month.

Re: Why is it taking longer and longer to fill open jobs?

#13
post #8
post #7

How often do you see "Help Wanted - Will Train"?

That is more likely to happen if the employer can legally keep the worker after training, like say when the gov pays for your med school and gets you to commit x years at below market rates in exchange for paying your tuition (and training) otherwise the employee has little incentive to stay in the face of better offers given the added skills the prev employer paid for.

So, make sure there are no better offers out there. If you think your employees are going to leave after you train them, that's a problem you can solve.

Re: Why is it taking longer and longer to fill open jobs?

#14
It seems no one is mentoring anyone in professional setting anymore. Stackoverflow.com is nice but sometimes face2face mentoring can't be beat.

And no company seems willing to offer 'apprenticeship'. You are working on a hard problem with latest methodologies and tools? Then it's very likely you won't find anyone out there who has the experience in the methodologies and tools. You just can't hold out looking for the perfect candidate. You are not google or apple. So just give up and hire the best you can find in the pool. Don't wait till you find the ONE. Again, you are not google or apple.

The other problem I think is HR department itself. How many small/mid HR departments keep track of hiring process like SEO metrics are kept/measured? Do they know which manager seems to hire the most duds? AFAIK, HR department is the least automated piece of a tech company. I can tell because they are still scheduling interviews using emails.

And lastly, please take a look at your Job desc/requirement. Is it real or are you just copying/pasting from some other job postings?

Re: Why is it taking longer and longer to fill open jobs?

#16
post #6

> What's changed over the past fifteen years is that the internet has dramatically decreased the cost of identify in an open job listing and sending in an application. The stack of resumes you need to read through in order to start scheduling interviews has just gotten longer. The easier you make it to apply for jobs, the slower the hiring process becomes. The above explanation of why it now takes employers longer to…

Posted a senior iOS dev position to Indeed, LinkedIn, Glassdoor where the company is paying 25%(maybe 40% if you include RSUs) above market here (although we don't put comp in the job listing) and only got 3 applicants in a month.

Try posting the same exact thing in Craigslist. There's too much tangential noise in those websites.

Re: Why is it taking longer and longer to fill open jobs?

#17
post #2

I think this misinterprets something deliberately, and misses some things entirely. It mentions that wages have been stagnant as proof that it isn't that people aren't applying for jobs that have low pay, but only uses wage statistics as evidence for that, which doesn't really indicate one way or the other that such is the situation. I think the thing it really misses is the increased conceptualization of open positi…

Extreme pickiness. Every hiring manager is convinced that they must only hire A+++ players or their business is doomed. They'd rather a position go un-filled for 6 months than take a risk on someone simply hungry and enthusiastic. Companies are holding out for that unicorn employee (but, strangely enough, not offering unicorn salaries).

They need to wake up. They are not google or apple.

Re: Why is it taking longer and longer to fill open jobs?

#18
I think another interpretation is that it's become easier for companies to keep jobs "open" and collecting applicants without really having to put in effort to find people. Or, to put it another way, the idea of an "open job" has become meaningless, if it was ever meaningful in the first place.

As a metaphor, we can imagine many people wanting to buy apples, but not being willing to pay the 1$ the supermarket will charge. They could create an "apple opening", posting on an apple selling site looking for people who are willing to sell them apples with certain qualities for a given price that depends on the individual, for example 5 cents. Then, we could poll consumers to see how many have apple openings. Perhaps we could find millions of such unfilled openings, but would this tell us anything about trends in the quality of apples or actual apple consumption?

Re: Why is it taking longer and longer to fill open jobs?

#19
post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a recent graduate for whom it took a year and a half and a move to a different country to find another job, I think I've developed job searcher's PTSD. Applied to lots of jobs I was very excited about, only to get degraded during interviews or not hearing back at all. I wouldn't dream of asking for a lateral move as that might make my boss think I don't like my current job, and as they can fire my with 48 hrs noti…

In my experience, a lot of new grads don't know how little they actually know and expect the degree itself to qualify them for the job.

Sure, but this is not a relevant response to my comment unless you meant it as an insult.

Re: Why is it taking longer and longer to fill open jobs?

#20
post #6

> What's changed over the past fifteen years is that the internet has dramatically decreased the cost of identify in an open job listing and sending in an application. The stack of resumes you need to read through in order to start scheduling interviews has just gotten longer. The easier you make it to apply for jobs, the slower the hiring process becomes. The above explanation of why it now takes employers longer to…

Posted a senior iOS dev position to Indeed, LinkedIn, Glassdoor where the company is paying 25%(maybe 40% if you include RSUs) above market here (although we don't put comp in the job listing) and only got 3 applicants in a month.

Any chance you could link the listing (or paste the description)? Just curious to see what sort of things you're looking for. I'm currently 5 months into my first full-time iOS dev position. I'm also really curious to know what sort of questions you ask during your interview process (both pre-screens and onsite). I understand if you don't want to share info on that though :)
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