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The Bogus High-Tech Worker Shortage

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11–20 of 111 posts

Re: The Bogus High-Tech Worker Shortage

#11

What if employers aren't being "picky". What if deterioration in academic standards means most graduates are not competent? A CS graduate being unable to do fizzbuzz is a travesty, and should be grounds for a school losing their accreditation if widely seen.

Academia has (literally) nothing to do with real-life software engineering. I hope I'm not bursting your bubble, but if you think otherwise you're severely mistaken.

Re: The Bogus High-Tech Worker Shortage

#12
post #11

What if employers aren't being "picky". What if deterioration in academic standards means most graduates are not competent? A CS graduate being unable to do fizzbuzz is a travesty, and should be grounds for a school losing their accreditation if widely seen.

Academia has (literally) nothing to do with real-life software engineering. I hope I'm not bursting your bubble, but if you think otherwise you're severely mistaken.

So the hiring practice of every major software company is hopelessly mistaken? I think someone would notice.

Re: The Bogus High-Tech Worker Shortage

#13
The real issue is obviously lack of control over labor markets. Sure, dissolving support for unions helped, but we still live in a world where people can decide where to work and how much they'd like to be paid, and this has serious repercussions for the long term profitability of corporate persons.

Re: The Bogus High-Tech Worker Shortage

#14
post #2

It's not bogus. Many if not most of the big high tech companies have open positions they can't find people for. If anyone is curious where the mistake is in this article's reasoning, it's in the assumption that people are more or less interchangeable, and that all you have to do is train them to be Xes, and you can have as many Xes as you want. Whereas the reason there are open positions for programmers at high tech…

There are strict regulations as to how many foriegn players can play on what level and league based on nationality.

Real Madrid puts a lot of effort training Spanish players. As do other teams. This is why they won the World Cup.

And no. There is no draft day but in some countries there are unions.

Just sayin.

Ref: http://www.globalsoccertransfers.com/info/regulate.html

Re: The Bogus High-Tech Worker Shortage

#15
post #7
post #2

It's not bogus. Many if not most of the big high tech companies have open positions they can't find people for. If anyone is curious where the mistake is in this article's reasoning, it's in the assumption that people are more or less interchangeable, and that all you have to do is train them to be Xes, and you can have as many Xes as you want. Whereas the reason there are open positions for programmers at high tech…

It will be interesting to see if there is still a shortage of "valley-quality graduates" in 3-ish years. The reports I'm hearing from most of the top-15 departments are of record CS enrollments starting from last year, far over even the boom in the dotcom era. Of course, the growth in graduates may not keep pace with the growth in companies!

enrollments != graduates != star programmers

Re: The Bogus High-Tech Worker Shortage

#16
I can't shake the feeling that for this crowd (to which the authors/researchers belong), the term guest worker has sort of become a code for "those cheap Indians". I'm also guessing the authors (and most people in this crowd) have never associated with a guest worker outside of their field of work.

Re: The Bogus High-Tech Worker Shortage

#17
post #2

It's not bogus. Many if not most of the big high tech companies have open positions they can't find people for. If anyone is curious where the mistake is in this article's reasoning, it's in the assumption that people are more or less interchangeable, and that all you have to do is train them to be Xes, and you can have as many Xes as you want. Whereas the reason there are open positions for programmers at high tech…

This: "Someone asking why we need to hire programmers from other countries might just as well ask why Real Madrid has to hire so many non-Spanish players. Can't they just train more Spanish players to play at the level they need?"

Very well said.

Re: The Bogus High-Tech Worker Shortage

#18
post #9
post #2

It's not bogus. Many if not most of the big high tech companies have open positions they can't find people for. If anyone is curious where the mistake is in this article's reasoning, it's in the assumption that people are more or less interchangeable, and that all you have to do is train them to be Xes, and you can have as many Xes as you want. Whereas the reason there are open positions for programmers at high tech…

If anyone is curious where the mistake is in this article's reasoning, it's in the assumption that people are more or less interchangeable, and that all you have to do is train them to be Xes, and you can have as many Xes as you want. What about the assertion that companies are struggling to fill these roles because (a) they demand more from potential candidates while (b) offering no more in wages than what we saw 10…

The finance companies competing for programmers are also American. So even assuming that SV companies could draw star programmers away from Goldman Sachs by paying them more, there would still be exactly the same net shortage of them in the US.

Re: The Bogus High-Tech Worker Shortage

#19
post #2

It's not bogus. Many if not most of the big high tech companies have open positions they can't find people for. If anyone is curious where the mistake is in this article's reasoning, it's in the assumption that people are more or less interchangeable, and that all you have to do is train them to be Xes, and you can have as many Xes as you want. Whereas the reason there are open positions for programmers at high tech…

It's kind of bogus. There's more reasons than what you're listing - and some help the author's statements. For starters, why throw a résumé away because it doesn't have [Top-Tier CS Program] listed? Make the potential employee pool bigger, and statistics says you'll get better candidates thrown in the mix as well. For companies that emphasize innovation and thinking out of the box, they really want a cookie cutter mold of a person who is insane at implementing a cache with linked lists. Why? There's no wonder why a lot of creativity in SV seems to have stagnated (or gone social really).

I'm just saying take the polarized glasses off and you might see more stars.

Re: The Bogus High-Tech Worker Shortage

#20
post #2

It's not bogus. Many if not most of the big high tech companies have open positions they can't find people for. If anyone is curious where the mistake is in this article's reasoning, it's in the assumption that people are more or less interchangeable, and that all you have to do is train them to be Xes, and you can have as many Xes as you want. Whereas the reason there are open positions for programmers at high tech…

That's a perfect analogy.

Lots of people also want to play pro ball. They can't, and no matter how much they train, they never will be able to. Their body just isn't built for it.

Similarly, there are people who can study their ass off. They'll probably become pretty good, not great, but pretty good.

Then there are a tiny, razor-thin minority of people who were born as some sort of intellectual freak, who will also study their ass off, and become great.

I've known a few people like that. It's frustrating, because I feel like I'm working just as hard, but not getting as huge of results.

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