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We Don't Have a Talent Shortage. We Have a Sucker Shortage

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Re: We Don't Have a Talent Shortage. We Have a Sucker Shortage

#111

Post by revvx »

d4mi3n wrote: post #104
revvx wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had the same thing happen to me a couple times. Long and tiring process. Blackboard, make a project, lots of dirty laundry about "long gone incompetent developers" that made the current system a giant mess. Lots of red flags but lots of promises including a large maximum salary, including bonuses and stock options. The final offer, however, was 60% of my current pay. Lower than the average for someone with my exper…

Rule number 1, IMO, never discuss salary. I find listing your salary requirements before starting a process weeds out a lot of silly interviews. If you know your worth and have a goal for your salary, it is the most effective way I know to avoid dumb offers.

But that's exactly what I did? Sorry, I didn't phrase it right.

My non-negotiable requirement was 20% more than I was getting. I gave a hard number and they said "yeah we can give that" before the interview.

However the recruiter just assumed I was bluffing and went ahead with that colossal waste of time.

Re: We Don't Have a Talent Shortage. We Have a Sucker Shortage

#112

Post by miguelmota »

EduardoBautista wrote: post #48
loteck wrote: post #40

As an employee, it is valuable to me that my company will not hire someone who doesn't think our business does something important ("get over yourselves, you're not curing cancer"), or who thinks the right way to ask business decision questions is to ask if "you're morons", or who has a problem with the company asking very basic probing questions, such as confirming you've thought through the challenge of changing fr…

Well, I believe there is a surplus of companies who think they are doing something important. Can you imagine answering "Why do you want to work here" if you apply to a company like Marlboro? Sometimes requiring people to believe in what your company is doing is not that important because the majority of startups just aren't that interesting. Accept that people work for money, not because they believe in your company…

Agree, most people simply want a paycheck to pay bills and have some disposable income and don't care about the startup's vision 'to change the world'. Startups should hire people because they can get stuff done. If someone happens to believe in the mission then it's more power to them but it shouldn't be a requirement.

Re: We Don't Have a Talent Shortage. We Have a Sucker Shortage

#113

Post by joe_the_user »

loteck wrote: post #69
toomuchtodo wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Very few businesses actually matter, despite your opinion of the business. If your argument is you only want to work with other suckers (who “care” about the business over comp and tangible compensation), I suppose that’s an opinion that could be held. Is that a rational opinion to hold? I don’t come to work because I care about your business, I care because you pay me. I’d like to work with others who have the same…

Successful businesses support the livelihoods of all of the families that depend on that business's continued success, including employees and clients. All such businesses matter very much to those people, regardless of their industry.

Successful businesses support the livelihoods of all of the families that depend on that business's continued success,

Just want to point out that this point is entirely back-peddling your original point (an objection to "get over yourselves").

If the point of a given company is that it supports a person and maybe dependents, then you really don't need to ask someone why they want to work at the company or whether they believe in the company, because the answer is obviously "because you will pay me." I mean, corollary to the value of most companies being that they support people via the salaries and wages they pay, is the companies shouldn't be injecting the implication that their employees should sacrifice and work for less given the importance of the work the company does (and that ethos is widespread).

Re: We Don't Have a Talent Shortage. We Have a Sucker Shortage

#114

Post by Gpetrium »

Aloha wrote: post #3

I broadly agree with the basic point this guy is making, we have an issue where the HR gatekeepers (who don't have the knowledge to make accurate technical assessments) are effectively searching for a perfect match, rather than someone who could do the job well. Don't put box tickers in charge of a critical function unless you want every thing they touch to be turned into an exercise in box ticking.

There are usually 2 reasons why a company/individual hires someone else (1) expertise & (2) time.

(1) An HR employee is hired to cover certain areas (recruiting in this case) of expertise that the individual manager may not have or may be biased towards.

(2) Manager(s) may look to outsource a segment of their work.

In most cases, it is a combination of the two that leads to HR being the gatekeeper. I would argue that if there was no HR, society would simply blame the next person in charge of the hiring segment.

Re: We Don't Have a Talent Shortage. We Have a Sucker Shortage

#115

Post by wolco »

Frost1x wrote: post #95
BonesJustice wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of the best interview experiences I had was with a firm where nearly everyone participates in the hiring process. I don’t know any details beyond what I experienced as a candidate, but they interview tons of people, and everyone who makes it all the way through ends up interacting with at least a handful of would-be peers, managers, and a C-level officer. I imagine that everyone is expected to dedicate a signific…

Where is this utopia? I want to work there.

Really that sounds terrible. Let the managers hire I need to finish my sprint.

Re: We Don't Have a Talent Shortage. We Have a Sucker Shortage

#116

Post by human20190310 »

> What you're missing is that while you may need someone like me to get this done, people like me don't necessarily need you to create that kind of value.

> I may not want to assume the risk of startup business right now but if you're going to offer the deal on those terms...

The author is asserting that a company needs him or her more than they need the company, then confesses to being reluctant to take the risk of starting a business themselves. As such they're actually depending on the company to shoulder the risk they're not willing to take; they actually do need the company to create value.

The author should decide which of the two statements quoted above has precedence. Either they depend on some other company to shoulder the risks, or they start one themselves.

Re: We Don't Have a Talent Shortage. We Have a Sucker Shortage

#117

Post by freewilly1040 »

detaro wrote: post #110
lostgame wrote: post #108

I had a ludicrous experience with an AR startup in Toronto last year where I was offered $35 an hour - worked a week, and then was told they could only afford to pay $20/hr. They made me work 60-80 hour weeks and didn’t pay me overtime. When I criticized them, they fired me after a month. I’d love to expose them here, but I’ll be the better person than them.

Covering for them doesn't make you a better person.

Neither does identifying the company and potentially identifying yourself

Re: We Don't Have a Talent Shortage. We Have a Sucker Shortage

#118

Post by Frost1x »

iliketosleep wrote: post #25

I've always assumed that the so-called "talent shortage" was an excuse to get cheap labor from abroad. They make job ads such that it's improbable that a local will meet the highly specific requirements, after which they complain of a skills shortage, and then they have their excuse to import cheap labor.

That's most of it.

The rest of it is suggesting to the population at large there's such a high demand for these positions they should enter the market and pursue that career. The idea is to flood the market with labor to drive labor costs down by pretending there aren't people qualified to do the work.

Re: We Don't Have a Talent Shortage. We Have a Sucker Shortage

#119

Post by ranci »

wheelerwj wrote: post #72

this is a big trend in business, startups, and HR right now (and growing for the last 10 years+). Don't rush to hire a good candidate, put time into the perfect candidate. Good or bad, i think its debatable. but most of the experience and "meta" these days is to wait for a great candidate.

Then you don't need the work associated with that job to be done very badly. Yet it will still be marketed as "an opportunity to change the world".

Re: We Don't Have a Talent Shortage. We Have a Sucker Shortage

#120

Post by retiredcoder »

Game_Ender wrote: post #67
areyouseriousxx wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find it strange, as software developers, that we discuss the effects on automation all the time, but no one seems to understand that automation has made searching for new employees incredibly inexpensive and efficient compared to the past. So in technical roles there are a lot of companies that are always hiring. Recruiters work for free until they find you someone and placing job listings online is so inexpensive…

Interviews take 2-3 man days from a company per candidate you end up doing a full onsight interview. That is on the order of $1000’s per interview, and you generally have to do several per role. Then for high demand roles even the best will take several months to ramp up which costs a large fraction, say 25-50% of their total compensation. So replacing a dev can cost you in total $100k+ at least. That is not really c…

I agree with your calculations but some managers seem to not have done this math yet.

As result, what we have are poor hiring evaluations, horrible onboarding, etc.

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