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

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

#171
post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So compensation is not relevant to your point at all since you didn't list it. Or were you looking for mind readers? The low response rate makes sense in that case.

Fair enough, but the information is publicly available on glassdoor. A couple reasons why I didn't list comp: 1. I didn't want to get candidates purely motivated by the high cash comp in the area. 2. Cash comp isn't core to how the company markets itself to employees and its culture. The company prefers to sell itself on being an employee friendly place to work. Like the article hypothesizes, I thought we'd get 50-10…

My biggest problem is that for me, total compensation package is easily the most important thing. It's simple, I need to feel and notice more money for me to move from my current job.

I can get job offers. What I can't get is offers that work out to be more money after adjusting for cost of living and benefits - as well as life impact of moving. I might just be at a personal maximum - I'm not worth more to anyone else. So far I'm fine with that.

What I hate though is spending weeks doing application, phone interview, fly or drive for hours for full day interview, suit, etc - to then finally get what the salary is. And I know instantly that that salary is too low and turn them down. What's worse is my most recent expectation asked desired salary. I gave a number. They came back with 1/3 less than that number. Sure I will negotiate, but 1/3 is a big mismatch... I mean, why did they ever even contact me?

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

#172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because they're scared shitless that Indeed is taking away their business. Monster used to be the leader and they squandered it all away with a crappy, candidate hostile site. Nobody else could come up with something better before Indeed because they were too focused on trying to wedge themselves into the position of profiteering middlemen to bother with improving the actual search process.

Indeed are a scraper site ie "profiteering middlemen" that you seem to dislike so much

Indeed drives traffic to employers that host their own job postings. How is that a bad thing? They also provide their own listings service and aren't "just scraping". Having a way to directly contact an HR department is far more efficient than going through the additional recruiter hoop jumping BS with traditional job sites.

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

#173
post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of companies want productivity NOW and aren't willing to tank the cost/risk of training someone junior. Also, some skills you can't/don't want to train into.

some skills you can't/don't want to train into. The problem then becomes that there isn't enough skilled talent. If companies aren't going to train developers, then who is? Computer science isn't software development. Someone or something other than a company has to fill the training vacuum, and that's why coding bootcamps are getting popular—even though a lot of people don't trust them yet since they are in their in…

Agreed. I've always thought there should be more ways to train up intermediate/advanced skills.

I guess this is what pricey conference workshops are for...

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

#174
post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I didn't want to get candidates purely motivated by the high cash comp in the area. This is an extreme red flag for me. While your motives may be better, as I don't know you and won't assume, I've never met a potential employer who said that who wasn't trying to run a cult. I contend that there is no "employee friendly" company (outside of cooperatives, which don't really exist in tech) and that company culture is…

Beyond the cooperatives you can also run non-profit organisations with a business model. They can be without any owners, so you are not working for someone else's gain in the same way you do for a company. We have that where I work.

Yeah, I can see that model working. Checking out your site, your company sounds interesting and I'd love to learn more. Want to drop me an email? It's in my profile. =)

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

#175

Here's a famous recruiting ad for "Super programmers" from Autodesk, in 1986.[1] It includes two things you seldom see today. First, there's no list of narrow technical skills: "Relevant experience is nice, but if you're as good a person as we want, you'll be able to pick it up in a week or two." And finally: "We'll pay you more than anybody else in the industry." That worked. Autodesk ended up owning the CAD industr…

Are there any companies out there today with that mindset? I've received 4 rejections over the last couple of months that all seem to boil down to me not having "enough brown". One would think having a bachelor's in computer science, 7 years of broad IT experience, and an easygoing attitude might excuse me from being a little rusty with the latest RoR after not touching it for 3 years :) Sorry for the rant (and minor self-promotion), but this topic has been weighing on my mind a lot recently.

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

#176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fair enough, but the information is publicly available on glassdoor. A couple reasons why I didn't list comp: 1. I didn't want to get candidates purely motivated by the high cash comp in the area. 2. Cash comp isn't core to how the company markets itself to employees and its culture. The company prefers to sell itself on being an employee friendly place to work. Like the article hypothesizes, I thought we'd get 50-10…

Everyone tries to market themselves as being an employee-friendly place to work, even if (or maybe especially if) they aren't. It is very difficult for a candidate to separate signal and noise here. On the other hand, a salary is a salary. Anyone's primary motivation in working for your company is going to be the compensation - why are you pretending otherwise, and selecting for candidates who will play along with th…

Yep, I don't get why people act like being an "employee-friendly place to work" is a perk, I've never seen a job posting or had a recruiter contact me with "well we aren't a very good place to work, but we pay 2x above to compensate."

If anything, I think I've realized from my limited experience that companies who push how great their culture is are usually the ones with really high turnover and HR is being pressured into creating an environment (on job sites and screening) that new dev's want to work at.

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

#177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is how I see the problem. Here are some assumptions. 1. You're ideal ios dev is working. The unemeployment rate among good ios devs is 0%. 2. He is probably getting paid above market wage. 3. He doesn't have a lot of time to research positions. 4. Most job openings are shitty because shitty job openings take longer to fill than good ones(or never get filled). 5. Your ideal ios dev doesn't have time to look up gl…

it's interesting that you state in point 2 that the dev is "probably getting paid above market wage" - because normally, if someone is PROBABLY getting paid X then X is not above market rate: x is market rate. (Another way to state 'market rate' is 'is probably getting paid x'). It would be like saying that listing a used iPhone on eBay will probably fetch more than its market price on eBay. It kind of doesn't make a…

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