We Don't Have a Talent Shortage. We Have a Sucker Shortage • Hacker News Board

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

#231

Post by riazrizvi » Sat, Apr 20, 2019, 7:59 PM UTC

rubicon33 wrote: post #208

I feel like a broken record, but I'm going to say it anyways. There is NOT a shortage of software developers. That myth was developed by big tech, and pushed all the way up the ladder, to the top of government. The goal? Reduce labor costs. Big tech has always been 1 step ahead of the employee, just like coal, and metal working was. They saw the huge need for developers and realized their costs would increase unless…

1000X yes. It’s the result of a PR campaign to increase the H1B Visa allotment. Love H1B employees, they are just delicious! Low wages and zero bargaining power otherwise it’s out of the country with you.

It’s also funny because this creates a problem where wages have been driven down to a point where skilled workers can barely afford to support a family in tech zones. So because of these depressed wages in software engineering, there are fewer skilled workers living in these regions. Make no mistake this is software engineering specific. Otherwise show me roles in tech where there are lots of H1B visa employees.

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

#232

Post by marcosdumay » Sat, Apr 20, 2019, 7:59 PM UTC

pathseeker wrote: post #215

mcv wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They promise that amount up front, and then renege? That's not even deceitful, that's just intentionally wasting your time. I would send them an invoice for the time spent on the interview. What a bizarre way to run a business.

>They promise that amount up front, and then renege? "we can give X" is not a promise to give X.

How is it not a promise? I fail to imagine it being said in a way that isn't one.

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

#233

Post by canada_dry » Sat, Apr 20, 2019, 8:00 PM UTC

rubicon33 wrote: post #208

I feel like a broken record, but I'm going to say it anyways. There is NOT a shortage of software developers. That myth was developed by big tech, and pushed all the way up the ladder, to the top of government. The goal? Reduce labor costs. Big tech has always been 1 step ahead of the employee, just like coal, and metal working was. They saw the huge need for developers and realized their costs would increase unless…

> That myth was developed by big tech, and pushed all the way up the ladder, to the top of government. The goal? Reduce labor costs.

Normally supply shortage --> higher costs.

Let's be absolutely clear the goal was simply to bring in foreign workers to reduce salary costs.

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

#234

Post by jijji » Sat, Apr 20, 2019, 8:02 PM UTC

burtonator wrote: post #5

I had a recruiter call me a year ago with what sounded like a really amazing offer. Working for a well funded startup on a problem in which I happen to be a domain expert. They're aren't many expects in my field with my background and skill set and they said the right things to get me to interview (compensation won't be a concern). Anyway... Went in for 4-5 interviews. Took me about 10 hours in total to interview wit…

when they do that, i have sent an invoice to the recruiter for the hours they wasted of my time... didnt get the payment lol

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

#235

Post by NotSammyHagar » Sat, Apr 20, 2019, 8:03 PM UTC

mooreds wrote: post #103

NotSammyHagar wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

searching is easier in terms of internet ads and reviewing candidates. But hiring dev candidates is extremely hard. Virtually everyone has a job who is experienced already, college students get offers somewhere in the early junior year, so you hire them with at most 2 internships. It's very difficult to pull people out of an existing job, it's kind of begging them to consider you. Then for random applicants to a comp…

Are you in the Bay area or Seattle? That's higher rates than what I have seen for new college hires (I have seen in the 40-60k range).

We compete with top companies, although we are a startup. Don't want to say the name. But each year it creeps up. If you want top students who work on backend infra, that's what you pay.

Yes, we are in seattle and/or sf. Don't want to say the name.

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

#236

Post by rdiddly » Sat, Apr 20, 2019, 8:04 PM UTC

Sorry to bring this up, but then again if he's gonna get all old-school and freely call people "suckers," "crazy," and "morons," I guess I don't feel too bad asking: What kind of crazy sucker moron makes a site that is perfectly simple and lightning-fast, almost to the point of looking like motherfuckingwebsite.com, and then allows AMP into the picture? The one very small & economical image on this particular page doesn't load unless I enable scripts from ampproject.org and the AMP CDN. I mean AMP is for speeding up bloated pages and sucking Google's proverbial... bandwidth... isn't it?

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

#237

Post by NotSammyHagar » Sat, Apr 20, 2019, 8:07 PM UTC

retiredcoder wrote: post #217

areyouseriousxx wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but many people end up failing our interview If you are having this much trouble hiring, are you 100% sure your interview process is correct? What is the KPI for your interview process?

That’s another hot topic here in HN. Not claiming is the GP case but interviewing nowadays feels like human Tetris.

I do know we must miss some good candidates. We have been discussing lowering our bar, I'm in favor of changing it. We do the usual 5 or 6 questions. One thing that is interesting about our company is we have a list of x questions (x is less than 20), and we generally ask the same questions, everyone is calibrated on them the same way. Most people who make it through the screening pass the interview loop and get an offer. All our interns got offers the last 2 years. Maybe half the industry people say yes and a smaller percentage of students. For students I think we just don't offer enough.

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

#238

Post by ChuckMcM » Sat, Apr 20, 2019, 8:07 PM UTC

burtonator wrote: post #5

I had a recruiter call me a year ago with what sounded like a really amazing offer. Working for a well funded startup on a problem in which I happen to be a domain expert. They're aren't many expects in my field with my background and skill set and they said the right things to get me to interview (compensation won't be a concern). Anyway... Went in for 4-5 interviews. Took me about 10 hours in total to interview wit…

This happens to me a lot. I get a recruiter who calls, tells me they are looking for someone who can do what I do, and they are competitive compensation wise. Except the way that they get to be competitive from a compensation perspective is to offer a "huge" stock grant that will be worth "at least a few million" going forward. Oh but the base pay is kind of what you get for being on your second or third position (say 5 years of experience).

People buy that line of reasoning. It is sad but they do, and I have colleagues who have worked in several such positions and failed to increase their 401k savings by much (given the low base pay) and after 10 years of work and haven't seen a dime from the so-called "valuable" equity. Worse they are now considered 'old' so they are pushing headwinds when they even get to an interview (much like the original author).

When I talk with newly minted engineers today about compensation I will often recommend that they "do the math" which is to say they compute their living expenses and assume they are going to save the maximum allowable 401k and they are going to pay taxes at what ever the current rate is. To take those numbers, try to plot them out with inflation and the stock market return, take a million off the top for each kid they expect to have if their future spouse isn't working, a half million if they are working. And then see if they exit 20 - 25 years with enough to live on or not.

Once you have the basic model you are in a much better position to understand how the base salary you are being offered helps or hinders your future self.

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

#239

Post by solatic » Sat, Apr 20, 2019, 8:07 PM UTC

Spooky23 wrote: post #91

solatic wrote: post #16

Question - why even bother having "box tickers"? When you post a job listing, write a short blurb about the company culture and what the job itself involves. Don't bother listing "requirements" or "boosters", because the fact of the matter is, people will send resumes which don't meet your "requirements" and in order to put a boost-worthy resume at the top of the pile, you need somebody to read it in the first place…

Because once you run into somebody who decides that your subjective judgement represents illegal discrimination, you’ll wish that a third party checked the boxes you.

And it's not evidence of illegal discrimination if you eventually decide to hire somebody who didn't have the "required" level of skills or experience but submitted their resume anyway and you happened to give them an interview anyway but found them much more impressive in person?

If anything, it would seem to me that the more you put down on paper, the more legally exposed you are if you don't follow it to the letter. Of course, this doesn't absolve companies whose hiring managers do stupid things in interviews that are almost guaranteed to get their company sued; but that's a concern to be trained against regardless of how discerning your textual job posting is.

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

#240

Post by daeken » Sat, Apr 20, 2019, 8:07 PM UTC

burtonator wrote: post #5

I had a recruiter call me a year ago with what sounded like a really amazing offer. Working for a well funded startup on a problem in which I happen to be a domain expert. They're aren't many expects in my field with my background and skill set and they said the right things to get me to interview (compensation won't be a concern). Anyway... Went in for 4-5 interviews. Took me about 10 hours in total to interview wit…

At this point, I flat-out tell recruiters what I'm looking for and ask if they're going to be able to offer something in that ballpark before we proceed to an interview. I let them know that it'll be a hard no if it's below what I'm asking, regardless of stock/benefits/whatever. That's drastically cut down on the amount of time folks have wasted.