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Discussion: Job seekers can't find a job and Employers can't find an employees

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Re: Discussion: Job seekers can't find a job and Employers can't find an employees

#291

Post by EGreg »

Of course there is a solution. The marketplaces suck.

For example, I just want to input my resume and see all the jobs that I'm qualified for. I can do this on indeed. But then, many employers don't let me use my indeed resume to apply, I have to actually go to their site, and custom-fill everything out, and then monitor my inbox for who-knows-who might email me, or maybe not. It's a black box, there is no feedback unless they select me, which means I become lazy about filling these out and don't go to the employer's own site. And so on. There are many employers who missed out on people like me even applying, for that reason.

By the way, you might well ask why men can't find women they like and women can't find men they like. "Where have all the good guys gone?" At the same time, a woman gets 1000 suitors a week on an app, while a guy gets maybe a few answers back. And the answer is, again, that our dating system and swiping apps are completely broken. People are depressed and unhappy.

I'm working to fix it. If read this and like what I'm doing, join me: https://www.laweekly.com/restoring-healthy-communities/

Re: Discussion: Job seekers can't find a job and Employers can't find an employees

#292

Post by cjbgkagh »

tptacek wrote: post #290
cjbgkagh wrote: post #287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As best I can tell P&G is an aptitude test that only resembles fake IQ tests and more resembles a mix of leetcoding and personality tests - probably sharing the same benefit of opacity. Other info I found on it suggests that it’s easily gamed which is something real IQ tests are designed to be resistant to. I’m not trying to ‘no true Scotsman’ this but it would be helpful if the company described their test at least…

The extent to which the test is arbitrary and gameable would make it more suspect under employment law, not less, so you're working against your own argument.

Disparate impact is US civil rights law, not employment law, that law applies to employment because it applies to everything. I think I’ve been very clear about which laws and legal precedents I am talking about. When it comes to breaking a law it’s better for the company to do it with opacity than clarity. At least then it would be more difficult to show intent which would instead be disparate treatment which is far worse and more damaging for the company. Intentional breaking of the law is always worse than unintentional breaking of the law.

Re: Discussion: Job seekers can't find a job and Employers can't find an employees

#293

Post by disambiguation »

I think employers see labor as an investment, and each worker has a different ROI. The higher your ROI the more essential you are to business. Since the economy is tight for tech, companies can only make room for high ROI workers.

Re: Discussion: Job seekers can't find a job and Employers can't find an employees

#294

Post by g9yuayon »

shagie wrote: post #284
g9yuayon wrote: post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Structural unemployment happens when the skills of the work force don't match the needs of employers, so there is both unemployment and difficulty hiring. Any study on why there would be this kind of mismatch in the tech industry? I'd imagine that tech industry is the most transparently competitive and least regulated sector so there should be a reasonable balance between the supply of skills and the demand. In add…

The easy problems are solved. Crud with the preferred language and framework is a known quantity and can be "ok here we are and go" and you can get a boot camp or new grad and have them do that. Let's say that we need to solve a new problem. The shop language is Scala. Who can learn how to program in Scala? Can the boot camp who learned how to do NodeJS be trained in Scala? If so, how long will it take? If we spend a…

This sounds like the trend is good for the incumbents? That is, it's hard for the supply to catch up with the demand in broad scope, so people with solid experience will be marketable for a while.

Re: Discussion: Job seekers can't find a job and Employers can't find an employees

#295

Post by ohthatsnotright »

bishbosh wrote: post #269
ohthatsnotright wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unless you're looking to be hired in the US and live in a US territory, in which case you'll be hard pressed to find any employer who will hire you.

Interesting, what makes you say that?

Personal experience trying to get hired as a US citizen in a US territory. Most companies simply reject without any sort of interview and when I ask (and get a reply) it's always because of location.

Re: Discussion: Job seekers can't find a job and Employers can't find an employees

#296

Post by gopher_space »

g9yuayon wrote: post #273
banannaise wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Structural unemployment happens when the perceived skills of the workforce don't match the perceived needs of employers, so there is both unemployment and difficulty hiring. A lot of engineers will tell you that companies are often expecting both too much (precise types of experience) and the wrong things (leetcode-type challenges, unnecessarily specific knowledge...), which leads them to pass over perfectly qualifie…

> wrong things (leetcode-type challenges, unnecessarily specific knowledge.. I'm curious about the dynamics of this. If leetcoding or requiring some specific knowledge is too much for candidates, those employers will not be able to find enough talent, so they will be forced to lower their standards and the mismatch should be gone, right? Case in point, I'd venture to guess that no more than 10% of the tech workers tr…

> If leetcoding or requiring some specific knowledge is too much for candidates, those employers will not be able to find enough talent, so they will be forced to lower their standards and the mismatch should be gone, right?

I'd revisit any train of thought that conflates access to capital with wisdom or intelligence. If someone invents a money printer then everything they do afterwards will be seen in a post hoc ergo propter hoc light as long as the original money printer still works.

For example, your statement assumes feedback loops I see scant evidence for in real life.

Re: Discussion: Job seekers can't find a job and Employers can't find an employees

#297

Post by tomp »

giantg2 wrote: post #72
toomuchtodo wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can have all the skills and education you want, if employers are unreasonable about their hiring and requirements, you have no control or recourse. You have to be lucky (including knowing someone, ie networking), not necessarily good.

"You have to be lucky (including knowing someone, ie networking), not necessarily good." Yes, and the network effects are largely detrimental to minority groups since networks tend to be biased toward similar people.

Are you sure about this?

Seems to me that minorities (Asians) are quite over-represented in tech.

Many people are of course racist and don't count Asians as minorities...

Re: Discussion: Job seekers can't find a job and Employers can't find an employees

#298

Post by shagie »

g9yuayon wrote: post #294
shagie wrote: post #284

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The easy problems are solved. Crud with the preferred language and framework is a known quantity and can be "ok here we are and go" and you can get a boot camp or new grad and have them do that. Let's say that we need to solve a new problem. The shop language is Scala. Who can learn how to program in Scala? Can the boot camp who learned how to do NodeJS be trained in Scala? If so, how long will it take? If we spend a…

This sounds like the trend is good for the incumbents? That is, it's hard for the supply to catch up with the demand in broad scope, so people with solid experience will be marketable for a while.

It is good for people who can, as knowledge workers ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knowledge_worker ) are able to continue to gain and market their ability to learn new things within the domain and apply their knowledge.

There are incumbents who are not able (don't have the skill scaffolding to support a broader understanding) or are unwilling to spend time to continue to be able to work or are a "follow instructions".

I've quipped that...

  A junior dev follows instructions
  A mid dev completes tasks
  A senior dev solves problems
In this simplified model, I know a lot of junior devs (even with a decade of experience) who for whatever reason are unable to partition their software development tasks themselves to be able to be given a task to complete. Likewise, I know a number of devs who can be given tasks but if you give a broader "this is a problem that the organization needs to solve" are hopelessly lost and apply and reapply the patterns that they have learned to try to make the problem fit into a solution they know.

I do not believe that everyone has the skills / aptitude to move from one to the next.

Those that do will have the ability to navigate the new market. Those that lack the ability to move up will eventually be overtaken either by younger (cheaper) workers, or improving automation.

Re: Discussion: Job seekers can't find a job and Employers can't find an employees

#299

Post by shagie »

ralphc wrote: post #289
pdimitar wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're basing your entire argument on an arbitrary deadline (six weeks). I am giggling as I am monitoring several job forums and seeing several companies pop up periodically (once a quarter I'd say) looking for the same positions... 2.5 years later. So let's change the example. Is it really worth it to be as picky for 2.5 years? I'd wager they lost money because of that. Any senior dev can learn GWT or anything simil…

And let's say that they found their "dream" candidate that knew GWT. Technologies change and improve over time, can you imagine a place that is still using GWT, or jQuery, or backbone? Whoever they hire is going to have to learn new technologies while working there, otherwise they need to fire all their devs and go back out and hire React devs or whatever is the flavor of the day. Even something as stable as Java has…

> ... otherwise they need to fire all their devs and go back out and hire React devs or whatever is the flavor of the day.

One of the companies in the area has a strict N year cycle for contractors. After N years all contracts end and they rehire for the next cycle.

If the technology stack changes then they hire different contractors as the projects forecast needs.

I am not saying that this is a good idea - lots of domain knowledge gets lost ever N years... but it is a solution the "we can't require contractors to learn new skills and are unable to hire for the aptitude to learn new things."

Re: Discussion: Job seekers can't find a job and Employers can't find an employees

#300

Post by alephnerd »

lolinder wrote: post #279
alephnerd wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It would only make it harder for new grads, as unions aim to help their constituents increase salaries, which means paying non-union hires waaaaaay less. Look at the Automotive Engineering industry in Ohio/Penn/Mich for example - a union contract engineer will earn a decent amount, but the majority of new hiring is non-union.

I'm relatively uninformed here, but isn't part of the union's job to propagate itself and ensure that there aren't non-union hires in the same industry and location?

> there aren't non-union hires in the same industry and location

We live in a globalized world where location doesn't matter as much.

Automotive Unions are good at demanding fairly competitive wages for their members, but this pushed margins significantly down, leading to vendors and even manufacturers in the Automotive industry to leave union-friendly states like MI, Ohio, and Pennsylvania for those that are right-to-work (eg. South Carolina).

A major reason companies like GM and Stellaris fell behind on the EV trend was because battery technology and automation doesn't fall under the UAW, so there were constant protests and strikes against EV manufacturing (eg. the UAW strikes a couple months ago).

Meanwhile, the Teslas, Hyundais, DaimlerBenzes, and Fords pivoted manufacturing to right-to-work states like Alabama, Kentucky, and Texas.

Imo, a big reason for the PHEV push recently in the US is because of UAW negotiations to protect legacy ICE builds which can be modified into PHEVs as they use most of the same parts excluding the battery portion [0].

[0] - https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/16/business/electric-vehicle...

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