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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

#311

Post by have_faith »

Scarblac wrote: post #291
pm90 wrote: post #264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I told him what I made. Never make that mistake. Never ever disclose your salary information to someone that you potentially could work for. I think a situation where we were required by law to disclose, or a company where such a thing was common (GitLab) would be exceptions. But otherwise, I've found it to be a huge mistake to disclose your exact salary or numbers to anyone.

Why?

Because it has no bearing on how much you are worth to them and is only used by the new employer to gauge how little they think they can offer you. There is no benefit in disclosing it.

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

#312

Post by areyouseriousxx »

NotSammyHagar wrote: post #237
retiredcoder wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 o…

> We do the usual 5 or 6 questions

But what metric are you determining that those 5 or 6 questions are correct?

For example, have you put together a pool of current workers that are successful at your type of work at different companies and seen how many can pass your interview test? Its pretty easy to find a recruiter that will reach out to their network and you pay 10 employed quality engineers $1,000 that do similar work to attempt the questions. If you find a significant amount of successful engineers cannot do it, then you may want to recalibrate.

I have helped several different companies fix their hiring process, purely by recalibrating their interview test questions to their specific needs. This sometimes actually means, more difficult or simply different types of questions. But very often people just do some Google searches for interviewing at FAANG and repeat those questions without tailoring them to their specific roles.

With that said, in the case of your company, it may very well be the case that the work you do requires particularly high IQ candidates, which is actually what most interview questions at the big tech companies test. In that case, you will always have a difficulty finding candidates as there are only a limited amount of high IQ people in the world. So changing your interview questions may not apply. But when that is the case, you can often save yourself quite a bit of time by asking potential hires to take an IQ online. This will cost your organization almost nothing and will likely screen out the vast majority of people that will not be able to pass those types of interview questions.

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

#313

Post by dangero »

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…

I want to give a slightly different perspective on this as a cofounder of a startup. First of all it sounds like there was some really dishonest communication and there is no excuse for that.

As far as salary goes, I absolutely cannot afford to compete and hire at market rate prices so I rely on:

-People who are motivated by other factors than money (everyone at our company took a pay cut to join). We have schedule flexibility, we are like-able, our tech is interesting, our mission and vision are inspiring I hope, we are good at selling ourselves.

-People who like the gamble of stock options

-People who are unaware of their market value

This is how every startup in seed round works pretty much.

That said, I don’t go around complaining that there is a talent shortage. I’m well aware of the situation we are in.

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

#314

Post by revvx »

jpdb wrote: post #302
d4mi3n wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is common practice, but it’s playing into a bad power dynamic where the employer is trying to anchor the negotiation to a number. It’s a predatory question, and giving a bullshit answer to a bullshit question is a reasonable response. As I mentioned in another comment, I personally prefer just setting a salary range I’d be willing to accept. I walk away if given an offer below that range. It gives me the initiat…

So why not just tell them a number, because the company is going to go for the lowest in the range anyways?

You can ALWAYS negotiate before you accept the offer.

"Yeah thanks, but that offer is not enough for me to leave my current job. I need at least X more. Let me know if you're interested."

(In fact, you can negotiate even AFTER you accept it!)

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

#315

Post by sundaeofshock »

Scarblac wrote: post #291
pm90 wrote: post #264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I told him what I made. Never make that mistake. Never ever disclose your salary information to someone that you potentially could work for. I think a situation where we were required by law to disclose, or a company where such a thing was common (GitLab) would be exceptions. But otherwise, I've found it to be a huge mistake to disclose your exact salary or numbers to anyone.

Why?

Because they use for the basis of their offer. Most people don’t really know what the market is paying for the skills and experience, so they are already operating blindly. A 15-20% increase over current salary sounds like a lot, particularly if the potential employee is unaware that the market supports 50% (or more) above their current salary.

This practice favors the employer so much that it is illegal in California (and a few other states) to ask for salary history.

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

#316

Post by stickfigure »

Scarblac wrote: post #291
pm90 wrote: post #264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I told him what I made. Never make that mistake. Never ever disclose your salary information to someone that you potentially could work for. I think a situation where we were required by law to disclose, or a company where such a thing was common (GitLab) would be exceptions. But otherwise, I've found it to be a huge mistake to disclose your exact salary or numbers to anyone.

Why?

Because it creates an information asymmetry. They now know what you (are willing to) work for, but you don't know what they're willing to pay, or what everyone else in the company makes.

It does not benefit you to disclose the information, even if you think your number is high. They might assume you are lying, or they might already be anchored at an even higher number - you don't know.

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

#317

Post by sergiotapia »

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…

150% - devs are slowly waking up to this fact. Behind the efforts to teach everybody to code are more sinister motives: lowering the salaries for engineers.

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

#318

Post by fabricexpert »

dangero wrote: post #313
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…

I want to give a slightly different perspective on this as a cofounder of a startup. First of all it sounds like there was some really dishonest communication and there is no excuse for that. As far as salary goes, I absolutely cannot afford to compete and hire at market rate prices so I rely on: -People who are motivated by other factors than money (everyone at our company took a pay cut to join). We have schedule f…

> I absolutely cannot afford to compete and hire at market rate prices

maybe you need some funding then

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

#319

Post by sundaeofshock »

mgleason_3 wrote: post #289
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…

This - we really need a law requiring companies post what the jobs pays. It would solve so many problems - including ones like this, gender discrimination, etc.

In California, employers are required to disclose salary ranges for jobs if asked by prospective employees.

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

#320

Post by Mr_Shiba »

>I'm 45 and have gray hair.

I'm reaching 40 next year, 20 years of code experience. What's bizarre about the whole thing is that I would be consider to be reaching my productive peak in the next 10 years in any other field.

In tech you are treated like a dinosaur, as if not knowing what the latest hipster JS framework of the week makes you obsolete.

>Are you people complete morons?

Yes.

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