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

#661

Post by misterman0 » Sun, Apr 21, 2019, 5:45 AM UTC

deepsun wrote: post #557

b212 wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is this an American thing? I live in Eastern Europe and make decent buck here (close to 5000 EUR/mo after taxes in a country where you can cover all expenses under 1000 EUR/mo). I never had any trouble getting quality work in my country but a few times I got approached by companies from the US and oh boy, weeks of tiring recrutation process and the pay was ALWAYS worse than local. I feel like they do it on purpose ma…

> What’s wrong with the American market? Well, here in SV, everyone kinda knows what other companies pay. You just didn't have friends in SV to tell you before the interview how much that company pays. In general, there are top-tier companies, FAANG + Uber + Lyft + AirBnB, that pay X. Then there are lower-tier companies and startups that pay roughly X / 2. So, you're unlikely to get FAANG total comp at a no-name star…

>> You just didn't have... >> So you're unlikely to get...

You have crafted a strange model. What are the upsides to such a system, to you, the employee?

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

#662

Post by wutbrodo » Sun, Apr 21, 2019, 5:46 AM UTC

chrisweekly wrote: post #403

revvx wrote: post #301

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, the recruiter told me the whole hiring team thought I was bullshitting about my salary. It was a problematic company from the get go. I was cold called and the recruiter was very insistent. Their engineers were very unprofessional during the technical interview and complained A LOT about technical debt left by past co-workers during the interview. Now, when I tell recruiters my minimum salary I refer recruiters…

IIRC it's becoming illegal to ask about current salary. IMHO it should be irrelevant. The question is, what is the market rate for someone w/ your skills and experience?

Because experience is a very weak signal and skills are hard to quantify and extremely hard to measure in the relative brevity of the interview process.

There are obviously problems with a reliance on salary as a signal of quality/value produced. But I don't understand the impulse to pretend that there isn't nontrivial signal in a previous salary.

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

#663

Post by stale2002 » Sun, Apr 21, 2019, 5:48 AM UTC

WalterBright wrote: post #552

chrisweekly wrote: post #403

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IIRC it's becoming illegal to ask about current salary. IMHO it should be irrelevant. The question is, what is the market rate for someone w/ your skills and experience?

> illegal The inevitable result of that is the people making bank will be sure to tell you, and ones making low salaries will not. The employer will therefore still know if you're making above or below the usual salary. Businesses don't like risk (just like employees don't) and hiring a new person poses a lot of risk. It's expensive, and the employee may not work out at all. The more risk there is in hiring someone,…

> The employer will therefore still know if you're making above or below the usual salary.

Thats still way better than being forced to give an exact number. Now the employer has to kinda sorta guess. Instead of getting underpaid by 30%, you might only get underpaid by 20%.

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

#664

Post by bitcoinmoney » Sun, Apr 21, 2019, 5:48 AM UTC

orpheline wrote: post #444

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…

My last job search, I was cold-called by a recruiter who was working with a local bank. Salary range was acceptable, and there were a few factors pressing for finding a job quickly. Interviews went well, liked the people I met; things looked good. As a condition of the offer, the recruiter told me they needed my current salary. I provided that, and they dropped their offer ~$15,000 below the low end of their range be…

Did you say that on the phone or email? Did they reach out to you first after two weeks of radio silence? I’m always curious how these negotiations go since I just got off the job market.

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

#665

Post by cannonedhamster » Sun, Apr 21, 2019, 5:54 AM UTC

bayesian_horse wrote: post #654

geezerjay wrote: post #286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The OP also mentioned the offer was below the average market price for somenone with a similar work experience, which is simply absurd if their goal is to entice you away from your current job.

They may not know the precise work experience nor the market price. They may also not be able to need or afford either.

Which means that they haven't done the bare minimum research into the position, they hired incompetent people, or they themselves are incompetent. None of these options really screams good place to work.

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

#666

Post by technion » Sun, Apr 21, 2019, 5:58 AM UTC

morenoh149 wrote: post #659

technion wrote: post #524

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll say the same thing about security people. There's an executive who's been whining on LinkedIn about the major skills shortage in this area. Here's an ad his company put up. I've had it confirmed every individual line is non-negotiable. https://imgur.com/a/UX5wPDB

all he has to do is go to defcon, and not care about certs. You'll find great security folks.

On the contrary. He could go to Defcon and find it just validates his views. After all, it's a huge security gathering and noone meets his requirements.

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

#667

Post by srndh » Sun, Apr 21, 2019, 5:58 AM UTC

I once interviewed at a company and I was shocked at the job description as it was network & server support + IT support + full stack developer in python, java & .net but the ad was for "an experienced python developer". My career history is, I started in IT support then became a developer in .net & later moved to Python. Maybe that is why they called me. But none the less, I told it was not possible for 1 person to do it all. But they said thats how they have it in the company with 3 member IT team. Interestingly, no member of the IT department or IT manager was at the interview. They refused to give any more details without me joining the company & signing a non-disclosure + non-competence + 2 yr bond.

Then once I was done with the interview, I went to the near by restaurant and casually asked if they knew anything about the company and luckily, a person from the accounts dept was there. So, he told me how the company initially had 12 members in the IT department when 6-8 would be enough. Then on a cost cutting sphere, they axed 6 on 1 day and then it thinned out to 3. Of which, the IT manager has resigned leaving just 2 members, both related to the owner. While the owner's son, a 1st yr cs grad student is the IT manager.

This is an extreme tale and I couldn't verify the story. But now this trend of making 1 person do the job of 2-3 for the salary of 1 seems common nowadays.

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

#668

Post by sjy » Sun, Apr 21, 2019, 6:01 AM UTC

maxxxxx wrote: post #632

droithomme wrote: post #522

Earlier quoted context omitted.

His statement that: > $150/hr for consulting gigs is also normal if you're good. Is fairly ridiculous. I was pulling in that rate in 1995 for hourly consulting. Now in 2019 anyone competent as an independent expert in a specialized field should be pulling down $600/hr at a minimum. You'd be a fool to work for less. Sounds like this guy is simply not all that.

8*600 is $4800 per day. What kind of expert in what specialized field do you have to be to make that much? Can you give a specific example?

Seems below average for law firm partners [1], and there's a lot of them out there, so it doesn't surprise me at all that technical consultants with genuinely rare skills could command hourly rates like that.

[1] https://www.mlaglobal.com/en/knowledge-library/research/2018...

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

#669

Post by netwanderer3 » Sun, Apr 21, 2019, 6:01 AM 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…

I wonder in what situation exactly would a company legitimately have a need to interview a candidate for a total of 5 rounds? Wouldn't they run out of questions to ask? Are you applying for a CEO position?

All it does is displaying for everyone to see their indecisiveness and wasting other people's time. They obviously couldn't make up their mind even after the first four rounds and that's just bad in any businesses.

If I ever had to go through a five-rounds interview and they ended up turning me down, I will not care if it burns bridges as I will track down their boss and he/she will receive some nice hand-written letters from me to let them know how their company performed. A working relationship always goes both way and they obviously have not valued much of your time.

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

#670

Post by cannonedhamster » Sun, Apr 21, 2019, 6:03 AM UTC

w1nst0nsm1th wrote: post #591

pedrosorio wrote: post #525

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Not to mention we get free health care The (many) issues with US health care do not affect upper/middle class professionals. From a "patient perspective", as long as you are employed as a software engineer in SV, health care is not a concern at all (insurance is covered by the employer). If anything, it is superior to anything I experienced in Europe.

Except when you really need an efficient health insurrance system, like cancer level efficiency. At least it's what I learnd from following US politics these last 3 years on reddit.

I mean, I have cancer and my health insurance in the US is about as good as can be expected, which unfortunately means almost nothing because we're terrible at cancer we can't cut out of the body. If I didn't have this healthcare I'd probably be dead already and leaving a mountain of debt for my family. The costs to my insurance company are insane for treatment. I'm easily costing over 100k/mo for basic treatment.