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

#781

Post by sixtypoundhound » Mon, Apr 22, 2019, 4:30 PM UTC

hobofan wrote: post #656

sixtypoundhound wrote: post #460

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've found the recruiting community to be very self-serving and manipulative. Recent example - someone who I had spoken with (shared the stage) at a conference indicated one of her clients needed someone with the my background. Naturally, a resume was on her desk before the end of the afternoon... A few weeks later, I get a call from a retained recruiter I had worked with previously, after having had my resume sent t…

Best one a recruiter pulled on me was putting me (a freelancer) in an interview for a full-time position, without me knowing. They initially contacted me and indicated that they just raised a funding round and now have to staff the position ASAP, potentially with a freelancer for some time. So I thought: "Great, I'll freelance for them for a few months and they can kick me out once the found someone to employ!" This…

Interesting... "unironically one of my favourite scenarios"

Why? Pricing Leverage? (which makes sense - you can set a shorter term price and most of surprises should be upside)

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

#782

Post by infinite8s » Mon, Apr 22, 2019, 5:41 PM UTC

listenallyall wrote: post #424

sixtypoundhound wrote: post #405

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually, most recruiters I've run into tend to try to force a candidate to accept a "reasonable" offer rather than holding out for the best offer. They only get paid if a deal closes; while it may be in your best interest to hold out for another $10K, that will likely cost them a commission (and be opposed)

100% correct, recruiters want to close the deal, not let it slip away over salary negotiations. And they want to get hired again (they get paid by the company, not the recruit) so saving that company 10, 15k is definitely in the best interest of the recruiter.

Also true of real estate agents, or really anybody who gets paid a percentage of a successful transaction.

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

#783

Post by cafard » Mon, Apr 22, 2019, 5:55 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…

Years ago, I was at a social gathering of some sort. Another guest worked in tech for an organization that had an opening, for which a friend of mine seemed qualified. I took the information about the outfit, and emailed my friend.

She replied that she was pretty sure this was an organization she had interviewed at some time before. They found her qualified, and made her an offer substantially below what she had clearly said she required. They said, Well, we thought you'd find the work so interesting that you'd be willing to work for that. They thought wrong.

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

#784

Post by hobofan » Mon, Apr 22, 2019, 8:31 PM UTC

sixtypoundhound wrote: post #781

hobofan wrote: post #656

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Best one a recruiter pulled on me was putting me (a freelancer) in an interview for a full-time position, without me knowing. They initially contacted me and indicated that they just raised a funding round and now have to staff the position ASAP, potentially with a freelancer for some time. So I thought: "Great, I'll freelance for them for a few months and they can kick me out once the found someone to employ!" This…

Interesting... "unironically one of my favourite scenarios" Why? Pricing Leverage? (which makes sense - you can set a shorter term price and most of surprises should be upside)

Pricing leverage is a factor, but the major thing for me is that I usually don't like working with a client for more than 3-4 months. If you go beyond that time frame (in my experience) you usually see dependencies between the freelancer and the company cropping up, which I want to avoid as much as possible, as that often leads to the expectations of either party to be hurt sooner or later. This also puts me in a position where I can transition to a more interesting/lucrative client very quickly, with the old client still being happy.

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

#785

Post by Mr_Shiba » Mon, Apr 22, 2019, 11:50 PM UTC

quickthrower2 wrote: post #416

Mr_Shiba wrote: post #320

>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.

Also there is no reason why a 50 year old can’t learn Vue, React, Rust, Blockchain, PWA, Docker or anything else that is hot. It’s all logic, all 1s and 0s. Someone with 20 years experience can probably learn it faster.

Exactly my point, I don't mean to brag but just picked react and redux 4 months ago. I'm already one of the most productive react-redux sr. engs at my current job

Is not about me being a "ninja" is about me doing this computer science thing for over 20 years

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

#786

Post by the_jeremy » Mon, Apr 22, 2019, 11:52 PM UTC

lordnacho wrote: post #59

samkater wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the flip side, I had the pleasure of working with a fantastic HR recruiter at my previous company. He would do a ton of legwork to ensure applicants had the basic level of skills and, frankly, common sense. For one position we were hiring, every single applicant he forwarded to us we interviewed and wanted to hire. There is a common thread here that great tech skills are under appreciated or often missed by HR, bu…

> every single applicant he forwarded to us we interviewed and wanted to hire But doesn't that support what the article says? It suggests he applies a filter with very few false positives, which generally can only be done at the expense of a lot of false negatives.

No, because there is no shortage. If he is forwarding them multiple candidates they want to hire, there's no problem.

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

#787

Post by mixmastamyk » Tue, Apr 23, 2019, 5:27 AM UTC

jmcqk6 wrote: post #780

mixmastamyk wrote: post #769

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They don’t want to pay market rates, so promote a story to slow or reverse wage inflation. But “don’t wanna pay” (when companies and 1%ers are hoarding like never before) doesn’t equal a shortage.

If there is a shortage, by supply and demand, wages should go up. If they want to pay less, they should be out saying that there is an over supply and they can get workers for whatever wage they actually want. You haven't explained how a shortage can lead to paying less on the part of companies... I still don't understand this logic.

> You haven't explained how a shortage can lead to paying less on the part of companies.

There is no shortage. They promote the story of the shortage to pressure government to let in more indentured foreigners, with the slower goal of encouraging more locals to pursue those careers.

You'll notice that "paying more" (the classical/rational economic solution) doesn't seem to be an option.

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

#788

Post by mixmastamyk » Tue, Apr 23, 2019, 6:55 AM UTC

Trisell wrote: post #126

I've been looking for jobs recently. Have a background building pretty robust Node/React apps. At the 4 places that have given me an interview. I've been told that I don't meet their needs. The reason for this. I'm unable to solve their pet coder wars function challenge. Being a self taught programmer, not having a 'learned' background has proven to be a hindrance. Because I don't have the traditional algorithmic cho…

Self taught is not really the problem, it’s not being able to think with a gun to your head.

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

#789

Post by rajangdavis » Tue, Apr 23, 2019, 8:19 AM UTC

wjossey wrote: post #738

rajangdavis wrote: post #697

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly, I think it comes down to personal values. I like doing unit testing even though my current employer doesn't; in that regard, when I was asked about testing experience, because I spent time writing packages in python, php, node, and ruby with full unit tests, it was really an easy question to answer.

Can you elaborate on this for me? I’m not sure what you mean by it coming down to personal values. Would love to understand.

The hiring manager asked about my testing experience at my current job. Explained that I have 0 testing experience at my current job, but have created packages in various languages on my own time, all with test coverage and static code analysis because I feel as though these are important for maintaining quality software.

I think a better term may be "culture fit" as the company I will be working at is more engineering focused than my current gig. It was simple to refer to related work because I believe automated testing is important which is very much in line with the needs of the role.

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

#790

Post by kraigie » Tue, Apr 23, 2019, 10:24 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…

>You can't go to a ferrari dealership and offer to buy one or $20k.. that's just not how it works.

That's how employers work though. Next step is to whine about a Ferrari shortage and bribe (I mean lobby) the goverment to increase immigration of Ferrari knock of builders in order to reduce the shortage.

Then when the locals get indignant about all these new Ferraris depressing sale price of Ferraris, if your the UK you blame the EU and have a vote on brexit.....