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The Bloodthirsty Battle For Tech Talent

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Re: The Bloodthirsty Battle For Tech Talent

#81

Post by rhizome »

yesimahuman wrote: post #30
pnathan wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some/most companies have a real problem with the concept of telecommuting/remote working. It's really quite astounding to me: the internet is in more places than ever before, video conferencing, text conferencing, etc, are at all-time highs, yet for some reason companies simply think remote work is unacceptable. Blows me away.

I've worked remotely with a strong distributed team. It worked quite well, and I formed relationships on par with the year I worked in-person at another company. That being said, I'm not very interested in it for my company since it just seems less fun to not be able to hang out with your employees in person. And fun is the reason I do this. I'm still on the fence about it though.

So if "fun" is the reason you do it, "fun" must also be the reason your employees do? Do you put this in your job ads as a required skill, doing it for fun, or is it perhaps something you don't say out loud?

Re: The Bloodthirsty Battle For Tech Talent

#82

Post by bambax »

ericb wrote: post #21
doktrin wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I was in the market, I never saw the kind of rabid attention the OP is describing. Sure, occasional recruiter spam, but no more or less than anyone else. I can't argue with the OP's experience, but I would take all claims of "super massive talent shortage oh em gee" with a good pinch of salt.

It is real. I've had companies calling me after I brush them off. I do the interviewing for my current company, and we have had a senior role open for 10 months. We have gotten to the offer stage 3 times but lost nonetheless. This is for a rails role. edit: my boss makes the offers, and I suspect we have been losing out on these positions while making offers around 130-140.

10 months is a long time... you could try to hire non-rails experts and then train them...?

I'm under the impression that it's not only recruiters but also companies who try to hire people with the exact amount of experience for the position; but a good Python dev can certainly pick up Rails fast, no?

Re: The Bloodthirsty Battle For Tech Talent

#83

Post by T-hawk »

esperluette wrote: post #76
JimboOmega wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Funny. Sounds like me. I went to a decent but "wrong" school (UVA), lured by promises of a free ride. I missed my tech bingo interviews (and I've had a lot of them), for reasons worthy of a blog post. My first, for instance, with MS, went wrong because Alaska Airlines got my flight in around 1 or 2 AM - for an 8 AM interview the next day. I know I was not at my best. I am also totally done with Google - it's just not…

1. Finish just one project (not to shiny-perfect, just to functionally complete) and put it on GitHub. This is to show you can finish something. It's a huge risk mitigator if someone can look at your code. Nobody's code is perfect, but some code is always better than no code. 2. Put the rest of the stuff up on GitHub, with suitable disclaimers, e.g. "I was working on this to learn X ..." Everyone understands (well, e…

> I would be THRILLED to get an email from someone who said "I love what you do, here's three things I would like to work on with you to make it better, are you hiring?"

What's your company? I'd love to send you that kind of email. :) (My email should be in the HN profile)

Re: The Bloodthirsty Battle For Tech Talent

#84

Post by bambax »

thibaut_barrere wrote: post #24
VeejayRampay wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you in Paris? Maybe the market is getting bigger for Rails devs there? I left France 5 years ago and the picture was grim then, Java/PHP had a literal death grip on the market. Well, since I'm coming back I guess that's good news :)

I left Paris 3 years ago, since then I've been doing all my work remotely from a very rural place ( http://goo.gl/maps/UTIzF ). That said Paris is the best place to get started networking again. Be sure to go to the Paris.rb group which is very dynamic if you come back! http://meetup.rubyparis.org/

> since then I've been doing all my work remotely from a very rural place

Excellent! I'm in Paris but my wife's family is in Charente (Ruffec) and I go there often. We should setup some kind of local meetup group!!

Re: The Bloodthirsty Battle For Tech Talent

#85

Post by bambax »

mechanical_fish wrote: post #79
ameister14 wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know that; Let's say it takes 6 months of training to be fairly proficient. you have 6 months after that at a proficiency worth 42k, but you've only paid 40k for the entire year. Then when you raise the salary to 84, you have someone you know works in your company, who is happy with the huge raise, and you've gotten a bargain out of it. The problem is you have to think a year ahead, but I don't think that's such an…

How are you going to keep this hypothetical honor student down on the farm? [1] In other words, once the employee has the skills to earn $85k, why should she wait six months for her giant raise when she could just switch employers and get the giant raise right away? Not that this is the reason why the fantasy scenario doesn't work - if it were reliably possible to turn a raw recruit into DHH with six months of traini…

I may have missed a step in your reasoning but why are you assuming they have to start with a "raw recruit"?

Why couldn't companies hire actual developers with no previous experience in {some_tech} or {some_framework} and train them in said tech/framework?

It seems companies, just like recruiters, feel safer when they hire a "rails dev" for a "rails position" when in fact a good programmer with zero rails experience would be much preferable to a mediocre programmer who has some rails experience.

PS: the song is excellent but I couldn't find any recent cover; this old guy with a Banjo is killing it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FlUExq2hNBU

Re: The Bloodthirsty Battle For Tech Talent

#86

Post by rmc »

ameister14 wrote: post #80
mechanical_fish wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How are you going to keep this hypothetical honor student down on the farm? [1] In other words, once the employee has the skills to earn $85k, why should she wait six months for her giant raise when she could just switch employers and get the giant raise right away? Not that this is the reason why the fantasy scenario doesn't work - if it were reliably possible to turn a raw recruit into DHH with six months of traini…

I agree, the yield would be a major problem. In order to solve the problems you mentioned, it's confidence and a particular mindset you need, not simply skill. I had overlooked that. I think you could actually keep employees, though, with the right management. There are lots of reasons she would wait six months before the giant raise. Money isn't actually the main motivator for a lot of people, and with the knowledge…

So you're suggesting that the company change how it does employment to have more old fashioned, long term employment. But how do you convince someone of that? Everyone is saying "We're different, we'll look after you!".

You could do it with contracts & law. Offer 10 year salaries-index-linked-at-a-minimum employment contracts. Employment contracts that specifically state the employer won't do things like outsource, (or if you're in USA won't do 'at will'). Employment contract that'll give 5 times the legal minimum of redundancy leave. Require that upper level management/directors don't get bonuses if there's been any pay freezes or pay cuts. Lots and lots of little things like that might be a way.

This will (obviously) restrict the business, and limit its resaleability. ("Come buy us out, you just have to pay 50 people for the next 8 years").

Re: The Bloodthirsty Battle For Tech Talent

#87

Post by mechanical_fish »

bambax wrote: post #85
mechanical_fish wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How are you going to keep this hypothetical honor student down on the farm? [1] In other words, once the employee has the skills to earn $85k, why should she wait six months for her giant raise when she could just switch employers and get the giant raise right away? Not that this is the reason why the fantasy scenario doesn't work - if it were reliably possible to turn a raw recruit into DHH with six months of traini…

I may have missed a step in your reasoning but why are you assuming they have to start with a "raw recruit"? Why couldn't companies hire actual developers with no previous experience in {some_tech} or {some_framework} and train them in said tech/framework? It seems companies, just like recruiters, feel safer when they hire a "rails dev" for a "rails position" when in fact a good programmer with zero rails experience…

I think hiring existing developers and training them up is a fine plan. And a lot of companies do just that.

But it works best if you have an existing team, trained in the technology, of sufficient size that it can afford to spend a little time mentoring, and with a long-term outlook.

There are teams like that who use Rails. But, as it happens, Rails is also a favorite tool of brand-new startup teams who are already critically overworked and who probably won't be around in six months. And it's a favorite tool of one- and two-person teams: When a one-person team loses a developer, the new hire has no mentor available. So there's plenty of openings for pre-educated Rails developers.

Mind you, there's also the cynical explanation: It's more "efficient" to advertise for "rails devs" because you can screen the resumes so much faster. Those who can't answer trivia questions about ActiveRecord syntax are out! This would, of course, be dysfunctional. But the whole job-ad system is already so dysfunctional that this particular bit of dysfunction may be lost in the noise.

Re: The Bloodthirsty Battle For Tech Talent

#88

Post by ericb »

bambax wrote: post #82
ericb wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is real. I've had companies calling me after I brush them off. I do the interviewing for my current company, and we have had a senior role open for 10 months. We have gotten to the offer stage 3 times but lost nonetheless. This is for a rails role. edit: my boss makes the offers, and I suspect we have been losing out on these positions while making offers around 130-140.

10 months is a long time... you could try to hire non-rails experts and then train them...? I'm under the impression that it's not only recruiters but also companies who try to hire people with the exact amount of experience for the position; but a good Python dev can certainly pick up Rails fast, no?

We are open to that. At the moment the source of resumes has been recruiters that were given a certain set of marching orders. It might be worth updating those.

Re: The Bloodthirsty Battle For Tech Talent

#89

Post by Matt_Mickiewicz »

cllns wrote: post #50

One agency’s pitch consisted entirely of this: “I saw that your [sic] looking for some work. I have a few posions [sic] in SF that might be a fit, let me know when you have some time to talk.” It provided no last name, phone number or company name. The author should remember this is craigslist. This seems like run-of-the-mill spam (likely sent to EVERY new job posting)

It was actually on the Ruby meetup list... I was surprised how many recruiters where monitoring that group, how quickly they responded to the fake message (within 5 minutes), and how little care, thought or attention they paid when asking people to entrust them with their career/job.

Re: The Bloodthirsty Battle For Tech Talent

#90

Post by ameister14 »

rmc wrote: post #86
ameister14 wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree, the yield would be a major problem. In order to solve the problems you mentioned, it's confidence and a particular mindset you need, not simply skill. I had overlooked that. I think you could actually keep employees, though, with the right management. There are lots of reasons she would wait six months before the giant raise. Money isn't actually the main motivator for a lot of people, and with the knowledge…

So you're suggesting that the company change how it does employment to have more old fashioned, long term employment. But how do you convince someone of that? Everyone is saying "We're different, we'll look after you!". You could do it with contracts & law. Offer 10 year salaries-index-linked-at-a-minimum employment contracts. Employment contracts that specifically state the employer won't do things like outsource, (…

To be honest, a lot of it is about the character and credibility of management. If you work for a guy who is openly against outsourcing, you can generally expect them not to outsource. If you work for someone who was hired by the board to cut costs, you can expect them to do that in any way possible, even if it harms the company long-term.

Yes, contracts play a role in this and it would definitely limit a business' sale price. But the thing is, if you're looking long-term, why would your exit strategy be acquisition?

Money is the main motivator in financial services. People don't really have any other metric to use for their performance, so they are paid a lot. In other industries, though, you have many alternatives to pure financial reward, and people are actually happier.

I don't know if this would entirely work or not. I'm just saying that it makes sense to me and that many people value stability and appreciation for their skill a great deal.

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