We Don't Have a Talent Shortage. We Have a Sucker Shortage
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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
#2One of the things that always surprised me at a previous company was seeing the H1B hiring notices posted for easily-trainable positions.
I have nothing against people coming to work in the United States, but I thought those visas were specifically for roles where the skills weren’t available.
In this case, by making the skills super specific, like that Home Depot sales portal in this article, they made them rare.
Re: We Don't Have a Talent Shortage. We Have a Sucker Shortage
#3I broadly agree with the basic point this guy is making, we have an issue where the HR gatekeepers (who don't have the knowledge to make accurate technical assessments) are effectively searching for a perfect match, rather than someone who could do the job well.
Don't put box tickers in charge of a critical function unless you want every thing they touch to be turned into an exercise in box ticking.
Re: We Don't Have a Talent Shortage. We Have a Sucker Shortage
#4One important point I didn't see mentioned was the other side: engineers also think they're worth more than they are.
I posit the big VC-backed or FAANG companies 1) can offer huge initial salaries to not have to deal with competition 2) hire juniors at high salaries because they can afford to spend 1-2 years training them. Combine with the sheer volume of hiring they all perform, and it starts to set some false expectations. Maybe smaller companies are failing at capitalism by not competing?
Anecdotally, I have seen engineers refuse pretty good gigs because they were expecting to be treated like royalty without much to back it up. This industry is skewed, in many ways.
Re: We Don't Have a Talent Shortage. We Have a Sucker Shortage
#5I 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 with them.
Kept hearing that they have a difficult time filling the position. Reports directly to the CTO, etc, etc.
They came in at 1/2 my current salary. It was about 30-40% of what you would pay a decent engineer with experience.
I told them my salary level BEFORE the interview...
Gave them a hard now. They came back and said they can offer more stock and remote work.
Why in the heck would I turn down a bird in the hand for 1x in the bush?
Part of the problem is that if you're interviewing you need to know what you're buying!
You can't go to a ferrari dealership and offer to buy one or $20k.. that's just not how it works.
Re: We Don't Have a Talent Shortage. We Have a Sucker Shortage
#6One of the things that always surprised me at a previous company was seeing the H1B hiring notices posted for easily-trainable positions. I have nothing against people coming to work in the United States, but I thought those visas were specifically for roles where the skills weren’t available. In this case, by making the skills super specific, like that Home Depot sales portal in this article, they made them rare.
That's the whole point of the nit-picky requirements: they often don't want to fill the positions with locals. They really want a more malleable, and often cheaper, workforce using H-1B's etc. but can't go that route until they can document that there is no locally available talent.
Re: We Don't Have a Talent Shortage. We Have a Sucker Shortage
#7I broadly agree with the basic point this guy is making, we have an issue where the HR gatekeepers (who don't have the knowledge to make accurate technical assessments) are effectively searching for a perfect match, rather than someone who could do the job well. Don't put box tickers in charge of a critical function unless you want every thing they touch to be turned into an exercise in box ticking.
Easy to blame it all on HR. I've witnessed many engineers draft reqs that included all kinds of unnecessary "musts".
Re: We Don't Have a Talent Shortage. We Have a Sucker Shortage
#8I’m interested in trying to solve this problem by helping people express how they have relatable skills, rather than direct experience. In particular, I believe that the opportunity is to highlight during person to person conversations during an interview a person’s relevant, but perhaps not directly related, skills. Interviewers often just ask, “have you written in X” as an example, and candidates don’t know how to properly answer that question as “Not directly, but I’ve written in Y which is similar. Happy to discuss my experience there with you.”
If anyone is interested in trying out this process at their company, my email is in my profile.
Re: We Don't Have a Talent Shortage. We Have a Sucker Shortage
#9Made my first ever HN throwaway account to respond to this.
I have been running a successful business, but it's not "tech". I want to get back into the software industry. I didn't have a software business idea, so I explored some tech company jobs.
I am well-qualified at the VP/Director level for startups and even larger companies.
I did go so far as to do an on-site interview for one company. I have verifiable proof that I can generate huge returns in their exact industry.
They didn't want to give away any equity, even though hiring someone at this high of a level would generate huge returns for their business.
They had a completely undefined budget not only for this role, but for the 4-6 people who would be underneath this role starting out.
They weren't even sure they wanted to hire someone full-time, but they knew this position was a clear gap in skillsets of their current executive team.
And the kicker to all of this was that they were already doing 8 figures a year in revenue. This wasn't a broke startup.
I rapidly came to the same conclusion as the post's author. There are so many companies that want to hire a "VP of X", but they really don't understand what that means or how to pay someone who doesn't just want a 6-figure a year salary for the rest of their lives.
I'm now starting a software company.
Re: We Don't Have a Talent Shortage. We Have a Sucker Shortage
#10One important point I didn't see mentioned was the other side: engineers also think they're worth more than they are. I posit the big VC-backed or FAANG companies 1) can offer huge initial salaries to not have to deal with competition 2) hire juniors at high salaries because they can afford to spend 1-2 years training them. Combine with the sheer volume of hiring they all perform, and it starts to set some false expe…
> Maybe smaller companies are failing at capitalism by not competing?
By not having money?
This is capitalism working as expected, the only reason you would word it that way is out of ignorance.