Is there really an IT talent shortage?
informationweek.com
Is there really an IT talent shortage?
1–10 of 24 posts
Re: Is there really an IT talent shortage?
#2There are very few positions which cannot be filled by increasing the compensation. For those which can't, you may need to re-assess your company's culture.
Re: Is there really an IT talent shortage?
#3In the US I have no idea, but the same tune is being sung in the UK at the moment.
All the while I'm receiving job postings for 'mid-level' software engineering positions requiring 3 or 4 years experience in a bunch of things, offering in the range of £25-30k. Which is basically an insult. Inflation adjusted I earned more than that as a fresh graduate 13 years ago. So it's no wonder there are recruitment problems.
(There is much better money out there, and I'm getting it, but it's no wonder some people are having trouble recruiting really)
Re: Is there really an IT talent shortage?
#4The answer to a question in most headlines is a 'no'. But in this case, it's a 'yes'.
No, I haven't read the article.
Re: Is there really an IT talent shortage?
#5This uses the term 'IT Talent'. That is a sure sign it will be an amazing article.
This is posted in InformationWeek. Second sign it will be awesome.
But seriously. Why is that kind of articles on HN?
Re: Is there really an IT talent shortage?
#6It seems that there are certain skills which are difficult to hire trained workers for. However, the real problem is very, very few IT employers are willing to take any risk and train skilled, U.S. workers.
This is the opposite of how technology employment used to work. Factories could not hire enough trained workers, so they trained them on the job. It never ceases to amaze me how HR insists on skills with a particular niche technology. Often, no tightly-related skills will suffice even for junior positions i.e. Mercurial instead of Git.
Also, everyone wants to hire senior employees who specialized in one technology for most of a career. Finding someone like that is becoming less and less common.
I remember one position years ago when I was still in college where the recruiters demanded five years of job experience with Windows 2000 or they were not interested. The product had not existed that long. The only person qualified to take the job was a liar.
Re: Is there really an IT talent shortage?
#7There is no shortage of IT workers, there's however shortage of "IT talent" Most IT workers I have met are mediocre at best. Companies want rock stars. That's the problem. Worse of all, they are use to paying average salary for average programmers and don't reward rock stars appropriately.
Re: Is there really an IT talent shortage?
#8from what I see in some job ads, there is certainly a shortage of super-talented puzzle-solving rockstar ninjas with 5 years experience in 10 technologies who are just out of school and will work over hours for minimum salary and a ping-pong table.
Re: Is there really an IT talent shortage?
#9There is no shortage of IT workers, there's however shortage of "IT talent" Most IT workers I have met are mediocre at best. Companies want rock stars. That's the problem. Worse of all, they are use to paying average salary for average programmers and don't reward rock stars appropriately.
I had an interview recently. In this interview, I was told that 9/10 of people interviewing for the position for which I was interviewing couldn't write a simple loop to reverse a string. I'd like to attribute that to performance anxiety, but I had office hours for Computer Science students. I know that isn't what it is.
Note that this was for a position asking for between 1 and 3 years of experience.
Re: Is there really an IT talent shortage?
#10The gem in the article is this:
Testifying earlier this week on behalf of IEEE-USA, a group representing more than 200,000 technical professionals and students, Bruce Morrison told a Congressional immigration policy subcommittee that the talent needs of U.S. companies would be better served by deregulating the process by which employers sponsor new hires for permanent residency. This would allow foreign workers to participate in the talent market on a more equitable basis.
"If an employer is willing to pay a substantial fee to sponsor a skilled foreign worker for a green card -- which means he or she can quit if they are underpaid -- that is solid evidence the employer actually needs the worker's skills," he said in prepared remarks. "But if an employer is only willing to pay a fee for a worker who cannot quit without going back to the beginning of the green card process, that indicates the employer is more interested in the indentured character of the visa, than in the worker's skills."
The last company I contracted with only had H1B Visa people working there. No doubt they would all have moved to new jobs if they could (the company was falling apart).