Hiring (Superstar) Programmers

Ross Turk wrote, "We've been looking for senior engineers to work on SourceForge.net for a while now, and it's been a lot more difficult than it was a few years ago. Has the tech market improved so much that working on a prominent website is no longer enough to attract the best talent? Is everyone else running into the same problems, or is it just here in the Valley and other high-tech corridors?" This is a question that I've seen coming in a lot; the economy has not picked up everywhere — so how are other people handling this? Going outside the traditional Valley/Route 128 corridors? Outsourcing? And how do you find people — beyond just using job boards? (Full disclosure: That's our job board thingie, as you probably have figured out.) Or do job boards alone work? Some people have been swearing up and down that CraigsList works — and there's always something to be said for nepotism.

Comments

Job Board Spam Sucks

[drewzhrodague]

As a long-time sysadmin, I've found it hard to keep steady employment -- although I usually do startups and small dev shops because they're fun (if not so lucrative). One thing I've had a hard time with, is getting through all the job board spam -- I hate it!

I have my resume up on monster -- clearly as a sysadmin. I get messages about insurance sales, modeling, marketing, and Amway-style multi-level-marketing jobs. Also, there are recruiters up there harvesting resumes, with no actual jobs. I got so mad that I had to do something about it -- so I did.

Recruiter-Rater is a rate-your-recruiter type of website. Have good dealings with a recruter? Please post about it, we'd love to hear your success story. Got a recruiter repeatedly wasting your time? Post about that too. Bad recruiters need to be shamed out of existance, and good recruiters should see their commissions increase.

Seriously. I would get an email about a job in my area. I'd apply, send-in a resume, sometimes talk to the guy on the phone -- and never hear from them again, until they have another req, starting the cycle again.

I've been at this job-hunting game for a while, and just recently I've almost completely given up as a wage-slave, except that I still need money to live. Of course, being here in Pittsburgh certianly does *not* help, but it is easier to be broke and still live pretty well here, than it is to be broke and live in places like Boston.

All the smart people have left IT

[ph1ll]

Why?

Because they could.

The best engineer I know left the profession during the last downturn. He was a doctor, so he returned to medicine.

I think a lot of other smart people changed profession.

It's the law of unintended consequences again.

Re:All the smart people have left IT

[NineNine]

Case in point: I was a senior level database programmer/architect (Primarily Oracle). Now I own a (successful) retail business. The value for me wasn't there anymore. Meaning, I wasn't getting paid enough any more to deal with all of the shit I had to deal with.

I'm looking for part time

[guruevi]

A lot of (talented) sysadmin's like me aren't looking for full time employment anymore. I am currently looking for downphasing to a part time job now and if you have something to offer, I can always look into it. Full time sysadmining (as I am doing now) leaves talented people exhausted and squeezed out before they hit 40. I know a lot of people that quit their IT-profession (programmers, administrators) and either work for themselves or work somewhere part time because bigger companies are constantly looking to get the most out of them since they are so dispensable and we have (or had) a lot of them.

Re:Dilbert covered this (of course)

[Kineel]

Too true. One of my former (fortune 500) employers had two habits, one was announcing that they paid according to industry standards, and the other was insisting that during reviews nearly everyone should get a standard rating of 3/5. Nobody should ever get rated well above average.

The message was clear, we only hire highly mediocre candidates.

Then they were shocked that when they offered a voluntary separation package 249 out of 251 IT employees volunteered. The two that didn't volunteer were a single mom and the only guy who had work from home privileges.

They had to change the VSP to take people with the most seniority first.

There was actually one case that I know of where the person who had the second highest seniority in a group bribed the guy in front of him by offering to pay him a portion of the separation package to let the second guy get out of the company!