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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.
Actually, we've all retired on our stock options.
Has the tech market improved so much that working on a prominent website is no longer enough to attract the best talent?
I think things like pay, benefits, location, etc. matter far more to the vast majority of techies than merely "working on a prominent website." After all, in today's world, prominent websites come and go in a matter of months.
Stop by my site where I write about ERP systems & more
We have this same problem at Sony, noone seems to want to work for us.
Paying them well. :)
However, let it be said that alot of talented young people are tired of watching their bosses get rich while they give up their lives writing code till 1am every night and barely making it month to month. Young entreprenuership is on the rise.
A trap I often see so-called "prominent" companies falling into is assuming that their name is so famous, people will be falling all over each other trying to be first in line to work there. The problem is, these companies then figure that they don't have to pay people as much.
Yes, a name can get you ahead of the game, but if you pay people 20% less than they can get at another, less well known, company, you are going to have a hard time finding people.
Also, you'll need to have interesting work for your developers to do. If you want highly talented developers, but all you want them to do is help maintain an already stable website, you may have a hard time finding (and especially keeping) good talent.
Also, it helps to be a growing company with good prospects for the future. People don't want to go to a company that is not going anywhere. People want to work at a place where they have a good chance to advance within the company, and where they can expect regular salary increases. The ability to reliably hand out performance bonuses helps too.
If you want to be flooded with resumes from highly talented people, you need all four of the following: a big name, pay at or above the market rate, interesting projects to work on, and a strong and growing financial situation. If you are missing any of these things, you're going to have to work harder to get the really good people.
The reason you're having problems attracting good candidates is that sign in the hallway leading to the interviewer's office. It reads:
ATTENTION:
Beatings will continue
until morale improves.
Thank you.
The Management
* * * * *
A man's got to believe in something. I believe I'll have another drink.
--W.C. Fields
The best engineers are going to fall into one of a few categories. Either they are going to want to do something cutting edge, they're going to want a lot of money, or they are going to want public recognition. If the job is sourceforge, it seems to me that only one of those three is a viable option. There are lots of jobs out there right now and lots of new technology. Everybody can't have the best of the best. It's just not possible.
I would recommend trying for some new talent. Get somebody fresh out of school... Take in some co-ops and pick the best to stay on full time. If you have a tired technology, you're more likely to get the best engineers at the beginning of their career than later on. This is especially true in the current market where companies have this crazy idea that they should hire somebody who's past experience is an exact match to their current task. The young talent is getting left behind...
How much is the pay? A lot of places who have (or think they have) cool points seem to think that those are a substitute for cash. I recently got a job offer from one of those cool places (you've heard of it, I'm sure) in the Bay that paid a paltry 16% more than I make in nowheresville, South Carolina. It hurt, because the job, was indeed cool as all hell, but I've got a family to look after.
Sure, you can talk about the wonderful things I can do in the Bay Area, but after paying the rent, all that would change is that I'm a lot closer to the things that I still can't do because now I can't afford it.
Personally, I'd like to live in a place where I've got at least a ghost of a chance of buying a decent 3 bedroom plus an office house without needing a galactic-scale interest only ARM.
The job offer reads "willing to travel frequently" to I presume Fremont. Does that mean they're willing to pay for that travel, too?
Working insane hours for low pay because the job is "cool" is so 20th century. I think most of us have played on that roller coaster once or twice and don't want to do it again. Maybe you can sell that to fresh graduates, but the senior people have learned these lessons already.
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.
Zhrodague.net - I do projects and stuff too.
On the link:
Since when are Java Developers "Engineers"?
Wincopy
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.
--- "We've always been at war with Eastasia."
Not when this is what you have listed under Careers:
NTH Tier Solutions Careers
Please be patient while we build
Man, it would be super easy picking up women at bars if only I worked on a super popular site like SourceForge. The only thing that would get me more chicks is if I worked as a Slashdot editor.
What are you doing that's really all the cool or interesting? What's the reward for working there? Working for a name people have heard of? People have heard of General Mills too, do they need "superstar" factory workers?
If you don't really have work that's truly interesting and innovative, get off your ego horse and hire good people who can do the job you actually need done.
To be honest, if this post is at all indicative of how you make your job posts I think its all in the wording. When you say "Wanted Superstar Programmers" you must know that 99% of developers probably don't consider themselves superstars. The ones that do, are probably either way to full of themselves, or they are already working somewhere making a nice salary. If you want more applicants, try being realistic in your requirements and you willingness to pay them what they are worth in the current market. You might be really selective when it comes to choosing someone, thats your choice, but I know for a fact labels like that would turn off many would be applicants, including those you would consider "superstar" status...
Many folks just don't want to pick up and move some place where real estate prices are insane just so they can get a job with a company that gets bought out 6 months later and downsized 6 months after that.
For 99% of software development, system administration and network management, physical proximity is completely pointless. Hell, most of the time you end up working for a company with more than one office, and you do remote work on remote systems anyway. Yet the majority of tech companies are still afraid to hire telecommuters.
I've been telecommuting for almost 6 years with great success. An employer who is willing to hire remote workers suddenly has a gigantic field of potential employees to pick from.
--- Tao
Hey I'm one of those developers! I'm a junior developer working on java certification, learning JEE, beans, tags, servlets, AJAX toolkits, javascript etc., etc. I also have some management courses from undergrad and have considered an MBA. When I go to Dice.com and see Senior developers in my zip code making 3/4 of what "software managers" are making by using the Dice salary search feature, I scratch my head confused by whether coding until 1AM is "worth it"...if going the management route would make me a lot more money anyway (and still let me code as a hobby/entrepeneur on the side). What's a young person to do?
Somebody pointed out that Dilbert's company set salaries based on the industry average but claimed to want only the best employees.
The PHB acknowledged the point, saying that they were looking for the bright but clueless set.
.. how come it's hard to find coders who are motivated and know what they're doing?
There aren't any.
The ones who are motivated don't know what they're doing and the ones that know what they're doing can be found in a dark corner of the machine room banging their heads against the wall.
KFG
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.
Custom electronics and digital signage for your business: www.evcircuits.com
how blind companies and HR managers can sometimes be about this. I worked at a company that committed this sin. They would list radically deep skills and experience requirements from multiple fields for single positions, but the pay wasn't anything special, really just entry-level, and the location sucked.
Each time they would interview what amounted to entry-level candidates (the only ones interested at that pay level, naturally) for months and finally they'd get desperate and make a hire that didn't quite measure up to the extreme the standards they'd set for positions. Then, when it didn't work out and the hire either left or got let go, they wouldn't try to make the position more attractive to someone who was more qualified, they'd just re-list with the same salary and benefits package(s), only each new time they'd add even more required skills and experience, as though they just hadn't been stringent enough the first time.
Meanwhile, for those of us inside already, the workload just got bigger and bigger since we couldn't make any good hires and couldn't keep the ones we made. Needless to say I moved on after just over a year, once I realized that for the amount of work I was actually doing as the result of the (I realized) never-to-be-resolved staff shortage, I was also getting underpaid.
It's like HR thought that if they just kept asking for more, eventually they'd get it.
STOP . AMERICA . NOW
here in Alaska, ... have no state income tax, no liberal politicians trying to take my money and give it to someone else,
You mean like that bridge to nowhere for 50 people? Thanks a lot for trying to steal our money and spend it on some stupid bridge that no one needs, Alaskan.
You, an Alaskan, complaining about politicians trying to take your money and give it to someone else is a prime example of the pot calling the kettle black. I can't think of a single state currently that more exemplifies this thanks to this example. Even CA and NY don't have such ridiculous public works projects.
Give me an idea what the job pays. Responding to an ad takes some effort because I'll research your company before I even contact you. I don't want to invest a lot of time in the process only to find out that you really want to hire someone for $20,000 less than I'm making now.
I know it's hard to show your hand even that little bit, but if you want exceptional people to respond, you need to make it clear that you're exceptional, too.