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IT Positions Some of the Toughest Jobs To Fill In US

Posted by Unknown on from the fifty-years-of-dot-net-experience-required dept.

coondoggie writes "Forty-nine percent of U.S. companies are having a hard time filling what workforce management firm ManpowerGroup calls mission-critical positions within their organizations. IT staff, engineers and 'skilled trades' are among the toughest spots to fill. The group surveyed some 1,300 employers and noted that U.S. companies are struggling to find talent, despite continued high unemployment, over their global counterparts, where 34% of employers worldwide are having difficulty filling positions."

14 of 886 comments (clear)

  1. Salaries by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Maybe they are hard to fill because they dont pay enough?

    1. Re:Salaries by captbob2002 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      That seems to be the case that I see. Positions that want YEARS of experience, long lists of certifications, and pay around $34,000.

      Same with any other area, there is no shortage of people wanting jobs, there *is* a shortage of people wanting to be slaves. Shouldn't "market forces" tell these "job creators" that they are not paying enough?

    2. Re:Salaries by Grishnakh · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Wrong. What you meant to say was:

      "Impossible. As every MBA knows, there are no low salaries, only lazy workers."

      It's not economists who are running these companies.

    3. Re:Salaries by MickyTheIdiot · · Score: 5, Insightful

      This is interesting because what you are saying here is to actually **develop** your workforce.

      Most corporations don't want to do that anymore.

    4. Re:Salaries by Captain+Hook · · Score: 5, Insightful

      The only problem I have with this conspiracy theory is that it might be true for some giant company like MS or Intel which has political connections and hires lots of H1Bs

      I think it's an ecosystem problem, if a significant proportion of the IT jobs are being replaced via off-shoring or outsourcing to inshore companies who don't pay as well then for every job lost you've also lost a person keeping their skills up to date and then the next generation see whats happening and say "fuck that, I'll get an MBA instead".

      To start with it probably doesn't have a big affect but by the time you start losing the veterans to promotion and retirement after 10-15 years and haven't got their replacement already trained with some experience then it's too late. You need a certain critical mass of people interested in a career to keep it going or skills will be lost and once they are gone it's incredibly hard to get back at a national level.

      You need people entering the IT careers at the bottom, to have some exposure to different IT career streams and for them to have a certain expectation of being able to develop a life long career out of it, and I don't think anyone really believes that will happen any more.

      It's a self fulfilling prophecy which benefits those to have the ability to influence job markets at the expense of those who don't.

      --
      These comments are my personal opinions and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the other voices in my head.
    5. Re:Salaries by MickyTheIdiot · · Score: 5, Insightful

      > ...more productive people...

      BUZZ. Thank you. Your whole point is lost by such ignorant language.

      I.T. people keep the organization running from day to day. To pull a Neil Boortz and start to whine about the "productive class" means your opinion should be roundfiled and proves that our upset about the MBA scam is justified.

      I'd bet the first person you reflexively call is one of those "unproductive" people.

    6. Re:Salaries by PRMan · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Now if you prove yourself a hard worker, (and the company is using proper HR policies), The company will see your value as greater and give you a raise, and try harder to retain you.

      HAHAHAHAHAHAHA. I've never seen this anywhere I've worked. There are so many things wrong with that statement it's hard to even know where to begin:

      1. The best IT people are NOT hard working. They are astoundingly LAZY. They write almost nothing and never look like they are doing anything. And yet their code is fast, clean, maintainable and they are always moving to the next project because the last one is in production and butter smooth. It's 100% impossible for an IT outsider to know who the good employees are.

      2. I've never been at a company that used any HR policy that even found good employees period. They SHOULD concentrate on what you accomplished and how much money it made or saved the company. Instead, they usually devolve into twisted popularity contests or seeing who is the most obsequious or who is the best meaningless rule-follower.

      3. I've never been at a company (that wasn't a consulting company) where they gave ANY value to IT workers period. Despite the fact that you are out-earning them 2:1 in some cases and that your IQ is 25-30 points higher than theirs, they treat you like you are some dumb plumber or auto mechanic that dropped out of high school and are overcharging them for fixing their car or something.

      4. Companies will spend a fortune to attract new talent and pay recruiters 10-15% for the privilege. But they have stupid rules in place that PREVENT them from EVER giving a 5% raise to an IT worker no matter how valuable they are. As such, they spend all their time re-training instead of retaining.

      --
      Peter predicted that you would "deliberately forget" creation 2000 years ago...
    7. Re:Salaries by erp_consultant · · Score: 5, Insightful

      "I've never been at a company (that wasn't a consulting company) where they gave ANY value to IT workers period" - That's why I went into consulting. Working in IT support puts you in a cost center in the eyes of senior management. In consulting I am a revenue generator. The difference is night and day in terms of how are you treated.

  2. Two part problem by i+kan+reed · · Score: 5, Insightful

    1. Americans bailed on the sector when the first big bump in 1998-2000. This left a gap that new trainees never really came in to fill.
    2. H1Bs go home. This means the insane over-recruitment of H1B employees had a cost at the end of their terms.
    3. There has been, up until 2008, and attitude in the U.S. that any college degree is good enough. My state only graduated 40,000 people from community colleges/trade schools this year. Everyone with higher aspirations just went to a 4 year school. To do less is to view oneself as a failure(and employers do too).
    4. Combine that with a culture with a slight distaste for mathematics and science and that's more than enough basic features to explain a discrepancy of this level.

  3. Basic economics by beamin · · Score: 5, Insightful

    They just need to up their offer. Go invisible hand!

  4. There is a major shortage of recuiters and HR by johnb10001 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    people that can write a job description and match job seekers to the jobs.

  5. No, really? by Sarten-X · · Score: 5, Insightful

    As someone who recently sought to fill one of those openings, I have some advice for companies looking to hire: Let your existing IT people write the job listing. A disturbing number of the listings I came across were ridiculous.

    5 years experience required, for an entry-level position at $25,000 salary with weekends on-call? Nope. I might be unemployed, but I don't want to lose money on a job.

    Looking for someone A+-certified with mainframe maintenance and 15 years of Java programming experience? I'm close to qualified, but now I'm scared.

    Five programming tests and two phone interviews, and the face-to-face interviewer doesn't even get my name even close to right? I don't think the epitome of "faceless corporation" is the right fit...

    Look, I understand that there are lots of IT folks out of work, and you think that if you ask for the world, you'll get it from them. You might meet some success, but is stripping your employees of dignity really the right way to get a productive workforce?

    --
    You do not have a moral or legal right to do absolutely anything you want.
  6. 3 reasons by jbolden · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The original article listed the 3 reasons the slots were hard to fill, "including lack of available applicants, applicants looking for more pay and lack of experience"

    So in other words employers who don't recruit, don't pay much and aren't willing to train are having trouble. Well good.

  7. You pay slave wages, you get slave labour. by khasim · · Score: 5, Insightful

    While you MIGHT get extremely lucky and find one of the few techs who (for whatever reason) needs a job at any salary while having all those skills ...

    You'll pretty much end up with two situations:

    1. That person will be gone as soon as they find a better paying job. And you will have to start over again.

    2. That person really does not have those skills and is willing to learn them "on the job" while making all the mistakes a novice would make. And then leaves to find a better paying job.

    Either way, you pay slave wages, you get slave labour.