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US Employers Struggle To Match Workers With Open Jobs (npr.org)
In the United States, there's a record number of jobs open: around 6 million. That's just about one job opening for every officially unemployed person in the country. From a report: Matching the unemployed with the right job is difficult, but there are some things employers could do to improve the odds. Andrew Chamberlain, chief economist for the job site Glassdoor, says U.S. employers often complain that workers don't have the skills needed for the jobs available. That is true for some upper-level health care and technology jobs. "But for the most part, it doesn't look to be like there is a skills gap," Chamberlain says. "That's not the main reason why there are many job openings." Chamberlain says that with unemployment so low and the U.S. labor force growing slowly, there's no doubt it is harder for companies to find workers. But he says if that were the main problem, you would see wages rising more rapidly in the economy -- and that's not the case in many industries. Part of the hiring problem, Chamberlain says, lies in company hiring policies.
There is on the job training funds (and training funds in general) available through the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act. You can access them by visiting your local Career One Stop or Workforce center. https://www.careeronestop.org/
If only there was a way to motivate American workers to apply for jobs? Oh well, I guess more immigration/H1Bs is the only solution.
...the whole ecosystem. Imagine their search / ML applied to the wealth of data but shit parsing that is resumes / postings? I usually don't cheerlead for them, but if they can unfuck this I hope they do.
Of course they'll cancel it quietly in 2 years, but whatevs.
Zombie 'openings' that expect senior rock-star level experience for H1-B level wages. Pay more. Train people. KTHXBYE.
Maw! Fire up the karma burner!
"US Employers struggle to find workers willing to be paid minimum wage, part time with no benefits."
The main reason companies are unable to fill low skill positions is that they have strict drug check programs where if marijuana is in your blood you are an automatic fail even if you smoked on the weekend and its legal in your state to smoke recreationally.
Companies need to change their drug screening processes to match with the reality of American society where almost all poor people are doing drugs
**Life is too short to be serious**
those policies that are causing them to not hire people are largely based on federal and state regulations?
Things like non-discrimination or minimum wages?
So it sounds like the solution is to take HR out of the hiring process, at least until the very end when the candidate has already been found, vetted, and chosen to be hired.
This doesn't surprise me. Regardless of the business type, the hands-on technical staff (software developers, accountants, bank tellers, construction workers, etc, etc) will always be able to do a better job than HR would at screening and vetting candidates.
150-180k net jobs created per month is not good at all. 300k/month used to be the gold standard for robust growth. The anemic Obama economy got people used to this, but by pre-2008 standards, this is a mild recession right now.
If the business were out there to justify it, people would be willing to pay higher salaries to lure in workers. The fact they aren't tells you the truth about what I said above - the economy is not that great.
HBI's Law: Frequency of calling others Nazis is directly correlated with the likelihood of the accuser being Communist.
First, just read the summary.
Back in '08 when the shit hit the fan, I was told, "Just get a job waiting tables! It'll show that you have gumption!!"
So, I went to the local bar and grill who was looking for help and applied. Sorry, we need someone who has had at least 5 years of RECENT experience.
The local landscaper (professional lawn mowing company) asked me, "Do you have experience in this line of work."
Now, how to answer that. "Uh, how hard is it to mow lawns?!" or "No sir, I do not."
Well, they are both wrong answers. (BTW, working beneath you skills ruins your career. All those folks who said, "Get a job flipping burgers to pay your mortgage!" were wrong. If you did that, you ruined your career. YOU ARE YOUR LAST JOB. And if that's flipping burgers, then you are a burger flipper - sorry Mr. BS CS. Been there - I know.)
Tech is even more retarded. I once recommended this brilliant ENGINEER (BS ME - a REAL engineer) who had tons of experience with the company's technology.
Nope. "Sorry, you don't fit in to our corporate culture."
Kiss my fucking ass. EVERY company that says they cannot get qualified people are liars. Period.
Match someone competent to the POTUS?
Micro Economics deals with supply and demand, curves, and not sexy ones. Cut to chase: PAY MORE! Mnuchin agrees, and he promises he won't steal your house. For now!
TRUMP powa!
You don't see companies raising wages to attract the employees need because for the most part (i.e. not the multinationals hiring h1b's, but the majority of companies who employ the majority of people and are small-mid size) they can't.
We live in a debt-based economic system with inflation at a rate of about 2.5% annually, runaway government spending and about 65-75% taxation by the time cash makes its way from a client to an employee. Meanwhile, the government will spend what it expects things to be valued at, ironically increasing with inflation, not solely but functionally equivalent given the magnitudes of figures involved in each case, to the huge multinational corporations, who then buy from smaller corporations in many cases. It's trickle-down-corporate-economics and it works no better than the individual version: the government pays the banks and megacorps, they pay the large-not-multinational companies, they pay the midsized companies and the small companies are mostly paid by the individual consumers.
At each step along the way there's a time delay for prices to adjust where the guy at the top (from the government down) charges more for services, until the next guy down can no longer handle the burden and raises costs on their customers, and so on. The entire system runs in that cyclical nature wherein division of resources moves continually toward government. People blame the megacorps but the truth is they're only the highest ranking slaves.
Economics 101 says a labor shortage is not possible - employers need only raise offered wages until all positions are filled. What went wrong? Econ 101 explanations seem to be highly satisfactory when the job market is on the way down (in a recession for example).
If you want to sell your burger for 1.00 and you want to employ someone @ 12.00 an hour you must be in a market where you can sell more the 12 burgers an hour during the times your employees are willing to work for that wage.
If you raise your wage to 20.00 you now need to sell 20 burgers.
If few people are willing to work for 12 and you can't sell 20 burgers per hour at the current price you can be pretty sure raising the price will not increase sales. So unless you can sell 12 burgers an hour at 1.90 what do you do, work with what you have and look for people who are willing to sell their labor for the amount the market can demand.
The companies responded to this article: We are just doing the needful. Please come again.
Chamberlain says that with unemployment so low...
Yup, that's where I stopped reading.
This person is not dealing in reality.
I can come up with my own random hypotheticals and 'what-ifs' so I don't need to hear about his, thanks all the same.
Strat
Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.
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Must submit to full background and security clearance check.
Only open to non-residents.
Everyone knows this is about profits, Monthly.. Quarterly.. The bottom-line is the metric here. Always has been!
Pressure from Wall Street or not, if there are job openings, and skilled talent isn't an issue, it's going to be the opening pay. Or lack thereof.
Seldom has it been location, but there are some talent drought hot spots in the west and mid-west.
Wyoming, Montana come to mind for a few skilled trade jobs I heard about on NPR... Need welders somewhere in there.
And sorry HR, but $10-12 for entry level just doesn't cut it anymore. Even to 'train on the job' at that pay level is almost insulting.
As for 'tech jobs', if that's even a sane discussion at this point.... It's entirely market, sector, and even Global competition to a point.
- You won't hire US workers? Opting for H1B's with 15 years of RUST experience on Enterprise platforms? It doesn't exist ... But we've certainly see the experience demands in those position offerings. Utter BS to NOT fill the position by choice.
- Or better still, you've outsourced your whole IT support dept, keeping a few local staff to keep the gears in motion. Congratulation! I'm never doing business with you again, and about to spread the word!
I can be US-centric on this topic. IT IS A CHOICE!
We know where all the bullshit comes from. It's profits above all. If entry level, or skilled, or even tech can be filled at the pay companies are offering, it's their ball! They can sit on unfilled positions for all long as market and sector growth and competition at the local, regional, national level allow.
The Government sure as shit isn't going to 'force them' to hire!
And if anyone says this has anything to do with Trump? Congratulations! You've just outed yourself as a complete and utter fucking idiot!
I pop in here to the comment section, and read a bunch of people angrily talking about how there really not being an job opening problem, just that "employers are full of shit".
Here's the thing. That's what the article says. Let me be helpful to you, and quote it:
Part of the hiring problem, Chamberlain says, lies in company hiring policies.
Peter Cappelli, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School, agrees. He says one problem is that companies are posting openings with required qualifications that aren't really necessary for the job.
"They're just asking for the moon, and not expecting to pay very much for it," Cappelli says. "And as a result they [can't] find those people. Now that [doesn't] mean there was nobody to do the job; it just [means] that there was nobody at the price they were willing to pay."
Come on people! Read!
You don't want to move 1000 miles to deliver pizza? For less than minimum wage? I'm shocked, just shocked I say.
when I was young. The gov't placed you in a job, and paid for your training/education, and the company got a tax break until you were up to snuff. Kept unemployment low, and people happy.
I don't see why this can't be done here.
So rise up, all ye lost ones, as one, we'll claw the clouds.
My HR department is about a 50-50 split between men and women. And they are all equally useless...
Yes it's an anecdote! Were you expecting original research in a Slashdot comment?
Unfounded and dumb. You're dumb :)
US employers struggle to find purple squirrels.
And they refuse to acknowledge that a red squirrel and a blur squirrel can, on average, do the same job.
Also make it illegal to camp anywhere that isn't a campsite.
You're welcome.
Outside of the "usual suspect" metro areas, a lot of the country is still in a condition where home values are still recovering from the recession, so people are less inclined to move unless the company wanting to hire can make that problem go away. Right now if I had to sell my house I'd likely not only lose money versus what I paid for it, but then have to pay the realtor's commission on top of it, then have no great amount of equity to use as a down payment on another place, and then there's the cost of the move itself. Sure, I could rent, but with kids I want to get them into school and keep them in the same school. Also, if a job is in one of the metro areas that largely ignored the recession, it's an extra steep climb coming from an area that took the recession hard.
In the past when employers were looking to fill a position, they would often offer relocation assistance in some form -- signing bonus, paying for a realtor's fees, paying for a move, etc. I don't see those offers listed any more, they seem to want local-only unicorn candidates who will work for wages offered 10 years ago.
Information has a cost and this is the main reason today for unemployment. This is similar to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... .
I want to hire some one to do X. I want to pay the minimum possible but still get a good employee. Also I don't know how good an employee is and I (hate firing/can't fire/or incur cost with each hire). This is the asymmetry. The employee knows his value but I don't. I might pay $100K for a good worker but I'll only pay $40K for a poor one. If I offer the median $70K I only get candidates that are worth between $70K and $40K. So then I chose the median of that $55K....and eventually I'm down to $40 and not able to hire anyone.
Employees are also sticky. An employer might be willing to pay $25 for picking tobacco or some other seasonal work but no one is going to quit even a $15/hr part job and move to the middle of no where for that. Even an unemployed person won't do it because they give up the opportunity to get a steady job (and they might lose some benefits (hey maybe we need a basic income))
Some employers are either clueless or collectively keeping wages down in some industries or regions. They then use the open positions as an excuse to get seasonal immigrant labour or H1-B type visas.
A solution could be: more transparency about wages (make wages public), less regulation on employee rights but more enforcement of them and a reduction to H1-B and migrant employment.
I had 2 phone interviews without any depth to them and over in a few minutes. The reason why? They were stuck on looking for a specific skill and if you did not have it, you were done.
The first failed on AWS, oh you have not worked with AWS? Sorry, we are not going forward. It was not a matter if I understood networking, or servers or administration or any of the 50 tools that AWS promises, no direct experience, interview over. Not only that, they ended up hiring nobody!
The second one was Scrum and Continuous Integration, have not done either, interview is over (over in 2 minutes with pleasantries). They don't even try to evaluate your skills, or your thought process or even if you are capable.
It seems like they cannot even be bothered to try and get someone to be productivity and thejob salaries are not great either, just average. If companies were really desperate they would be more aggressive but I think they are just cruising along, not really competing or losing ground. When they become greedy or desperate that is when you will see change.
Note: In reference to AWS, I took an online course on AWS after the interview. It was powerful, not hard but broad. Certainly not as hard as working with specific hardware that implements the same features.
HR BS and H1B fake job postings can account for a lot of the openings.
Also this one place said that we not really hiring but just have an posting to see who is out there.
Working in your mail room.
they don't want to pay to train anymore. They want employees already trained in whatever specialty they want this week and they want to dispose of them (or force them to train on their own time/dime) when that specialty gets obsolete.
We had a social contract and it's been broken. Time for a New New Deal (google it).
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how about America change it's policies so that poor people don't feel the need to turn to addictive substances to cope. Not that I'm opposed to what you're suggesting, I'm just saying there's more than one way to attack that problem.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
That is not a very useful definition of addiction.
By that definition you're addicted to masturbation. You should get some help for that.
I just pooped your party.
after 20 years of us tech workers losing jobs to H-1bs the fact that companies do that is taken for granted.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
I've been drinking soda on and off my whole life.
Why don't you stop using the Internet and never start again to prove that you're not addicted?
Support my political activism on Patreon.
If corporations cared at all about unemployment, they already know exactly what they could do to remedy that problem: Let the cream rise to the top. That is to say, offer additional training to existing highly skilled employees, so that they can easily qualify for the next job up the ladder, and then move them up. Then fill the now vacant lower level jobs with people who are presently unemployed and living on the street (or in their parents basement). The newly hired wage earners will be thrilled just to have a job at all, and won't be quite as picky about how much they're earning, and the highly skilled workers will be thrilled to get the raise, and to be recognized for their contributions.
The problem, as I see it, is that far too many companies are more interested in the bottom line than in anything else. And one of the easiest ways to turn a profit is (and always has been) to milk existing employees for all that they're worth for as long as possible, and make them do tasks above their pay level, because they "can't find anyone qualified for that position, right now"... which basically causes that old adage, "You have to move out to move up," to become a self-fulfilling prophecy. I've moved out because of that, myself. If you're in the workforce at all, you've probably done it, too.
And here's where it gets even more frustrating: the "requirements" for any given position do not remain static. It's quite common for employers to adjust the requirements based upon the skillset of the person who just left that position. "Hey, Ralph became a freaking genius at SharePoint while he was working for us. We can't possibly hire someone who knows less than him, now! Change that job req for his position to include senior SharePoint experience, okay? Years of experience? I dunno... how long did Ralph work here? That long? Really?"
And thus, the position that Ralph left -- specifically because he was being underpaid for the skills he'd gained over his years there -- is now entirely un-fillable. Because nobody with those skills would take the job, at the offered pay.
Employers shoot themselves in the foot like that, all too often. My previous employer did it, too... that's why they're my previous employer. And over the past few weeks, I've sat by and watched as my up-line supervisor is being run through the beginnings of the scenario I've described above... so I would imagine she's currently evaluating her options.
The wheel turns, and the cycle repeats itself.
https://www.bls.gov/cps/cpsaat11.pdf
74% of all Human Resources managers are women.
http://www.workforce.com/2017/01/10/awesome-influence-women-hr/
Third paragraph: "It's also the only leadership role that is predominantly female. Seventy-three percent of HR practitioners at the manager level are female, according to 2015 Bureau of Labor Statistics data, compared against 43 percent in marketing and 27 percent in IT."
How about that Trump economy folks?
The bottom line is companies have had 8 years of garbage economy (1% growth) under Obama, and they are just taking a little while to adapt to the reality that they can't be as choosy about their employees with a robust economy, and they may have to pay more as well. The days of getting 100 applications for a single job and only taking the very best person are over. You hire who you can train to get the job done, or you get left behind in a growing economy. The winners will realize this, the losers will remain stagnant or shrinking.
If you disagree, please post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like
Pearls before swine man. Pearls before swine.
The AC's logic is completely flawed, irrespective of his actual point which is equally flawed.
I will say there are quite a few people who are dependent on pot, and arguably some are addicted according to at least some definitions of addiction. Most fall under varying levels of recreational use though and I'm at a loss to find any actual argument about how using "drugs" makes you a degenerate.
With that in mind, just about every rock star, many politicians, most actors, and a very substantial portion of society as a whole are degenerates. And that's without opening up the definition of 'drugs' to any casual use of otherwise controlled substances (oh, did aunt mary give you a xanax at dad's funeral? guess you're a chemically dependent degenerate)
I'm not a fan of drugs in general but they aren't some automatic indicator that someone is a problem child. Hell, it's trivial to scam most drug tests anyway (hint: why do you think the welfare drug tests failed so miserably) so there's not really much point in doing it besides to keep away otherwise honest people looking for a job that recreationally use some form of drug.
You can get rich if you own a politician, but you have to be rich to buy one in the first place.
What's your favorite food? Stop eating it and never eat it again. What? You don't want to? Must be because you're addicted.
We have millions of job openings. See...
Job 1: Social Worker - Must have master's degree. Salary $35,000/year.
[Translation, must be someone who did not get their degree in the U.S. because there is no way one can pay for a master's on $35K/year.]
Job 2: Warehouse $12-$14/hr. Flexible hours (either 60 or 20, but not 40). $29,000 a year...with little prospect of moving up. Maybe $17/hr after you've been there 10 years. Support your family on THAT!
Job 3: IT Position $60K a year in major urban city requiring you to live in very expensive housing, the slums, or outside of the city requiring 2-3 hours commuting a day. Please note, we understand that between your commute, mortgage, family, and student loans, that this salary is not sustainable for you. However, it allows us to employ an IT engineer from India, seeing as they do not have a several hundred a month student loan payment.
It's about paying the right wage for the right skills. And presently, corporations do NOT want to do that. Why should they? When they can import those skills for much cheaper.
The big deciding factor for many is student loans. A MD or IT worker from India can take jobs that an America cannot afford to take due to the lack of large monthly student loan payments.
Before you slam me on this, here me out. You see people going to college, getting a traditional "four year degree", some going even for post graduate degrees. In what? Teaching, philosophy, ancient languages and what not. Not a lot of "demand" so to speak for those degrees. Then, when thousands of those hit the street, the salaries DROP because of the supply is greater than the demand. Most kids, would be better served if they went to a two year technical college/school, getting an associate degree in science, computers and the like. More demand for that, as technology grows. I did, in the late 70's. I went to a two year electronics school, got an associate in electronics, NEVER have been unemployed or under employed. Plus, even though it was the 70's, I came out of school DEBT FREE.
Unemployment is anything but low The government has changed the definition over the years, and now publishes a number that excludes a lot of people who would really, really like a job. But once their unemployment benefits have run out, well, they magically aren't "unemployed" anymore, at least, not according to the government.
While I don't live in the US, I have friends and family there, and I don't have the impression that there are 6 million decent jobs waiting to be filled. There are a lot of crap jobs out there: lousy hours, or lousy pay, or no benefits. Yes, if you're hungry, you'll take a seasonal job. But if you're out of work in Wisconsin (say), you can't afford to move to Florida to pick oranges for a couple of weeks.
With 20% (real figure) of the potential workforce out of work, companies can also offer crap salaries for the few real jobs that exist. Outside of certain islands, inflation-adjusted take-home pay has been dropping for years. Overall, the US economy sucks. In fact, the US economy has been shrinking for more than a decade, and the huge levels of governmental debt are not helping. And that's a vicious cycle: meager tax income -> more debt -> depressed economy -> unemployment -> even more meager tax income. Rinse, repeat and amplify.
If we restrict ourselves to the tech field (which is a small part of the overall employment picture), TFA does have a point: Companies let the HR department fill vacancies. The typical big-company HR department has zero clue about tech, and will happily filter CVs based on an impossible list of buzzwords. Which means that the BS-artists (who likely have few real skills) have the best chance at landing a job. So the company gets burned, and the HR department filters harder on even more buzzwords. But again, that's only true for a small part of the market. The bigger problem is the spiraling combination of government debt and unemployment.
Enjoy life! This is not a dress rehearsal.
Position: Internet Application Developer
Salary $250K-$350K
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"US Employers Struggle To Match Workers Willing to be Underpaid for Open Jobs" There, fixed it for you.
We have a much more highly educated workforce nowadays. Most have at least a 2 or 4 year college or university degree. Which means they can be retrained.
But to do that, employers have to:
1. Pay them a decent wage.
2. Train them.
If you don't do both, you'll get decreased job growth. All because mercantalists are really bad at job growth, whereas capitalists realize you have to pay labor and pay for training.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
You have a real problem where places invested (unwisely, IMO) in ever increasingly complex technologies that they're discovering it's hard to find qualified people to maintain for them, at the salaries they've budgeted.
For example, my wife does I.T. for a local community college. The previous I.T. director was largely regarded as an idiot, but before they let him go, he drove off 4 or 5 really bright, motivated I.T. staffers with his unreasonable demands and requests. Now, they've had to hire his successor AND replacements for those staffers that quit. One of the former director's big ideas before he was ousted was setting up VMWare and Horizon to serve virtual desktops to a number of staffers and students, vs. letting them use stand-alone PCs.
With the limitations they've got on the top pay they can offer a systems admin or support person right now? They're extremely lucky if they get any applicant who even knows what Horizon is, much less has experience working with it.
Meanwhile, the existing staff is struggling with network issues and crashes that are the direct result of improperly spec'd or configured virtual servers - and it's somewhat doubtful there's any more money available to upgrade the servers to get sufficient system resources for their needs.
They may just have to eliminate all of the complexity and go back to regular PC workstations, in order to "dumb down" the environment to the level where the salaries they pay I.T. staff are in-line with the technology again. But that would amount to a huge one-time loss if they just throw away the money already spent on the initiative.... It's a big mess. But I think this is the kind of mess a LOT of businesses have right now.
I can definitely agree with this statement! I had a really tough time of things, when I was younger, because I really believed the advice you're giving. I had moved out of my parents' place and into an apartment I shared with a friend. I was trying to get a full time I.T. job because that's what I was good at and wanted to do with my life, but everywhere I turned, I was criticized for being a "mooch" -- because I couldn't always pay exactly half of the bills, right on time, while I was doing odd jobs and trying to find the type of employment I wanted.
I wound up getting kicked out of that place and had to temporarily move back in with mom and dad, but I did finally get a job with a computer store, about 3 weeks later, doing what I wanted to do. Best decision I made in the long run, vs. doing landscaping or pizza delivery or what-not, like other people said I should do.
And to this day, 25 or so years later? It's still held true. If you can't get a job doing what you're good at and want to do? Find a way to work for yourself doing something along those same lines until you get that next job. Don't settle for a crappy retail or restaurant job or whatever else comes along. It just occupies all of your time, making it too hard to find something better -- and nobody really respects you for settling for less. (Sure, you can try to explain to an interviewer why you just took it because you needed the income, etc. etc. But in the back of their head, they're still thinking, "Yeah buddy. If you were REALLY good at what you do, you wouldn't have even been in that situation in the first place."
Not doctors of creationism/climate change deniers from schools in Texas or Kansas etc.
Those are just good for flipping burgers and AI will replace them soon as well.
Yes, but weeding out arrogant assholes and "corporate culture" really shouldn't be the same thing.
I know that's the "nice, politically correct" term they can use while doing it. But I've seen a lot of places where deciding if you're a good fit for the corporate culture is more about trying to find people who dress and think like the rest of the group.
For example? A LONG time ago, I applied for an I.T. job at a large international brewery's main location. A friend of a friend worked in management there and promised he'd try to make sure the right people took note of my resume and gave me consideration once I did the required interview. Well, to make a long story short -- I thought I did ok on the technical parts of the interview, but a big deal was made of walking me around the place to shake hands with and "meet" various people. I was never the most extroverted guy and was probably less comfortable chatting up strangers then than I am today. And on top of that, I was getting over a case of the flu, so wasn't feeling so great. The whole thing felt pretty miserable, but I tried to be as personable as I could. I quickly got the sense these people were writing me off though, as quickly as I was introduced to them. There was a strong vibe there of "work hard, play hard" types who liked to show off their success by wearing expensive clothing and watches or jewelry, and who had a common theme of being really into major league sports and nightclubs on weekends.
I never did get that job, even though my buddy on the inside said he kept trying to push for my hiring. It was never about me not being able to do the work they were hiring for. It was about being judged as not entertaining enough to hang out with socially.
1. Co's want to match a combo of skills very specific to their company. The product brand combinations a given company uses is purely coincidental and rarely the same for 2 orgs.
2. They don't want to wait for a training curve for some of their products: they want the applicant to hit the ground running. This is not realistic, per #1.
3. They want a tech whiz but also somebody with good people skills. Such are relatively rare and would probably cost a company more to acquire if they are realistic.
4. What HR filters out and what the department of the target employee really want are often out of sync. The right hand is not talking to the left hand of the org; or it's political infighting.
Table-ized A.I.
It's all the same thing, after all.
HBI's Law: Frequency of calling others Nazis is directly correlated with the likelihood of the accuser being Communist.
Maybe HR should stop making lists of 23 "Must haves" and if the employee only meets 22, sorry, we are not interested
The problem is HR wants someone in percise wording that matches the job description with years of experience and rather be understaffed than take a risk. Worse, they use software programs to do the work for them which filter 100% of all the qualified candidates out.
This is why the H1B1 visa is popular. It is not about cost savings anymore. It is the Indian firms will lie and make a resume that matches the description as no American can do the job etc.
In the old days if you had 7 years of experience in programming in one language and doing the same work then you can learn another language in a similair role etc. NOT today! You need to have ONLY that language. Worse, you can have the same language AND same kind of work experience but still be not qualified. It is because your coverletter and resume didn't have the keyword % of the descriptions. Or you have done it for 10 years, but your last position where you have 3 years experience doesn't touch what the job entails so therefore you are not qualified.
What needs to change is managers need to do the filtering and not HR and God FORBID do not use Taleo to filter out resumes first. You will get liars and Indians and just because I have done a job for 5 years doesn't mean I am any good.
Competence is job title and projects you work on. Not based on how many years you did the same tasks which is all HR looks at. I would take a senior software engineer who did design work in another language or different tasks then to pick a mediocre guy who only did 5 years experience in the same tasks over and over which HR would choose.
http://saveie6.com/
Right now, most jobs that pay more than minimum wage (and I suspect at this point some that do as well) handle their applications in an automated approach, sending applications through algorithms that they seldom understand to pick out candidates who are "right". The problem is that a lot of applicants who match the position really well end up getting automatically rejected because they didn't write their qualifications in a way that was readable for the algorithm. Being as they had no access to the algorithm, there wasn't any good way for them to know how to format their application.
The solution is for employers to actually read the applications. This might mean even having people in the departments where the jobs are open get involved (rather than HR people who often don't have a clue what the job entails). Yeah, it will take time, but it will solve the problem. Right now we instead have companies wasting their time reviewing lucky people who are seldom actually qualified and rejecting people who actually are.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
I'm currently hiring for Linux & Windows sysadmin/Devops folks and Java developers in Virginia. Yes, you can contact me with a resume.
I have a core question I ask all candidates: You (candidate) open up your preferred web browser, type "www.google.com" in the location bar and press enter. In as much detail as you can, tell me what happens next under the hood. What does the browser software do? The OS? Packets on the network and the switches and routers they transit? What servers are contacted and how do they do what do they do? Go in to as much depth, detail and specificity as you can.
The common answer is: "It connects to the Google server and gets the web page." The 80th percentile answer is, "It gets the IP address from the DNS server and then connects to the Google server."
Folks, that question has a multiple hour answer if you're enough of a guru to give it. The common answers do not demonstrate a sufficient understanding of how your computer works to land you a job in the tech industry.
Moderating "-1, Disagree" is simple censorship. Have the guts to post your opinion.
I never did get that job, even though my buddy on the inside said he kept trying to push for my hiring. It was never about me not being able to do the work they were hiring for. It was about being judged as not entertaining enough to hang out with socially.
No. Most likely they already had someone they knew lined up for the job and that was just an excuse.
In case you forgot the other meaning:
"fish by trailing a baited line along behind a boat. "we trolled for mackerel""
Many smart employers will advertise a job that doesn't exist. For instance, suppose that the IT department doesn't seem to be performing as well as expected. Maybe there are members who don't get along well or some ancient coders approaching the age of 30. There's no urgent need, but the boss runs an ad to see what turns up.
The ad costs little and can be farmed out to an agency. There could be some time consuming interviews if some outstanding applicants show up. All in all, little cost, little risk, and potentially an opportunity to replace an average worker with an outstanding one. Investors may see the talent search as a reason to buy more shares. If current employees discover that their jobs are threatened, they might improve. And if you do find that miracle applicant who can do the work of 3 existing slackers, you have won big!
Smart. Wouldn't you do it if you were responsible for maximizing profit?
Statistically, if one in ten operating managers uses this strategy, that might well account for the illusion that there are 6,000,000 jobs available.
...omphaloskepsis often...
It is time to start your OWN company, and do what it takes to hire competent degree'd or undegree'd individuals based on their qualifications, as well as competent marketing staff that understand executive positions are not in their career path (but bonuses will be if they keep the rest of the company growing without losses due to misrepresentations your engineering staff are unwilling or unable to meet.)
I keep seeing people complain about all these shitty companies out there, but how many of you are doing anything to make a difference? Starting a company from the group up is shitty, risky, and might fail. But unless actual techies start doing it again, instead of these gloryhounding bro/MBA assholes, that is all you or the next generation have to look forward to commanding companies. Furthermore, unless you are willing to fuck your employees on pay, severance, etc, you aren't going to be able to grow as quickly or make acquisitions as frequently as more ruthlessly managed companies.
But until enough real techies do, the market is going to continue devolving into sociopathic bro/mba morons with a chopshop attitude to handling business.
Dear Hiring Managers Everywhere,
I've been hired and have had to do the hiring. I know the drill. So, you want good candidates? Do the following:
1) Get HR out of the loop. HR, as you know, isn't where the brain trust of the company lives. They also tend to be lazy. Result? They're using keywords to exclude resumes. If you don't say, "Agile" on your resume, you sink out of sight, even if you've been working in an Agile environment for years. Keyword based systems are an utter, abysmal, total fail.
2) Don't throw every skill you can think of into your ad. Otherwise good candidates who may not have ever used say, Jira (which takes all of about 15 minutes to learn), are excluded. Pick a few of the core ones. You want someone who can teach themselves. That's as or more important than experience in any specific technology.
3) Understand that you'll have to train and that this will take time. Nobody's going to have everything. If they lie enough to claim they do, well... good luck.
4) If you have a thoughtlessly hacked together toolset that includes, VB6, F#, Erhang, Perl, a collection of proprietary, obscure TLAs and BrainFuck 2, you'll probably have to hire two or three people, instead of the 1 you could have hired to maintain a standard LAMP or Windows stack.
5) What you really want is a 20 year old kid with 30 years of experience who'll work 60 hours a week for 40,000 a year. Guess what? You won't find that person. If you do, don't expect him to stick around. If your manager(s) don't/won't understand that, your company is doomed. Polish up your resume and start looking.
6) Fix your application software. If you get a resume, do not make anybody fill in all that redundant information again, get disgusted and stop. Don't ask the address, web site, and supervisor phone number of the company that died in the dot com crash of 2001. It wastes everyone's time and make you look like idiots.
Please do not read this sig. Thank you.
In the 1990s big companies (and small?) had training programs, in-house training departments, and even training goals for employees. It's not like this is news. People used to apprentice under masters or journeymen in the trades. Somehow with all the offshoring companies seem to have totally forgotten, in the space of 10 or 20 years, that investing in employees is a good thing. I've heard several interviews with managers at medium sized companies that said, to effect, "Gosh, we might have to actually train our own employees."
But "job openings" doesn't mean anything other than a bit of HR fluff. A line on a website. A row count on a database.
Ostensibly, it's a hole in a company that's has things it needs to do to meet it's growth. Or a hole made by someone leaving. But that ignores some very serious real-world factors. A lot of job openings are just mythical bullshit made too extreme so the company can justify hiring an H1B visa. A lot of companies would snap up anyone with a PhD in data science... if they would work for under $50K. Then you have places asking for 20 years experience with TensorFlow.
And if anyone is looking at this number and deciding policy then it impacts someone's bottom line. And since anyone could go file some paperwork and incorporate their rinkydink garage company and list a million job openings for left-handed 3rd generation Navahoe with 30 years experience porting mainframe Cobol to HTC Android devices... it means the number can't be trusted.
Meanwhile an unemployed person is a real physical living breathing person that won't go away. (Until they stop looking for a job or get on disability or get a shitty part-time job, then they stop being counted).
I got laid off last year. I've been trying and failing to find anything. I'm fairly convinced that nobody is actually hiring in any significant number. They might do so if they happen to find the superman who fits their absurdly long list of specific tech they want, but they're perfectly fine to continue with current staff.
I've been looking long enough that I've seen the same positions open for months and months and months. If they actually wanted to fill those positions they might reevaluate what they're asking for. But if they're willing to let them sit open with no success for so long it's obviously not a high priority.
He's referring to U-3. And based on that he is correct. Perhaps you don't understand unemployment rates.
https://www.bls.gov/news.relea...
https://www.bls.gov/news.relea...
By that definition you're addicted to masturbation. You should get some help for that.
Be careful! If you get any appreciable help you are no longer masturbating, you're simply having sex.
Man, you really need that seminar!
I ran into a job description in 1999 that was looking for a Java developer with ten years of experience.
That reminds me of when UNIX was first penetrating the commercial market. The want ads were filled with openings, at entry-level salaries, requiring enough years of experience that only Kernighan, Ritchie, and Thompson need apply.
It inspired running gags about the cluelessness of executives in engineering and staff in HR departments.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Perhaps you don't understand unemployment rates.
I understand they are political fiction with little basis in reality.
Perhaps you don't understand lies, damned lies, and statistics.
Strat
Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.
Nobody is hiring, but recruiters still call me every day. They've been calling me for years. They always ask the same question.
"Why aren't you working?"
"I'm not working because nobody is hiring."
"But why aren't you working?"
"I'm currently looking for work if anyone is actually hiring,"
"Yeah but why aren't you working?"
Lorenz says another thing employers need to understand is that wages need to rise, even at entry levels, if they want to fill jobs. He says he is telling manufacturers, "If you are below $12 an hour, I don't know that I'm going to be the person to be able to help you with those jobs."
That's because in the past year, job openings have nearly doubled in western North Carolina where he works, and the supply of additional workers is shrinking fast.
Cappelli says another part of the problem is that employers haven't adjusted to new conditions. For years they've had their choice of workers desperate for a job. Now, the labor market has tightened, but many employers haven't responded, he says.
Pretty obvious what's going on here:
Normal Economy: Recession ends -> labor market shrinks -> wages rise.
US Economy last 40 years: Recession ends -> labor market shrinks -> immigration fills the gap.
US Economy under cartoonishly anti-immigrant government: Recession ends -> labor market shrinks -> immigration goes down anyway -> OMG what do we do!!!?
Obviously wages either have to go up, or managers will have to move the work overseas. Given the attitude of US management for the last 40 years about sharing their wealth increases with workers, I know which I'd bet on...
I have no problem finding devs that check the right boxes on a resume. The problem is finding ones that aren't terrible. Folks who are really good tend to be recognized and paid well by their organizations....hiring people off the street is like fishing in your toilet bowl....there could be a fish in there, but it's probably just turds.
Seriously, I work in an in-demand industry and we pay pretty well, but I still sit through dozens of interviews with dunderheads who seem to think that because the market is "hot" they are entitled to top pay and special treatment even though they can't code for shit and are only looking for a job because their current company is more than happy to see them walk. I'd rather hire an H1B who is actually competent (and no, even if I wanted to -- and I don't -- my company has no mechanism whereby I could pay an H1B less than a citizen....nor would I want them working more than 40 hours a week, since I don't do that myself and don't want to supervise weirdos who do).
why does Wall Street post records almost daily? The economy is doing just fine. Just not the part that the employees are allowed to partake in.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
in both cases we've described government programs to make labor cheaper for businesses. It's just that the one I just described is cheaper because you don't have to pay for the training. The goal is never to increase employment and wages. It's always been to make as much money as possible for the oligarchy.
Just pay for people to go to school already. Deal with the fact that some of them are dumb and are going to major in Basket Weaving and rejoice in the engineers and doctors who run the world.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
I make a six figure salary working in tech in the SF bay area. My girlfriend earns over twice what I do working in HR at our local friendly mega-corporation. Technically our two salaries put us in the bottom end of the storied and oft-maligned 1%. Our situation stems from equal parts of luck and hard work, and I'm grateful to be in it.
Were we to buy a house in the area that isn't lead or mold-infested, riddled with bullet holes and mediocre schools (here's looking at you, Oakland!), or needing a 2-hour commute, we would be living paycheck to paycheck to afford the mortgage. As it is, we're currently making someone else rich who had the good fortune to buy the place when it was a cow pasture. How the hell people making a fraction of what we do survive, I have no idea, and my heart goes out to them. One major reason California was such a dynamic economy at the beginning of the tech revolution, and why Texas has been growing like gangbusters recently, is that the cost of housing was dirt cheap in both locations. Employers could pay lower wages, and employees would wind up with more in their pockets after the basics of food and shelter were paid for than the current state of insanity we find ourselves in.
Fix that problem, and employers won't have a problem paying people lower wages, because then they could actually afford to live on a lower salary. Doing so requires disabusing people of the notion that their house is a lottery ticket guaranteed by God and the U.S. Constitution to pay off, as well as confronting an army of gray-haired NIMBYs who stand to see their property values fall, and who vote reliably in every damn election. I won't hold my breath.
That's funny. I'm in the aviation industry and I keep hearing about this pilot shortage that we're having. I've been diligently hunting for a better job for the past five years and can't get so much as a peep from any decent employer. I have had plenty of savage offers for 40-70% pay cuts, opportunities without benefits (e.g. no health insurance), and offers to work 30% more for 20% less. There's lots of work out there, but not for anyone with experience it seems.
legal immigration is big in landscaping / restaurants. They can pay people under the table and when they get hurt on the job just show up at ER.
Make me. :P I did stop drinking sodas due to health reasons (too much sugar) though. :(
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
list REAL jobs so that people could apply for them instead of the FAKE jobs they post to attract "diverse" applicants and build their corporate image and demographics database. Too many people are WASTING THEIR TIME chasing after one fake job after another and wondering why they never get any callbacks but their junk mail keeps increasing all the time.
Hyper-V hosts need way more reboots and server 16 (has the windows 10 forced update system) (and Nano Server is on the faster ring then the full windows 2016 install)
But esxi and linux vm hosts have better network bonding (common os level control) and bridging. (I think that 2012/2016 on windows can do the same) On Linux you can tie a bond to a bridge and set the an IP on the bridge and you also link VM's with there own IP's the the bridge as well. With open vswitch you can have an an bond tied to it with groups of VM's each with own VLand set. And the host does not need an IP address set for this bridge.
1- Have the funds to pay your human capital for what they are putting in the boss's bank account. 2- fire HR. Most managers know who they actually need to hire, but don't; because the company line is "pay as little as possible." They won't risk getting fired over hiring you.
This is exactly why Jobalign was invented.
Stop breathing and never start again. If you can't do that, you're addicted to oxygen. Now here comes the excuses why you won't.
Companies no longer consider training an employee to be an investment in the company, rather it's an expense to be cut.
They want the best talent they can buy at the cheapest price so you can do the job of three people before you burn out.
They could give a shit about " loyalty " because they'll just fire you and replace with another who will do the job for less.
Year after year your healthcare premiums continue to climb while wage increases are all but going in reverse. ( assuming you're lucky enough to even GET healthcare through your employer anymore )
Large swaths of employees are laid off just to satisfy stockholders who want to see an ever climbing profit margin. All the while paying executives yearly bonuses which exceed a regular employees lifetime earnings two or three times over.
I honestly fail to see why anyone would want to work for the typical American company these days considering the environment they have created.
They're being told to find purple squirrels for borderline minimum wage. Also, no sign on benefits and minimum insurance coverage, etc.
No shit they can't find someone.
"Part of the hiring problem, Chamberlain says, lies in company hiring policies."
Well, no shit.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
The biggest problem is companies have slashed their training budgets and do not want to keep their current staff up to speed in new technology. They think it is cheaper just to bring in consultants with the skills. The problem is eventually the consultants leave and the support is dumped on a current employee who has no clue how to fix things that break. And yes, one of the big problems is the H-1B Visa program. I agree with many of the comments that mention Indian companies lying about the experience of some of their people. As a Project Manager I had a new consultant from India join the project so I set up a quick meeting to greet him and make sure he understands how critical and time sensitive the his work will be. When I asked him who much experience he had with a mainframe software development tool he looked at his team lead and then finally said seven years. I guess he must have started using it when he was 15 or 16. His work sure did not back up that claim. 95% of the recruiters who contact me about a consulting job are from India. They claim to submit me for a job and then I never hear back even after me sending followup emails and/or phone calls. The last two positions I applied to were from different companies in different states. After finally getting an updates I was told by both recruiters that these jobs "were on hold". My guess is they only talked to me so they could say they talked to American citizens but could not find one that had had the experience or wanted the job so they submitted their H-1B candidate.
While the official statistics are misleading, it's hard to get accurate numbers with unofficial statistics. Most of the people in my father's generation in my extended family - 50s to late 60s - are earning a lot less today or ten years ago than they did in the 1990s. Does that count as underemployed? Most of the ones even in their late 60s are still working, because they don't have enough saved for retirement.
And where do you draw the line? Is someone that won't take a $9 an hour job justified in holding out for something better, or just too lazy to work an honest job?
And then, of course, there is Medicaid. That terrible job might push your household income too high to qualify for Medicaid but not high enough for you to afford the copays and deductibles on anything else. So if you need health insurance, you can't work unless the employer provides a great (low deductible, low copay) plan. Otherwise you're better off staying on Medicaid.
They're requiring 20 years experience in 30 different technologies and looking to fill these positions with 25 year-olds who will work the first 12 months as unpaid interns.
My HR department has the highest staff turnover of any group in the company. ;)
My friend, the receptionist, was harassed into a burn-out by her direct report, the HR Deputy Director.
I know people fired for whistle-blowing on all manner of statutory breaches of workplace safety.
The hierarchy is untouchable, so only the corrupt rise to the top.
The only HR people that stay are the enablers.
The problem is a lack of a robust legal framework in the labor laws that protect employees from abusive termination and/or treatment.
The USA is widely known as having one of the WORST "standard" work conditions in the civilized world.
Seems like an easy win to me: change all the labor laws, the political system and re-educate the population.
In many companies HR has given up finding good people, instead seeking out unicorn candidates with 100% matches to shopping lists of certifications and experience. It's easier (on HR) and when a candidate doesn't work out they just point back to the requirements and blame the person who wrote them.
Apparently job boards suck at matching people.
Even Linda?
Inflation FTW. Everyone wants to pretend that people will work for 1990's wages while 2020 is rolling in. Meanwhile the USD isn't worth the paper it's printed on, because everyone is terrified to admit otherwise.
The point was that the assertion of "Stop X or you're addicted" is ludicrous. We're rational beings and can decide not only to override a low-effort behavior, but also to continue to engage for whatever benefit we perceive. Alcohol breaks a stress cycle and comes in things that taste good (cider). Video games are fun. Amphetamine is kind of nasty but if you have ADHD a low dose can make you functional (I went with Atomoxetine—apparently idiosyncratic individuals can hit amphetamine toxicity at 2mg, and I pissed brown immediately on a 20mg XR dose).
Behaviors are only self-destructive if engaged in in a manner which is self-destructive. Addiction breaks the regulation systems and enables self-destructive behaviors, such as injecting oral preparations of heroin through non-sterile syringes, or consumption of alcohol to excess. Some addicts are stronger than that and can manage an addiction; they're always fully-aware they have an addiction, else they can't manage it. Even then, when you stop a behavior and then have an irresistible compulsion to start it again, it's an addiction: you might be able to decide when to do it, to delay it, to choose when to engage to minimize the risk, but you have no choice about actually engaging. That's a broken regulation system.
That's different than using THC once or twice a month, drinking a beer in the evening, or even using the occasional low dose of amphetamine to dismiss fatigue. In those situations, you typically have no compulsion due to a lack of sufficient use to develop dependence or a lack of dependence potential of the drug (THC will generate physical addiction, but it's weak), and can decide simply to not do it. Habit is a smaller hill to climb than addiction.
These are important things to understand.
A lot of factors go into drug abuse, ranging from a physical need (heroin withdrawal: half a year of sweating, shaking, and horribleness, seriously) to environmental factors consuming the balance of willpower. Some people are simply elective abusers: they take drugs, they slow down when they're starting to become self-destructive, they re-center themselves, then they start abusing again because they like it. Other people are flatly addicted: they can't stop without an immense effort of willpower; and the availability of that willpower is limited physiologically, and consumed by all stressors. Addicts in poor emotional or strained financial states have little energy remaining to fight their addictions--which might very well be the only good thing in their lives, because the whole point of getting high is to feel great for a little while and that's a striking experience when your entire life is shit.
Up to now, we've treated all drug abusers as elective lawbreakers. We have mandatory minimum sentencing, and so we have prisons filled with THC users who never did anything particularly wrong--no violent crimes, no stealing to feed their habits. The marijuana dealers running around with guns and organizing gang territory are also selling harder shit than marijuana and, besides, dealers and users shouldn't be treated the same, even if the users are casually trafficking to their friends. You want to be a high-rolling drug kingpin? You get the whole package: we're putting you in prison forever when we catch you; you're not some small-time college kid who grows a plant in his basement to smoke with a girl you met now and then. Two different things, man.
Our focus should be on intoxication (don't smoke weed and drive); on major, deliberate trafficking (casual trafficking is generally called "sharing" and is a social behavior, not a behavior of criminal intent); on the better understanding, education, and control of drugs based on their potential for harm; on harm-reduction; and on the mitigation of the conditions which lead to and support addiction. Blunt enforcement--"drugs r bad and if you go near drugs we arrest you forever"--is not a strategy; it's mindless bureaucracy.
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Look 'Friend' - I used to be you. I am proud to say that I have not had a single drink of alcohol nor a draw of marijuana in the past ELEVEN hours.
And holyshit my fellow honkey mofo -- my work is done for the week. I'm not driving. I have no kids. So fuck yeah -- the weekend begins RIGHT NOW.
Fuck...I don't live in New Orleans any more...bars never close...hard to pick up a girl in D.C. at this hour. Well...anyone you'd want to pick up.
Hmm...okay maybe I'll just get baked and work out. Or do something creative. Wait...I can go running and pick up running university girls or young milfs while offering them a hit on my MJ-Vape.
Wow...staying in shape while enjoying a nice day dreamily baked and chatting up like minded athletic attractive women, finding the fun ones immediately through marijuana usage discrimination. Bozzio -- you come up with the BEST FUCKING IDEAS. Sayonara. I'm putting on my running shoes.
I dunno man. Sometimes I hear about women being stoned to death in Pakistan and I think to myself -- shit -- that actually sounds like a relatively nice way to go unlike some barbaric violent or sci-fi multi-injection way to be put to death. Who wudda thunk the Pakistanis ahead of the rest of the world -- especially in THIS area. *exhale* *caugh*