Slashdot Mirror
What Are Today's Most Difficult IT Hires? (cio.com)
Slashdot reader snydeq shared an article from CIO:
The IT talent gap is driving up demand for skilled IT pros, but for certain roles and skillsets, finding -- and signing -- the right candidate can feel a bit like trying to capture a unicorn... AI and data science jobs are at the top of the list, in part because they're relatively young technologies, and they're being introduced in all sorts of companies going through their digital transformation. At the same time, there are some surprises... The experts we talked with name-checked a laundry list of desirable skills and needed experience with emerging areas like cognitive computing, machine learning, data analytics, IoT and blockchain. But the true unicorns are candidates who can not only deepen their bench of tech skills but keep an eye on the bottom line.
The article also cites high demand for data privacy experts, penetration testers with a scientific mind-set, and adaptable developers (including DevOps engineers), as well as experts in robotics and cryptology. But everyone's experiencing the job market differently, so the original submission ends with a question for Slashdot readers.
"What hires are you having the most difficulty making these days?"
The article also cites high demand for data privacy experts, penetration testers with a scientific mind-set, and adaptable developers (including DevOps engineers), as well as experts in robotics and cryptology. But everyone's experiencing the job market differently, so the original submission ends with a question for Slashdot readers.
"What hires are you having the most difficulty making these days?"
We're having difficulty finding someone who is a blockchain expert with 5+ years in Lightning Network experience.
HR won't let us hire anyone with less, and demands at least 2/3s of new Engineering hires be non-white non-male.
The most difficult IT hires are the dev/admin/whatever with 20 years of experience willing to work for minimum wage. Woe is the poor cheap-ass employer.
"AI and data science jobs are at the top of the list, in part because they're relatively young technologies"
Nothing particularly new in any of the fields mentioned. Specific frameworks in use are different now than they were 5, 10 or 20 years ago. However, speaking as someone who has been in IT for somewhere between 30 and 40 years, there's really not a lot that's fundamentally new. Mostly, we have added more turtles. What I do see is that each new generation re-invents old ideas and slaps new labels on them. Often, they even think the ideas are new, until some old grouch like me comes along and rains on their parade.
The last real sea change was the spread of the Internet in the 1990s - enabling worldwide networking (and worldwide attacks). The actual vulnerabilities being exploited, however, are old-hat. The top security risk today's web applications is injection? This has not changed in 20 years, which ought to be embarrassing for the entire IT profession.
Enjoy life! This is not a dress rehearsal.
...are the most difficult hires.
I'm not young either, almost in my 50's - and still got hired in IT.
What surprises me though, is that our company have a habit of not hiring experienced staff, because they want to do the training and teaching themselves. We have a "teacher/mentor" culture in our offices meaning that when a new batch arrives, possibly with no knowledge of our infrastructure whatsoever - we train them meticulously. We have a high tolerance for failure (yes, most people will make mistakes, often quite expensive mistakes such as rebooting a server that has 100's of cash machines connected to it), but once they do that only ONCE - they'll likely never do it again. It's surprisingly effective. Also cost effective, as they get to be highly specialized and focused on our business and our customers.
The hardest ones to train, is the "experts". Completely age unrelated. Experts "knows so much" forehand, it becomes an uphill battle to explain to them everything. Some of them get offended that we imply that they "didn't know that" and it's almost like a mine-field trying to explain anything to people who know it all.
Fresh from the street - is the new IT gold. (And this comes from an almost 50 year 30+ in the IT business guy, me...who is as surprised as you probably are reading this), but it's quite true - I work in one of the biggest companies there is. I can't reveal who I work for as it's in my NDA, but if you work in a similar corporate, you'll totally get this.
What this world is coming to - is for you and me to decide.
(Read that title again carefully before responding.)
Lots of Indians have this amount of experience on their resumes. Why not Americans? :)
Seriously, anyone with a solid foundation in STL and C++03 could pick up Boost or the latest features in C++0x, but HR and managers don't want to hear it.
I'm currently in the job market. Many of the ads I'm seeing are extensive, detailed, collections of technologies and skills but only 3-5 years experience. What's worse is how often there is no clear distinction between what is truly essential and what is a "plus".
This kind of posting selects against the honest, and anyone with more than a mild case of Impostor Syndrome.
Oh, ad might catch the unicorn's attention, but if the applicant truly has the extensive experience asked for - why would they work for YOUR company?
It is just not easy to get HR and C*s to want to pay them enough.
Therein lies the REAL issue.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
The trend I've noticed is that companies prefer to hire someone who can't easily move to another company, yet have the option of terminating employment for any reason whatsoever (i.e. an extreme version of employment-at-will) For example, this is why they prefer H-1B and contingent employees. H-1B's can move, but it's a lot of work on the part of the H-1B employer. Since they are locked in, the company can pay them less. Contingent workers can be easily let go without the worries of the employee suing the company, or having to pay for pesky things like health insurance, vacation, holidays, unemployment insurance, and worker's compensation.
As for off-shoring to overseas locations. The problem companies face is that most of the rest of the developed world has stricter labor laws and better contingent worker protections then the US, as well as single payer health care and statutory vacation laws. Also employment-at-will is an alien concept all developed countries and in most emerging economies such as China. Salaries in the developing countries are also on the rise.
By using H-1B and temporary workers and employing them in the US, the company can avoid paying market rates for labor and have a captive workforce which can be increased or reduced at a moment's notice which makes the bean counters, and investors happier.
The problem is this tactic only works if there is a good supply of H-1B and contingent workers to be exploited. We need better protections for H-1B and contingent employees in the US, as well as a reform/harmonization of "Employment-at-will so that workers are not taken advantage of, and the global talent pool truly operates as a free market.
Basically everything coming our way lately stinks of entitled millennial
Translation: we want to pay shit wages with shit working conditions and those little ingrates won't work for us when they can get better conditions or better wages elsewhere.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
"Technical Fad Coordinator"
Table-ized A.I.
It's surprisingly hard to find technical trainers. Very few candidates make it through a phone interview, let alone an example teach. Admittedly it's an unusual combination of skills. We want people that have serious development chops, know multiple languages well (although no need to be perfect), and can teach. The pay, I believe, is good (I do it professionally). It's still stressful at times, but it's a different kind of stress. Agencies have been next to useless finding candidates because they understand none of the skills or how to screen for them. Many people in the tech world don't know these roles exist, or don't know what it takes, so if you're curious here's the kind of things you would need to do/be to make it through an interview, and land the job:
Technical
* Demonstrate clear fundamentals in your 'home' language, e.g. in Java I might ask about pass by value and how that affects code, or in C++ explore where and when you use the destructor. These are not obscure corner cases, although later stages of an interview could move to that but the technical interview is mostly done by then
* Demonstrate authenticity, e.g. have you experienced the stress of dealing with a 'sev 1' and survived to tell the tale
Teaching
* Can you stand up in front of people and engage them in learning
* Can you think on your feet and derive an answer from existing knowledge
* Can you admit when you don't know something, research the answer, and come back to the group
* Can you present information clearly
Last of all, can you do all of this with enthusiasm? I genuinely don't know if it's just a rare combination of skills, or we just can't find the people.
Companies need to start training people. You see training in every field except IT. I'm lucky and my company does a reasonable job of keeping its workforce trained but almost everywhere else all I hear from people is they get no training. You can't expect people to work 60-80 hours a week AND train themselves on upcoming or newer tech. It's absurd.
Expecting candidates to know everything is ridiculous. Hire the person with potential, then invest some time into training them and mentoring them. You'll have a better employee and a more loyal one. Right now it's like musical chairs, people go until they burn out in 6 months to a year then switch companies. The average employment term in SV is like 9-24 months if I remember right. Where I work it's closer to 10-15 years. Shocking the difference it makes.
At the best, you get offloaded to a benefit dodging staffing agency, at worst get nothing due to not being the perfect person.
"Forget the engineers." -Carly Fiorina, briber of MIT Technology Review.
If you offer more money, you could get away with a lot less luck.
Sent from my ASR33 using ASCII
So basically you want skilled, experienced, works who are willing to work for less money than they're worth. And you think you're reasonable.
YOU are why America is failing. We've gone from a situation where, 50 years ago, a person could walk into a job as a teenager, learn, become skilled, and end up retiring on a reasonable income, to today, where employers are proud to underpay their employees, aren't willing to invest a cent in them, and are happy to see them leave.
Everyone bitches about millennials, but quite honestly, as a GenXer, I saw this coming, we were part of the first generation that had to put up with this bullshit, and we saw these complaints about us too. Because we resented incompetent short sighted business owners who sold the farm and then complained when we weren't suited to the crumbs. But we had the last laugh - my generation pretty much invented the Internet, which, combined with the shortage of suitable employees for Boomer-run businesses, was a disaster for them.
Shape up. Continue with your entitled attitude, and you'll end up destroyed, and rightly so.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.