Very true. So far in my (anecdotal) experience the offers have been genuine. In any case, as long as you don't work "extra-hard" during the contract period and you're compensated at a rate that accounts for the need to purchase health insurance on the open market you're not really any worse off even if the job fails to materialize. I'm certainly not advocating a strategy of "work 60 hr/week for peanuts in the hope of landing a full-time gig that lets you work 40 hr/week for a reasonable salary". If they're not going to pay you a reasonable hourly rate to work a reasonable amount of hours during the contract period then those things probably won't be a part of any full-time offer either.
1. Don't take contract-to-hire positions that require you to work crazy hours.
2. Don't take contract-to-hire positions that don't include a reasonable amount of vacation.
2. Build the cost of private insurance (and a less favorable tax environment) into the contract rate you're willing to accept.
I doubt I'd be willing to take a contract job that "might" turn into a full time job in 4 months.
On the other hand, if you're fairly confident in your ability to perform in the job then "might turn into a full-time job" is more or less "will almost certainly turn into a full-time job". And there are benefits to boot. Maybe, after working there for 4 months, you realize it's a terrible place to work and you don't even want a full-time offer. You have an "out" without the awkwardness of having to quit a full-time gig 4 months after starting. Another benefit: your full-time offer is based on your actual ability to do the job rather than the rough estimate an employer can glean from an interview. This can work to your favor if you perform better than you interview. (Possibly due to lack of educational credentials, poor grades, etc.) Often employers will offer a contract-to-hire position to candidates about whom they are sufficiently "on the fence" that, were a full-time offer were the only option, they wouldn't make an offer at all.
Just a thought: if the phrase "vast majority" does in fact accurately represent the percentage of these contract hires that are "useless" you might consider modifying your interview process. I'm not saying there aren't a ton of useless people there; just that it's possible to do a good enough job filtering them that you don't wind up with the "vast majority" of your hires being "useless". Maybe the best you can do is 50/50, but that's still better than 90/10.
This begs the question, "How would we measure a shortfall anyway?" You can almost always get an employee with the skills you want if there is no limit to what you're willing to offer in terms of compensation. So, "They could hire as many as they want if they just paid more," isn't a good counter-argument to the claim that there's a "shortfall". Instead, we might look at the change in cost to (over time) to hire someone of a certain caliber, as compared to some other labor cost point of reference. One approach might be to look at the ratio of the average starting salary of C.S./E.E./Math 4-year degree recipients (i.e. graduates likely to be qualified for coding positions) to the average starting salary of recipients of 4-year degrees in other fields. If the ratio is increasing over time then that may indicates these graduates are becoming more scarce. Were the supply keeping up with demand for STEM graduates we might expect the ratio to stay roughly constant. I don't have stats handy, but my suspicion is that the ratio has increased over time.
Ones they can lay off at any time.
Ones that can quite and move on to greener pastures at any time, leaving their former employer in the lurch. It's a two-way street.
Women went into IT in the late 1990s, when it looked like a good career choice.
In fact the peak percentage of C.S. degrees awarded to women (which is arguably a reasonable proxy for "women going into IT") occurred in the early 1980s and has been declining ever since. See the graph "C.S. Bachelor's Degrees Granted By Sex" here. My off-the-cuff theory is that the field has become less "stable" over time, with employees hopping around to different employers with much greater frequency than they once did, either because of layoffs or because they found more interesting (or lucrative) work elsewhere, and that this increased instability is disproportionate turnoff to women (as opposed to men).
Now it isn't, so they don't.
On what basis do you claim software dev. isn't a "good career choice"? Maybe I'm atypical, but from where I'm sitting it's not too shabby. My individual income is around the 5th percentile, I rarely work more than 40 hours a week and I get to go to work in shorts and flip-flops. The worst thing that happens to me is being asked to implement a feature that's stupid or poorly designed.
On the contrary! Without reading the article I correctly guessed they'd need to limit enrollment either by way of high tuition or a lottery. Then, after asking which one it was, I got the answer from fellow Slashdot readers without actually having to read the article. Score.
The ruling (PDF) provides a good cautionary tale for anyone who thinks they can gain leverage over their employer or increase job security by controlling key passwords.
You can still gain leverage. You just have to be willing to go to jail if your employer calls your bluff, and possibly afterwards even if you successfully extort something from them by withholding the passwords. The trick would be to make sure you retain whatever you managed to extort for when you get out of jail.
Some mathematicians, however, argue that maths aptitude is not born so much as made. 'I feel that the notion of "talent" may be overrated,' says Michael Hutchings, a mathematician also at Berkeley."
Talent probably isn't the main thing separating your Fields Medal recipient from your average "math prof. at a major research university". That's probably hard work and circumstance. But inborn talent probably is one of the main things separating "guy who has trouble grasping the concept of a square root" and "guy who goes on to become a math prof. at a research university". In some sense, inborn talent puts a soft cap on what someone is likely to achieve. In some situations you can overcome lack of talent with hard work and perseverance, but the closer you get to the upper limit of your natural ability the more difficult that becomes. You see this when someone guts it out in high school and aces their math classes, then tries to the same thing in an advanced undergraduate class and it no longer "works".
I develop software for a living, have two degrees in this stuff, and agree with the idea that for something to be taught as a required subject in school it should be broadly applicable. I'm not sure computer programming qualifies.
I could get behind a hybrid plan. Base cost for a base level of bandwidth. Base should cover the "long tail" of the usage curve, i.e. the least-consuming ~90% of users. Then charge per unit over that threshold. If this over comes to pass it should be paired with a requirement that providers treat all packets the same, regardless of source and destination.
I didn't say the Christian Right "runs" the Tea Party, just that there's more overlap between those two groups than between "The Tea Party" and "Republicans as a whole". I don't have numbers for all Republicans, but if you combine the "conservative republicans" and "liberal/moderate republicans" then that's basically "all republicans".
Let me ask a different question: which group more closely matches the views of Tea Party members: "Republicans who are also part of the Christian Right" or "Republicans who aren't part of the Christian Right"? I'd bet money on the former. (If for no other reason than that the "Christian Right" is, as a group, more conservative than the non-"Christian Right" and the Tea Party is also more-conservative-than-the-average-Republican).
The split was 42% support vs. 11% opposition to the "Christian Right" among Tea Party members. That same split was 41% vs. 4% among "Conservative Republicans" and 9% vs. 11% among "Moderate/Liberal Republicans". It was 11% vs. 19% among "Independents".
Would you agree its safe to say the Tea Party has more overlap with the "Christian Right" than the Republican Party as a whole?
Link? Most of the polling data I've seen suggests there's significant overlap between the Tea Party and social conservatives. Cursory googling turned up this one:
Compared to the set of Republicans and "lean-Republicans", the Tea Party was:
1. Very slightly less socially conservative w.r.t. same-sex marriage,
2. Very slightly more socially conservative w.r.t. abortion,
3. Very slightly more socially conservative w.r.t. illegal immigration,
4. Very slightly more socially conservative w.r.t. gun control.
Moreover, among "white evangelicals" 41% said they "agree" with the Tea Party vs. 8% who disagree. White evangelicals were in the highest agreement with the Tea Party among all groups polled. Of those who support the "conservative Christian movement" a whopping 69% agree with the Tea Party. Of those who affiliate with the Tea Party, 42% also agree with the "conservative Christian movement" vs. 11% who disagree.
Numbers are mostly meaningless without knowing locale. Most of the top companies are concentrated in northern California, where not only is the cost of living high but there's also lots of competition for talent. What does Google pay its engineers working in, say, Pittsburgh or Austin?
Slashdot Mirror
Very true. So far in my (anecdotal) experience the offers have been genuine. In any case, as long as you don't work "extra-hard" during the contract period and you're compensated at a rate that accounts for the need to purchase health insurance on the open market you're not really any worse off even if the job fails to materialize. I'm certainly not advocating a strategy of "work 60 hr/week for peanuts in the hope of landing a full-time gig that lets you work 40 hr/week for a reasonable salary". If they're not going to pay you a reasonable hourly rate to work a reasonable amount of hours during the contract period then those things probably won't be a part of any full-time offer either.
This is easily solved.
1. Don't take contract-to-hire positions that require you to work crazy hours.
2. Don't take contract-to-hire positions that don't include a reasonable amount of vacation.
2. Build the cost of private insurance (and a less favorable tax environment) into the contract rate you're willing to accept.
On the other hand, if you're fairly confident in your ability to perform in the job then "might turn into a full-time job" is more or less "will almost certainly turn into a full-time job". And there are benefits to boot. Maybe, after working there for 4 months, you realize it's a terrible place to work and you don't even want a full-time offer. You have an "out" without the awkwardness of having to quit a full-time gig 4 months after starting. Another benefit: your full-time offer is based on your actual ability to do the job rather than the rough estimate an employer can glean from an interview. This can work to your favor if you perform better than you interview. (Possibly due to lack of educational credentials, poor grades, etc.) Often employers will offer a contract-to-hire position to candidates about whom they are sufficiently "on the fence" that, were a full-time offer were the only option, they wouldn't make an offer at all.
Just a thought: if the phrase "vast majority" does in fact accurately represent the percentage of these contract hires that are "useless" you might consider modifying your interview process. I'm not saying there aren't a ton of useless people there; just that it's possible to do a good enough job filtering them that you don't wind up with the "vast majority" of your hires being "useless". Maybe the best you can do is 50/50, but that's still better than 90/10.
This begs the question, "How would we measure a shortfall anyway?" You can almost always get an employee with the skills you want if there is no limit to what you're willing to offer in terms of compensation. So, "They could hire as many as they want if they just paid more," isn't a good counter-argument to the claim that there's a "shortfall". Instead, we might look at the change in cost to (over time) to hire someone of a certain caliber, as compared to some other labor cost point of reference. One approach might be to look at the ratio of the average starting salary of C.S./E.E./Math 4-year degree recipients (i.e. graduates likely to be qualified for coding positions) to the average starting salary of recipients of 4-year degrees in other fields. If the ratio is increasing over time then that may indicates these graduates are becoming more scarce. Were the supply keeping up with demand for STEM graduates we might expect the ratio to stay roughly constant. I don't have stats handy, but my suspicion is that the ratio has increased over time.
Ones that can quite and move on to greener pastures at any time, leaving their former employer in the lurch. It's a two-way street.
In fact the peak percentage of C.S. degrees awarded to women (which is arguably a reasonable proxy for "women going into IT") occurred in the early 1980s and has been declining ever since. See the graph "C.S. Bachelor's Degrees Granted By Sex" here. My off-the-cuff theory is that the field has become less "stable" over time, with employees hopping around to different employers with much greater frequency than they once did, either because of layoffs or because they found more interesting (or lucrative) work elsewhere, and that this increased instability is disproportionate turnoff to women (as opposed to men).
On what basis do you claim software dev. isn't a "good career choice"? Maybe I'm atypical, but from where I'm sitting it's not too shabby. My individual income is around the 5th percentile, I rarely work more than 40 hours a week and I get to go to work in shorts and flip-flops. The worst thing that happens to me is being asked to implement a feature that's stupid or poorly designed.
Just like humans, computers have trouble remembering things when high.
Just looking at the graphs, it appears Japan is approximately as isolated as the U.S.
I'll laugh if the entire site is a honeypot designed to identify people willing to crowdfund the assassination of world leaders.
As long as they contribute it to iPhoto I'm game.
On the contrary! Without reading the article I correctly guessed they'd need to limit enrollment either by way of high tuition or a lottery. Then, after asking which one it was, I got the answer from fellow Slashdot readers without actually having to read the article. Score.
You confuse unwillingness to read with inability to read.
You can still gain leverage. You just have to be willing to go to jail if your employer calls your bluff, and possibly afterwards even if you successfully extort something from them by withholding the passwords. The trick would be to make sure you retain whatever you managed to extort for when you get out of jail.
So is it absurdly expensive or do they use a lottery system?
Talent probably isn't the main thing separating your Fields Medal recipient from your average "math prof. at a major research university". That's probably hard work and circumstance. But inborn talent probably is one of the main things separating "guy who has trouble grasping the concept of a square root" and "guy who goes on to become a math prof. at a research university". In some sense, inborn talent puts a soft cap on what someone is likely to achieve. In some situations you can overcome lack of talent with hard work and perseverance, but the closer you get to the upper limit of your natural ability the more difficult that becomes. You see this when someone guts it out in high school and aces their math classes, then tries to the same thing in an advanced undergraduate class and it no longer "works".
I develop software for a living, have two degrees in this stuff, and agree with the idea that for something to be taught as a required subject in school it should be broadly applicable. I'm not sure computer programming qualifies.
The U.S. spies on other countries? SHOCKING!!!
Seems sensible.
Poor word choice. When I said "base level of bandwidth" I meant base level of usage.
I could get behind a hybrid plan. Base cost for a base level of bandwidth. Base should cover the "long tail" of the usage curve, i.e. the least-consuming ~90% of users. Then charge per unit over that threshold. If this over comes to pass it should be paired with a requirement that providers treat all packets the same, regardless of source and destination.
...it must be time for an employee lock-in.
I didn't say the Christian Right "runs" the Tea Party, just that there's more overlap between those two groups than between "The Tea Party" and "Republicans as a whole". I don't have numbers for all Republicans, but if you combine the "conservative republicans" and "liberal/moderate republicans" then that's basically "all republicans".
Let me ask a different question: which group more closely matches the views of Tea Party members: "Republicans who are also part of the Christian Right" or "Republicans who aren't part of the Christian Right"? I'd bet money on the former. (If for no other reason than that the "Christian Right" is, as a group, more conservative than the non-"Christian Right" and the Tea Party is also more-conservative-than-the-average-Republican).
The split was 42% support vs. 11% opposition to the "Christian Right" among Tea Party members. That same split was 41% vs. 4% among "Conservative Republicans" and 9% vs. 11% among "Moderate/Liberal Republicans". It was 11% vs. 19% among "Independents".
Would you agree its safe to say the Tea Party has more overlap with the "Christian Right" than the Republican Party as a whole?
Link? Most of the polling data I've seen suggests there's significant overlap between the Tea Party and social conservatives. Cursory googling turned up this one:
http://www.pewforum.org/2011/02/23/tea-party-and-religion/
Compared to the set of Republicans and "lean-Republicans", the Tea Party was:
1. Very slightly less socially conservative w.r.t. same-sex marriage,
2. Very slightly more socially conservative w.r.t. abortion,
3. Very slightly more socially conservative w.r.t. illegal immigration,
4. Very slightly more socially conservative w.r.t. gun control.
Moreover, among "white evangelicals" 41% said they "agree" with the Tea Party vs. 8% who disagree. White evangelicals were in the highest agreement with the Tea Party among all groups polled. Of those who support the "conservative Christian movement" a whopping 69% agree with the Tea Party. Of those who affiliate with the Tea Party, 42% also agree with the "conservative Christian movement" vs. 11% who disagree.
Numbers are mostly meaningless without knowing locale. Most of the top companies are concentrated in northern California, where not only is the cost of living high but there's also lots of competition for talent. What does Google pay its engineers working in, say, Pittsburgh or Austin?
When there are zero browsers supporting updates on XP maybe people will finally migrate elsewhere.