What is the Tech Jobs Situation in Late 2004? 1138
CareerConfused asks: "Today I came across an ad in the NY Times, put out by Microsoft, Micron, Level 3 (among others) that claimed that the H-1B visa quota for FY2005 has already expired (it claims the quota expired the first day of FY2005, which started just about a month back). OK. On the one hand, we have
stories of techies not finding jobs; and on the other, we have stories from businesses which claim that lack of H1s is killing their business, as well as public advocacy (like that ad in NYT). So, what is it? Are we in another boom, with jobs going a-begging and companies requiring more H1s to fill them? How come I haven't noticed this in the form of a fatter paycheck (or an Aeron chair, or a fooseball table in the cubicle)?" What have you experienced in your searches for technology-based jobs? Is it still hard to sell your hard-earned skills or are things looking up?
While its one thing to claim that the lack of H1Bs is killing your business because Americans don't want to move to Fort Wayne, Indiana. It's quite another to say that you can't find a job in Silicon Valley. What's needed is an overall view of how tech jobs are doing across the country. What areas are in desperate need of technical skills and what areas are suffering from a shortage of jobs?
Gah! Grammaticalish Butcherificationizing! (Score:2, Insightful)
I'd say there exists a dire need for geeks with basic writing skills in and around Ann Arbor, MI.
Seriously, man, this paragraph wouldn't even earn a passing mark in a seventh-grade writing class. You write articles for a living--get it together!
I don't get it. (Score:3, Insightful)
Moved here, and had a great paying job as a Data Analyst in NYC within a week.
If I can do it... either you're spending all of your time just looking online (which is doomed for failure) or you just don't know how to properly search/interview for a job.
An employment councillor can help you with either problem.
I live/work in the SF Bay Area... (Score:5, Insightful)
I've spent about two and a half years now in a fairly stable job at a big company. I work with people I either like or don't mind, the work is sufficiantly satisfying even considering that I have to occassionally deal with big company political bullshit, the hours are reasonable and I (obviously) still have time to do some light /.'ing. All of this is a significant improvement over the
two startup jobs I had back in 2001 where the hours were insane, the
people were nutjobs and I was very, very unhappy.
OTOH, I've been more or less in limbo in terms of pay. Despite adding considerably to my skillset, I've gotten extremely modest raises that have more or less kept up with inflation if you don't count in gas prices.
Aside from that: Items like Aeron chairs and foosball tables and game systems in the break room and people keeping excessively odd hours can stay gone. I never liked those -- maybe I'm an exception, but I'm at work to *work*, I want to get my work done and leave. I'm working so I can afford to have a life outside of work, not because I really get off on plugging away on my TPS reports. The absolute worst part about all of those "perks" were that they slowed down the whole works and as a side effect created an expectation that you should live at work more than the 8-9 hours a day God intended. "Where's Bob? I need him to look over something." "Oh, he's playing in the Wednesday Tekken Tourney, he'll be out in an hour or two"...
Back to the subject at hand, though: The environment now is such that I could probably go make more money someplace else, but to be honest I am *extremely* hesitant to stick my head back out there after getting bitchslapped so badly last time.
Submitter new here (to America)? (Score:3, Insightful)
See, managers wised up. They found out that you can either hire a domestic techie for 50-80k/yr or hire an imported techie for 25-35k/yr. As an added bonus, the imported techie will be thankful for the opportunity he has, and do everything he can to appease the management that hired him.
I'd _love_ to see a tariff on 'imported' labor. However, I'm not an economist.
no lack of jobs, just talent (Score:1, Insightful)
Looking over the want-ads and monster.com's ilk, there are plenty of jobs for people with experience and know-how... But very few for wannabes and tech support layoffs.
Foreign workers tend to be well educated, dedicated, and happy to be working. American workers tend to be 'l33t h4x0rs' who think they don't make enough while being the first to head for the door at 4:30.
Changes (Score:5, Insightful)
Other than that, it's the same old situation:
1. Employers seeking ridiculously diverse skill sets. What do you want, a software developer with ten years experience, or a GIS specialist with database skills? Pick ONE!
2. Employers requiring experience or expertise in obscure software, but who are unwilling to train. (We're smart; we can learn your industry-specific database front-end for god's sake!)
3. Shops with a depressing preference for Microsoft and IBM languages and software. LAMP jobs and their ilk are comparitively scarce, and therefore highly competitive.
4. HR people who don't know what they want/need. The other day someone posted a "need" for a C# developer with more than five years experience.
So employers are feeling a crunch from the H1 issue. Fine, I'll take that underpaid position! Where is it? We've talked about this before, and I understand that employers are trying to thin the pool by posting stringent (or ideal) requirements, but I think it's getting out of hand and alienating worthy applicants in the process.
As for the relocation bit, I don't buy it. I would welcome the change to relocate almost anywhere in the world for a decent job. I would appreciate a system that makes it easier for employers willing to hire from a remote job pool to find job seekers who are serious about relocating. Monster's [monster.com] system is just too limited.
All you will find is anecdotal evidence (Score:2, Insightful)
Miami, FL (Score:1, Insightful)
I think people band together and bitch about jobs when they're out of work - and they're the only one's making any noise... those of us with jobs don't go around bragging about it, we just get down to business.
If you don't have a job... you HAVE A JOB: FIND A JOB AND QUIT BEING A BABY!
The Chronic Labor Shortage (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Heck, join the military (Score:5, Insightful)
I am a UNIX admin, 10 years experience, currently admin'ing about 1000 Sun servers. I am definitely a "new school" type admin, utilizing Perl and other tools to work smarter, not harder. B.S. degree in science/math field from large university.
I haven't found the market to be horrible in the Philadelphia/Delaware area. I think I've been lucky, but I have not ever taken a pay cut to this day.
I think good UNIX and network people will be in demand for the forseeable future. Not so sure about Windows admins and coders.
Why must everyone be so dramatic? (Score:2, Insightful)
The cycle of students (Score:5, Insightful)
To avert the usual avalanche (Score:2, Insightful)
The following actions can be considered and will be guaranteed to stop the flow of immigrants and or jobseekers;
Kill the economy. I mean really kill it - we are talking 40% or higher inflation here.
Start a civil war.
etc. etc. You get the picture. If it gets to the point where others don't want to live here then you won't want to live here either. Pick your poison.
Now, let's look at some figures for perspective. H1-B visas last for six years. They are also granted to people in fields other than IT. so, if we assume that 75 000 H1's were granted every year and that about 60% of those were for IT related fields then you would be fighting a total of 270 000 foreigners for a job at any one time. In a country of 300 million that is a statistically insignificant number. Offshoring - which doesn't involve any visas - is orders of magnitude more disastrous to your job security than any other person living in the US and therefore having to deal with the same living standards as you. So, can we please keep the H1 and offshoring issues separate this time?
Oh well, it was nice to have karma for a while.
Re:I don't get it. (Score:5, Insightful)
Its not really "doomed", but last I heard, the odds were stacked against you. At the end of the "boom" times, most Monster job ads supposedly got around 100 resumes each.
Perhaps knowing what that number is now is of greater interest to everyone than "I joined the army" or "You suck if you don't have a job".
New Vistas (Score:5, Insightful)
Fast forward to 1997, when I was graduating college. For years I had worked as an intern / volunteer / gopher in various computer labs and become familiar with the major issues in computer science. For one thing, information technology jobs had not gone away, they had just changed to the point where they no longer looked like they did when I was a kid. On the other hand, some of the scientific coders were having to learn how to code HTML and produce graphics, which was really a strange thing to ask them to do based on their last 20 years of experience.
IT doesn't go away, it intensifies, and so to do IT professionals. My company, www.trellon.com, is almost unable to find qualified people to work on our projects. This is not because their is such high demand for workers we cannot compete, this is because it is tough to find professionals with the right mix of technology and other disciplines in their background. For every 20 people I meet, 16 of them get disqualified based on a lack of subject matter expertise outside of coding. (3 of the rest turn out to be exaggerating on their resume, and the 1 truly qualified applicant seems to always have some issue that keeps us from wanting to make him an offer).
I guess what I see is that there is still demand in IT, sometimes it just doesn't look like the work you used to do. GIS is big right now, I still get calls from recruiters offering insane salaries. OSS programmers are big right now, lots of people are looking for data warehousing solutions that do not depend on Oracle and SQL Server. Flash is big right now, and I regularly receive RFPs for companies willing to build RIAs.
Threads like this irk me a little bit because it always looks like people are waiting too long to ask the right questions. There should be some place where people can just ask what technology is in big demand and hook up with the resources to learn so they can provide a more valuable service. But fretting about the state of the IT industry is like worrying about automated coding back in the 70s - it's here right now, but all we know about IT is that innovation is forever.
M
Smart people (Score:2, Insightful)
Ummm... can't have it both ways... (Score:2, Insightful)
I'm not sure which drives which (ie, talent pools where the jobs are, or companies move to major metropolitan centers because that's where talent naturally springs), but I can say that I hope it doesn't change that rapidly.
Just like that article about outsourcing to rural America that was on
Just imagine... lowest-common-denominator-pay based on cost of living... and you live in Chicago , New York, Los Angeles, etc., and I'm not just talking "tech" industry. The chaos of shifting property values alone would crush millions of people.
No, instead the burden on businesses needs to be kept geographically centered: you move to where the people you want to work for you live and contribute back to that community.
Only after we have a global standard of living can we successfully hire "best people for the job, no matter where they live."
Re:Submitter new here (to America)? (Score:2, Insightful)
How are these two things exclusionary? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:I don't get it. (Score:3, Insightful)
But since you're quite the ASSumption maker...
My wife wanted to move to Canada when we got married... she's a highly trained research scientist; she could get a job there in a second. I quit an even higher paying job then I have now to marry her and move to the US.
She wanted to move there because (in her opinion) it's safer, cleaner, friendlier, more liberal, and the general quality-of-life kicks the US in the ass.
I convinced her not to leave because I was not willing to separate her from her very close-knit large family.
I especially love your "...jobs that born/raised Americans need." comment. Priceless.
Were your ancestors native American, garcia? Judging from your name, not bloody likely. So you're guilty of the same crime you accuse me of.
Why don't you take your close-minded opinions somewhere else? The US gov't welcomed me with open arms. Why? Because according to YOUR law, I'm welcome here. My wife and I have a long established history of a relationship; for you to insinuate that I "used" her in any way just to come to this country, is reprehensible and disgusting. If you and I were in the same room, you probably would get a black eye for that comment. Insulting a man's reasoning for marrying his wife once upon a time ended with pistols at 10 yards.
Keep your bigoted opinions to yourself next time.
Oh, and garcia? Attitudes like yours are why so many American women are looking outside of America for men. And thanks for that.
Re:well (get out while you can!) (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, if other places are like where I work, people are looking for jobs because they are tired of VPs who got fat bonuses this year telling them "you don't get a raise this year, and you are lucky you even have a job." They are willing to treat their employees like crap because the market will bear it. You can only take that for so long before you start looking. Because I work for a very large company, if the market picks up it would be a year or two before I would see any benefits from it (like a raise). Therefore, my best option is to get out as soon as possible. It may take longer to accomplish this because of the market, but that is what I am working towards.
Neither of the above? (Score:4, Insightful)
> "So, what is it? Are we in another boom"
You're not in a boom, or in a bust. You're in a plutocracy. [m-w.com] So Americans lose jobs and companies hire foreigners for less money to help pay for those multi-million-dollar executive bonuses. You realize your annual salary is probably a fraction of what your CEO's office furniture is worth, don't you? In the grand scheme of things, your worth (my worth) is slightly below that of a desk and chair. Welcome to the new economy.
Ignorant HR Directors (Score:2, Insightful)
H-1B quota changed. (Score:3, Insightful)
Pretty consistent. There may be an oversupply of techies in the economy at large, but the H-1B supply is not constant, regardless of demand.
US immigration law "caps" H-1B immigration at a set number. During the boom, it was once 65,000 - high demand and low supply meant that employers couldn't hire enough people, and they bri^H^H^Hpetitioned Congress for a law that would raise the cap. That law said that in 2000, it was to be 115,000, and in 2001-2-3, it was to be 195,000.
As you can see, any time a politician attempts to choose a number for supply and demand and slam it into the market with the fist of legislation, he'll fuck it up, which is precisely what happened. The H-1B cap kept going up, long after the economic bubble that actually made these new employees useful had burst.
So what's the situation now? Well, just like in the last paragraph -- when politicians attempt to legislate the economy, they invariably fuck it up. The law that was passed to increase the cap came with an expiry date. So what happens - after the cap goes up to 195,000 during the recession? Why, it's Fiscal Year 2004 (starting on October 1, 2003)... and now that the economy's picking up, and demand is growing we... well, there's increased demand so let's... let the law expire and cut the H-1B quota from 195,000 back to 65,000! Cut the supply by 2/3! Yay!
And we wonder why our economy's fucked up?
Because even the most cynical of us would never believe our government would be this stupid, a link [wfu.edu].
If you think that's fucking retarded, remember that this is the INS (now BCIS) we're talking about. These are the same folks that, approved the 9/11 hijackers their flight school visas SIX MONTHS AFTER THE ATTACK. [dailyherald.com]
So in the grand scheme of things, the H-1B cap manipulations that seem to be legislatively timed for maximum negative economic effect, are pretty small potatoes.
Re:Heck, join the military (Score:3, Insightful)
The other route you could have taken would have been to become a DoD contractor. They tend to have fewer responsibilities, make more money in the short and long term, and rarely get deployed overseas into combat zones.
M
Re:Heck, join the military (Score:5, Insightful)
Basic Training (8 Weeks): Rolling in mud. Getting yelled at. Pushups. KP.
AIT (8-40 Weeks depending on MOS): "Learning" how to do your wiz-bang commo-crypto stuff from NCOs who are so incompetent that the only place the Army dare send them is . . . AIT.
First Duty Station (1-2 years): Pick up cigarette butts. Run a buffer.
Second Duty Station (1-2 years): Pick up cigarette butts. Run a buffer. Do something related to your MOS on occasion.
Third Duty Station (remainder of enlistment): Supervise the picking up of cigarette butts. Teach FNGs how to run the buffer without banging the shit out of the walls and/or exhausting themselves. Do something related to your MOS fairly regularly. Be shit upon by NCOs for every little thing that goes wrong in the unit.
Enjoy.
-Peter
Well said, my brother (Score:5, Insightful)
Aside from that: Items like Aeron chairs and foosball tables and game systems in the break room and people keeping excessively odd hours can stay gone. I never liked those...
I was going to post more or less the same thing but you beat me to the punch. I wanted to smack the submitter when I read him whinning about not seeing foosball tables making a return. All that shit was complete waste. Those days are gone, my friends. Here at slashdot we like to laugh at how stupid management is. But they are smart enough not to get burned twice on buying a lot of pointless shit like that.
I think it's time for programmers to stop waxing nostalgic about crap and start worrying more about how to make programming in the US (as opposed to outsourcing it) a valuable commodity. Time to start worrying about saving up enough money that you might actually get a chance to retire when Social Security collapses. Time to start paying more attention to whether a prospective employer has a solid medical plan rather than counting the number of foosball tables or arcade games they have in the break room. In short, it's time to grow up.
GMD
Blame Americans First (Score:1, Insightful)
Foreign workers tend to be well educated, dedicated, and happy to be working
Uh. Most foreign workers are illegal immigrants with little education
Nice generalization, though. Americans seem pretty well educated check here [nationmaster.com].
American workers tend to be 'l33t h4x0rs' who think they don't make enough while being the first to head for the door at 4:30
American are the best programmers and Americans are some of the hardest working people on the planet [nationmaster.com].
Nice try.
for me, finding satisfying work is Xtremely tough (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Heck, join the military (Score:5, Insightful)
The military is good for some people I suppose, but after knowing someone this closely I can't believe anyone with a family would opt for that kind of life. I've heard it's better if you can go the route of a CO, but the majority of the armed forces aren't that high level. It's definitely not like the commercials on TV with soldiers jet skiing and playing golf -- at least not in my personal opinion formed by observing from afar.
Market -speak (Score:3, Insightful)
What they are really saying is that "We can't find enough tech people willing to work at the wage we want to pay them (usually low) with the benefits that we want to give them (usually poor) in the location that we want to employ them (usually low rent for the company, but high rent for the employee - unless he likes commuting an hour one way)."
You don't get it (Score:3, Insightful)
We have a government obsessed with moral values yet we allow this sort of behavior just so people can get jobs that born/raised Americans need.
I suspect you're misreading him. It's entirely likely he married for love or such reasons. His "If I can do it" is likely reminding the complainers that there are jobs available if they search. If he can find them...
Meh, or I could be the one misreading him, but I doubt jumping to conclusions will help anyone.
Re:Looks Pretty Good From Here (Score:3, Insightful)
Jobs are disappearing and salaries dropping (Score:5, Insightful)
So if your job doesn't end up going overseas, they may just centrallize it to a city with a low cost of living and just have generic techs in all other sites.
Re:I don't get it. (Score:2, Insightful)
If I can do it [you're doing something wrong].
Often times it is a matter of impressions. Somebody who looks and sounds foreign may trigger the stereotype in the employeer of "cheap and docile", and this is what gets you hired.
I am not saying it is necessarily a true stereotype, just that the impression exists. Part of the reason is that visa workers often don't have the habit or knowledge of defending their legal rights under labor laws and contract enforcement. They are in a new country and don't understand the court systems, etc. Thus, employers can take advantage of them more easily.
Re:I don't get it. (Score:3, Insightful)
He said "My wife and I have a long established history of a relationship; for you to insinuate that I "used" her in any way just to come to this country, is reprehensible and disgusting."
Is it really so hard to believe that 2 people in separate countries can be interested in each other without some hidden motive?
Re:We have been trying to hire people without luck (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:New Vistas (Score:4, Insightful)
Well, suck it up. If you can't find talent or experience, its because your company hasn't been promoting it from within. Anyone with more than five years experience with GIS likely owns their own business, competing with yours. Face it, the perfect candidate already has your software written for you. Five years ago, linux was a joke. Insurance agencies weren't about to deploy 2.4.2 on their mainframes.
Maybe companies should focus on training and employee development rather than let a position go unfilled for lack of candidates with 3+ years exp?
Re:Submitter new here (to America)? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:and your company would be?.... (Score:3, Insightful)
And I certainly am not looking for 1,236,731 resumes to come in from Slashdot readers because "look! A job!"
An old firearms instructor of mine had a saying -- "You can never miss fast enough" -- to emphasize that if you do something badly, it doesn't matter how quickly you did it, you still did it badly. I feel the same way about hiring -- it'll take us longer, probably, to hire who we need because of the ways we're trawling for that person (mostly staying away from Craigslist, monster, etc and relying on personal references), but I think we're more likely to hire someone good that way.
You really want to know where I work? You really think you might be interested? Find a book review I've written for Slashdot -- you should be able to find my email address on it -- and email me. And, err, don't be a jerk. Because frankly, the job market's swimming in "I'm too l33t for people skills" people, and working with people who think that being technically right means they have leave to be assholes is not my idea of fun.
H1Bs ploy to lower salaries (Score:3, Insightful)
By that measure H1Bs will always be short.
My experiences (Score:5, Insightful)
The times of being able to post "OH HAY GUYS I CODE AND STUFF" on craigslist and having recruiters trying to beat your door down so you could make 90k to write text parsing code were a fluke.
Re:Heck, join the military (Score:5, Insightful)
Anyone who things they're getting a get-out-of-iraq-free card when they join the military with a non-combat MOS should seriously think again.
Re:I don't get it. (Score:5, Insightful)
Seriously, dude, just because you had a single good experience in one of the hottest IT markets in the country does not mean the less fortunate are all doing something wrong. Sheesh.
Re:Changes (Score:3, Insightful)
You're assuming they meant they want five years of C# experience. Having been involved in a number of job listings, while its easy to poke fun at a listing like that, its accurate. They need a developer who knows C#. They need a developer with at least five years experience.
As anyone on here probably knows, professional software development experience is about how much experience you have solving real business problems with software engineering, not about how long you've been using a tool. Ten years of C or one year of C, if you've got twenty years of programming experience, you're going to be a good engineer.
"lack of subject matter expertise" (Score:2, Insightful)
That requirement for exact, to 6 places, match on skills is a real pain. I'm expert, real expert, in multi-threading. That makes me a good general fit for OS developement, server developement, streaming video, etc... Take the last, streaming video. I don't have mpeg experience. Do you really need to have someone who can write an mpeg codec from scratch? Do you really think the streaming network protocols are that uniquely hard given previous experience in implementing other protocols? It seems that employers would much rather have a mediocre candidate with all of the skills than an outstanding candidate with some of the skills.
Employers don't know how to find people (Score:2, Insightful)
Employers don't know how to find people. Obviously your employer did. Oh wait, you had to go hunt them down. I see. So your employer didn't want to lift a finger to fill the job. I guess they lucked out when you came along.
Seriously, some jobs are being filled. The reality is that if you take both the online jobs and the newspaper jobs and combine them, it won't represent more than about 15% of the total number of jobs. But see, this is part of the problem. Employers who refuse to properly advertise their openings really should have no right to whine about the lack of people. Sure, some people will just walk in the door. But in places like New York City, there are way too many doors to go walk in where no one is wanted, so there needs to be some means to know which doors to go in, and not waste one's time.
Maybe what employers are wanting is a place to list their job openings for free?
Re:Heck, join the military (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Submitter new here (to America)? (Score:3, Insightful)
Why are IT jobs exempt anyway?
Re:Heck, join the military (Score:1, Insightful)
I live in lower Delaware, 4-5 hours away from Wilmington. Got an offer from a place up there through monster.com, some insane deal along the lines of $19/hour to setup networks for various clients. Thinking this was way too good to be true, I gave them a ring to find out the details... indeed, everything they had mentioned in their email was legit, and if I could come in and prove my 7334 $ki11Z, the job was mine. I explained my situation (4-5 hours away, no car) and asked how long the job was open... the lady gave me two weeks to call back and confirm whether or not I'd be coming in. Had every intention of finding an apartment up there and moving, but alas, nothing worked out (choice of month-long waiting lists for barely-acceptable apartments, available drug-infested ghetto apartments, or gouging on one-bedroom roommates).
It all worked out in the end though, found a graphics job for a local magazine that doesn't quite pay as good, but it's local and seems to be pretty long-term.
Re:still tight in Houston. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:I don't get it. (Score:2, Insightful)
What a bunch of horse shit - even if your a NATIVE American, which I suspect you are not. You'll have to excuse the hostility of the following, but you're not 'entitled' to a job because you were born here any more than I'm 'entitled' to any special treatment because I'm a Marine. Money, like respect, is earned. Unless you get lucky paying the stupid tax (lottery).
You want to take a job back from that Indian company then work harder, or smarter, or give your employer something he can't get from the other guy. What's that? Your company isn't willing to pay you as much as you think you deserve for that work? They don't want what your offering? The other guy is cheaper? Well that sucks, but it's not WRONG. What's wrong is thinking that your company or country OWES you something. The only thing your "owed" is the chance to make something of yourself. Hopefully someone is buying it. If they aren't, it's not because they're wrong, or the country is being unfair, it's because you've misjudged the situation. Find another way.
Maybe I'm just a getting old hard ass, but seriously - Adapt. Improvise. Overcome.
Looks Pretty Good From Here-Salt Shaker. (Score:1, Insightful)
Do most have B.S. or better degrees?
What fields are they held in?
What average income bracket are they in?
Were are most located?
How many are single, married, or widowed?
Have children, and how many?
What is the average debt load being carried?
What's the average amount of time they've been out of work?
All the above go into making an accurate judgement as to how much salt should be applied to answers given.
Programming job observations (Score:3, Insightful)
The market is definitely firming as compared to the Iraq War period when the market was non-existent. But companies (like mine) are addicted to programmers in India. So hiring will be slow. One of our "senior programmers" has said "we have hired that special 1 in 100 person in the past. Now we want to hire that 1 in 1000 and surround him by willing learners." Person for person they are nowhere near as productive as Americans, yet, but they are still paid proportionately even less. I have to think that even in India the number of adequately trained programmers in not inexhaustable. Management likes them because they can be treated like a commodity, which they can understand.
I think the H1B program should be suspendended for tech in the US when unemployment levels rise to a structural level, say 5%. That did not happen in this tech cycle and there is still a massive excess of labor.
Re:Good hires are STILL VERY RARE (Score:2, Insightful)
End result, corporations demand more H1B visas, while American IT workers are flipping burgers.
Consideration for good candidates my ass! You may not have even been made aware of the good candidates that applied as they might have missed even one of those allegedly required certifications.
Until you are interviewing FOR good candidate and NOT a list of certifications will you even meet good candidates.
Government and Corporations are conspiring for H1B (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Heck, join the military (Score:4, Insightful)
We've got more H1B's per capita than you can shake a stick at. Right now, I think I'm one of less than a handful who are US Citz, the rest here are H1B's. And believe me, there were more than enough people locally to perform these jobs.
It's not a matter of NOT finding people to perform the job, it's a matter of companies not finding people to do the job FOR WHAT the companies feel like paying. Never mind you that there are plenty of qualified candidates, don't be fooled, there are. Companies will use the boo-hoo-hoo excuse to not provide higher compensation packages.
There ARE people out there to do the job, that CAN do the job, companies just don't feel they're worth it. And frankly, the excuse of comparing a BS ( or higher ) educated CompSci individual with a migrant farm worker, is not only ridiculous...it's getting old. Detractors....find a better analogy. I doubt you will, but by all means, knock yourselves out trying.
And for those "chosen" few. You can STILL be a Republican, and speak up about Outsourcing being as major an issue as is "Homeland Security". If you don't get it, you just don't. Don't worry, the rest of us won't hold it against you. We're just as responsible as the rest of us in the GOP, we just don't feel like giving up our jobs.
Re:Heck, join the military (Score:2, Insightful)
Umm sorry this one is totally off base. I don't know about fewer responsibilties; it's like any other job. More money? Definately. But there's about 3-4 contractors on the battlefield to every soldier. Especially with technologically advanced systems (i.e. networks, sensors, etc)
Re:Submitter new here (to America)? (Score:5, Insightful)
The general practice is to lay off, say, "Senior Developer III" who made $80k/yr, and got the job by having 8 years experience with C. Then you close the position. You list a new position in your paper: "Junior Tech I", 8 years experience with C required, starting salary $35k. No takers? "See," you say to the Labor Dept. "We need immigrants to fill this job." So the Labor people look to see what you're paying other "Junior Tech I" people, and you don't have any others, you just made the position. So they look on their little charts to see how much they should make. "Hm, Tech, thats $50k starting. Junior -$10K. Entry Level I position, -$5K sounds about right".
And this is how the company gets the Senior Developer III for $35K.
If you don't believe it, see any of the other responses in this thread with cites for how Intel abuses it across the board, as well as other companies that have been caught abusing it.
Re:Heck, join the military (Score:5, Insightful)
Throw off your chains! (Score:3, Insightful)
Right?
Re:Heck, join the military (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Heck, join the military (Score:3, Insightful)
How on Earth can you single handedly admin 1,000 servers properly? Are all the servers just in a maintenance phase with no plans for updates, upgrades, and replacement? Everything is automated? All security, auditing, and alerts are in place?
-Lucas
Re:I think YOU are deluded (Score:2, Insightful)
But alas, those days have passed, and now it's merely
"what can you do for me right now?"
"I hired you to do a specific job, don't get any ideas beyond that"
"I'm not interested in your career growth"
"I'll dump you ass on the street when it suits me"
"Next year your job will be off shored anyway"
"When your job is off shored, I expect you to train your replacements"
In your specific case, I'd say that candidates would have to know either C++ or C#, but both would be extra (with a little patients knowledge of one will transfer to the other), and COM, as ASP.NET is built on top of COM, and if you have the fundamentals, you can easily learn the particulars of ASP.NET fairly quickly. Design skills are required, and translate good discipline into the how the code is done.
Do you phrase your requirements in this fashion? No. You are casting too narrow a net, and I think that you've already indicated that in your response.
By specifying your requirements in such narrow specifics, and / or combination of specifics, and your unwillingness to have a little patience and allow someone to 'come up to speed' on the particulars, you really are making it more difficult for yourself finding suitable candidates.
Lastly, I can't believe that you can't find worthwhile candidates given the amount of layoffs and firing in the IT sector. I recently read in the trades that unemployment in the IT sector was still running around 60%. With that amount of people floating around out there, there has to be someone that wants to work for you, and that you'd not hesitate to invest a little bit into.
Re:Actually that's untrue (Score:3, Insightful)
Because there aren't any that are willing to work for 90% of base pay + $1/month (the minimum allowed by the H-1b visa law). And you don't get the bonus of being allowed to threaten them with deportation if they don't play yes man to your bad ideas. Americans are horribly adicted to things like whistleblowing and intellectual honesty; where asian cultures have a different honor system where loyalty is far more important.
Re:To avert the usual avalanche (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Heck, join the military (Score:3, Insightful)
Not Smarter (Score:1, Insightful)
if this was true you would be using Python!
Re:Heck, join the military (Score:4, Insightful)
My company has been active in layoffs (we just bought an online travel site and have lots of "redundancies") but in speaking with a recuiter I usually use to GET people - he commented that he had placed lots of folks from my company who were leaving (either laid off or sick of the parent company - which I am as well).
Further - not to be brutal, but Colorado is tech heavy but had a LOT of scuds who were overpaid and underperforming in the bubble. Since, some talented folks HAVE left CO and others have found jobs they aren't willing to leave. The market for really good people is still tight. Where are you located and what's your skillset? I could always use a bad@ss Linux/*nix admin...
That being said, our governor IS worthless
Re:We have been trying to hire people without luck (Score:3, Insightful)
Why don't you offer a permanent position? Are you a contractor? Why not? Maybe because you'd prefer more stability? Then why are you asking other people to do this?
How about telecommuting? Driver work isn't exactly something that needs to be done on-site, unless you're working on a mainframe or something. Send the device to the guy and have him work on it at home. Or are you too obsessed with being able to pop in his cubicle with no warning and see what he's doing, or make sure he's wearing clothes you approve of?
Interesting work? So your work isn't interesting? Maybe you need to offer more money if you're trying to get people to do a boring job.
This is the problem: employers want to dictate all the terms of employment, and refuse to take anything less (like someone that might need training). Then they sit around, wondering why they can't find anyone.
Re:From someone who has been hiring (Score:1, Insightful)
"You can't hire someone to be trained for 6 months for some positions, especially since this particular company had failed to hire enough people to begin with and really needed people who could get productive from day one."
So how long did they look for the perfect candidate?
Obviously, it wasn't *that* urgent if they were willing to wait so long for Mr. or Ms. Right.
A hire who needs training may not be able to be productive from "day one", but while being trained in the technology they can also be trained on your specific systems and methods.
You could hire Mr. Perfect, but on Day One he'll be technically productive, but won't know anything about your own systems and methods.
If you hire someone who needs training, then by the time the person gains the technical experience you were originally looking for, they will in fact be *more* productive, through knowledge of the system and problem space.
Heaping pile of "it depends on your skill set" (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm absolutely certain that, if I had a stronger background in Java or C# (like any appreciable experience), that I'd have my pick of jobs right now. I get inquiries on a nearly weekly basis regarding open Java positions. As it stands, 13 years of C/C++ software engineering building everything from VoIP applications to multi-tiered high performance statistical servers just doesn't cut the cake in terms of finding work these days.
I think that employer's days of demanding someone with experience in C# that goes back to its release date are numbered, but the same is also true about the job prospects of a C++ programmer in Colorado.
I remember that during the tech boom, anyone who could talk the talk could get a job for long enough to rake in some money, add it to his resume, and get out of it before his employer figured out how pathetic that person's skill level was. As a person who is morally incapable of adding something to my resume unless I'm confidently competent, I don't relish the return of those days either.
H1's=indentured serf, Green Cards=free markets (Score:2, Insightful)
Large companies crying about the lack of H1's for worker are really missing the concept of free markets.
Further, read this treatise outline to understand fully the nature and different ramifications in tech..
Dammit, ask about Green Cards and as long as the U. S. is selective enough, we will have a better economy and your job is just fine and your salary is more stable on firmer ground instead of being undercut with servant style employment.
Can you think of anything better!
Dan
Re:I don't get it. (Score:2, Insightful)
Seriously, why apply for a job writing C++ if you have never written code? Why apply for a job as a graphic designer if you are a programmer?
Well, there used to be these things called entry level jobs. Now, employers think that means that you have three to five years experience with their particular in-house system. Sometimes, as has been mentioned in articles like this, the requirements listed are completely absurd (5 years with C#, 10 years with Java, etc).
See, the advice I've gotten from career counselors, etc. has been to apply anyway, because companies often post their wish list and just pick from the resumes they get. At least, that's what they used to do. I've been at this so long that I've stopped caring about things like that. I've also lowered my standards down to simple data entry, leaving my master's degree off my resume completely because I know for certain it has cost me at least one job, and yet I still get almost no response from anybody. So whether I annoy the guy getting the resumes is pretty much the least of my concerns.