Posted on 03/30/2014 5:12:07 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
i have seen more and more companies ask for a lot of years’ experience and skills, padding a position that doesn’t pay for what they are demanding a person has to have in order to get an interview. they do it on purpose. it lets them get a person with most of whgat thgey want but then lower the salary because they are missing a couple “must-have” skills.
I got about a third of the way through that malarkey before I decided the author knows not of what he speaks.
There IS a skill gap. Particularly in the skilled trades: plumbers, pipefitters, welders, electricians, carpenters, boilermakers, and on and on.
I know this from personal experience after having worked with construction contractors for decades. They complain that young people don’t want to get into the trades because they don’t want the manual labor; as a demographic, they would much prefer playing with technology all day.
Therefore, if I were a mature skilled tradesperson, I would sell myself to the highest bidder. Good ones ought to be able to pull $70k - $100k per year, and their market value seems destined to rise in the foreseeable future.
I got about a third of the way through that malarkey before I decided the author knows not of what he speaks.
There IS a skill gap. Particularly in the skilled trades: plumbers, pipefitters, welders, electricians, carpenters, boilermakers, and on and on.
I know this from personal experience after having worked with construction contractors for decades. They complain that young people don’t want to get into the trades because they don’t want the manual labor; as a demographic, they would much prefer playing with technology all day.
Therefore, if I were a mature skilled tradesperson, I would sell myself to the highest bidder. Good ones ought to be able to pull $70k - $100k per year, and their market value seems destined to rise in the foreseeable future.
I think the third reason is probably the biggest. Most jobs, unless it is really complex, have duties that can be learned with 6 months to a year, and most employees can probably be made to be productive enough that the companies can make a profit from their work within a few weeks.
The companies, for whatever reason, decline to train. I think a lot of it is due to a highly subsidized education system that it is cheaper for companies to pay the taxes to subsidize education rather than pay for the training themselves.
The FIRST year Java got big they were asking for 5 years of Java programming experience.
IT IS A SCAM.
I’ve seen this 1,000 times.
As an employer the only “skills gap” I see is the lack of the skills to get up, take a shower, show up for work on time every time and Saturdays when we need it. Oh yes a positive work attitude too. If you can master these skills you not just have a job you will have a career.
We had a meeting with the local school board. The wanted to know what we were looking for in High School graduates. I told them this and they just stared at me.
One teacher pulled me aside an said that what I want is what he has wanted in students for the last 15 years.
You are correct.
I know several companies looking for technicians to install and repair fuel dispensing equipment from manufacturers like Gilbarco and Wayne. The guys doing it now are gray-hairs, not far from or past retirement.
Welders are always in short supply, too.
Younger guys just don’t want to show up every day or get dirty, regardless of pay.
I agree with you in regard to skilled trades, and probably some other specialized areas that require a combination of education and experience that is in short supply.
I have seen the first point in action, and while I also empathize with the employer who says he can only afford to pay a certain amount for the job to be done, he also has options, one of which is to outsource the entire function to a low-cost country. Some will say he’s cheap, others say he’s offering what the job is worth - but either way it has nothing to do with skills.
The guy should have made his last point first, as this is the heart of the so-called “gap”. It’s less about skills and more about habits, and attitude. I’m not generalizing, but when you’ve grown up in a home where no one has ever held a job, your entire world-view is based around an entitlement culture, and you’re basically weighing the value of a job vs. the alternative of sitting around all day living on the public dole, there’s a skills gap, alright. But it’ll take more than job training to fix it.
Exactly; when I was 22, I was looking through the job ads and a lot of simple secretarial/receptionist positions required a degree and quite a few years of experience.
It’s been my experience that OJT is far superior to hiring experienced but unemployed workers. Hire at a living wage and train in house with some control over the work practices and attendance of the employees. Of course, the government will have to give businesses the leeway to hire the best available entry level employees, set reasonable work rules, and control the content of the training programs. Of course, this is impossible and companies are scratching to make a profit in spite of the governments control and obstruction.
Oh, by the way, isn’t the UAW doing great running GM?
We really need to stop this ‘tradition’ of looking down on people who work with their hands. Used to be that if you wanted a middle class life, you HAD to know a skilled trade.
That's a stupid statement.
If you can't do the job, you ain't got the skills.
A lot of companies are jerks. No question. But who is going to spend big bucks training people that can't do math, can't show up on time, or even consistently. IOW, ignorant with no work ethic.
I’ve heard this siren call for my entire life.
Meanwhile, many large companies (especially) reject some very, very, VERY well-qualified job applicants .. often without so much as an interview... and sometimes without even saying No.
(The situation is only made much worse, of course, by the Great Obama Depression, but the kinds of hoops job applicants often have to try to jump through ... can be ridiculous. The companies lose out not getting some excellent and very capable workers....Meanwhile, some of these companies’
foreign competitors do not seem to suffer from nearly the same degree of this self-inflicted damage...?)
It’s not about hiring “the best”.
It’s about hiring “good enough” for the least amount of money.
I don’t know how old you are, but I was a hiring manager in a Fortune 50 company from the late 80s thru the 2000s, and I never had a lack of qualified applicants, and never let an open req. go unfilled. But what I did see - and see much more nowadays - are candidates who don’t seem to care all that much if they get the job, have unrealistic expectations with regard to everything from salary and benefits to the horror of having to live in a four-season climate, miles from the hip-cool urban centers favored by the elite youts. Why? Because they’ve got the option of just going back home, living in mom’s basement, where there’s cable TV, free wi-fi, and all the comforts, plus the freedom to do whatever they want to do.
I’m sure we are both right to some extent, as it’s not a monolithic problem. But don’t write off his last paragraph.
BTTT
The skills gap is prevalent in the design fields, too. Had a draftsman who was a college grad but still could not add fractions. As you may be aware, section and elevation drawings should generally match up but his often did not. The descriptive information on the section drawings was often replete with misspellings in addition to inconsistent dimension strings.
yes, though I must plead that I have no parents’ basement available (never did), and I also have a very positive work ethic.
I do see many more people in the last few years who have an “entitlement” attitude ... which I would certainly never hire! Its amazing just how pernicious or destructive that attitude is ... I know I was never willing to even consider hiring anyone with that poisonous attitude... (but again, I have a very positive view about work...)
.....
It’s about money. Companies want to pay the same wages as 25 years ago. Here is an ad from the ST. Louis, MO craigslist:
http://stlouis.craigslist.org/mnu/4389762283.html
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