Part of the problem is that recruiters and management want people with the *exact* skillset they specify. That’s pretty rare and increasingly so the more specialized the skill becomes. They will pass over 100 qualified applicants that could pick up the skills OTJ or in a couple months of training to try to find one “perfect” candidate.
A great example is in software engineering: These idiot recruiters typically want “three to five years’ experience” in the latest fashionable programming language or system. Trust me, as a guy who knows a dozen or more programming languages, after awhile, they’re all the same. It doesn’t take long to pick up the umpteenth language. But no, they want you to have “three to five years experience” in this latest fad language.
Screw ‘em. When they get their heads out of their rectums, they’ll discover there’s plenty of people available who can learn quickly, will gladly do the work and be excellent employees. Just as soon as management fires HR recruiters and unlearns their idiotic MBA training.
That's so true. It doesn't make sense to follow each new release of each new program or language. Coding is pretty much like math--logical and immutable. How many different ways can you do if, then, and, or?
And I was just making the same overall point about finding someone trainable. I'd think right now you'd get em on the cheap. And they might even speak English, or be American, if that matters.
It's so much more than the "upmteenth" language these days.
You have to know DDD, TDD, MVVM (or MVP, MVC or whatever), NHibernate, WPF, WCF, WWF, Mocks, Inversion of control frameworks.
It's an alphabet nightmare.
But it pays an enormous wage and the recruiters have a rolodex full of employers who are clueless about what it takes to get and keep anyone with that resume.
Speaking of HR, I notice there are a lot of HR jobs out there.
Back in the good old days, companies would hire massive amounts of people for entry level jobs and a few gems would work their way up the ladder. That kind of thing doesn't happen anymore.
What I find amusing is when they want five years of experience in a technology that hasn't been around that long.
Totally, totally true. I have had exactly that experience.
I've been looking lately for my last job before retiring, having spent several chunks of years in self-employment, when if you don't work, you don't eat or feed your family, and the buck stops with you. In the age of globalization and hyperregulation, self-employment has become increasingly impossible in my field; so I have been looking for an inside slot.
I have rarely met such "interviewers" in my life. There is a huge corporate footprint all over every interaction. They glance at a resumé for a well-experienced person and an earning history that is not just solid, but above average, and then ask a list of canned questions like, "How many times have you been late to work in the past year?" or "Have you ever been asked to do something you didn't want to do at work, and how did you handle it?" My mouth dropped open when I heard that -- I had to rapidly compose myself. (I didn't say this, but doing things you might not want to do is why they call it "work" and not "vacation.")
Another great one: an interviewer asked me to describe a situation I had handled proactively. I summed up an emergency situation, how my plan and team came together and the positive results: 100% compliance and happy customers. She replied, "And then did everyone hate you?" Folks, this was at one of the largest communications providers in the U.S.
I'm fairly certain that the real issues were age (although I'm physically fit) and race (I'm not a minority).
I usually pass the "faster than a speeding bullet" and the "more powerful than a locomotive" requirements, but then I miss out on the "able to leap tall buildings in a single bound" one.
I don't know how many opportunities that has cost me!
Ah HR people, no real skills except the power (they think) to hire and fire.