Posted on 06/19/2012 12:15:12 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
Last week’s disappointing unemployment report has refocused attention on the question of why, despite modest signs of economic recovery in recent months, American companies aren’t hiring.
Indeed, some of the most puzzling stories to come out of the Great Recession are the many claims by employers that they cannot find qualified applicants to fill their jobs, despite the millions of unemployed who are seeking work. Beyond the anecdotes themselves is survey evidence, most recently from Manpower, which finds roughly half of employers reporting trouble filling their vacancies.
The first thing that makes me wonder about the supposed “skill gap” is that, when pressed for more evidence, roughly 10% of employers admit that the problem is really that the candidates they want won’t accept the positions at the wage level being offered. That’s not a skill shortage, it’s simply being unwilling to pay the going price.
But the heart of the real story about employer difficulties in hiring can be seen in the Manpower data showing that only 15% of employers who say they see a skill shortage say that the issue is a lack of candidate knowledge, which is what we’d normally think of as skill. Instead, by far the most important shortfall they see in candidates is a lack of experience doing similar jobs. Employers are not looking to hire entry-level applicants right out of school. They want experienced candidates who can contribute immediately with no training or start-up time. That’s certainly understandable, but the only people who can do that are those who have done virtually the same job before, and that often requires a skill set that, in a rapidly changing world, may die out soon after it is perfected.
(Excerpt) Read more at business.time.com ...
They are like 90 day wonders. They harvest and improve the metric they get rewarded by. It is an insiders club and so the goals are set by others like them. They then move on for someone else to figure out how to milk some more out and move on again.
The good news is that they are at least smart enough to know that they need help and so hire someone outside to help them. Things are bad because “obviously” the people on the inside of the organization are not doing any good.
The bad news is that they aren’t smart enough to know who the outsiders are that are good and who is just selling them a line of BS.
It is not 'or what.'
My father was a certified structural draftsman, and a lit major with a BA. I am a history major with a BA and I have about 5 years experience as a data entry clerk. People throw a project my way, and I get it done, and move onto the next one. I like being able to work at my own time and pace, and not having a commute. I could end up at a bank or whatnot, and I have just about gotten a position along those lines, but I kinda prefer taking the freelance jobs because every job is something new and different.
I guess one of the things that surprised me is the amount of actual programs you can replace with a proper spreadsheet. I wish my father were still around, because I could have designed one for him to speed up his work and his calculations. Just enter in the parameters, and it would spit out the numbers that he needed.
While we aren’t strictly, tech majors, I have 60 credits in sciences, physics and astronomy. My father did the same thing with engineering, switching over to english.
Neither one of us really ‘fit in’ very well with corporate expectations in having a very broad skillset. You look at our resumes and it says right on it, english and history majors, artsie fartsie.
I had that question asked me one time, when I had to dig through some statistics. The boss looked at my resume and asked me what I wasn’t putting on there and why I was doing statistical analysis. So I fessed up and told him I’d done plenty of Physics. Just a matter of digging up the books
again. He laughed.
If I could do it all over again, I would have done just as you have here, gotten the technical certification and then went to school and got my degree.
When you boil the BS out this thread, you are left with your solution. Talking about solutions ad infinitum without addressing the root cause is pointless.
Ah, a clue to the root cause of the mess!
I have no idea what you are talking about. If you want to ping me to something I said that you find objectionable, try pinging me to the post you find objectionable.
I’m not a mind reader.
Nail meet hammer. You said it SeekAndFind.... I had a recruiter e-mail me about a position that I had more than 5 years experience with. Running a data center yeah, ticketing yeah, production on mainframe yeah yeah yeah I’ve used all these tools and have experience with all of this and and more.
Then it got strange when he called me up.
“Do you have certification in HVAC?”
“HVAC? as in repairing A/C heating units?”
“Yeah”
“No, I know how to operate a data center. What does being a HVAC tech have to do with running a Command Center / NOC?”
“I’m sorry, you are not a good fit for the job” (CLICK)
What the..... fuuuuuuuuu
I reread and e-mailed back and forth .... the job description he sent me makes NO mention of needing HVAC qualifications WTF.
Air handler units and PDU units are subcontracted out usually or, is handled by building maintenance.
Might as well add “Certified Ferrari Mechanic, Certified IEEE coffee machine repair tech along side “10 years of Chef experience at a 5 star restaraunt”” to the job description. It seems like that HR and Recruiting agencies are working hand in hand TO NOT hire people, so they can turn around and say, “SEE NOT ENOUGH QUALIFIED PEOPLE OUT THERE.”
Yeah, I don’t like the Software they use along side of inept HR employees. I’ve posted about earlier.
To: 2ndDivisionVet
“I’m not a techie at all. Is this important?”
Hello, I’ve been lurking on these forums for 11 years now. This thread really got my attention. Acxiom corporation has one of the worlds largest databases of people in the U.S. Whether Acxiom will confirm it or not, they have about 7.200 to 7.800 points of data on “YOU”. Meaning, they have information on everybody in the U.S. Acxiom is a democratic corporation, they started thier business by maintaining a database of Democratic Party memberships for the Democratic party when they started. Now they’ve gone way beyond just that. Does Axciom know whether you are Democratic or Republican or Independent party affiliated? You bet they do. What do they do with this data? Oh I don’t know maybe plan on how to steal votes maybe? I have been unemployed for a LONG time and unable to find a job for some reason. It is confusing to me. Every job I apply for pretty much gets no response or no reply. And call me paranoid but I think I have somewhat of an Idea what is going on. Nowdays all applications and resumes are not even looked at people anymore, they are just shoveled into an ATS or TMS (Applicant Tracking System) or (Talent Management System).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Applicant_tracking_system http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talent_management_system
My suspicion is that ATS and TMS software packages do a “quick” background check on each resume or application that comes in, no human oversight. This is probably automatic.
I apply..... to some company .... online through thier w/e ATS/TMS package they use.
ATS/TMS sends a quick query to Acxiom (Does this applicant have a criminal record?)
Acxiom: “Hmmm lets see, (No he doesn’t have a criminal record!)” and I don’t have a criminal record at all, none whatsoever.
Acxiom: “Hmmm lets see is he a Democratic Party Member?” (Nope!).
Acxiom: Returns value (YES) to ATS/TMS, Implicating that I do have a criminal record or something.
ATS/TMS: Buries my resume /application, marking me as not hireable.
Now do you see how data mining could be a huge problem? From denying you your freedoms under the constitution, to doing even more nefarious things.
So great I’m not a Democrat and my suspicions are that somehow I have been marked as unhirable.
Even worse, I think the largest TMS system (TALEO) actively shares data on applicants across multiple businesses, further poisioning my job / career opportunities, for life.
Data mining can be used for far WORSE things than you can Imagine. Anywhere from stealing and auto-switching votes around, to making your life pure hell.
When I get done working here in Afghanistan, I believe that I’ll go back to school, at 60-61 years of age, and get my Associate degree and then press on part-time to a BS degree.
I also tell service members that the best technical background to work from is aviation training, whether it be a FAA A&P License, or avionics with a FCC License.
I tell them this because with this training, going into aviation is not required to get a job. Over half of A&P students, coming out of technical schools, don’t even go into aviation related jobs.
If you get both licenses, golden.
You give me hope that there will be a backlash before it all gets run into the ground, or at least there will be a place to land.
Here is also something that might have been in play. . .”they” had a candidate they already picked and you were to be a stalking horse. . .you know, to show the job was posted and other qualified candidates applied and the “chosen” one was, well, chosen. Thing is, you were likely the stand-out candidate so they had to modify the “requirements” to drive the selection to the guy they already picked.
:-) Yeah. I know. My thought too. Having watched the whole thing unfold over the course of my life, I am perplexed how we got here. More perplexed that no one had the presence of mind to say “Hold it!...”
I saw that more than once at my prior job...in one case I saw the job bulletin posted on the board, applied the same day, then the very next day I heard that somebody was starting in that position. Oh yeah, it was a General Manager’s son.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.