Posted on 11/13/2002 10:28:24 AM PST by dark_lord
Yet readers of the articles proclaiming a shortage would be perplexed if they also knew that Microsoft only hires 2% of its applicants for software positions, and that this rate is typical in the industry. Software employers, large or small, across the nation, concede that they receive huge numbers of re'sume's but reject most of them without even an interview. One does not have to be a ``techie'' to see the contradiction here. A 2% hiring rate might be unremarkable in other fields, but not in one in which there is supposed to be a ``desperate'' labor shortage. If employers were that desperate, they would certainly not be hiring just a minuscule fraction of their job applicants.
Here is a table showing the actual number of job applicants hired for a variety of companies:
| American Management Systems | 2% |
| Broderbund Software | 1% |
| Cisco | 5% |
|
|
|
| Cohesive | 2% |
| Datascan | 5% |
| Deltanet | 4% |
| ECbridges | 2% |
| Flashpoint Technology | 2 to 5% |
| R.D. Raab | 1% |
|
|
|
| H.L. Yoh | 4% |
| Inktomi | less than 5% |
| Microsoft | 2% |
| Net Perceptions | 2% |
| New England firm | 1% |
| Qualcomm | 4.5% |
|
|
|
| Radiant Systems | under 1% |
| Red Hat Linux | under 1% |
| Tangis | under 1% |
In other words, there is no shortage of ``bodies,'' i.e. there is no shortage of experienced computer programmers. The problem is that employers are not willing to hire them. Employers are only willing to hire from three narrow categories of programmers:
* New or recent (within a few years of graduation) college graduates, who have cheaper salaries. Note, though, that even among new computer science graduates, fewer than half are hired as programmers.
* Foreign nationals on work visas, who have cheaper salaries.
* A relatively small number of experiencedprogrammers who have background in certain highly-specialized software technologies.
Dr. Matloff says: "Hiring managers have often complained to me that their firm's Human Resources Dept. screens out resume's of applicants who the managers feel qualified. HR apparently decides to screen out the applicants who are too expensive or too old - and then complains that there is a ``shortage'' of applicants...There does seem to be coordination among the HR departments of the various firms. The HR departments of the major firms in Silicon Valley hold monthly meetings, at which the firms exchange information with each other on policy, salaries and so on. (Personal communication from Paul Donnelly, IEEE-USA, June 30, 2000.)...All the firms hire an extremely low percentage of their programming applicants, due to the fact that all the firms overstate job requirements...Almost all firms aim for applicants having three to seven years (or two to eight) of experience."
He says: "It seems safe to say that experience may not be the most valued commodity, according to a survey of 200 IT managers nationwide conducted by InformationWeek Research in May. Though age wasn't specified in the question, only 2% of the managers said they would most likely hire a worker with 10 or more years' experience. Almost half-46%-preferred to hire a worker with four to 10 years' experience, while 26% said they would hire a worker with less than three years' experience, and another 26% wanted an entry-level worker or recent college graduate."
It's a common tactic for one without an legitimate argument. If they see they're position is impossible to defend, they simply resort to ad hominem arguments hoping that'll work.
"without an legitimate argument" should have been "without a legitimate argument"
Yes... We wouldn't want Luis to come over here and start calling you a "english-as-a-second-language, mentally challenged, cross-breed, throwback grade-school dropout with a reading disability, descendant of married first cousins", would we?
I think I'd have a few things to say to 'Luis' if he did that..
Rather than run around lamenting their impending economic doom, why don't they get together to pool their talents and start new companies. It's the American way!
However...right now the vulture capitalists are not really interested in investing anything in any company related to the Internet, or software. The dot-bomb crash has scared them off. Ditto for banks. And as you might imagine, unemployed folks often lack the capital to invest in a company.
True, these folks can always start a company in some other line of business - carpet cleaning, vending machines - something that only needs a modest amount of capital and a bunch of sweat equity. But it would not be a business where they have skills already. Fact is, engineering type jobs are ill suited to starting up a small business - not much need for civil engineering bridge builders in opening up a 'Ma and Pa' type shop. The idea of the small sofware company is also undercut by the Open Software Foundation. Kind of hard to compete with a software product for sale when either (a) Microsoft is either selling it or promises to sell it "soon", and (b) you can get it for free from the OSF sites.
They can try to do what I am doing - offering a service instead of a product - but it is tough. The only services most people want to pay money for from the Internet are (a) pornography, or (b) ecommerce from big retailers. Other than that, they want everything for free. Heck, I bet out of the 60,000+ signed up FR users, less than 5% ever contribute money to keeping it up and running. The rest are freeloaders.
So laid off IT people have it rough even if they do try to start their own company.
However, my point was just that laid off IT people are going to find it pretty tough to develop a software product for sale - because most products that most people want are either free or MS.
From your post, you clearly already have money - enough to finance a company to hire lawyers, PR, etc. Realize most laid off IT people can probably scrounge up around 20K or so to invest for all corporate expenses - and the rest is sweat equity. Meanwhile, they are living off their savings. Trying to do marketing on such a small amount is a laugh.
You are refering to "millions of dollars" back in the dot-bomb days. Heck, most folks today would just be interested in the "thousands of dollars". But unless you are already an established company, no lender wants to touch anything related to the Internet or software products even with someone elses 10 foot pole. So yeah, people really are back to the days of "build it in your garage". Whether that is a good thing depends, I think, on whether they can sell whatever they create. And that circles back to my original point. I love using OSF software - but realize that anyone trying to product software in their garage and sell it is probably doomed, because:
(a) They have no money to market it.
(b) If they do market it, people don't want to buy from them because they aren't a big company like Microsoft, or else
(c) they don't want to buy it because, heck, they can get it for free. True, the free stuff is not supported, but how much support can one guy in a garage provide?
Kind of a catch-22.
There would always be ways around it - contractors or farming out projects.
The only way would be to cancel the H1B program entirely. If you have a valuable skill, you get to immigrate & become a citizen
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