Where Are All The Jobs?
October 9th, 2011
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A month ago, Jason Calacanis wrote an intriguing and controversial post – Do We Deserve–or Even Want–More Jobs? – about the declining work ethic of Gen-Y. Check it out if you haven’t already.
I have something to add to this, for all the people who think there aren’t any jobs out there.
For the last month, the company I work at has been trying to hire a programmer for some simple SQL Server tasks. It’s a relatively high-paying and very easy job, for someone with relevant experience. I’ve been doing the interviewing, and I think I’ve set the bar really low.
First, I ask a few simple questions in a phone screening, to confirm that the candidate has a pulse. People who are able to string a few coherent sentences together are invited in for an on-site interview, where I give a written test with two easy problems and two moderately challenging problems.
I quickly learned that I had to scrap the moderately challenging problems because everyone was getting their ass kicked by the easy ones. I’ve had more than one person make the claim of “Expert in SQL Server” on their resume, who turned out to not even know what an outer join is. This is roughly equivalent to someone claiming to be an expert carpenter, but not knowing what a hammer is.
Out of the 15 or so people I interviewed, only one of them was able to pass the dumbed down version of the test. In the end, the position was eliminated.
And yet we keep hearing about how there aren’t any jobs out there. Maybe people just need to try a little harder.
October 10th, 2011 at 11:42 am
Have you ever heard of structural unemployment? That is what the software industry is suffering from right now in the USA.
Would you hire a person who had no programming/IT experience, but knew how to fix problems with their computer, and taught themselves basic programming with PHP and MySQL in 3 months, with their resume in a completely unrelated field? I doubt it. They would probably pass your test since it’s fresh in their head although.
Just because a few boom industries in the US are hurting for employees (Oil, Software), doesn’t mean as a whole the USA is not doing badly in terms of unemployment, especially for unexperienced youth. If 500’000 experienced programmers and 500’000 experienced oil workers and petroleum engineers suddenly popped out of nowhere and landed in the USA ready to work with green cards, would these industries be hurting for employees? Not at all, it would be hard to get a job in them all of a sudden. The structural problems would disappear. That still leaves millions upon millions of americans out of work.
You have to broaden your horizons farther than your local bubble.
October 10th, 2011 at 12:39 pm
Holy Cow Hunter!
How did you miss the irony of your post ?
” In the end, the position was eliminated. ”
So you guys spent a couple months or more with this hiring on your agenda and you felt it was important to your business.
Then all of a sudden it wasn’t? Be that because you didn’t take the time to find the kind of quality employee you needed or because your business requirements driving the position changed?
This is EXACTLY part of the problem and why somebody sharp w/ the tools didn’t avail themselves to you in the hiring campaign!
Not that readers of your Job Ads and potential candidates read between the lines (maybe they did)….but the point being is that the best workers are either well employed and hard to pull away from where they are…OR…they are independent agents and staying that way because they are FED UP of the whims of corporate America yanking their lives around.
Perhaps if you had been looking for a short term consultant/contractor you would have found what you needed. Of course you would have had to pay more too.
October 10th, 2011 at 8:31 pm
I neglected to mention that the position was a 6 month contract, with possibility of extension or hire.
@elai, personally, I would hire that person you described. I barely even looked at the resumes I received, because they were all way too long, all looked the same after a while, and proved to tell me nothing about the quality of the candidate. But I agree that this person would probably have a hard time convincing most people to hire them.
@By Stander, the position was eliminated because our client changed their priorities – not a lot we can do about that. But if we had already filled the position when that happened, we would have kept that person. And while I didn’t mention this originally, it was for a 6 month contract.
October 14th, 2011 at 3:52 am
I really enjoyed reading this post, I can totally relate to it as I recently assisted one of my clients to hire a new IT Manager and the whole process was painful. After going through literally hundreds of applications we struggled to agree on hiring the only one person that came close to some quite basic criteria. We had a worse time when looking for a younger person to fill the IT “junior” roles which required no experience just the right person. So I agree with you and the link you referred to; there are jobs out there but people are unwilling to travel, learn in their own time, relocate, take a small pay cut, turn up on time or maybe even just put down the playstation controller and do some work.
October 15th, 2011 at 10:11 pm
@ Matt, that’s a shame that it was hard to fill a position that didn’t require any experience. Now, the people who can’t even get a job like that, where do you suppose they end up working?
October 17th, 2011 at 2:08 pm
But how many people can be reasonably expected to be good SQL programmers? Let’s face it, most schools don’t produce enough candidates who have the mental ability to handle a complex system like database management and programming. It’s something that takes years of study, like a good carpenter, only that with SQL programming the hammer completely changes shape every 5 years.
The downside of a knowledge based economy is that if you want truly good people you need to pay for them. There might be something more to the 99%-1% problem than just Wall Street; from what I see there’s an order of magnitude difference in productive output between the top 5% of programmers and the bottom 50%, and one scratches one’s head figuring out how “payment based on contribution” is fulfilled without significant wage disparity.
October 18th, 2011 at 8:00 pm
@ Jesse, since SQL is such a common skill, I would expect most developers to be reasonably good at it. Certainly those who claim “expert in SQL” on their resume. Good point about the productivity disparity – an order of magnitude difference between the top and bottom sounds about right.
November 2nd, 2011 at 9:39 am
Hey HN,
I hear it all of the time myself as it relates to the jobs situation. I tell people it’s your job to make your life what it is you want it to be. If that means developing in demand skills, do it. Even if that means learning how to build a website and drive massive traffic to the website, you can take that skill and sell it to small business owners. The opportunities are out there. I think most are not trained to see them and when they do see them, they don’t prepare for them.
You’ll get excuses about the economy, lack of time, I’m too old, etc… I think people are just bone lazy. Even if you’re “poor” you can get financial aid and attend a community college. The same folks will have Iphone4s phone’s, tablets with the most expensive data plan but will not take time to learn and develop in demand skills that will make life easier and ultimately allow them to contribute to society in way that makes them proud.
I don’t know SQL from a Sussie Q but I do know there are lots of opportunities available for those that want them and prepare for them.
Ron