A million tech jobs unfilled
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Dear Friammers, There are apparently a MILLION tech jobs going un-filled in the US – hence the panic in the tech industry concerning the immigration purge. Would this be a time for members of this list to consider seeking a better job? Or, at least, to ask for a job? Or demand that your boss let you work remotely and move here to Santa Fe where the coffee is good, the air (usually) clean and where you are never more than ten minutes from the head of a hiking trail? Just sayin’ N Nicholas S. Thompson Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology Clark University http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/ ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove |
Re: A million tech jobs unfilled
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Maybe there will even be a place for techie old farts to work from Ecuador. On Sat, Mar 4, 2017 at 3:04 PM, Nick Thompson <[hidden email]> wrote:
============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove |
Re: A million tech jobs unfilled
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I gotta say that I agree with Nick .. it's pretty puzzling. Business is pragmatic, as a rule, so you just gotta think there's something to this. Maybe fewer college graduates? College is pretty expensive. Maybe not enough in the tech related subjects? I do know that there is a huge difference in hiring/recruiting from when I was working: very specific skill sets. I was amazed how specific hiring became in Silicon Valley late in the game. When I was hired breadth of knowledge, and ability to adapt was key. Now it's sorta a form of impatience. I suppose it is because technology has matured so much that you *can* search for more specific skills? Kinda nuts. -- Owen ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove |
Re: A million tech jobs unfilled
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Speeking from my experience I've gotten easily 50 responses saying Acme Co's WarpCore manager or WebWonk position was filled (even when a week later their' still looking) On Sat, Mar 4, 2017 at 2:58 PM, Owen Densmore <[hidden email]> wrote:
============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove |
Re: A million tech jobs unfilled
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In reply to this post by Owen Densmore
Owen writes: “When I was hired breadth of knowledge, and ability to adapt was key. Now it's sorta a
form of impatience. I suppose it is because technology has matured so much that you *can* search for more specific skills?” IMO that impatience is a lack of interest in the work itself.
How do we (middle managers or HR) delegate this problem away, so we have a simple pattern matching procedure instead of having to think and know things about
the problem domain. A good reason to not hire someone is because they are shallow and dumb, not because they don’t have some narrow skill they could pick up in a week. Marcus ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove |
Re: A million tech jobs unfilled
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Agreed. For many of us on (in?) Friam age discrimination is another issue. I have received emails from recruiters and even principals that say that they've seen my profile on LinkedIn and that I am a perfect match for a position they have. They ask for my full resume (I have a CV) and, more often than not I don't hear back. I have dates on the CV because I don't want to work where I'm not wanted. In fact, lately when I get such a contact my reply begins, "First of all, you should know that I'm 73...". This avoids wasting time. I have talked to a number of recruiters about these issues. Most agree that the problem is not that they don't think I'll be there long since neither will the 28 year-olds. There is also a cultural problem. A few years ago I got a contract position in Albuquerque (remunerative) and I worked with several millennial or genXY software engineers. I got along well with them in general but one of the young women was constantly saying, "What the f*** is this s***?". That didn't really bother me but it seemed odd. Actually, I'm somewhat ambivalent about this since, as my wife says, "Frank, if you get a job, you'll have to work.". I don't mind work but commuting etc... In the meantime, Hywel and are are enjoying learning de Rahm cohomology, etc with applications to gauge fields, gravity, etc. Frank Frank Wimberly Phone (505) 670-9918 On Mar 4, 2017 3:36 PM, "Marcus Daniels" <[hidden email]> wrote:
============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove |
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Stephen and I share a bad joke that "we are unemployable", and that includes to one another. There are few tasks in my projects which I could delegate that Stephen's skill set and style would be suitable for. And vice-versa. We CAN support one anothers' work in many ways, from intellectual/technological synergy/brainstorming to headhunting and mentoring of junior staff. But neither of us is likely to *pay* for that kind of help. Fortunately we are able to work mostly on an unspoken barter relation. That said, my Odometer just turned over 60(,000,000?) and feel my
version of "age discrimination". But it is deeper than
"discrimination", I literally *can't do* the things I did 10 or 20
or especially 30 years ago. For the most part, I "know too much",
I have too MUCH breadth and my flexibility is more of a liability
than an asset, except when I LACK flexibility in a key domain and
THAT is the liability. I have a dozen programming languages and
several paradigms in my quiver, but for a given project I either
need "yet another" or need to hone one of those much finer than I
am likely to. For virtually every skill I am "pretty good with"
there are scores of under-50's with "very good" skills. I'm
rarely the best one to do *anything* I need doing. I only do them
myself to avoid the overhead of hiring it out! Fortunately, with my children full adults, my house almost paid for or maybe "too big anyway" and limited appetite for high speed, frequent world travel (gimme a slow boat, a laptop, a technical project and an epic poem to write anytime), or expensive toys, I don't need the kind of income I *thought* I did 20 years ago. I can piece it together. I suspect MOST of FriamOver60 is in their own version of this boat, either truly comfortably retired, or ready for a lot of creative slacking. I may make a business card for myself with that title: "Creative Slacker". My children and nieces/nephew are smack in their early/middle career and are all watching their peers suffer, and try to suffer themselves from this "recession" but I remind them "YOU only need ONE job" one of them is a self-actualizd entreprenuer. I would wish that on all of them. NOT a JOB. Oh well. <down off soapbox> On 3/4/17 3:59 PM, Frank Wimberly
wrote:
============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove |
Re: A million tech jobs unfilled
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>> I got along well with them in general but one of the young women was constantly saying, "What the f*** is this s***?". I have zero patience for this. As if something that is unfamiliar or unexpected is at fault for it. If it were just 'done right' the meaning would be clear to those that know what right is. So, dear, what you are saying is you can't figure it out.. Marcus ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove |
Re: A million tech jobs unfilled
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In reply to this post by Frank Wimberly-2
Franks nailed it. It's a combination of enormously large issues from what I can tell. Age is a part of that. I had one person tell me to my face they won't hire "special" people (neither legal nor moral). Because and I quote "we don't want to spend the time or money fixing their problems" So as a resault I decided: screw this! I'm going to get my skills braud enough so as I can do work I'd enjoy way more. As I said to steve just because I might not have a head for coding. I can still be useful. And find some parts of just knowings what's up is to cool and fun! Someone needs to test things out(for example) or do simple things that (hopefully) make things go smoother. As a concrete example in my last job my main role was the dude that poked stuff, or brows forums possible gremlins, and being an ear to bend. For that place, just as valuable a thing to do as writing code. For instance Win10 just launched, for what ever reason the one of founder of the company just assumed it'd just install without snags and didn't bother to check for gremlins people ran into, Sufficed to say I weirld like sinking my teeth into stuff (somehwat) like that.Or simply see if their might be a better way to tackle an issue. Like ERMG it's REALY nice their's tools like plugins to help write CSS for wordpress. Or (sort of) like Processing or ther Visual Programing aids like blocky) I simply don't know why companies now value that dude that likes to know what's up and enjoys using tools or poking at dragons as much as the did in the past.. @Age someone I'm working with has cautioned it's becoming a headache at Google. Basically The Middle Manager doesn't see age (like I dun 40s ) as good they see that person as "low energy" or not a "true alpha go getter".. They think someone that's older that still eager to learn or just older as "out of touch with what their core metrix show" Another side the coin with being two specialised are situations like NODE (possibly eventually) filling a void that Ruby for Rails, and basically anything that's not the new Katness and Sexy. Rub, or Python Or basic HTML (or any other tool) that's now considered legacy stuff SOMEONE needs to be gool ol' fationed grunt and skunk to nurse them along till they can replaced. Or they might simply be a better choice for what ever reason. It just seems to me that over specialisation isn't a good thing. Their be mad dragons their. These companies complaining about not enough skilled workers are full of something... On Sat, Mar 4, 2017 at 3:59 PM, Frank Wimberly <[hidden email]> wrote:
============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove |
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