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I teach several technical courses every year - usually to Fortune 50's but occasionally a public class too. And I routinely have people who have been laid-off -

by MrTonyD 11y ago

I teach several technical courses every year - usually to Fortune 50's but occasionally a public class too. And I routinely have people who have been laid-off - often people over 45. They may have skills (java/web/database), but they find that they can't get interviews or a job. At the same time, I talk to hiring managers who say that they can't find people with the skills they need. My impression is that the expectations put on the hiring managers is to hire someone who already knows everything and is willing to work any number of hours. So people who would be great employees in a sane job market are seen as "too old" (or the usual euphemism of "not high energy".) I think we need to find some way to force companies to hire our citizens.

pastProlog 11y ago
I've seen this as well. We interviewed a guy, for a crummy position in our division of a Fortune 1000 company. This guy was friendly, personable, had worked at Bell Labs and elsewhere, and knew the technical details back and forth. The management didn't want to hire him though - and this was after we had looked at hundreds of resumes and had interviewed well over a dozen people. The only answer I got was "I don't think he'd like it if we called him at 3 AM to do something". Then these people go out and cry about how they can't find talented developers.
- ap3 11y ago
  Haha who would 'like' that?
jbob2000 11y ago
The problem is that companies that need developers are on really short timelines. They just took a round of funding and need to get profitable within 2 years, so there's literally no time to spend training or mentoring someone. As well, software companies are really bad at human processes. They are filled with "heroes", who drop in to save the day whenever something happens, instead of having a process that anyone can follow. This means that whenever a "hero" leaves, you need to replace them with another hero, lest your "city" fall victim to the "bad guys". And if you need to grow, you need to hire more heroes, rather than replicating a process across a number of new employees.

by MrTonyD 11y ago

pastProlog 11y ago

I've seen this as well. We interviewed a guy, for a crummy position in our division of a Fortune 1000 company. This guy was friendly, personable, had worked at Bell Labs and elsewhere, and knew the technical details back and forth. The management didn't want to hire him though - and this was after we had looked at hundreds of resumes and had interviewed well over a dozen people. The only answer I got was "I don't think he'd like it if we called him at 3 AM to do something". Then these people go out and cry about how they can't find talented developers.

ap3 11y ago
Haha who would 'like' that?

jbob2000 11y ago

The problem is that companies that need developers are on really short timelines. They just took a round of funding and need to get profitable within 2 years, so there's literally no time to spend training or mentoring someone. As well, software companies are really bad at human processes. They are filled with "heroes", who drop in to save the day whenever something happens, instead of having a process that anyone can follow. This means that whenever a "hero" leaves, you need to replace them with another hero, lest your "city" fall victim to the "bad guys". And if you need to grow, you need to hire more heroes, rather than replicating a process across a number of new employees.