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I have a friend whose university in Florida is trying to hire a professor for a specific field; they are having an incredibly difficult time finding someone dom

I have a friend whose university in Florida is trying to hire a professor for a specific field; they are having an incredibly difficult time finding someone domestically. Only two candidates showed up, and both were apparently terrible, and not a good fit for a teaching position. A recent college grad may not be able to actually do the work that these universities are looking for.

gedy 8mo ago
> Only two candidates showed up Untenured position in Florida - I'm guessing the pay was not great, no?
- Eddy_Viscosity2 8mo ago
  I was going to post the same comment. The old 'no one wants to work' complaint which almost always translates to 'no one wants to work for super low pay'
  - delfinom 8mo ago
    Junior professors get absolute poverty wages these days. Junior administration hires get paid more at most universities.
- pavel_lishin 8mo ago
  I don't know what the pay structure was. I can't even begin to guess at what sort of salary band a college instructor would be in, in any state. But I am guessing that Florida is, in general, not the most desirable place for academics to be.
  - deleted 8mo ago
    [deleted]
- butterbomb 8mo ago
  Probably enough to live amongst the lower middle class till carpetbagger real estate speculation and the general clown economy push you back to the rust belt shithole from which you came.
rayiner 8mo ago
Yet you can throw a rock and hit ten candidates for doctrinal STEM programs. I have no doubt that there are needs in specific areas. But that’s why the process described in the article permits exceptions. In theory, you could trust USCIS to identify areas that have real need. But that process hasn’t been reliable in decades: https://spectrum.ieee.org/stem-crisis-as-myth-gets-yet-another-workout https://spectrum.ieee.org/stem-crisis-as-myth-gets-yet-anoth... (“Salzman spoke of the latest data on STEM graduates and jobs, reiterating that STEM programs turn out at least 50 percent more IT graduates every year than there are U.S. job openings. He also said that if the H-1B program is ramped up to the numbers that are being advocated (up from 85 000 to 185 000), that worker oversupply could possibly increase to the 90 percent mark or more.”). Note this article was written before the impacts of AI, etc., started being felt. So things are even worse now.
stackskipton 8mo ago
>they are having an incredibly difficult time finding someone domestically. Part of this is we broke the pipelines in United States to domestically produce such talent. Foreign student visas made these jobs extremely unattractive for domestic students with options because of low pay + debt load while making them extremely attractive to foreign students because until recently, many people around the world were willing to do whatever for US visa.
- rayiner 8mo ago
  Even if you pay foreign workers the same, which I doubt is true, it’s still a form of labor suppression. These workers have completely different expectations than native born workers. My dad grew up in a village in Bangladesh. My aunts and uncles were college educated professionals from affluent families, but their apartments (in the 1990s) were like NYC housing projects. So my tolerance for grinding for my job is completely different than that of most native born Americans. And I got my citizenship in high school. I can’t imagine what it’d be like if I was trying to keep my H1B. How hard could you get Americans to work if getting fired meant they had to move to Bangladesh? Look at it this way. Except at the tippy top, employers aren’t looking to hire “the best.” They decide what the role is worth, and then select from the pool of people willing to work for that level of pay. A de facto path to U.S. citizenship for someone and their kids is basically a form of non-cash compensation for H1Bs. So even if the cash pay is the same, the foreigner worker is getting more value than the American worker. The effect is the same as if the government kicked in an extra $50,000 a year (or whatever) to the paycheck of foreign workers but not American workers. So if the role pays $100,000, it will draw a pool of foreign workers as if it pays $150,000 a year. So, at every level of job, the American worker is competing with more qualified and motivated foreign workers, because the job simply is worth more to those workers. For a long time, I faulted Americans who didn’t teach their kids to “learn to work 16 hours a day” like my dad taught me. But I have kids of my own now, and they don’t have the mentality of someone who is a generation away from having to take a boat to school during monsoon season. And that’s probably a good thing that we should want as a society.
  - 5upplied_demand 8mo ago
light_hue_1 8mo ago
You're leaving out what happened in Florida. First, Florida killed tenure. You get reviews every 5 years and can be fired if they don't like what they see. Second, Stop WOKE, means that Florida gets a say in what I teach. So Florida took away the most important (and for many maybe only) attractive part of the job: academic freedom. Almost half of Florida faculty are trying to leave. So yeah. Of course they get the bottom of the barrel. That's all that's left for them. With the ability to get a job almost anywhere else in the world you'd have to have extreme circumstances to consider Florida.
- lux-lux-lux 8mo ago
  This is absolutely a factor; New College lost half its teaching staff when DeSantis took a wrecking ball to it over ideological disagreements, Florida is not a great place to be in the field right now. I’d add that Florida higher education pays below average vs. nationally and the state is dealing with some serious cost of living issues at the moment (e.g. insurance).
- TimorousBestie 8mo ago
  Exact same thing happened in Indiana after they instituted tenure review and ideological standards for teaching. It’s kinda like it’s the purpose of these laws to dismantle public higher education.
toomuchtodo 8mo ago
Pay more. They will find someone at the right price. They are unwilling to find someone at the pay on offer. We should stop listening to institutions (corporate or academic alike) demanding quality at the lowest compensation bound possible, leveraging visas for labor to accomplish this. Pay the talent, develop the talent, or go without the talent.
- OptionOfT 8mo ago
  This. There is rarely a shortage of qualified people. It's usually companies who hide behind 'we use data from HR to ensure we pay market rate'. Paying market rate doesn't make people change jobs.
  - toomuchtodo 8mo ago
    And that HR data is effectively wage suppression collusion across organizations.

gedy 8mo ago

> Only two candidates showed up Untenured position in Florida - I'm guessing the pay was not great, no?

Eddy_Viscosity2 8mo ago
I was going to post the same comment. The old 'no one wants to work' complaint which almost always translates to 'no one wants to work for super low pay'
- delfinom 8mo ago
  Junior professors get absolute poverty wages these days. Junior administration hires get paid more at most universities.
pavel_lishin 8mo ago
I don't know what the pay structure was. I can't even begin to guess at what sort of salary band a college instructor would be in, in any state. But I am guessing that Florida is, in general, not the most desirable place for academics to be.
- deleted 8mo ago
  [deleted]
butterbomb 8mo ago
Probably enough to live amongst the lower middle class till carpetbagger real estate speculation and the general clown economy push you back to the rust belt shithole from which you came.

rayiner 8mo ago

Yet you can throw a rock and hit ten candidates for doctrinal STEM programs. I have no doubt that there are needs in specific areas. But that’s why the process described in the article permits exceptions. In theory, you could trust USCIS to identify areas that have real need. But that process hasn’t been reliable in decades: https://spectrum.ieee.org/stem-crisis-as-myth-gets-yet-another-workout https://spectrum.ieee.org/stem-crisis-as-myth-gets-yet-anoth... (“Salzman spoke of the latest data on STEM graduates and jobs, reiterating that STEM programs turn out at least 50 percent more IT graduates every year than there are U.S. job openings. He also said that if the H-1B program is ramped up to the numbers that are being advocated (up from 85 000 to 185 000), that worker oversupply could possibly increase to the 90 percent mark or more.”). Note this article was written before the impacts of AI, etc., started being felt. So things are even worse now.

stackskipton 8mo ago

>they are having an incredibly difficult time finding someone domestically. Part of this is we broke the pipelines in United States to domestically produce such talent. Foreign student visas made these jobs extremely unattractive for domestic students with options because of low pay + debt load while making them extremely attractive to foreign students because until recently, many people around the world were willing to do whatever for US visa.

rayiner 8mo ago
Even if you pay foreign workers the same, which I doubt is true, it’s still a form of labor suppression. These workers have completely different expectations than native born workers. My dad grew up in a village in Bangladesh. My aunts and uncles were college educated professionals from affluent families, but their apartments (in the 1990s) were like NYC housing projects. So my tolerance for grinding for my job is completely different than that of most native born Americans. And I got my citizenship in high school. I can’t imagine what it’d be like if I was trying to keep my H1B. How hard could you get Americans to work if getting fired meant they had to move to Bangladesh? Look at it this way. Except at the tippy top, employers aren’t looking to hire “the best.” They decide what the role is worth, and then select from the pool of people willing to work for that level of pay. A de facto path to U.S. citizenship for someone and their kids is basically a form of non-cash compensation for H1Bs. So even if the cash pay is the same, the foreigner worker is getting more value than the American worker. The effect is the same as if the government kicked in an extra $50,000 a year (or whatever) to the paycheck of foreign workers but not American workers. So if the role pays $100,000, it will draw a pool of foreign workers as if it pays $150,000 a year. So, at every level of job, the American worker is competing with more qualified and motivated foreign workers, because the job simply is worth more to those workers. For a long time, I faulted Americans who didn’t teach their kids to “learn to work 16 hours a day” like my dad taught me. But I have kids of my own now, and they don’t have the mentality of someone who is a generation away from having to take a boat to school during monsoon season. And that’s probably a good thing that we should want as a society.
- 5upplied_demand 8mo ago

light_hue_1 8mo ago

You're leaving out what happened in Florida. First, Florida killed tenure. You get reviews every 5 years and can be fired if they don't like what they see. Second, Stop WOKE, means that Florida gets a say in what I teach. So Florida took away the most important (and for many maybe only) attractive part of the job: academic freedom. Almost half of Florida faculty are trying to leave. So yeah. Of course they get the bottom of the barrel. That's all that's left for them. With the ability to get a job almost anywhere else in the world you'd have to have extreme circumstances to consider Florida.

lux-lux-lux 8mo ago
This is absolutely a factor; New College lost half its teaching staff when DeSantis took a wrecking ball to it over ideological disagreements, Florida is not a great place to be in the field right now. I’d add that Florida higher education pays below average vs. nationally and the state is dealing with some serious cost of living issues at the moment (e.g. insurance).
TimorousBestie 8mo ago
Exact same thing happened in Indiana after they instituted tenure review and ideological standards for teaching. It’s kinda like it’s the purpose of these laws to dismantle public higher education.

toomuchtodo 8mo ago

Pay more. They will find someone at the right price. They are unwilling to find someone at the pay on offer. We should stop listening to institutions (corporate or academic alike) demanding quality at the lowest compensation bound possible, leveraging visas for labor to accomplish this. Pay the talent, develop the talent, or go without the talent.

OptionOfT 8mo ago
This. There is rarely a shortage of qualified people. It's usually companies who hide behind 'we use data from HR to ensure we pay market rate'. Paying market rate doesn't make people change jobs.
- toomuchtodo 8mo ago
  And that HR data is effectively wage suppression collusion across organizations.