6 ms·

I'm not in the US, but from what I've seen here and in other boards, the whole STEM Crisis is actually a HR Crisis. No wonder you can't hire anyone if you want

by sker 13y ago

I'm not in the US, but from what I've seen here and in other boards, the whole STEM Crisis is actually a HR Crisis. No wonder you can't hire anyone if you want rocket scientists to build your world-changing photo sharing app.

tl 13y ago
It's also true in the US. We've gone through several transitions from mainframes all the way to smartphones, bringing technology to more people each time, and my anecdotal experience is this the average HR worker understanding of computing has actually decreased (in that I face forms of ignorance now that I had not in the past).
derefr 13y ago
It almost feels like VCs are putting together teams of people overqualified+tempting enough for MicroFaceGoogHoo! to want to pay millions to acquihire them, and then telling them to do various money-burning attention-grabbing "peacocking" things until it happens. Sometimes the illusion wavers for a moment, when the product part fails to happen (e.g. Color) but everything else still does.
- eli_gottlieb 13y ago
  That's... a surprisingly good hypothesis.
jmspring 13y ago
It is an HR crisis on two points - 1) There is a business preference to find the best candidate for the lowest rate (practical sense) which leads towards hiring the youngest/cheapest resource available who meets the criteria. 2) Existing companies refuse to invest in building up / educating employees. In the old days you hired based on merit and potential, but you also provided training to make sure employees adapted with technology. These days, there is no training and employees are expected to adapt on their own (there are certainly arguments for keeping on top of things, but if you have a full time job and other obligations, external interests might not be technical/career related) Unfortunately, because of (1) and no requirement for companies to commit to (2), there is a push to allow for more non-domestic workers through programs like H1-B and related visas. Personally, I think most engineers should hone their skills and continue to learn and evolve. That said, some situations don't allow that and when coupled with a refusal of companies refusing to hire/train based off potential, we end up in the mythical "STEM crisis". I'm not talking the founder visa issue here, I am talking the normal boots on the ground. For which, no longer training and wanting the cheapest option have created a toxic environment for a certain segment of the tech community.
- sker 13y ago
  I was thinking of more than two points. The two you mentioned, plus looking for overqualified candidates, plus: 1) Requiring more experience than necessary or even plausible on certain technologies. 5 years of experience in X. When X is 2 years old. 2) Focusing too much in a specific technology stack. We use X, Y and Z. You lack Z? Bye. Or we use Z 1.2, you've only used 0.9? Bye. 3) The 3 day interview, the brain-teaser interview, the work-for-free interview, the you-only-got-1% psychometric test interview. Regarding your point #2, Mexico recently implemented tax incentives for companies hiring first-time employees. That's something other countries should consider.
  - jmspring 13y ago
    Specifically regarding #2, I would like to see an emphasis on training and any company requesting a foreign worker visa pay into a pool that is dedicated towards training domestic technologists in transition. Unemployment is one thing, but, not everyone has availability to learn/transition into new skills. Again, my argument is based off the norm that companies invest much less in their employee development than they used to - the onus is strictly on the employee these days. Which is the other extreme.
    - eru 13y ago
      I don't understand this whole parochial line of reasoning. We shouldn't protect local capital and products with tariffs, and neither should we protect local labour. Free trade (and movement of labour and capital) is better for our economy, and better for the rest of the world. The people on the other side of the fence are human, too!
      - jbjohns 13y ago
        The kind of free trade you're talking about is better for buyers but as I'm an employee and not an employer, I'm more concerned about the sellers market. Complete, unrestricted labour movement means all wages average out. I'd rather not be getting paid the average between the lowest paying employer out there and the highest, so I'm all for setting up boundaries between them.
inerte 13y ago
Or ads, as Jeff Hammerbacher said better: "The best minds of my generation are thinking about how to make people click ads. That sucks."
- twiceaday 13y ago
  Somebody has to pay the bills for self driving cars and fancy eye-wear.
  - jbjohns 13y ago
    Ads can't really be that "somebody". If everything is paid for by ads, what exactly are those ads advertising?
    - twiceaday 13y ago
      I thought we were talking about Google.
- RWeaver 13y ago
  Unless you think of a dynamic ad market as an efficient market signals system critical to the economy. Ie get the most interesting market messages to the right people, while not bothering the rest. Not that I do anything related to advertising, but when done intelligently it can actually be a pretty important.
  - Wilya 13y ago
    The "while not bothering the rest" part effectively doesn't work, though. People who will never buy anything from an ad in their lives still get ads served to them, because the cost of serving ads is roughly zero. The facts that ads are paid per click and not per impression creates more ad impressions, not more efficient ones.
    - rlanday 13y ago
      I think there are a lot of people who claim to not be influenced by advertising but actually are. Just because you’re not clicking on ads doesn’t mean they’re not succeeding at influencing your behavior: http://www.nielsen.com/us/en/newswire/2009/is-the-ad-biz-through-with-click-through.html http://www.nielsen.com/us/en/newswire/2009/is-the-ad-biz-thr...

by sker 13y ago

tl 13y ago

It's also true in the US. We've gone through several transitions from mainframes all the way to smartphones, bringing technology to more people each time, and my anecdotal experience is this the average HR worker understanding of computing has actually decreased (in that I face forms of ignorance now that I had not in the past).

derefr 13y ago

It almost feels like VCs are putting together teams of people overqualified+tempting enough for MicroFaceGoogHoo! to want to pay millions to acquihire them, and then telling them to do various money-burning attention-grabbing "peacocking" things until it happens. Sometimes the illusion wavers for a moment, when the product part fails to happen (e.g. Color) but everything else still does.

eli_gottlieb 13y ago
That's... a surprisingly good hypothesis.

jmspring 13y ago

It is an HR crisis on two points - 1) There is a business preference to find the best candidate for the lowest rate (practical sense) which leads towards hiring the youngest/cheapest resource available who meets the criteria. 2) Existing companies refuse to invest in building up / educating employees. In the old days you hired based on merit and potential, but you also provided training to make sure employees adapted with technology. These days, there is no training and employees are expected to adapt on their own (there are certainly arguments for keeping on top of things, but if you have a full time job and other obligations, external interests might not be technical/career related) Unfortunately, because of (1) and no requirement for companies to commit to (2), there is a push to allow for more non-domestic workers through programs like H1-B and related visas. Personally, I think most engineers should hone their skills and continue to learn and evolve. That said, some situations don't allow that and when coupled with a refusal of companies refusing to hire/train based off potential, we end up in the mythical "STEM crisis". I'm not talking the founder visa issue here, I am talking the normal boots on the ground. For which, no longer training and wanting the cheapest option have created a toxic environment for a certain segment of the tech community.

sker 13y ago
I was thinking of more than two points. The two you mentioned, plus looking for overqualified candidates, plus: 1) Requiring more experience than necessary or even plausible on certain technologies. 5 years of experience in X. When X is 2 years old. 2) Focusing too much in a specific technology stack. We use X, Y and Z. You lack Z? Bye. Or we use Z 1.2, you've only used 0.9? Bye. 3) The 3 day interview, the brain-teaser interview, the work-for-free interview, the you-only-got-1% psychometric test interview. Regarding your point #2, Mexico recently implemented tax incentives for companies hiring first-time employees. That's something other countries should consider.
- jmspring 13y ago
  Specifically regarding #2, I would like to see an emphasis on training and any company requesting a foreign worker visa pay into a pool that is dedicated towards training domestic technologists in transition. Unemployment is one thing, but, not everyone has availability to learn/transition into new skills. Again, my argument is based off the norm that companies invest much less in their employee development than they used to - the onus is strictly on the employee these days. Which is the other extreme.
  - eru 13y ago
    I don't understand this whole parochial line of reasoning. We shouldn't protect local capital and products with tariffs, and neither should we protect local labour. Free trade (and movement of labour and capital) is better for our economy, and better for the rest of the world. The people on the other side of the fence are human, too!
    - jbjohns 13y ago
      The kind of free trade you're talking about is better for buyers but as I'm an employee and not an employer, I'm more concerned about the sellers market. Complete, unrestricted labour movement means all wages average out. I'd rather not be getting paid the average between the lowest paying employer out there and the highest, so I'm all for setting up boundaries between them.

inerte 13y ago

Or ads, as Jeff Hammerbacher said better: "The best minds of my generation are thinking about how to make people click ads. That sucks."

twiceaday 13y ago
Somebody has to pay the bills for self driving cars and fancy eye-wear.
- jbjohns 13y ago
  Ads can't really be that "somebody". If everything is paid for by ads, what exactly are those ads advertising?
  - twiceaday 13y ago
    I thought we were talking about Google.
RWeaver 13y ago
Unless you think of a dynamic ad market as an efficient market signals system critical to the economy. Ie get the most interesting market messages to the right people, while not bothering the rest. Not that I do anything related to advertising, but when done intelligently it can actually be a pretty important.
- Wilya 13y ago
  The "while not bothering the rest" part effectively doesn't work, though. People who will never buy anything from an ad in their lives still get ads served to them, because the cost of serving ads is roughly zero. The facts that ads are paid per click and not per impression creates more ad impressions, not more efficient ones.
  - rlanday 13y ago
    I think there are a lot of people who claim to not be influenced by advertising but actually are. Just because you’re not clicking on ads doesn’t mean they’re not succeeding at influencing your behavior: http://www.nielsen.com/us/en/newswire/2009/is-the-ad-biz-through-with-click-through.html http://www.nielsen.com/us/en/newswire/2009/is-the-ad-biz-thr...