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>"I'm honestly starting to believe that it isn't hard to hire, but that there's some psychological effect at play that leads companies to make it harder on them

>"I'm honestly starting to believe that it isn't hard to hire, but that there's some psychological effect at play that leads companies to make it harder on themselves out of misplaced pride or sense of elitism." I expect that a fair portion of "We can't find qualified people!" is actually "We can't find qualified people for what we're willing to pay." Beyond that, I wouldn't say that it isn't hard to hire, but it certainly seems popular to make hiring as hard or perhaps more accurately - to make passing as easy as possible whether it's via veto, "culture fit" or something else. I was hoping that the vote of confidence in "behavioral interviews" [0] from Google over the summer would help things a bit - I guess not. 0: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/20/business/in-head-hunting-big-data-may-not-be-such-a-big-deal.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0 http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/20/business/in-head-hunting-b...

baddox 13y ago
> I expect that a fair portion of "We can't find qualified people!" is actually "We can't find qualified people for what we're willing to pay." Sure, but isn't that implied, since all companies have financial constraints? If you can somehow pay 10 million dollars a year for a software engineer, I'm sure you'll have a lot less trouble finding a great engineer.
danielweber 13y ago
If that was the problem, then they would complain not that they couldn't find people, but that candidates weren't accepting their offers. (Of course it's possible they are implicitly or explicitly cutting all the people who cost too much money, leaving them with very few useful candidates.)
- EpicEng 13y ago
  Would they though? That would be admitting that the problem was with them, something many people are not willing to do.
- VLM 13y ago
  Only want to hire elite genius rockstars ... to implement a really boring CRUD app ... for median (sometimes lower) wage. Not too surprising this strategy doesn't work out too well.
GFK_of_xmaspast 13y ago
At a previous job, we had a hell of a time finding candidates who were any good, and then of the ones we made offers to, we got a lot of "no thanks", I don't know why management couldn't close the deal but I have guesses (not gonna post them because people from that former job post on HN).
- wnoise 13y ago
  In other words, you don't want to actually be useful to former colleagues...
steveax 13y ago
Indeed. The big tell in the OP was the call for opening up H1B's. Also, training? hello?
- walshemj 13y ago
  It's funny at my first job a world leading fluids Rnd organization as a research assistant my instruction on joining was Kieth's going to give you quick hours run down on how to run the PDP 11's - then pop into the library there is a book on FORTRAN tech your self it :-) Oh an that was direct from school I didn't even get any A levels :-)

baddox 13y ago

> I expect that a fair portion of "We can't find qualified people!" is actually "We can't find qualified people for what we're willing to pay." Sure, but isn't that implied, since all companies have financial constraints? If you can somehow pay 10 million dollars a year for a software engineer, I'm sure you'll have a lot less trouble finding a great engineer.

danielweber 13y ago

If that was the problem, then they would complain not that they couldn't find people, but that candidates weren't accepting their offers. (Of course it's possible they are implicitly or explicitly cutting all the people who cost too much money, leaving them with very few useful candidates.)

EpicEng 13y ago
Would they though? That would be admitting that the problem was with them, something many people are not willing to do.
VLM 13y ago
Only want to hire elite genius rockstars ... to implement a really boring CRUD app ... for median (sometimes lower) wage. Not too surprising this strategy doesn't work out too well.

GFK_of_xmaspast 13y ago

At a previous job, we had a hell of a time finding candidates who were any good, and then of the ones we made offers to, we got a lot of "no thanks", I don't know why management couldn't close the deal but I have guesses (not gonna post them because people from that former job post on HN).

wnoise 13y ago
In other words, you don't want to actually be useful to former colleagues...

steveax 13y ago

Indeed. The big tell in the OP was the call for opening up H1B's. Also, training? hello?

walshemj 13y ago
It's funny at my first job a world leading fluids Rnd organization as a research assistant my instruction on joining was Kieth's going to give you quick hours run down on how to run the PDP 11's - then pop into the library there is a book on FORTRAN tech your self it :-) Oh an that was direct from school I didn't even get any A levels :-)