[Mpls-pm] Food for Thought, on Perl in the Minneapolis marketplace..

[Dave Rolsky]

On Thu, 22 Oct 2009, Nicholas Melnick wrote:

> I don't have hard data, just purely anecdotal from browsing Craigslist and 
> Monster for the area. The number of jobs mentioning Perl doesn't seem to be 
> significantly lower, but Perl as the primary language? Nearly nil around 
> here. A lot of sysadmin and build engineer positions, very little on 
> 'development'.

I'm not sure that really says anything other than that jobs with Perl 
aren't found on Craiglist and Monster.

I've been involved in hiring at several places I've worked in the past. 
When I've had my way, we've never posted the job on Monster. That's pretty 
bottom of the barrel, and doesn't get good candidates. My feeling towards 
Craiglist is the same, at least for programming positions.

That doesn't prove anything other than my personal biases, but I wouldn't 
be surprised if companies using Perl tend to find candidates other ways, 
including the Perl jobs site or other job sites that attract a better 
crowd (stack overflow, O'Reilly, 37 signals).

I think Monster and Craiglist are mostly used by big companies with big, 
clueless HR departments, and/or recruiters. They're great for bringing in 
lots of warm bodies, but they don't attract _good_ developers.

Also, the job market as a whole for developers has been way done for quite 
some time. Maybe companies using Perl have been particularly hard hit. 
Considering that one of Perl's biggest niches is the financial industry, 
this wouldn't be surprising.


-dave

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