[LA.pm] Fwd: jobs available, going unfulfilled

[Todd Cranston-Cuebas]

I agree with Felix on all counts. The H1 issues are clearly impacting
the supply of talent, presentation and communication skills are more
important than ever, and the specialization and sub-specialization of
required skills furthers the gap between employers and job seekers.
You also need to factor in the need for employers to show a bottom
line ROI on new hires NOW, not 2 years, 1 year, or even 6 months from
now and you get a sense of the pressure on all parties involved with
the interview process.

Sent from my iPad

On Sep 22, 2010, at 1:07 PM, Ben Tilly <btilly at gmail.com> wrote:

> I'm forwarding this for Felix because his attempt to send it bounced.
>
>
> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> From: Felix Lin <Felix at pinpoint.jobs>
> Date: Wed, Sep 22, 2010 at 12:08 PM
> Subject: RE: [LA.pm] jobs available, going unfulfilled
> To: Ben Tilly <btilly at gmail.com>
>
>
> hey Ben, I shot a response to the mailing list and Randal and got
> automatically denied.  I wonder if my old email address
> (felix at marclingroup.com) would be the culprit.
>
> if you want to post it, please feel free:
>
> We have seen a large upswing in demand for both direct hire and
> consultant personnel over the past 6 months or so across the board,
> even at higher level positions.
>
> The supply is definitely down, from a few reasons - the technology
> talent that is US born/citizen/green card/perm resident is way down,
> still stemming from the dot com bust in the early 2000s as well as big
> fear in being outsourced.  A lot of major universities BSCS graduation
> rates dropped over 50% after 2002, as people just got out of
> technology.
>
> There still is a generous supply of non-citizen H1 type personnel,
> however, the US Government is making it harder and harder for
> companies to use them on a temporary consulting basis (direct hire is
> still the same), but companies are tending to shy away from hiring
> people needing H1 Visas.
>
> The next biggest gap is the communication problem - with more
> companies using an agile based methodology, communication between team
> members becomes more important, and the communication skills are
> severely lacking.  If I had a new career to go with, I'd start a
> technology focused ESL type class for adults.
>
> if you have any questions about this, please let me know, I'd be happy
> to answer them.
>
> Have an OUTSTANDING day!
>
> Felix Lin
> http://www.linkedin.com/in/felixlin
>
> Precise . Results . Guaranteed
>
> We excel in hard to fill and specialized searches, including
> direct-hire, contract, contract-to-hire and confidential replacements.
>
>  310-356-8123 x103 (Office)
>  310-868-0663 (Fax)
>  310-980-4335 (Cell)
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: losangeles-pm-bounces+felix=marclingroup.com at pm.org
> [mailto:losangeles-pm-bounces+felix=marclingroup.com at pm.org] On Behalf
> Of Ben Tilly
> Sent: Wednesday, September 22, 2010 11:53 AM
> To: Randal L. Schwartz
> Cc: losangeles-pm at mail.pm.org
> Subject: Re: [LA.pm] jobs available, going unfulfilled
>
> On Wed, Sep 22, 2010 at 11:18 AM, Randal L. Schwartz
> <merlyn at stonehenge.com> wrote:
>>
>> Twice in the last two days, two different organizations in the greater
>> LA area approached me to help them find folks to fill mid-level Perl
>> hacking slots (varying between IT and webdev).  They both said "it's
>> getting *very* hard to find people."
>>
>> Now, I'm really curious.  Why is this?
>>
>> Is it a supply problem, or a demand problem, or both?
>
> I believe both.
>
> On the demand side, LA has a number of companies that started with
> Perl, and continued to grow.  And also some serial entrepreneurs that
> keep on creating new companies using Perl.  This creates a healthy
> local demand for Perl folks.
>
> On the supply side a lot more people who would have started with Perl
> a few years back are starting today with PHP, Ruby and/or Python.  If
> you want junior people that isn't an issue - you can just train them.
> If you want mid-level people a lack of people entering the pipeline is an issue.
>
>> As in, are there fewer Perl programmers here but the same demand?
>>
>> Or the same (or more) Perl programmers here, but even more demand?
>>
>> Or something else entirely?
>
> I would add that the Perl community as a whole seems to be greying.
> The result is that more Perl folks think of themselves as senior.
> This is highly inconvenient for companies that would like to fill
> bodies at a lower salary point.
>
>> By the way... I'm not trying to make a buck out of this.  I'm just
>> trying to help people who ask me to help, and I'm also genuinely
>> curious about the state of hiring in the Perl community, particulary
>> in LA since I'm also working here for a while.
>
> I didn't think you were.
>
>> (I'll also be sending this message to the other local PM groups, so if
>> you see it multiple times, I'm sorry.)
>>
>>
>> --
>> Randal L. Schwartz - Stonehenge Consulting Services, Inc. - +1 503 777
>> 0095 <merlyn at stonehenge.com> <URL:http://www.stonehenge.com/merlyn/>
>> Smalltalk/Perl/Unix consulting, Technical writing, Comedy, etc. etc.
>> See http://methodsandmessages.vox.com/ for Smalltalk and Seaside
>> discussion _______________________________________________
>> Losangeles-pm mailing list
>> Losangeles-pm at pm.org
>> http://mail.pm.org/mailman/listinfo/losangeles-pm
>>
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