| Topic Name: |
Is there a labor shortage in IT? |
| Message Name: |
Heres how it works |
| Date Posted: |
10/17/2000 |
| Message: |
Ok, let me explain how the business world works to you techies.
Case 1: I'm hiring for a big 5 consulting company.
I will hire:
a) 24yr old who I can just-in-time train to bill 60-70 hours a week, travel, and bill him/her out at $200/hr to my client.
b) 40yr old programmer with wife and kids and requires $95,000/yr
c) MIT grad who is an expert in java, xml, and everything else under the sun.
Case 2: Hiring for a start up. I'm looking for someone who can:
a) Add value and insight with their years of experience.
b) Gripe about how these kids dont know anything
c) Play fooseball and Quake and talk about Limp Bizcut (a rock band for you old folks)
Answers: 1) a (Consulting companys want cheap labor that can bill at high rates) 2) c (Yes its age descrimination, but too many companies try to set up this stupid post addolescent frat-house atmosphere to keep the worker bees happy)
The fact of the matter is that there is age descrimination, mostly for economic reasons. Nobody wants someone with 20 years of programming experience. At that age you are expected to be an architect or PM at least. The problem is that as we get older our salaries increase. Unfortuneately our percieved value added does not increase proportionately. To the hiring manager, 2 years of experience is as good as 20, but cheaper. This is because the technology changes so fast. Look at this example
Case 3: IT manager hireing for an internal java position:
a) Mainframe programmer w/ 20 years expereince, 1 of which is recent java
b) Kid out of school with 1 yr java
Once again b. Only the java experience is relevent to the manager.
Didn't really believe it at first, but I'm in my late 20s and most of my client server knowledge is almost obsolete and I have to learn the latest and greatest. Pretty soon we'll all have to wear badges in are hand that light up when we turn 30 (You older Sci-Fi fans should remember Logans Run. A little before my generation but I'm a big movie buff)
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