Contractors Brace for Pay-Equity Rules

Major employers must soon report pay data by gender and race.

10:12 am ET
May 30, 2012


Nearly Half of US Firms Having Trouble Finding Talent: Report

    • The problem is these same companies don’t want to pay a living wage.

    • I’m am getting a little sick and tired of these companies and their whining. There are plenty of intelligent hard working people out there who are more than capable of doing these jobs. The problem is that these companies do not want to pick of the tab for the training nor do they want to pay a reasonable salary.

      When Henry Ford revolutionized the auto industry by mass producing Model T’s, he had to hire and train his labor force. He wasn’t concerned with making shareholders happy he was focused on building an industry. In the long run, everyone was a winner.

    • “Nearly half of US firms having trouble finding “CHEAP, OVERLY EXPERIENCED “talent”.

      There, the edit fixed it. This is the biggest open secret around and the body of this article backs it up. If these openings were hugely needed and provided instant ROI / +NPV then they would raise salaries and the openings would close. These positions are not for NFL Quarterbacks where there are literally only a handful of people on the planet who have the skills and/or tool set to be successful.

      Firms don’t want to pay, period. It is bizarre the lengths they go to keep rank and file pay down, while having no ability to manage higher level pay. This is especially true since it seems that the contributions of the lower level seem easier to measure. Perhaps because of the total number of position and the inability to pay far more to one than another for the same job (even if one performs better). You would think they could hire someone with less experience or perhaps not all the skills and train them. If you look at applications these days the requirements are pretty intense for the pay. And if you do have all the req’s you most likely have a lot of student loans and/or want to make a very good living, not just get a job where the pay is equal to what an avg business undergrad made a few years ago. Business seems to think that people should feel great about just having a job, not on being very successful (esp financially successful)

      Finally, the country and firms are not growing or gretting a return on capital now. That is why there is no impetus to hire. The quote even said that they were not worried about not filling the post. That shows the strategy is to try and get star talent for cheap now instead of paying later. They need to see real sustainable growth before they feel that not hiring a post would lead directly to missing opportunities to grow the bottom line. In a up cycle they will hire most anyone who remotely qualifies so that they can contribute to growing the busniess (financially). In this cycle they will only grow the costs, epecially the first year or so ….. again unless they are star talent.

    • Joe is correct. Plus they want one person to know “everything” ,have experience in every field. Of course these same companies had no qualms laying off workers for cheaper outsourcing. Then us local folks looked at what they were doing and asked ourselves “why should i get into that field when they keep laying off people?”


    • The supply of talented folks won’t be getting better anytime soon! In the largest city in our state, the high school graduation rate is 50%, the teachers are striking for more, education cost are rising 3X faster than healthcare and the parents don’t care about anything but american idol! It’s the progressive approach to life!

    • Companies love high skilled folks from overseas. This is not to discount the talent of those overseas, by and large they are more educated than the average American. In fact, at the same level of socio-economic strata the avg Indian. Chinese or Korean is vastly more educated and skilled.

      Here is the rub, their parents generation and certainly their grandparents (who are very important in the lives of these people) came from terrible poverty and this affects the new skilled/educated generation. Their expectations, while vastly superior to what they may have grown up with or from their parents is still well below the average American. To get a 60k salary is an unbelievable amount of money, and the cost of their univeristy training is usually less (disclaimer: don’t know for sure) than that of the US. They have also demonstrated that they don’t expect as much in terms of work/life balance, defer to authority, and will usually put up with more than their similar US counterpart.

      With more Chinese with MBAs then there are Americans in the workforce, where is the pressure to hire an expenisve less skilled US worker? There is none…. the only pressure is to get the US to allow more cheaper foreign talent into the US – B1 Visas anyone?

    • @Also. Good points. Afew years ago the Indian Gov’t assessed its most valuable assets. The number one asset is its people. They made a concerted effort to higher educate and develop their brightest ones. What have we done here in the US ? Colleges now offer PhD’s in basket weaving. MBA schools do not teach business ethics only “what can you get in a compensation package”. The NEA and the individual states EA are only concerned with their pensions and how to double dip from one school district to another. When is the last time we have heard about the NEA and businesses getting together to find out what the REAL needs are ?

    • This is totally BS, the only goal is to increase the H1-B quota to import more cheap educated labor. Yes, it’s a good practice to offer employment and immigration to the foreign students who graduated from top US schools, but companies love to push the boundaries to tap cheap labor further. While having a PhD from one of the top 3 engineering schools in US, I didn’t even hear a word from a dozen of companies that I applied when laid off… I should have at least heard from half of them if this article is correct, don’t you think!…

    • Which school? What are the top engineering schools? What is the avg salary coming from these schools and what is the est avg salary being requested from foreign engineers?

    • This is total BS. The reason they can’t find any talent is because they don’t want to train anyone. I know many engineers that have been out of work for years. Companies in America want already experienced workers for bargain wages. Companies outside America pay better and offer the required training and hire graduates and understand that employees need to gain experience on the job. American companies are the worst to work for as their HR departments only think about productivity in the hiring process and don’t invest in employees. America is going down the tubes and going fast due to greed and selfishness. Meanwhile all the talent leaves the country for actual real jobs with better companies that understand what an employee really is…. A person and not a cog to fit their psychotic machine.

    • That’s because most companies are to cheap to pay for relocation and expect employees in this recession to eat all the costs. Talent exists all over the US and the companies willing to acquire the talent, do!

    • Or is it.. Companies can’t find skilled workers willing to work at minimum wage? Or at least train an employee. Companies are just looking for Free Labor.

    • I worked as a Supervisor for Siemens Transportation some time back. HR would constantly tell people they could not find any “good people”. It didn’t make sense because I knew a lot of good people with education, skills that would take the jobs. I spend about forty five minutes with a phone book and called work centers at vocational schools, universities, colleges and gave them my name, fax number. Within two or three days, I have hundreds of resumes, out of them, really exceptional people, 50 plus. I went to HR with my manager to ask her why she couldn’t find people when I only spent forty five minutes of my free time and got these….showed her the resumes…..You know what she did ? Took my pile of resumes and hired some of them and took credit for “finding good people”.. It is a Lie. HR are lazy, come up with online algorithms and even if someone gets through their application which locks up, or has problems, they still can’t see the person right in front of them.

    • America is going down

    • Most Americans are lazy. Most Europeans are lazy, too

    • Your comment was intellectually lazy.

    • Bob L = very accurate assessment. While unemployment rate for IT/Eng space is very low, there are candidates out there…unfortunately some HR groups spend more time and energy protecting the inefficient processes and systems they created versus understanding your business to better identify the right candidates. .

    • I agree, finding talent is extremely difficult. It’s time companies open there eyes and look for new solutions rather than continuing to rely on inefficient recruitment options. They need to stop this pattern that leads job seekets to believe that it’s not what you know, but who you know! If companies are looking to get matched with the best talent the tools are out there. I know, because the company I work with works every day to make accessing the best and the brightest easier for employers. We created an amazing space where employers can connect with job seekers who match the recruiting requirements for each position, and the best part is there are no up front costs to our site. Check out Jobbook you won’t be dissapointed!

    • QUALIFIED Americans with massive I/T backgrounds are UNEMPLOYED. Why?? American companies ‘hire’ international ‘recruiters’ who seem bound & determined to hire people from THEIR countries (aka L1 & H1b). Even worse, I have found that the people who act like they are willing to hire AMERICANS use cell phones (with international calling activated), and speak with such heavy accents that AMERICANS can barely understand what is said. THEN THE AMERICAN COMPANIES CRY THAT THERE ARE NO QUALIFIED PEOPLE TO HIRE. that is BOGUS. they simply want the easy way out.

    • It’s all about the $$$. Bottom line is that the labor force here has to align itself to REALITY!
      Yes, I agree they want to pay less. However, the alternative is the work being outsourced or cheaper labor imported. But the end result is the same. You have no job and no job means no income at all. It stinks, but it’s REALITY!

    • Companies used to hire general talent and train in specialties on the job. Now these same companies expect to find specialists with mid-senior level experience and pay these “experts” the same amount as they would have paid a generalist. The companies that know how to effectively screen and target talent instead of buzzwords are the ones who are NOT complaining about finding talent. Candidate databases and boolean search has turned talent development into a lost art while everyone tries to find the needle in the haystack.

    • There are two fundamental problems:

      (1)”résumé spam,” i.e., desperate job seekers pad their résumés and apply to every job on the planet. This creates a tremendous inefficiency for employers/recruiters to find the best talent for their needs. It’s like finding a needle in a toothpick-filled haystack. With your eyes closed.

      (2) the $50-$500 to post jobs on today’s job boards and networking sites is prohibitively expensive, and is the real reason it seems like there aren’t enough jobs to go around: most companies can’t afford to post most of their jobs.

      A unique approach to solving this problem is to totally get rid of résumés, job descriptions, and job applications, because they just don’t work. That’s what Venturocket does. Instead, employers and job seekers get matched using skill keywords and phrases, with job seekers bidding on their abilities to verify their credentials. It’s not meant to replace free sites, but rather to serve as an alternative, “fast track” approach. And because job seekers can’t apply — instead, employers/recruiters just cherry pick the best for their needs — the résumé spam problem is completely solved.

      It’s totally free to post jobs, consists of just 3 steps, and takes all of 5 minutes. Definitely worth checking out.

    • What they want is cheap labor. They want to get cheap H1B folks without experience and increase the supply to drive down wages. There are highly qualified experienced folks here who can get the job done.

    • Completely disagree with the article . Each and every person in the world has talent . The crux is for the management to spend that little bit extra effort in identifying the talent and allocating it correctly . And organizations cannot be built on ready to cook quick fixes . It requires an ability to identify , retool , restructure and fix pieces of puzzle together . Not doing that is a death knell for the organisation . I do believe the simple solution to these issues is mind set to recruit based on attitude and apptitude . The nitty gritties can always be trained

    • There are plenty of jobs in IT and Engineering, and people with degrees/experience in these fields will continue to be hot in demand and be paid well. Yet it is well known that there is a shortage of skilled trade workers in the US labor force. There are just too many people with useless degrees in this country, hence these jobs getting filled by skilled H1B folks. US firms aren’t in the business of hiring “cheap H1B folks” to “drive down wages,” their wage is based on the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Steven might be getting this twisted with outsourcing, which is a whole other topic.

    • I never trust these reports, makes no sense. We all know hiring right talent is difficult, you need to locate the right person, qualify, make right offer, on-board and make them successful. That’s why companies have HR / recruiters. But saying RIGHT resources dont exist is crap. Either they have created roles which are unreal.

    • I agree this article is wrong! I have talent , skills, I’m a hard worker and dedicated and have an associates degree and 3 years experience in accounting and many more years of management yet every job I apply for NEVER calls me for an interview! I have experience and education and have proven to ” keep a job” a lot of these positions say they want 10 years + experience! Do they not realize this is a new era? Their going to have to hire people with less experience because the people looking for jobs are ones just out of school, just trying to start their life. How can you have the experience if no one wants to give you any?

    • I agree with this article. There are too many people complaining about not getting that corner office on the first day of their first job 3 days after getting a degree in Art History…

      I have interviewed too many people who thought they were qualified for a job and they simply were not. They have been given fake self esteem and a piece of paper from some over priced college. That doesn’t mean that they are able to think for themselves, solve problems on their own, work with a team or take orders.

      Just because you have that liberal arts degree doesn’t mean that you are qualified to be a Project Manager on a Software Development team. You want to learn that job – great. Come to the company with something and don’t complain about not getting Senior level pay. There are 1,000,000 graduates with no job experience and that piece of paper from that overpriced college. Some have even had some crappy job already where they learned the basics of holding a job

      The biggest issue that I have with finding qualified candidates for my openings is a lack of passion for the work. If you don’t have passion for something other than whining about the companies you want to hire you it will make getting a job and keeping it that much more difficult.

    • The article is dead on. I recruit for IT and engineering jobs and there is a huge shortage of skilled workers in these sectors. Step 1. Go to school for computer science. Step 2. Get into an internship with a company before you graduate. Step 3. Show up everyday, be a diligent employee and leverage this internship into a job when you graduate and don’t expect the CEO’s parking spot on day one. The opportunities exist, you just have to follow some type of career path to get there. Also, you might have to relocate. Facts of life. If you see someone in a position that you’d like to someday occupy, ask them how they did it.

    • As someone who has been in the field for 22 plus years this article is insulting..there is plenty of talent here in the US..they just don’t want to pay or they are looking for someone to “sweep the floors” while they are doing other tasks. I have hired many talented people in the IT industry and watched them grow both as a professional and personal human being..companies outsource to supposed qualified people only to find out that their qualifications are from reading the manual.

    • How ridiculous. I know many outstanding IT professionals who simply can’t find a job because there are dozens of other people applying for every opening.

      And what happened to the days when companies valued their employees enough to invest in their training? Instead they want you to work for free for a year in an internship. This country won’t thrive again until Corporate America remembers that its employees aren’t disposable like used Kleenex.

      You get what you pay for and if companies want to pay nothing they’ll end up getting nothing.

    • @Oh My: “MBA schools do not teach business ethics only “what can you get in a compensation package”. ”

      I am sorry, but you are incorrect. As someone who works closely with MBA and Ph.D. students at a prominent Business School, we try very hard to instill business ethics in our student body. Whether or not the lesson takes is out of our control.

    • The talent is out there the Firms are looking in all the wrong places. How about the old days when everything was in your face, or how about giving a potential job candidate a trail run before they are counted out. The problem Corperate America has today is that nobody have time for the humane part of life everything is based on paper or from laptops. Let’s get back to the basics this country was built on merrit, confidence, and trust just to name a few great qualities that we possess.We will never get back to where this great country once was if we do not take greed and selfishness out of the equation. How much money can one CEO, MD, EMD, or all ot the other titles held by Corperate America top dogs make. Just imagine if all of these folks were to take a 30 to 40% pay cut Gods knows how many people would still be employed. Base this just on a humane point of view. I will state it again or in a different manner how much money is enough? These Coperate Heads make more money then the masses, or their childern’s children will ever see. Where is the compassion for their fellow Americans who families help build this country and made it possible for all the people in power to obtain most of their achivements.I could go on with my dissappointment with Corperate America. I just prey that someone will pay attention to the little guy who made this country what it was and listen to the little guy they may learn something that has long been forgotten. like integriy first instead of money. Remember the talent is right in front of us we just have to reach out and grab it with our hands not with the job boards or things of that nature. Think about how most people got jobs before you knew somebody that knew somebody. I think that system will not fail has history fail us? What about this if it’s not broke why try to keep fixing it we are wasting a lot of money and man power.

    • The difficulty in finding talent is spot on. Skilled talent is becoming harder to find, especially at a high level. However, the reward for dragging your feet doesn’t make sense at all. Either you have the need and will hire the right resources, or you don’t have a real need and should open up the position later.

    • You cannot say the artical is ridiculous or wrong just because you may be in a pocket of the country where you do not have the problem. I have a lot of difficulty to find talents and at the company level, the hires we get since a couple year are less talented that those of the previous years. There is definitively a flaw in the education system that does not provide the sufficient level of qualification. Our best hires in last months actually come from Asia (China or India)

    • As a recruiter for a Fortune 500 company with over 250 current openings, I can relate to both sides. I do agree that specialized skill sets are more difficult to find, and in a down market, you’re constantly flooded with resumes that aren’t remotely close to the skills you’re searching for. At the same time, I talk to candidates on a daily basis who have applicable skills and a desire to learn more, who can be easily trained.

      The problem is, the majority of candidates out there think they are more qualified than they really are. I’m not separating myself from the group. It’s human nature to think we’re better at some particular skill than our peers.

      Take for example Clay051 below, who says we’re looking in all the wrong places. Just to be honest from a recruiters point of view, I wouldn’t interview Clay for a job based solely on his poor grammatical skills – “trial run” instead of trial run, “nobody have time” instead of nobody has time, misspelling merit, misspelling corporate, etc… just to name a few. If you send me an email at my company and you can’t spell simple words or use correct grammar, we’re going to pass you over. That’s the cold, honest truth. We might be looking in the right places, you might just not be as qualified as you think.

      As for Peyton’s comments…I do agree that companies should invest in training, but it has to be reasonable for both sides. Companies aren’t going to take a secretary who’s decided she wants to be in healthcare IT and train her. So many people out there complain that companies aren’t providing adequate training for the unemployed, but more often than not, these individuals are seeking training for roles that they are not qualified for. It’s one thing to possess some skills of a job description, and be trained on software or company policies….it’s a totally different scenario to have to be trained how to do all the skills you’d need to do a job. If a company can find a junior level resource who needs one month of training, why would they ever hire the senior level resource from a different field who needs three months of training?

    • This Companies want experience on everything. I have been in the fiannce business for over 20 years, today I was told by a recruiter that I did not have enough experience,(amazing) from all their requirements listed, there was only ONE area that i did not match the experience, everything else match perfectly to my last position, not sure what they are looking for, or just plain excuses.. another thing, you can consider yourself lucky if they call back or Acknowledge your resume.. they never do.

    • To Anonymous at 5/31 1:00 P.M.:

      Poor grammar and spelling? Skip them, of course. But a possible win/win to the last question: why hire the senior level resource who could use three months of training? Because the senior level likely has matured critical thinking skills, life experience and a more balanced outlook not yet acquired by a junior level resource. Three months of training is nothing compared to the overall costs of attrition and recruiting . . .

    • Not really agreeing with Anonymous Recruiter. Passing over an applicant because of the wording or spelling in an email or post might be going too far and is limiting your applicants to those that may NOT have the required skills, but have the polish and BS skills required to get noticed by you.

      I believe most candidates probably are over qualified for the position being hired for. What recruiters and employers ignore is that each company is unique and the skills required to be successful need to be learned, it is rare that someone can just “hit the ground running”. For example if you work at a company for 10 years you learn a unique mix of skills. When you leave for another job, it is very difficult to replace you. A recruiter should have a difficult time finding another person with your exact/unique skill set. Instead of looking for someone with that exact skill set the recruiter should look for an experienced person with the ability to learn to fill the position.

      In the meantime your unique skill set is hard to match to open positions. You may be strong in one or two areas and weak in others. The solution is that recruiters and employers should focus on hiring people that can learn quickly and that are highly adaptable to different situations. Using resume “key word” searches, is probably not going to find the right person.

      The sad part is that the Anonymous Recruiter has no problem hiring and training a junior level applicant, while ignoring a senior level applicant that is a close match simply because they don’t want to train or pay a senior level applicant, even though the senior level applicant would bring a larger skill set, more experience, and more tangible benefits to the position.

    • One of the largest problems I see has to do with university vs. Technical college. I’m currently in school for software development at the technical college level but all off the ‘entry-level’ openings I come across are requiring 1-2 years experience on top of a bachelor’s degree. I read an article while I was sitting at the dentist a few months ago which featured countless i.t. Managers complaining that no one they were interviewing had ever written a line of code but yet had a bachelor’s in computer science. This frustrates me to no end, as my school focuses on the coding aspect. Maybe the almighty university system is broken, or maybe employers need to realize that it is going to be very difficult to get everything they want and investing in your staff is a great way to obtain and hold onto better employees.

    • To all these companies that have it so hard to find good talent: The other day I decided that I wanted a new car, it had to have a 6 valve 250 hp engine minimum, autoparking capabilities, leather seats, 10 years guarantee, A/C, integrated GPS, hybrid, airbags all over…some other features as well. I wanted to pay around 15.000$. Can’t you believe that after visiting each and every car dealer I couldn’t find one match? Car industry sucks.

      Well, that’s what happens many times with the recruiting process. Instead of blaming themselves, companies keep pointing fingers to job seekers/universities/you name it. Not them, of course.

    • I go on. Examples extracted from comments above: “Go to school for computer science…”. Wrong, not everone in IT must have a computer science degree as not everone working in the medicine sector is a doctor. If you want someone to have a CS degree to code some java applets, you’re not understanding anything. “don’t expect the CEO’s parking spot on day one.”. Right, all candidates get to interviews asking for CEO’s privileges, come on, be honest, how many candidates have these stupid aspirations from the get go? Give real and frequent examples, not one off that a nut head dropped one day he/she was not very inspired. “Spelling mistakes” Sure, but for what kind of positions? With outlook, word correctors nowadays, this is something that could be overlooked as long as the person stands out in other (technical maybe?) areas. In sum, don’t look for unicorns because unicorns don’t exist. If you want to hire extraterrestrials because consider we humans are too imperfect for your highly demanding, highly motivating, highly whatever jobs, fine, but don’t come whining if extraterrestrials don’t want to come.




    • What hooie. I’ve been trying to get a tech job, but I don’t have EXACTLY the skills they’re looking for even though I’m Overqualified….. What’s my background? R/C construction, Electronics, Automation Controls and Electrical Autocad; also Corporate Graphic Design, gov. Public Information, non-profit communications, publication management, even janitorial. Where did I get all this from? Working more than one job at a time, or working in a job where they dumped everything in my lap, like my career in the Military where my E-7 rating, and a Bachelors degree have gotten me zip. John is almost right. All I could get was a part-time office management gig for HALF a bag of rice.
      By the way, I asked about CNC programming training (I ran a plasma table for six months) and got a “gee maybe we’ll have some information for ya later…..

    • agree, this is difficult

    • They somehow get electronics techs from the rice fields. How? They invested in training their own! Why is the corporate mentality in North America so against training their own and rather poach from the others? Please add your response.

      My experience is I am so much more loyal to my employer when they help and invest in my professional growth. I’m not going anywhere but when I see someone come in from the other guy, within a year or two poof they’re gone to the next juicy offer. Open your eyes and smarten up corporate people.

    • Rick, I feel your pain. It is disheartening to hear back from several of my applications (US. Dept. of State) where they mention that I met qualifications but unfortunately their board of experts cannot allow my application to continue because of my experience, etc…. same response, just add your favorite excuse.
      I am an experienced IT professional, over 15 years experience, tri-lingual, Bachelors degree in IT, cum laude, US Air Force veteran, etc. I have experience with most of what they are looking for but here I am having to work overseas because I can’t find an IT job back home. Oh, since I have been out of the US over 3 years, my experience may not even count… what a bunch of blah…

    • Excerpt of a previous comment:


      Imagine if Henry Ford had posted a job ad in 1913, the year he introduced the assembly line for Model T production, using the corporate hiring principles of today. He might have included a phrase like, “Five years of automotive assembly line experience required.” How many Ford applicants would qualify under that criteria?

    • A person named “Recruiter” wrote, “The problem is, the majority of candidates out there think they are more qualified than they really are. I’m not separating myself from the group. It’s human nature to think we’re better at some particular skill than our peers.”

      Many of my friends, who unfortunately aren’t hiring me, do believe that I lack some self-confidence and I am capable of doing a lot more than I think I can do. Therefore, according to the views of many that I know, I feel that I am less qualified than I really am, not more qualified.

    • Top quartile Electrical Engineering/Computer Science grad here, from a top-20 school. Submitted my resume many thousands of times to employers over the past number of years, and have only been called maybe a dozen times. I’m very talented, completed my schooling in under 5 years, have a portfolio of personal projects, yet somehow I keep falling inbetween the cracks. Firms clearly aren’t looking for talented people if they’re not even calling individuals like myself (or my classmates) up for interviews, testing us, or even giving us the courtesy of a professional response to our job applications. The whole idea of a talent shortage is complete nonsense and is entirely rooted in dysfunctional HR policies.

    • Many recruiters state that they wouldn’t hiring people who make spelling mistakes. I see many posted job descriptions with obvious spelling and grammatical errors. For example, during the spring of 2011 a large multinational engineering company posted a job description on its website for a near entry level job at its office in the city where I live. This ad had five spelling errors and one major grammatical error – all in an ad of about 101 words. This company posted the ad for several months, and I applied for it and followed up with the local recruiter on a regular basis, but I was not hired. Apparently the company decided not to hire anyone for this position, even though I felt I was confident that I could achieve long-term success at this company.

      If companies are so demanding of perfection from their applicants, why can’t they proofread their ads to ensure that they are correct? This appears to be high hypocritical to me.

    • Also frustrating that employers seem to think that there’s a lack of skills that require training. There isn’t. The problem is that the employers simply don’t want to actually pick up the phone, interview new people, and discover the skills they already have. They don’t want to give highly skilled people in, for instance, Software Application X, an opportunity to spend an hour to learn Software Application Y. Employers are afraid of even the slightest bit of failure or a single hour ‘wasted’ on learning, even though, especially in the knowledge areas, they’re all about learning!

    • If it wasn’t so sad it would be laughable. As an IT professional with more than 20 years experience, I’m in the group that’s “Not qualified”. Some of the job listings I’ve read are so out of touch with reality that these HR people should be sent to the stocks. I’ve seen requirements of 8 years experience in technologies that are 4 years old, and requirements for expertise in competing technologies. It used to be that companies hired people that they believed would grow into the job. Now they are looking for people who will be productive at 9:00 am on the first day of employment. Unless they hire back the employees that they laid-off because they were making too much money, that’s not going to happen.

    • Companies are only reporting this to justify hiring cheaper and under qualified labor from overseas. I’m an unemployed genius and while I will probably land soon, it should have been much easier than this regardless of the economy.

    • unemployed_i/t_4_2_long wrote:


      I worked at a temporary job for a little over two months during late 2011 and early 2012 in my current hometown at the call center operations of a benefits management company headquartered in the San Francisco Bay area. If I could have stayed permanently at this company, I would have liked to be able to work in a technical area like IT, software product development, project management, Six Sigma, or data analysis, where I could use my education and earn a higher salary.

      During after work hours, or during break times or lunch, I would browse the company directory to find people at the corporate headquarters doing the type of higher-level work that I would consider doing for a long-term career. Most of these people, it appeared to me, had Asian names, predominantly east Indian.

      Why were most of the people working in the fields of IT, software product development, and other high-level technical positions at this company apparently not originally from the USA?

    • I just read all of the comments above. How funny is it that all of the HR people who spoke up here don’t realize that they’re a major part of the problem? There are many, many qualified people out there looking for jobs, just not many IT idiot-savants willing to work for minimum wage.

    • One of the things that I have noticed is that job posts are now reflective of all the tasks that someone who quit got after several downsizing efforts forced an individual to wear many hats. So a position might want database experience, 10 years of social media experience (which is impossible), photo image creation, legal experience, 5-8 years of progressive managerial tasks and several awards. I find that no one can fill these positions. So they go unfilled as hiring managers wait for the right fit that will never happen.

    • US Citizens having SAP Experience or Other IT Software Experience like SAN, Oracle, Unix …. and many more and looking for jobs send me an email ijobs39@gmail.com . There are 1000′s of Fulltime positions and Contract positions.


    • Something is very wrong at USA firms. Millions of bright people are out of work, and whatever systems they are using, are ruling them out.

    • I’m very senior and work in an IT management role for a large multinational US-based company, so I can recognize the trends in the industry with a broad and long-term perspective. There are many dimensions to this problem.

      The problem isn’t lack of qualified people – there are plenty of these. The problem is often the lack of qualified US citizens willing to work for the same low wages and long hours that H-1B visa holders will work for. However, H-1B isn’t all bad; there are some types of jobs where US universities simply don’t invest in growing talent that American companies need. For example, it’s almost impossible to find virtualization specialists in the US, but Indian universities have curriculum specializing in this. And obvious, top IT security talent is the hardest thing for any company to find – most of the best security engineers are self-taught and you need to hire them wherever they are in the world. The real problem is that companies (like mine) that are serious about using H-1B for the right reasons (bring in top talent that is genuinely hard to find from abroad) compete for the same pool of visas with cut-rate head shops supplying cheap junior foreign IT engineers. So far, the solution has been to keep expanding the pool, but this pushes junior Americans out of the market, exacerbating the problem. I’d like to see a real skills test applied to H-1B visa issuance, and I’d also like to see the State Department trust head shops a whole lot less than they currently do. Not only the H-1B visa gets abused; I’ve seen extremely junior IT technicians in the market on so-called “multinational executive” visas and being paid $12 per hour.

      Also, most entry to mid level IT jobs are now contracted out to Wipro, Tata, Atos, or other overseas contracting agencies. This really limits career mobility, and if I were starting today I wouldn’t have the same opportunity to grow my career that I did when I started 15 years ago. There usually isn’t the opportunity to grow into a senior role within one company, and it’s also hard to grow into a senior role if you’ve been “branded” as a vendor or contractor. If you have any of about 5 companies on your resume, you’re just assumed not to be FTE material.

      For my part, I’m actually on the other side of the equation, being the equivalent of an H-1B worker in China. There is work for Americans in Beijing (albeit at low wages) and the market is growing very fast in China, so maybe in the future, Americans will have to start their careers abroad. I hope not – the US will only maintain leadership through real investment in growing its national talent base. With so many people out of work and more than 50% unemployment between 18-25 year olds, we’re discarding an entire generation of future talent.

    • “For example, it’s almost impossible to find virtualization specialists in the US” — TProphet

      Really? Here’s the deal — VMWare, Virtualbox, etc., can be learned in a few weeks by an individual that is trained in Unix and is reasonably proficient at operating systems and systems programming. In other words, half of the new CS grads that come out of school. Individuals like myself. Etc. Compared to learning programming languages, learning how to work with virtualization software is a piece of cake.

      So with that in mind, why would you claim that such a trivial skill (relatively speaking) isn’t available amongst Americans? Is it because your HR people don’t know what they’re even looking for on a resume and just want to see a melange of proprietary vendor certifications?

      I’m serious — virtualization and the skillsets needed to work with it are a dime a dozen. Anything that a new grad can’t pick up in a month on-the-job in your environment can probably be filled in with a few weeks at proprietary vendor courses. Its really not a big deal.

    • Why is it that reporters and news agencies believe what Recruiters tell them as being fact? Recruiters are interested in one thing and one thing only, the placement commission. See their Code of Ethics from the National Association of Executive Recruiters (http://www.naer.org/code-of-ethics/)

      Companies are interested (more today than in the last several decades) in paying as little as possible and creating job requirements that are both absurd and non-productive. They are using new code words (3-5 years of experience) for only wanting younger inexperienced candidates (who couldn’t possibly obtained the experience the rest of the job requirement states) and then complain that they can’t find the “right” person or the people they see don’t fit their “culture”.

      Recruiter’s don’t use their position and professionalism to “set the client company” straight, in that they won’t find what they are looking for either at the rate of pay or the job requirement and rate of pay. Something needs to change.

      So are Companies having problems finding talent, yes they are, but they are mostly responsible. With the number of out-of-work individuals, no company should be in want for any job position.

      Wayne Spivak
      SBA * Consulting LTD
      Twitter: @SBAConsult

    • They actually aren’t looking for anything as broad or potent as ‘talent.’ there is a lot of that available. they are looking for cheap, fresh-out-of-school with a very narrow list of skills that exactly matches the algorithms reading (and rejecting) resumes from wonderfully talented people.

    • The double edged sword is the process that allows such a broad spectrum of talent to file upon a position immediately often without regard to actually explaining their qualifications. As an article stated the other day the software often eliminated most everyone because of key word recognition patterns such that a high ranking office of the company who applied online was over looked and never even received a response. Add to that the true nature of our
      new” economy is under employment in that were are being paid less for the same work and we’re still in a capital spending recession. Why else would rates keep dropping if not to allow the american public to fall for the okie doke of leverage …again. Until people start talking to people this will be the prevailing wind and unfortunately I don’t see that changing any time soon. .

    • OK I have heard it all now. First I hear Americans are lazy, then that the people from foreign countries are smarter than Americans, then that companies are paying high wages only to get under educated employees.

      Let me give you an American’s take. These people from foreign countries are poorly educated compared to US workers, I know, I have worked with them and I wouldn’t take 5 of them for 1 American. Not only do they not understand the American Work Culture they hate it. These “so called” highly educated foreigners are terrible programmers, Systems Analysts and Systems Administrators. They take American jobs for 1/2 or even a 1/3 of what an American commands because they speak very little English and their skills SUCK if they even have any skills. Foreigns are known to pad their resumes. Companies hire a boatload of them because they can’t find cheap American workers. They bring these foreigners into the company, give them assignments and a few months later lay them off. Then they bring in competent Americans to clean the mess up. I have seen it happen way too many times.

      What happens if the company hires an American? They refuse to give them the authority to do the work without constant supervision. I have never seen them do that to the foreign workers. Companies don’t want to seem bigoted toward their minority employees.

      Another Trend: Hiring a specialist and expecting them to know everything. I watched as a company hired a Unix Admin and then expected the girl to know everything about Telephony, Windows Servers, Desktop support and Networking. She lasted about 6 weeks before giving up in disgust. The company THOUGHT they were hiring a “Computer Genius” who came highly recommended. This company’s problem was they did need a Unix Admin but they also needed a Windows Server Admin, a network/router specialist and a Telephony specialist. Sorry people but just because I know Windows Server doesn’t mean I’m also a programmer.

      Now lets talk about American management’s other problem: Political Correctness and bigotry in IT. They believe that a “Green” Foreigner with a PhD is smarter than an American with a PhD and 5 years of experience. I never have figured out why this is but I have seen it and couldn’t believe what I saw. The first CIO for the US under President Obama was an guy from India whose claim to fame was to have 2 failed Startups and was the Chief Technology Officer, not the Chief Information Officer (CIO) for the City of Washington DC. Big Whoop. What did he do while there? He moved some systems to “Cloud-Based” computing. Yeaaaaa? Sorry, but couldn’t they find an American for the job?

    • Not surprising if they stick to recruiting via the Internet using “keywords”. It’s lazy and unprofessional. Excellent candidates lose out because of most companies inability to vet their potential candidates properly. Computers pick randomly with a very limited amount of parameters and this eliminates a high percentage of excellent applicants. For the record I am not including myself in this, although I wouldn’t be surprised if I was. Here endeth the lesson.

    • Ok, everyone knows the problems we’re facing and right now they’re not going to change, they just aren’t. So my question is why spend any more energy complaining. I mean really! What are you going to do about it? Your actions, your efforts will be what makes the difference from this point forward. Start a business, leave the country, write a book., or just get up and call your congressman, stop buying thier products, grow your own, but just do something about it today and tomororw and the next. I read something last week. A woman said, to paraphrase, “I’ve work my whole life on someone elses’s vision. Now its time to work on mine.” Use your energy to work on your vision, screw their’s.

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