I have followed the lack of skilled workers rant by employers for over a year. This is starting to sound like the whine of a small child. My justification for this is the following:
I have watched the same jobs appears for over a year by large corporations. The jobs descriptions are either poorly constructed or the applicant has not been born yet.
From my own job junting experience, the employers that I have interviewed with are far more interested in hiring away top talent from a competitor. They are not interested in growing a postion and grooming a new employee. The falacy to this approach is that competitors typically take great care of top talent. Why would they leave?
Finally, I have read numerous stories about companies who have just begun to realize that the software used to grade resumes is not working. One HR manager that I read about, was unable to submit a fictous resume and have it graded at the correct level.
I realize that the economy has not grown and employers are not willing to do much in the way of serious hiring until they can measure the cost of lost business and feel the heat from shareholders. Until that day comes, not much is going to change.
Arkyof GA8:33PM September 12, 2012
Training is a part of the cost of doing business, and business wants everyone but them to pay for training their workforce. Nothing new here. They don't want to pay taxes or unemployment, and they don't want to pay, insure, or pension their workers either. Corporate America wants all of the rights of a person and none of the responsibility. It is capitalism run amok with absolutely no fire wall.
dkmichof NY6:57PM February 05, 2012
The "skill-gap" and "shortage" of qualified workers statements by many companies is their justification to hire foreign workers. One example: Programmers high up in their fields at fortune 500 and 1000 companies were replaced with talent from India through H1-B Visas.
When you have Bill Gates and others along with companies like his giving millions to foreign schools and giving up on U.S. education system it can only make a person wonder just how much BS money can buy.
Companies who subscribe to the belief that there's a talent shortage here in the U.S. and later hire foreign talent should be made to keep all the job postings and resumes of U.S. candidates for random audits. You will be amazed of the U.S. worker sabotage going on. They won't pay someone to relocate from PA to CA but will pay for someone to move from India to the U.S.!
Wake up people!
Dionof CO12:34AM December 26, 2011
We need a national program that walks mechanical and manufacturing engineering university graduates through design and manufacturing case studies, with hands-on experience with a variety of manufacturing processes.
I wish I could have participated in such a program when I graduated college. My mechanical engineering university education was much too theoretical. Frankly, my ability to do real-world design engineering is limited by that.
Undergraduate engineering degrees are professional degrees in reality, if not officially. Other professional schools (e.g. law, business) use case studies, but engineers are expected to function without the benefit of a similar collection of experience. This must change.
Unlike, say, software engineering university programs, mechanical engineering curricula typically offer inadequate chances for hands-on learning. I'm guessing that's due to the cost of equipment, energy, materials, and liability insurance. Sure, sometimes a student can land an internship at a company, but that gives a student exposure to only one manufacturing line or engineering business.
Big corporations sometimes have money for training, sometimes they don't. Even if they have money, training means they risk spending a lot of money training people who could quit to work for another company, so those big companies may be reluctant to invest much in training. Keep in mind the kind of training I'm talking about would be extremely expensive, because it would be deliberately diverse and extensive to give engineers many ideas for innovation.
Also, I've read that new jobs are typically generated by small businesses or brand new businesses, not big corporations. How do those businesses get creative and skilled people trained? They can't do it readily.
Some private enterprises do permit students to work in their facilities and learn valuable skills that are not part of typical college curricula - "internships". They seek out and sometimes pay these students, and have them working side by side with engineers solving real world problems.
But that only gives a student exposure to one manufacturing line or engineering business; I believe that is far too narrow. And those engineers can only pass on knowledge based on their own training and experience, which may be incomplete or confined to a very specialized area.
There is a TV show on the Discovery Channel called How It's Made. If you've seen it, imagine actually visiting the factories they show, instead of watching it on TV. Imagine being coached and doing each step of the process, single-handedly manufacturing the product as much as possible. That's basically what I'm looking for, for the manufacturing part of the training anyway. A discussion of the history and evolution of that process would be a really helpful addition, to understand why the process is set up the way it is.
It seems unlikely that private enterprise factory owners would permit students to actually handle their equipment.
Erikof CA1:53AM December 17, 2011
I’ve been on a few interviews where I could most definitively do the job but got rejected based on, in my opinion visual bigotry and in another case definitely age bias. I’ve got this award winning “graduated top of my class” resume, which, “hello”, means I’m a motivated hard worker as well as having relevant experience for the jobs I have applied for so far. However, I’ve got ethnic spice and don’t wear it too well (massive nose) and have some facial scarring to boot, and if you had my face you would learn that these things truly do count especially at the more entry level end of the spectrum. Some of the jobs I’ve interviewed for are still vacant too. You see there’s that “fitting in” hook, and so the employer can ATTRIBUTE any type of personality defects they want to you.
It’s ridiculous, it’s like a hey folks you’ve told me you know I could do the job, but then you’ve decided that I’m not going to “fit in”, well I’m not a monster on the inside and I most certainly am not antisocial so try stretching your imaginations. I don’t have to look like something that men are going to jump all over on dating site in order to perform the job or be a pleasant person to work with. I kid you not, in one interview the interviewer spoke the whole time so I never had a chance to even show this “ugly” antisocial personality that would make me a bad fit.
The pig ignorance is shocking. It really is true about visual bigotry too. For example take a female with narrow face, big nose and not a lot in the way of cheekbones and contrast this with a female with a rounder face big healthy cheekbones and a smaller nose, which one do you think is going to be associated with a bubbly personality??
I also can't help oberving that blondes have an easier time "fitting in" to companies.
juliachildeof CO9:17AM December 04, 2011
Last April our Company was looking to fill a Billing/AR position. We were looking for a minimum of a two-year degree in Business, familiarity with MS Office, and AIA experience helpful, but not mandatory. $36,400 to start, 40 hour week with benefits, including 5 vacation days during the first year. 41 resumes, no one came close to the above requirements. Albany NY area.
Rickof NY3:45PM December 01, 2011
What are u talking about We got skills I did not go too college for nothing, But They don't want too hire. We have how many College Grads out of work. How manY. Tell me u already know. But u guys don't want too talk about the Homeless families across this country who don't even have the money too pay for the night at a hotel. Shame on you!!
Jeff of FL5:16PM November 28, 2011
i love that very much and i hope gave me more
mohammed galal3:36AM November 28, 2011
Ooops, just remembered, yes, one company did send me to training for a computer language... but not one I wound up actually using, there or anywhere else, and it's very rare. A few other companies have sent me to training for other specific abstruse things... but never something popular and useful like, say... anything most of you will ever have heard of.
Dave Aronsonof VA11:12AM November 24, 2011
It's partly the companies' own faults. Recruiters moan out one side of their mouths, how hard it is to find qualified people, whether it's some number of years of some skill, some combo of skills, or some level of clearance. Out the other side they say, "You have four years of paid experience in this? We need five. Go away. No it doesn't count that you've done it for ten years on your own. No it doesn't count that you've done something almost identical for eight years, even for pay." (Or alternately, "Oh, you've only got a plain TS clearance, no SCI? Go away. No it doesn't matter that you had one even higher just a few years ago." Or "Oh, your clearance is inactive? Go away. No it doesn't matter than it's still unexpired.")
On the other claw, those who say "don't count on employers to train you in new stuff" are spot-on. YOU AND ONLY YOU are in charge of your skillset. I spent many years going obsolete by working almost exclusively in plain old C, but learned a bunch of other languages on my own. (NO employer has ever sent me to training for a new programming language; some have even *refused* to do so.) That's not enough, though. You still need to have the gumption to PUSH hard enough to overcome the first-paragraph nonsense from the clueless box-checkers in HR. I didn't push hard enough to land serious Java work while it was getting hot, so I'm effectively locked out of that, but now I'm pushing hard for Ruby on Rails work. I missed the Java freighter, and don't want to miss... the Ruby yacht. (No I didn't make up the story just to use the pun, but hey, it was there, I just had to use it....)
For more on having the gumption to combat nonsense, check out my personal excellence blog, http://www.dare2xl.com/. :-)
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Arky of GA 8:33PM September 12, 2012
dkmich of NY 6:57PM February 05, 2012
Dion of CO 12:34AM December 26, 2011
Erik of CA 1:53AM December 17, 2011
juliachilde of CO 9:17AM December 04, 2011
Rick of NY 3:45PM December 01, 2011
Jeff of FL 5:16PM November 28, 2011
mohammed galal 3:36AM November 28, 2011
Dave Aronson of VA 11:12AM November 24, 2011
Dave Aronson of VA 11:09AM November 24, 2011