Where Are All the Tech People?
A new division of a client called today looking for a junior person. “We keep seeing people with seven or ten years of experience who are too experienced for the job. Where are all the candidates with 2-4 years of experience?”
Do you know where they are? I do.
They don’t exist.
The US economy went into a recession in March, 2001 (a recession is defined as two consecutive quarters of declining GNP; it started during August 2000 and became official in March 2004. Just as we were about to start another growth spurt, two planes flew into the World Trade Center and the US economy went into a depression. Despite the public numbers to the contrary, unemployment exceeded 10% and layoffs were enormous.
Think to what was being reported in the news—jobs going to India, out of work tech people not getting into interviews, people telling their kids to avoid tech like a plague. There were no jobs and now beginners being hired. This went on for more than three years in technology—even longer in the New York area.
So like the proverbial farm fields that are barren because the farmer hasn’t planted seeds, No one beginners so that are few juniors.
What can I do?
1. Treat your own labor force like gold. They will be someone else’s hiring solution unless you do.
2. Give everyone a raise out of the blue. Overpaying a little now may take away their marketability to another firm and keep them on the farm with you.
4. Increase the training budget. Few things make a tech happier than a new course (using what they learn is important, too).
5. Praise people for good work. Nothing is appreciated more than acknowledgement.
6. Sell when you hire people
Things in life work in cycles. The cycle where management can deal with IT staff as though they should be lucky to have a job are over . . . for now. Treat your staff like money in the stock market and your investment will be rewarded.
