

Why Bad Jobs-or No Jobs-Happen to Good Workers - vonmoltke
http://spectrum.ieee.org/podcast/at-work/tech-careers/why-bad-jobsor-no-jobshappen-to-good-workers/

======
hkarthik
A significant issue is that nobody trains employees while compensating them
fairly based on their aptitude. So the only option is for employees to bounce
around to get new skills and better wages. Employers hate this and constantly
complain about "employee loyalty", not recognizing that job hopping is the
only real defense that an employee has to be fairly compensated.

Here is a fictional account that illustrates the point:

John Doe currently writes C++ and finds Company A with great benefits and
excellent compensation, but they only hire experienced Python programmers. But
across the street, Company B will hire C++ programmers and train them on
Python. Company B doesn't pay nearly as well, and the benefits are also pretty
poor in comparison to Company A.

Company B offers John a position, but at a below market salary for Python
programmers. John would be taking a pay cut from what he makes as a C++
programmer, but he takes the job anyway.

Being a highly capable individual, after 1 year John is one of the top Python
programmers in Company B. John meets some engineers from Company A at a local
meetup, and they recruit him to come interview with Company A. John passes the
interviews with flying colors and is offered 30% more salary at Company A than
he currently makes at Company B. This is now more than John ever made as a C++
programmer so he gladly takes the job, after only staying at Company B for a
year.

Similar events occur with many more employees from Company B as they all start
getting poached by Company A. Company B creates a non-compete agreement with
Company A to keep its programmers from leaving.

Company A now complains to Congress that it can't find enough workers and
needs to hire more foreign workers to fill the gap. It gets more foreign
workers, which it can then hire at lower salaries without having to poach
talent from Company B. Over time, the executives at Company A realize the cost
savings and start cutting salaries, raises, and benefits.

Engineers at both Company A and B now realize their wages are stagnating and
they all start leaving for other opportunities. Executives at Company A and B
start lobbying Congress more and complaining to the press about a talent
shortage and their inability to find workers.

~~~
jt2190
You had me with you until you used the phrase "foreign workers." It's not
their foreignness that makes them cheaper, it's that (in the U.S. at least)
they're not able to easily change jobs and demand fair market wages, because
their visa ties them to one employer.

~~~
hkarthik
The foreignness makes them cheaper in that it makes it easier for companies to
justify paying them less and forcing their loyalty through the visa
regulations. It has nothing to do with their qualifications which are often
excellent.

~~~
jt2190
Maybe it's me, but the suggestion that someone is getting short changed
because they're different, and that it's easier to justify short changing
someone because they're different, implies that the problem is their
difference, not the short-changing.

~~~
msellout
Are you suggesting we blame the victim?

~~~
jt2190
Rereading the post you're responding to, out of context, I can see how you
might get that impression. In fact, I was trying -- too subtly, it seems -- to
point out that the ancestor post was making it seem that foreigners themselves
are to blame for employers "cutting salaries, raises, and benefits," rather
than the broken U.S. worker visa system. (I don't actually think that's what
he actually believes, which is why I was trying to prod him into rephrasing,
instead of downvoting him. I find people are too quick to downvote, don't
you?)

------
fiatmoney
Shorter version:

If you want experienced, wildly competent workers, you'll have to pay for
them. If you're not willing to pay for the experienced workers, you'll have to
train inexperienced workers. Also, the requirements you're listing for the job
is probably ridiculous, and your screening process is probably broken.

~~~
blindhippo
Soon as I graduated I encountered the experience wall - it was ridiculous.
"junior" level positions required 2-3 years experience and paid less then
working at Walmart.

Now that I have over 5 years experience in my field, I'm rolling in offers and
have my pick.

I've had managers complain about lack of loyalty in employees. I typically
fired back suggesting that if you take new graduates out of school and
actually invest in them, you'll have a much stronger core workforce that is
likely far more invested into the company then random mercenaries you pick off
the market. Apparently I don't get management theory though...

~~~
greyboy
Agreed. I'm one of the most loyal employees you'll ever find ... as long as
I'm treated fairly. In exchange for good work all they need to provide is
ample benefits, flexible schedule, satisfactory compensation, work with
challenging/motivating problems - or some healthy mix of those.

Once the balance shifts to (my personal feeling of) inequality, I have no
problem (or choice?) but to move on. Gone are they days of "lifers" with
company provided pensions that could possibly make that decision (to move)
harder (a la IBM full term careers).

~~~
mgkimsal
That's not really the definition of 'loyalty' they're looking for though.

"I'm great to work with as long as I get my way".

People who want 'loyalty' are really looking for people who will stick around
when things get tough - perhaps pay cuts, wage freezes, benefits reductions,
longer work hours - etc. If you stay through those, without complaint, you're
"loyal". Being "loyal" as long as "I'm treated fairly" isn't really what
they're after.

~~~
greyboy
Of course, I disagree - I call that being taken advantage of. If I could
depend on the employers honoring the same thing - employing people "through
thick and thin" - I'd believe it, but it's almost unheard of.

Unfortunately, I worked for five years through "when things got tough" -
random layoffs, no raises, decreasing benefits. How loyal does one have to be
to satisfy your definition?

~~~
mgkimsal
It's neverending.

------
tokenizer
I think this all goes back to the fact that wages are stagnant for most of the
world, and companies don't foster employees anymore.

You need to cultivate experience in workers sometimes, especially if you have
a complex system in place.

Employees have no loyalty anymore, because of the cutting of benefits and
wages.

Employers have no loyal employees anymore, which means they require 3 to 5
years experience to give them some return on hiring said employee.

Students are having a hard time finding work, because Employers are requiring
this experience.

Employers have a skills gap, because they can't hire Students to fill the gap,
because they'd just quit before giving some return (loyalty).

I think I'm starting to see the clusterfuck caused by limiting compensation
and benefits...

~~~
ep103
I'm just an employee, but if you want to gain my loyalty, just throw some
benefits and wages at me. Cycle avoided.

~~~
tokenizer
I absolutely agree. It all starts with an appreciation of what you do for me;
which is you come in to work every day, and work for me. I can count on you,
but in return, I have to give you peace of mind, and a competitive salary.

Most companies have altogether made it clear that no job is stable, and
competitive salaries continue to shrink...

------
ebiester
The unstated counter-argument is that the employer will have to train
inexperienced workers who will leave as soos as they become competent and
experienced, or pay as much as you would for the experienced person in the
first place.

Myself, I'd rather train someone up in my process without them learning bad
habits, even if that means they're pairing with me for 30 hours out of 40.
That said, I'm an exception.

Once upon a time, some companies hired new workers as QA, trained as QA, and
those with the aptitude were moved into programming. I know that IBM still has
an internship program that streams people into their system.

~~~
mratzloff
That's because companies don't give them raises commensurate with their new
experience. Each year for the first 2-3 years or so a new employee that's any
good should be receiving large raises on top of their presumably modest
starting salary.

The problem is that companies think they can get away with keeping people
anchored to those starting salaries. It doesn't work; morale suffers and they
leave.

Finding a young employee and turning him into one of your superstars is a
really gratifying feeling. Watching him leave because obstinate business
owners refuse to pay him what he is now worth is infuriating.

I've experienced this several times in leadership roles and it is one of the
many things that convinced me to start my own business.

~~~
wccrawford
Exactly. My first company did this for me, and I stayed and was loyal for 2
years beyond when they stopped treating me fairly. I'd still be there, happy
and productive, if they had continued paying me what I was worth instead of
claiming the economy wouldn't let me.

Shortly after I left, they put out a job posting for 7 people, each at more
than I would have accepted to stay.

The job I left for was paying even more than that job posting, and I'm still
here today.

So why did they do that? Why treat me fairly initially, then stop? They didn't
really gain much. I was unhappy for 2 years and my job performance suffered
for it. They replaced me with people who didn't have my knowledge of their
systems, and they paid them more. It was absolute insanity.

~~~
berntb
I've seen it argued -- from people that seem to know much more than I do on
this -- that HR knows most people will grumble and not leave.

~~~
sesqu
I've heard many an anecdote in support of this, except with the addendum that
after a few years of grumbling and increasing in value, they do leave and on
bad terms.

------
base698
_Peter Cappelli: Well, it doesn’t look like that’s true. The business degrees
are now, by far, the most popular major, and that’s where people are getting
jobs, so that’s pretty common._

Seriously? Everyone I knew with just a business degree ended up with a crap
retail job. Most of the people in engineering seemed to go into the jobs the
business majors wanted.

~~~
JamesLeonis
The raw numbers may say that the numbers of business majors and the number
hired is high, but the ratios might be abysmal in comparison to other fields.

------
cafard
"Steven Cherry: Employers can’t find workers at the going wage. True or false?

Peter Cappelli: That’s false, and that’s almost by definition the case,
because we know how markets work, and markets adjust and wages adjust. I had
an employer write to me the other day saying they had a skills gap, and they
really did. It wasn’t wages, because they did market wage surveys, and they
were paying what everybody else was paying, and all the employers, by the way,
are having a skills gap, so it’s a big problem. Well, if everybody’s got the
same problem, and you’re all paying the same wage, it’s probably the case that
you’re not paying enough. So the way markets work isn’t you set the wage and
say, “Well, this is good enough.” You pay what it takes to get the people you
need, and if wages have to go up, then so be it, right? "

I think I get it except for the "and they really did".

~~~
wisty
That seems pretty myopic.

Let's say I run a coffee shop. I sell $3 cups of coffee, which is the market
rate, but can't get any customers. I have no signage, don't advertise, and I'm
rude to customers.

That's what a lot of companies are like - they don't treat recruitment as a
core business, but as an annoying distraction (like doing taxes).

The best way to get a job is to cold call companies, or network. It's like if
coffee shops with a customer acquisition strategy of "wait for people to find
the shop by accident, then hope they invite their friends".

~~~
randomdata
If you run a coffee shop, you would be the buyer in the relationship as it
relates to this discussion.

A better analogy might that you surveyed Starbucks to find out how much they
spend for their coffee beans. You then build the expectation that you should
also be able to buy coffee beans for the same price as Starbucks. Of course,
you can't, because you are small and don't buy enough beans to get Starbuck's
volume price.

So, applying it to the topic at hand: Maybe Facebook can pay an engineer $150K
to keep them happy because of the prestige and perks of working there, but
your small company is going to have to pay $200K to get the same talent
because, like in the coffee bean example, you are nobody special and do not
have access to the benefits of being a "big deal".

~~~
wisty
No, it's not about economies of scale. It's about non-monetary costs.

What I'm saying (using your analogy) is that Starbucks actually works hard to
get good suppliers. If you open a coffeeshop and use beans from the local
supermarket (hoping to pay market price - it's a market, right?, of course you
pay a lot more and get worse quality than if you spend some time tracking down
a good supplier.

------
TallGuyShort
I landed a great programming job with no experience and no degree because I
could walk in there and talk about what I had taught myself and done on my own
time. I know this doesn't transfer to every situation in every industry, but I
think much of the problem stems from people who haven't put in much effort to
make themselves marketable and to educate themselves. If I saw that, I would
make the assumption that the company could spend money training them and they
wouldn't necessarily come away a harder-working, more motivated person.

~~~
wbrendel
Sounds like you did have experience: stuff you had done independently. More
and more that's becoming a requirement to get a good job out of college, at
least in certain fields. Combined with your ability to speak intelligently
about that experience, it sounds like the hiring decision was pretty easy.
What I've found more common, is recent graduates who expect their degree
/alone/ will get them a great job out of college, and that's becoming more and
more difficult.

Edit: After reading my comment, I don't think I made it clear enough that I'm
agreeing with your point about people not marketing or educating themselves
adequately. After spending 4 years in college, I think a lot of people expect
to show up at a job interview, show the interviewer their degree, and get a
job. The reality is obviously quite different.

~~~
mratzloff
This is also true. Especially in smaller companies, passion is one of your
main criteria. Someone without side projects or perhaps a history of open
source collaboration just isn't as passionate as someone who has those things.

------
jfoutz
Publicly complaining you can't find staff seems like a terrible idea.

It's an obvious selling point for the competition. "It looks to me like
they're one illness away from missing shipments" is an easy fear to plant in
someones mind.

Couple that with hiring away one or two solid staff members, and you're going
to fail publicly.

The more committed you are to the fiction free markets don't work, the more
you're going to suffer.

------
jt2190
From the interview transcript:

    
    
      "[I]t’s kind of bizarre if you think about it: if you were, say, a computer company, 
      and you had a product that was all based on this particular chip. You didn’t build 
      the chip yourself. You were expecting to buy it on the outside, and your expectation 
      was just that you’ll be able... to buy this chip on the outside in the quantity you 
      want at the price you want to pay... The software engineers, the systems architects, 
      are often the key component in these companies, expecting to hire them right 
      out of college, and they don’t really have much relationships with the colleges... 
      They don’t get close to their suppliers; they’re just hoping it will come up. 
      If you did that with a chip, your board of directors would probably fire you for 
      terrible risk management, but when it comes to skills and employees, it seems to be 
      kind of a standard practice."

------
gaius
_If you go to India, for example, where the IT companies are booming, those
folks are growing all their talent from within. They’re doing it because they
have to, but it’s not rocket science as to how you can do it_

I don't think this is true - everything I've read about outsourcing companies
is that they have a very high turnover of staff.

------
aridiculous
Prisoner's Dilemma emerging with Employees and Employers being pit up against
each other. Employers fear that training won't lead to added retention and
employees don't trust the company to be around or take care of them if they
stay.

Anyone know how to crack this trust game?

------
sparknlaunch
> [Campbell talks about boom and bust cycles...]

People always dismissed it, when I told them - if only I was born x years
earlier I would have graduated at the start of the boom cycle. I would have
landed a high paying role out of college/Uni and earned enough cash by the end
of the cycle to see me through the bust years. With the work experience I
would have a better chance competing against new grads. Considering the value
of money etc, benefiting from a 2/3 boom cycle could put you well ahead
financially.

While this is rather simplistic and exceptions to the rule, timing can make
one hell of a difference.

~~~
excuse-me
That's also the reason why the job-hop to get a raise is so common.

Pay rises are multipliers on your current salary - which is based on when in
the boom/bust cycle you got hired. If you were hired in a bust you can get the
maximum raise every year but at the end you will still be getting less than
someone hired in a boom.

~~~
dredmorbius
Which economists are now starting to realize has permanent lifetime effects on
individuals (at least in aggregate):
<http://www.nber.org/digest/nov06/w12159.html>

------
Tangaroa
Here is the heart of the problem:

<blockquote> Peter Cappelli: Well, the employers, if you look at what the
hiring managers are saying and what they’re looking for, they’re not, for the
most part, hiring people out of college anyway or out of high school. What
they want is three to five years’ experience. So the shortages that they
report, the difficulty hiring, are for people who have quite specific skills,
and those skills are work-experience based. </blockquote>

Workers without three to five years' experience will never get three to five
years' experience. The only way for a young worker to be hired is through
corruption, by knowing somebody or lying about their experience. The employers
have designed a system to create the shortage that they complain about, and
they perpetuate it because everybody's doing it that way.

In any workplace, the grunt workers should outnumber management. It is no
different in software. For every software engineer there need to be testers,
bug fixers, and doc writers. Yet in the want ads for programmers, it is the
other way around. Senior this. Senior that.

The way to fix this situation is easy, but like anything else it will require
time and effort. Next to the routine 3-5 year want ad, also post something
like this:

Job title: Computer Programmer. Requirements: can program a computer.
Compensation: $14/hr or DOE.

You will get plenty of applicants because the economy is that bad right now.
Use interviews to determine the best fits for your company. Hire two or three
for every Project Manager or Senior anything that you have. Give them raises
if they are any good, treat them with respect, and they'll stick around. Three
to five years later, you will not only have coders with three to five years of
programming experience. The coders will have three to five years of domain
knowledge of your company's operations. That might be just as valuable as
their coding ability.

------
horsehead
Wow. This interview is SPOT ON. So applicable to pretty much every industry.
Thanks for posting. Worth resharing through other networks. Hopefully more
people will read stuff like this that actually _explains_ the hiring problems
employers face.

------
gaius
_I learned that the cat you let out of the bag is the same animal as the pig
in a poke_

Nope, the cat is the cat o' nine tails, when it was taken out of its bag, it
was because someone was about to be punished. No idea what he means by this
comment.

~~~
rprospero
You may have the etymology incorrect. The wiki lists two possible origins.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Letting_the_cat_out_of_the_bag>

Note that "letting the cat out of the bag" is used in cases where the truth
comes out, not when someone is about to be punished. Consider the following
two sentences.

After the jury returned a guilty verdict, the judge let the cat out of the bag
that the defendant would serve fifteen years.

At the conference, the Microsoft employee let the cat out of the bag that that
Windows 9 wouldn't run on x86.

I would argue that the second feels far more natural than the first. That's
because it's about uncovering the truth, like the fact that the pig in your
poke is really just a cat, and not about punishment, like pulling out the cat
o' nine tails.

~~~
gaius
Oh come on - I don't care how thick the bag is, no-one would mistake a cat for
a pig. That is obviously not where the sayings come from.

~~~
rprospero
While you'd never mistake a housecat for a full boar, mistaking a dead cat in
a sack for a dead piglet wouldn't be that difficult. Especially if you'd been
showed the pig before and the cat was only substituted in at the last minute
to provide weight and legs.

Additionally, I'd point to the "pig in a poke wiki" page.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pig-in-a-poke>

The page shows that variants of this idiom are present in hundreds of
languages, often with the statement that a person bought a cat instead of a
pig or, occasionally, as rabbit. In fact, more culture refer to buying a cat
in a sack than a pig.

The wiki page mentions your cat in the bag theory as well. However, if you
follow the references, you'll considered that it is seen as dubious and that
the pig in a poke explanation is considered far more likely.

