There's not a STEM talent shortage. Employers just stink at hiring.

[pnwmom]

http://www.inc.com/suzanne-lucas/theres-not-a-talent-shortage-you-just-stink-at-hiring.html


A break, indeed. Many businesses that struggle to find employees would state that while there are plenty of people, there are not plenty of people who can do the jobs that need to be done. For instance, we hear often about a shortage of workers in the STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) fields, along with a plea for more H1B visas, which would let companies bring in workers from overseas to fill these jobs. It sounds convincing--don't we need more people in these fields?

But Robert N. Charette, writing at IEEE Spectrum, makes a pretty convincing argument that there is no STEM shortage. In face, he writes, there is a STEM oversupply. Wages in computer and math fields, he writes, have stagnated over the past decade. Universities churn out STEM graduates at the rate of 250,000 per year, but there are only 180,000 new jobs per year. That doesn't exactly indicate a need for more H1B visas.

So what's the problem? Why can't companies connect with these people who are ready, willing and able to work? Corcodilos' blames bad recruiting policies and over-reliance on databases. Corcodilos writes that companies spent over $2 billion last year on databases, such as Monster.com, Taleo, and LinkedIn, only to see a very small percentage of jobs filled through those methods. Only 1.3 percent of jobs are filled through Monster.com.

Another way employers stink is that no matter how good the candidate before them is, they are utterly convinced that there is someone better out there, so they don't make the hiring decision.

SNIP

Companies need to realize that the perfect candidate doesn't exist. You need to find the best candidate, and keep in mind that that particular candidate may lack one or two skills that you'd like him or her to have. Remember, you didn't always know how to do whatever it is that you do either. Sometimes it's better to hire someone who lacks a particular skill and train him or her yourself. That way the new person learns it according to your company standard.

SNIP

__________________________________

http://corcodilos.com/blog/6827/employment-in-america-wtf-is-going-on

Companies don’t hire any more

Employers don’t do their own hiring, and that’s the #1 problem. Employers have outsourced their competitive edge — recruiting and hiring — to third parties whose heads are so far up The Database Butt that this little consortium should be investigated by Congress.

Taleo, Kenexa, LinkedIn, Monster.com, CareerBuilder, and their diaspora — you know who I’m talking about. Monster and LinkedIn alone sucked almost $2 billion out of the employment system in 2012. These vendors tout fake technologies and cheap string-search routines masquerading as “algorithms” for finding “hidden talent” and “matching people to jobs.”

So, why are almost 4 million jobs vacant?

Because these vendors sell databases, not recruiting, not headhunting, not jobs, not hires, not “matchmaking.”

[BuelahWitch]

1. It's not that that want someone "better"

They want someone "cheaper."

[eppur_se_muova]

2. You got it. Ten years experience at entry level wages.

I see ads for positions so specialized I know there can't be more than a dozen people in the entire world who match that job description. I always assumed it was a ploy to justify offering a lower salary "because you don't meet all the requirements".

[Brickbat]

3. Any time a person sees "industry can't fine qualified employees"...

...the reader should add "who are willing to work for crap wages." Because really, that's what it's all about.

[YoungDemCA]

9. +10000

Thank you!

[hedgehog]

4. "Another way employers stink is that no matter how good the candidate before them is,

they are utterly convinced that there is someone better out there, so they don't make the hiring decision. "

One huge mistake is that HR departments will only consider candidates from the "top" schools or with a GPA above 3.5.

If an engineering school is accredited, it's accredited! I = V/R regardless of whether you're at MIT or UB!

Going by GPA looks like a way of selecting the best candidates, but a lot of information is lacking. For example - I would be very dubious that anyone has earned a 4.0 unless there were also good references from the people awarding grades. (On the other hand, a lot of people with a 4.0 are very good at collaborating with others ). (FWIW - I happen to be a parent of someone with a 3.98, and she earned every bit of that grade!) My husband never broke a B average, but he also worked 10 hours a week as a heavy truck mechanic with some welding and electrical troubleshooting as well. He's one of the top persons in his field today. Our son, who also was a B student, worked on design competitions during college. He's moving up quickly in his field and has already earned a patent.

[pnwmom]

6. Point well taken.

My son-in-law didn't have as high a GPA as my daughter, but his high school research project made him a winner of an Intel Scholarship. And my daughter's SAT wasn't as high as her best friend, but my daughter spent a summer before high school working in an MIT lab.

At a certain level, it doesn't matter how high your scores or GPA are -- it's the ability to communicate, to organize, to bounce back from setbacks, and other "people skills" that set smart people apart.

I met a guy on a place last year who was in charge of hiring at a top-100 company. He said he no longer recruits at the Ivies, because those straight A students aren't what he's looking for. He has better luck looking for employees at the good state universities and engineering schools.

[FarCenter]

5. According to her LinkedIn profile, she's in Basel, Switzerland.

[pnwmom]

7. I'm not sure how that's relevant. The main person whose paper she's discussing

is in the U.S.

http://spectrum.ieee.org/at-work/education/the-stem-crisis-is-a-myth


The Georgetown study estimates that nearly two-thirds of the STEM job openings in the United States, or about 180 000 jobs per year, will require bachelor’s degrees. Now, if you apply the Commerce Department’s definition of STEM to the NSF’s annual count of science and engineering bachelor’s degrees, that means about 252 000 STEM graduates emerged in 2009. So even if all the STEM openings were entry-level positions and even if only new STEM bachelor’s holders could compete for them, that still leaves 70 000 graduates unable to get a job in their chosen field.

Of course, the pool of U.S. STEM workers is much bigger than that: It includes new STEM master’s and Ph.D. graduates (in 2009, around 80 000 and 25 000, respectively), STEM associate degree graduates (about 40 000), H-1B visa holders (more than 50 000), other immigrants and visa holders with STEM degrees, technical certificate holders, and non-STEM degree recipients looking to find STEM-related work. And then there’s the vast number of STEM degree holders who graduated in previous years or decades.

Even in the computer and IT industry, the sector that employs the most STEM workers and is expected to grow the most over the next 5 to 10 years, not everyone who wants a job can find one. A recent study by the Economic Policy Institute (EPI), a liberal-leaning think tank in Washington, D.C., found that more than a third of recent computer science graduates aren’t working in their chosen major; of that group, almost a third say the reason is that there are no jobs available.

[FarCenter]

14. Almost a third of STEM majors are in biological sciences and a lot of them go on to medicine.

19,152 Agricultural sciences
85,574 Biological sciences
38,496 Computer sciences
4,542 Earth, atmospheric, and ocean sciences
16,208 Mathematics
17,942 Physical sciences
70,600 Engineering

From http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/seind12/append/c2/at02-01.pdf

See also http://www.ice.gov/doclib/sevis/pdf/stem-list.pdf for list of STEM degree fields.

Also, the bottom quintile of STEM majors are probably not employable in the STEM field of the degree.

[pnwmom]

15. The bottom quintile is not employable in the stem field?

What data do you have to back up that generalization, other than a belief in the bell curve?

That still doesn't address the fact that we have an abundance of graduates in stem fields, not a shortage.

[riderinthestorm]

8. K&R nt

[Mopar151]

10. Excessive reliance on degrees

Certifications, professional licenses, other yes/no criteria. Experience, attitude, and willingness/ability to learn are far more important.

[upi402]

11. They'd rather eat their young than pay $1 more in salary

...and they really like their young.

[uponit7771]

12. Are horrible.. HORRIBLE at it... omg, in tech you wouldn't believe what passes for talent and

... how some other talent is being screened out.

Objective? Nope... and even when some try to be objective it's about crap they shouldn't care about.

[ck4829]

13. Jobseekers are told to stop looking for the perfect job and take what they can get

But you almost never see employers being told to stop looking for the perfect applicant and take what they can get. Jobseekers have had it hammered into their head, but it's practically sacrilege to tell the employers what they need to hear, which is there almost no perfect applicant.

This is refreshing, maybe more will start to realize this is a two-way street and that employers need to work on their hiring skills a little bit.

[IronLionZion]

16. Employers don't try very hard to fill jobs

There are valid points about the shortcomings of the database systems used. But the whole process is a mess. They write terrible job descriptions. Hiring managers tell HR they want someone who can do a bunch of things. HR takes that and some pure bullshit they pull out of the air and create a job description that requires skills that nobody could possible have. I've seen tech postings that require more years of experience working with a particular technology than it has been in existence.

So much of this is who you know, and luck. Getting your resume in front of the right person at the right time before its gone into the black whole of no response. As an introvert with social anxiety, I hate networking but its a necessary evil. A lot of times it is the only way.

I encounter "they are utterly convinced that there is someone better out there, so they don't make the hiring decision. " all the time since I work in IT consulting. I go to bat for folks and make the case for on the job training because I've done it when I started, plus experienced folks are expensive and have recruiters chasing them and rookies are cheaper. This can be overcome if a candidate actually makes it to an interview and is enthusiastic and has the right attitude to learn as much as possible and work harder and longer than others. It sucks, but you have to start somewhere.

[El_Johns]

17. Of course there's not, & the bosses know it. It's just a cover story to get more h1bs.