Austin hiring practices?
I need some advice. The biggest thing consuming my time right now is the job hunt, which is proving to be excessively frustrating. I wanted to go work for a venture-backed startup--a place that was ready to spend some money on marketing but still had some upside to it, preferably a service company using tech rather tech for tech's sake.
I didn't have a great network when I started (it's better now), but I like to think I'm a pretty aggressive job hunter. I don't go after jobs I don't think I can do. I only target companies I'd really want to work at. I don't just submit a resume to jobs@... and hope for an email back. I do my research and I go directly to the hiring managers with a resume, a work plan, ideas for what I'd do if I had the job. I send free competitor analyses, marketing plans, etc. that are incredibly time-consuming to develop. I've spoken to direct reports to get details. I've met one of hiring managers for a quick meeting before the now-open position existed. The other has proved elusive, but has clearly had some major activities going on.
However, my would-be future boss(es) are like giant sucking blackholes of nothingness. I send emails. I make phone calls. No answers, no replies, and no feedback whatsoever. I realize everyone at that level is over-committed and strapped for time, but I feel like I'm doing everything short of parking my ass in their office and saying, "I work here now." and not a word, good or bad. So...
Since I'm relatively new to Austin, is this standard for Austin's business leadership? Is it some sort of passive rejection, "Don't call us - we'll call you"? Is there something I should know about the local business culture that I'm missing the big clue on? Am I being too aggressive and I should just back off and send a standard resume to jobs@...?
I'm trying to gauge if I'm marketing myself poorly, if something is missing from my resume, or if this is just SOP for Austin.
Any suggestions? (Please be constructive--I need ideas, not sympathy!)
Thanks!
I think there is a chance you may be trying too hard. While looking interested is certainly a good thing, if it crosses over into eager (with the possible exception of new grads and other entry level people) it may not be so good. And desperate is definitely a negative.
I think though that you are on target with your passive rejection theory. Most startups these days seem to be dramatically underfunded, so they aren't hiring very many new people. And as you note, because they are probably understaffed they are probably very busy. If you look too good they may even think they can't afford you.
I'd suggest holding back on sending all the detailed info until you get an interview. Obviously if all that work isn't getting you an interview, then it may not be the best use of your time. Hopefully someone else can offer some suggestions on how to get interviews if you are having trouble with that. I could offer general suggestions, but not really anything targeted towards someone in your niche.
And unfortunately as I've said before, in a job market as tough as we have around here these days, you just have to be patient and persistent because it may take hundreds of attempts to get the one interview that leads to a job.
Unfortunately, all I can offer is my sympathy, since I'm in a similar situation.
I can certainly relate to what you're saying, and my employment desires are probably more mundane. I'm looking for something similar to what I'm doing now, but with more promotional opportunities, or something similar to what I had been doing before the stock market crash of 2000 pulled the rug out from under me, as I was just setting out to return to college to finish my degree. I'm not looking for something that I'm not qualified for, or that's exotic (and I'm not saying you are, either), so I don't think I'm being unreasonable. Yet, I'm not only having trouble finding positions to apply for, but when I do find them, I run into the same situation that you have: the resume-sucking black hole. In addition, when I do get a response, it seems like I'm always a day or two too late even in finding out about the position -- they've already made an offer to someone else before my resume even lands on their desk.
Now, I know I haven't been overly aggressive. That can't be the reason. Because of the hours I have to keep for my current job, I haven't the energy to be very aggressive, at all. But, it does consume more of my time than anything else, other than work (even sleep), and I've been at it for about a year, sending out resumes and filling out profiles and applications on a fairly regular, and frequent basis.
About the most exotic desire I have is that I would like to get back into research as a technician or as an assistant to scientists or engineers. It's where much of my background is. And I'm good at it. But, I'm not that single minded. There are other types of positions that would make me happy -- at least, for now.
I've tried to avoid looking desperate, even though I'm beginning to feel it. And the frustration level... It hasn't quite risen to the levels that I felt in 2001, when I was jobless in a rapidly shrinking job market, but it's getting there.
I wish you well, and lots of luck.
In trying to get the interest of other people, less is more.
Desperation is the ultimate human repellent.
There is also interest and there is also need. Companies prefer to acquire employees based on high interest and low need. Low interest, high need is very bad and unfortunately you are right in the middle with high need and high interest.
The problem is that your need makes it hard to take your interest as authentic. Need often masquerades as interest so when it is detected, skepticism has to intervene.
David Rees
reesonance.typepad.com
I'm not sure what the problem is, but it seems that both sides of the job market are having difficulty fulfilling their needs.
For example, my current employer (TG) has consistently had 5% or more of our technology positions unfilled over the last year. We have had a very difficult time finding candidates to match those job descriptions.
At the same time, however, several extremely talented people I know that are actively looking for a new job have been unable to get any response at all from their applications.
The only thing I can think of that might be causing unmet demand on both sides is a mismatch in terminology between applicants and job descriptions; that is to say that applicants' resumes don't look like matches for the jobs, when they do in fact match.
- Donald M. Edwards
I think the mismatch in terminology you mention is only one reason why positions go unfilled while a huge glut of available and highly qualified candidates exists. We've certainly seen that around here... for example the lack of understanding that AJAX and Javascript+DHTML+XML are the same thing.
Other reasons:
Employers have gotten used to getting hundreds of resumes have padded requirements in order to cut down on submissions.
I think that many employers have unrealistic expectations... they are looking for something that doesn't exist (or are at least extremely rare)... the mythical "5lb butterfly" such as developers with 10 years of .NET experience (which didn't exist 10 years ago). Another unrealistic expectation I see frequently these days are job descriptions which have qualifications that don't match the job title. An example is jobs with entry to mid level titles, but senior level requirements. People with the requirements are going to balk at titles which seem like a step down because it will hurt their long term careers. And the assumption will be (and likely true) that the salary will stink.
Employers have unrealistic salary expectations... As bad as the job market is, if you are looking for a Senior Software Engineer and you aren't paying at least $50k, you will probably have trouble finding anyone. Actually, you probably need to pay more than that to get anyone good. Furthermore it seems like the majority of job postings neglect to mention salary or rate information. Employers who are really "competitive" or "market" should be proud to post their bottom line.
Employers insist on 110% matches, while many people who are 80+% matches would probably be able to pick up what they need.
All in all, its my personal opinion with the large number of highly qualified people availble around Austin that there is no reason why any company that is serious about filling a tech position should have trouble doing so within a couple of weeks.
I blame work visas and unscrupulous employers.
As I understand it, the U.S. requires that employers wishing to sponsor work visas must:
I suspect that many of the positions that we see advertised are written with such ridiculously-precise "requirements" that only one person could fill it. (The potential sponsoree may have also embellished a bit, like the 5-lb. butterfly comment.) That satisfies the first two U.S. requirements.
Part of the reason employers like sponsoring immigration is that they can get cheap labor, despite the "market rate" requirement.
See the discussion about the Silly Austin American-Statesman article
claiming that "the 'average tech worker' in Austin makes $100k!"; how many visa recipients have you met that make that kind of money?
Actually to sponsor an H1B employers don't need to advertise the position or make an attempt to hire an American or even pay market rate. They have to do the first two in order to get someone who has been on a H1B a green card, but by then they've already taken away an American's job for 5+ years. And they only have to pay the "minimum prevailing wage" which is usually 25-40% less than market rates, and even that is rarely ever enforced.
As for embellished requirements... I think it is mostly to scare off as many Americans as possible so they don't have to interview many people before they hire an H1B which isn't expected to meet those requirements. A lot of times in bigger companies this is done not because of government rules, but because of HR rules that positions have to be advertised internally, then posted externally before they can be filled. Managers have to jump through those hoops before they can hire a cheap import through an off-shore agency.
As for how many visa recipients make $100k in Austin? I'd suspect damned few. I know most of the ones I work with (and 3/4 of our development team is Indian) don't make that. The only one that might make close to that has a PhD and also has his green card.
That is a high level of openings. Hopping over the the web site, it would appear that at least one posted position has been open for six months. I think that the mismatch is in part at least because employers are looking for programmers with a particular set of skills, which they proxy via experience, instead of skilled programmers. I went directly from microprocessor validation (assembly with some perl) to Ruby/GTK, and was productive in two weeks. In two months, my productivity was above average, and after six, I was **** good in Ruby. In the mean time, I wasn't making a mess.
I have a hard time imagining a scenario in which I would not be able to be a top performer within six months. In the mean time, experience-based screens are holding jobs open for months at a time, and end up with below-average workers who will NEVER become top performers.
Nathan Zook
http://www.linkedin.com/in/nathanzook
I agree with what you are saying about employers looking for cookie cutter candidates rather than skilled programmers who can learn what they need to know. How did you get someone to consider you for a Ruby/GTK job when you hadn't been doing that at your prior job? Was it through networking? It seems like my own and most most of the people I knows experience the past few years has been that sending off a resume for something they aren't already a 110% match for is like pitching it into a black hole. And most of the recruiters I've talked to will just say outright that they would never consider presenting a candidate to a client that is less than a 100% buzzword match for a job description, even if they have no other candidates to send. I've asked if they'd consider a 80-90% match if the person had similar experience (for example related to what you mention, Perl is somewhat similar to Ruby being that they are both dynamic languages) and was interested in learning. The answer generally is no, not even if the person was willing to learn on their own. The day when self taught skills were valued seems over, unless a skill is used on-the-job it doesn't seem to count.
I wasn't. I was hired to do low-level drivers & maintenance on existing test apps. But business needs changed between when the job was posted and when I arrived.
Again, the fact that this presented no issue for me at all is merely a statement that I am a good programmer.
Well, I'm glad to hear that things have worked out well for you. Unfortunately for a lot of people being a good programmer doesn't get them an interview unless they know someone who gives them an inside track to bypass the usual "gauntlet".
I've been similarly allowed to learn new things, mostly when I've worked for smaller organizations. Unfortunately the common approach when it comes to adopting new technology in larger companies seems to be that they either hire new people who already know the new technology rather than give existing employees a chance to learn it, or even worse that they contract the work out or off-shore it. The usual excuse is that what the existing employees are doing is too valuable to let them take time away from it to do something else. Often that means that once the "new" stuff is current, and the "old" stuff is no longer being actively developed that the older (and probably more expensive) people get let go. Employers gripe about employees "not keeping up", but they often set up obstacles which prevent that from happening.
This is my thought as well, and the reason I want to host a job fair. My gut says that putting job seekers face-to-face with employers will allow this technobuzzwordbabble to be replaced with real conversation about experience. Someone who may not have made it past the electronic buzzword screen may be considered after speaking with a real person.
Are you finding that some positions are hotter than others? I recently had a position as a network administrator posted and had a challenge even getting anyone in for an interview. I have wondered for a while whether the titles my company uses are mismatched with the industry.
Are there a shortage of applicants with solid, hands on network and server skills? Or is my company just barking up the wrong tree by using job boards, career sites and the Statesman?
You should always compare your job postings to what others are out there. If your titles sound weird, it will definitely cut down on applicants. Also you should use sites like salary.com and indeed.com's salary information to make sure your "market" or "competitive" salaries really are. One thing I noticed from your profile and the previous person complaining about lack of response is that your employer's names maybe sound a little too much like a government agency. Job seekers over the years have come to associate government jobs with being low paying, often behind the curve technically and generally a real drag that you'd only take if you were desperate. You may want to try to mitigate that in your ads. You should also make a point of running your ads past not just the hiring manager but also technical people who work in the department to make sure that it isn't way off base. Sometimes the managers are away from the technical details enough that they need a little help with them. In the past I've gone on interviews and talked to people who I'd have been working with and found out that the job description did not resemble what the job really was much at all. Above all, as I've said many times around here, make sure the requirements and expectations are realistic.
As for job boards, I think they can work, especially if you are willing to help relocate an out-of-area applicant. I think that sites like this one, LinkedIn.com, and sites like craigslist.org may be a better value than the big job boards these days. If you are looking for technical people then of the big job boards dice.com is probably better than generalist sites like monster.com, hotjobs.com or careerbuilder.com. As for dead tree publications, I think they are a total waste of time. I haven't looked at the print classified job section in a long, long time and I get the Statesman every day. I bet readership is much lower on the under-35 people that most employers are looking for than it is for 40+ geezers like me.
Tamer, I agree with your comments. I too have hit the big black hole.
I have read job postings that read as if my resume was used to create the listing, yet when I apply, crickets!
Being a former hiring manager I can tell you that when I had a position I would get a stack of 25-50 resume's from the HR team. I really took the time to go over them, not just a cursory glance, but really read them, then gave my interview preferences to the HR team. Honestly, I can't tell you what they did with the folks that I passed over. I can tell you that I made every attempt to keep the chosen candidates in the loop once a decision was made.
One of the companies I have applied to and had a phone interview with keeps in contact with me on a regular basis. Their Applicant Tracking System allows the hiring manager to enter notes into the system for the particular position and then blast the entire candidate list. It's very simple, yet it's not a practice followed by most of the companies that I have applied to. When I was a hiring manager, I never accessed my ATS, that was left up to HR. Perhaps if more managers were given training and access to an ATS that had this capability, we would see better communication.
In the meantime, I'm going to keep on applying and looking for networking opportunities to get directly to the hiring managers.
Kevin
I think that before the crash a lot of companies did a better job in dealing with candidates. Now it is an employer's market, and with huge gluts of talent they can be lazy and treat people like cattle and there is nothing that can be done about it.
Like it or not, online postings have made both applicants and recruiters lazy in many respects. Applicants are taking less time researching companies, they simply set up a search engine and then lazily send the same resume to each employer. Recruiters are taking little time to understand the hiring managers needs and are passing over very good candidates because their resume does not match well.
I am currently on the job hunt for an implementation Project Management position. I have implemented ERP, Web Based tools, Data Warehousing and done lots of requirements work, but have only had a few respondents to my resume. I have tried to get interviews through my network of associates with little success. My best results came from rewriting my resume to contain more buzzwords and then tailoring it to each posting. As for feedback, I've had just one, which was greatly appreciated and was the impetous for changing the resume. I even got to a second resume and then never got any feedback even after calling and leaving messages to follow up. All I can say is keep positive, keep calling and success will come.
While your efforts are laudable, you have to understand that just about every VC funded start up in Austin has a Damocles sword over there head when it comes to job securing. They are paralyzed by the fear that their jobs are on the block as well, and to hire someone new (whom they might need), is just too risky.
Just keep networking and offer to help as many people as you can. You may want to start out by consulting (I will do this for X dollars). You then make a little cash, while they will not have to make a commitment.
I generally have to say no to side work like that because I don't reliably have enough extra time to commit to outside projects and do it with the kind of quality I'd like. And I can't afford to quit my day job on the risk of getting enough piece work here and there to make ends meet. More or less it hasn't been much of an issue because there hasn't exactly been an active market for software development skills in a long time anyway.
I TOTALLY understand. Glad you have a day job! I think part of the psychology around here is NOT to hire anyone right now...
The problem is my day job will probably be going away within the next 9 months to a year as I believe my employer will close the Austin office.
I do agree with you that due to the general uncertainty of the economy if no other reason companies are holding off on hiring anyone right now even if they aren't really in financial trouble and they have work that needs to be done.
I predict that the economy will pick up after the Presidential election, as it usually does. Investors tend to sideline their dough until they see which way the political winds will flow.
- John
That is true, but the question is how much it will pick up. The problems the economy is facing aren't things that are going to go away regardless of the outcome of the election.