Open jobs, unemployed IT pros -- what's the problem?

a rambling and useless story.

The one thing the story made no effort to cover was...

"What to wear when the interviewer is a program?"

The other thing overlooked is why my company still employs a VB 6 programmer... because THEY STILL USE THE SOFTWARE that was produced 10+ years ago. Companies do not typically WANT to shell out the money for updated equipment and such (especially if the number of employees is less than 1000).

I don't believe a second there is a common shortage of skills. That's why I don't agree with skill shift! I come from time when everyone in IT had to take a month or two training in our business when hey started, operators, programmers, analysts, etc, even vendor support persons were required to have business skills - otherwise they were too much waste of time. Does this happen today - NO! So business skills are overrated. Of course learning good marketing pitch works always but we are not selling cars, ouch, there is the car example is again?

Yes, HR is often a problem and no wonder the managers getting the resumes after HR screening are a little confused. They are looking professionals and HR is looking keywords, not much common there.

Many other - I have hired and recommended people without a resume, just talking to them, and have to say statistically these people are still the best. I have not hired and not recommended persons with perfect resumes and even after a "good" interview just because the feeling was not right - often (very often) later to learn that I was right, they made a mess in some other company.

What I try to say, if you need good employees, you have to work on it. And really today, if you want someone just to do a small part, don't overlook people (especially students) who would be happy to have a project, not a lifetime career yet. They may not yet have the "certificates" but they are often very skilled and very eager to learn more, nobody knows everything, each environment is different.

Older workers, like me, can see the 30+ people freezing when I walk to an interview for a project. As my friend said, he could use my skills but not hire me because if the management would learn my experience, he would be very afraid of his own position. I can understand that, seen that, and try help my friends.

So - many reasons, all weak but true often just because that's how human nature works. The fantasy and the fallacy of efficient management doesn't exist and has never been reality as long as money, greed, other (required?) human traits are included in decision making.

I'm retired and glad of it! I did my time in the IT Trenches through victories and Defeats. 1975 to 2006 I feel sorry for the newbies coming into the industry. Yet, the industry hasn't changed one bit over 31 years. Graduates have always discovered that IT classes in schools have always been a waste beyond pure theory. So toall out there in academia blend your education with accounting/business classes. Try accounting and computer science courses then focus on a specific area suchas telecommunications. It worked for me and I passed the CPA Test to Boot.

But never trust HR got for the boss because HRs are incompetant and Liers.

Can somebody tell me why companies hire agencies who employ people that have high school diplomas who aren't tech people hire high tech people for them? Even high tech people have a hard time figuring out technology, so how can high school grads do it for them? Why do companies shell out $8000 dollars to find a low level tech? Can't they advertise and have their HR department determine this? It seems to me that if companies would quit shelling out so much money do lower hard working peoples wages and just paid the wages then maybe this country could get back on its feet. The way it is now people don't have enough to pay their mortgages, transportation costs and now food. Another question that comes to mind is why do they keep trying to get the people from other countries. It seems that they don't have Americas best intentions in mind. Millions of people in this country get an education and have to borrow money to do this, yet companies act like the skills that they do earn are worthless and meaningless, probably so that they don't have to acknowledge that they have value. That is why they treat many of the high tech people the way that they do with ulterior motives to lower wages. Maybe it is about time to put our resources to work and quit worrying that maybe our workers will make more than the rest of the world. They deserve at least that!