Surely there must be a C++ expert looking for work - right?

[American Recruiter]

With all the pain and suffering going on in the I.T. world - you would think it'd be rather easy to locate some top C++ talent.  Wouldn't you?

Well the reality is not the case.

Many of the guys I run into are still living in an illusion.

Won't even get off their couch for a chance at making 70-80K this year.

Unbelievable.

I know the crowd here is different so I stopped by to vent....................and you wonder why "our" jobs are going to India.........

Cheers!

[manwslohand]

I'm too stupid to do C++ programming.

I'm an American.

[The Gorn]

I'd consider the job if it were local, not a sweatshop, and without ridiculous travel demands.

All jobs in this industry blow it on at least one of these grounds.

[A Murricun]

Well, Jerry, I have got myself up to "expert" speed in some 3 dozen programming languages over the decades.  How long will your client give me to ramp up to $70K worth in C++?  And oh, by the way, does your client know what's so special about C++ with respect to those 3 dozen other languages?

I expect the answers are zero and no, or (huh?).

Sorry, Jerry, but clueless clients are a liability, even to recruiters.

But there's hope!  You can always send them to your local H1 pusher. They always have everything you want and more!  

[JTGalt]

Its easy to find top C++ Talent.

But after their treatment from recruiters over the past several years don't expect programmers to jump your way after you tell them you are a recruiter.

[The Gorn]

Well, A.R., I bet you'll NEVER make the mistake of barging in here and being helpful again. Dammital!  

Seriously - when a good paying job in this industry sounds "wide open" there's almost always an issue or problem with it. EVERY TIME I have gotten pumped about a job in the past (when I looked for FTE jobs) there was SOMETHING to block me and any conceivable local candidate. Always. Never without fail.

So, you are probably fighting some of this burnt-before behavior.

Other issues:

The job isn't where someone qualified wants to commute or move.

Or, the company has a poor reputation in dealing with technology people. Sweatshop, or hire-and-fire, always looking for a miracle worker and blaming each poor schlub whom they bring in, after a few months of not turning water into wine.  

Or, they want to raid some other company's investment in a current security clearance (what in the hell ever happened to companies just paying out of their own pockets for something like a clearance, I wonder. I guess it's unheard of to invest in a project.)

Or, and this is a BIG issue: many qualified geeks start to "read" job ads critically and we infer some show stopper issue with the hiring party; the hiring party will insist on some "required" experience that just isn't all that relevant.

Or, hiring companies do the exact reverse of the Tom Peters adage: they hire a skill above all else, then they try to "train for talent".

Lastly, I know you can't change the world nor the crappy clients out there. But don't be oblivious to the fact that business sh*ts on techies and treats them like disposable kleenexes, then wonders why the local skill pool is depleted.

HR culture's people-as-commodity thinking is to blame for this.

And give a hearty thanks to your condescending Porsche driving, eHarmony.com coveting, happy hour loving pals over on TRforum who've gone corporate, for part of the phenomenon of intense tecnical worker cynicism. We're just tired of being socially engineered, f*cked with, talked down to, and bullsh*tted.

[JonBlow]

AR
Do these "experts" need to be?  (city state etc)

JonBlow

[David Cressey]

It's never easy to locate the "top" talent.  Depending on what you mean by "top",  they are already working.


Where have you been looking?

[RMPCP]

Are you observing a general trend or is this for a specific req? We have some, and I'm sure there are others available too. If you have a specific req, please email it to Reqs at you-know-what dot com - thanks.

[A Murricun]

Wow!

I have to sympathize.  All you did was to ask a reasonable question, right?

And you got dumped on.  Hmm.  Who dumped on whom?

Maybe your client should assume the extreme hindsight posture, and just look where that leads.

Or, you could counsel them as to what they want and what it will cost and TANSTAAFL.

Maybe $100K to $150K is in the ballpark.  Or maybe your client is looking for janitors from Elbonia?

[The Gorn]

Inner/upper midwest, in J.A.'s territory of "The Fort"? I kinda doubt you'll see a programmer's salary much above $100K unless there are business development duties associated with it.

[American Recruiter]

I find it rather interesting - I didn't mention a single thing about the client.  They are not abusive; don't have a bad reputation; not a sweat shop, etc.

Actually it seems like a place I'd like to work.  (But they need people who can actually DO something!)

Interesting GB - the slant you have on this:  

 ............business sh*ts on techies and treats them like disposable kleenexes...............

Not trying to poke you in the eye - but have you noticed a trend?  Every place you have ever worked (from what I read) has used you, abused you, didn't respect you, treated you like sh*t, etc.  

I don't see that happening.  I am in constant contact with the guys on assignement with us.  Contractors are just that - contracted to do 'something in particular'. They aren't looking at the wonderful person you are, or how you fit into the 5 year plan.  They want you to handle a specific responsibility and then (as harsh as this may seem) LEAVE.

Why feel used?  Abused?  I don't see it that way.  And the guys/gals at my clients certainly aren't telling me that.

And JT:  How long is it OK to sit around and cry about recruiters when there are jobs out there?  1 year?  2 maybe?  

For the others who asked - This is a contract in Indiana for the rest of the year.  We already have some on assignment there and are looking for more.

Cheers!

[manwslohand]

A.R. just a note to say thanks for posting this. I hope you know that I was trying to make a funny in my original post and certainly didn't want you to take offense.

Thanks for posting any open job orders you may have.

[JTGalt]

Quote:And JT: How long is it OK to sit around and cry about recruiters when there are jobs out there? 1 year? 2 maybe?

Actually I was just trying to give you some insight into what is happening on the other side.

The point is - the type of person you were looking for - the
top programmer - is not sitting around crying about recruiters many of them have decided that recruiters are irrelevant and are making things happen on their own and are bypassing recruiters.

My experience with 2 Recruiters recently illustrates why. I will post the stories sometime in the next couple of days right now I have reached my very tiny quota for the day of thinking at all of recruiters.

But I wish you well and hope you feel welcome here.

Just keep in mind that you are working in an industry filled with toxic sludge and you should be very careful to make sure that people recognize that you are different and not just another one of the bozos that populate your industry.

[The Gorn]

You made a sweeping statement about the cluelessness of candidates and I made equally sweeping conjectures about the generally lacking ethics and values of most corporations, which by the way are fictitious entities and are not guided by any moral compass, unlike individuals.

I guess that you live in the universe of light and I am in the dark evil universe, where I am wrong and invalid ... I am glad that you know that your contractors are happy and have their career ambitions fulfilled.

I'm also glad you know so much about my career, which shows a lot of attitude of implying that I don't handle clients well...

Quote:Interesting GB - the slant you have on this:
............business sh*ts on techies and treats them like disposable kleenexes...............
Not trying to poke you in the eye - but have you noticed a trend? Every place you have ever worked (from what I read) has used you, abused you, didn't respect you, treated you like sh*t, etc.

I, on the other hand, just had to ditch a client (after quite a few years of significant achievements) who decided that I needed to be browbeat because I expressed a need for my own career development that I had hoped would be in conformance with business from them. This was one of the most agonizing decisions I've made in my 10 yr contracting stint and it conforms handily to everything that fellow technical business owner David Randolph has stated here about the need to ditch bad clients.

All I know is that recruiters don't have to get in bed with clients as though it were a full time job.  So It's real easy to judge when your distance from the work and the politics makes all of the stuff that we techies live in seem straightforward.

Again, all I posted was a series of possible reasons why the position you're looking to fill isn't easy to fill. Look at past mistreatment and negative economic incentives over a period of time, for the reasons why people aren't exactly jumping up and down to be available for the one appropriate C++ development job that has appeared in a given locality in the last 8 months, or whenever. It does a family man no good to work at the one C++ job that's available in a 20 mi. radius, get laid off, then stay around for 8 months to 2 years waiting for something else to open up. People move on and change careers when they can't make a living with skills that companys only from time to time find useful.

Actually, I don't doubt anything you've said about the client or the candidates. You sounded like you wanted to know why you can't find workers. I posed some reasons why.  

Cheers!

PS: I like JTGalt's rationale.