The Purple Sqirrel otherwise know as the Perfect Candidate - What To Do?

[ilconsiglliere]

There is trend that seems to be expanding in scope and thats the purple squirrel syndrome. Companies are producing outrageous lists of required skills that are mandatory. The end result is that no candidate matches the job. That is the purple squirrel, just like there is no such thing as a purple squirrel in nature, companies are now looking for the equivalent employee or consultant.

I have seen job ads with 50-100 skills listed for CONTRACTING. In the past contracting was easier that FTE but not anymore. What I am witnessing now is that the purple squirrel has spread to contractor land with the consulting companies being the gate keeper. They wont even bother submitting you on jobs unless you match every single skill listed. Thats how bizarre it has become.

I am friendly with this one particular company and gave them a list of 8 PM jobs listed on their web site which I am interested in. The account manager went through the entire list and gave me a reason for every single one of the jobs why I cant be submitted:

*Must have pharma background
*Must have claims background
*Must have .net and infrastructure background
*Must have heavy scrum/agile background
*Must have media industry experience

etc...

You get the idea. Whats funny is that PM jobs are typically hands off technology jobs and now they are demanding that must have xyz PM experience with this particular technology. On top of this they are demanding a certain number of years AND industry experience.

I am assuming they are doing this because there are just so many unemployed people and they can afford to be picky. The reality is that being a PM is being a PM no matter what you are implementing. But now these companies dont want to hear this. I have about a year of pharma experience but its not enough.

I have submitted on close to 400 jobs in the last 3 months and am not any closer to landing a job as I was 3 months ago. I am not sure what I am supposed to do at this point.

I am sick of this!!!

[The Gorn]

Our fellow programmers help draft these exclusionary purple squirrel reqs. Right?

For going on a couple of decades now I have learned to regard "fellow" programmers as my chief antagonists in earning a decent living.

Other programmers, who are in positions of power in their employer's organizations, are also the same smarmy douchebags who sanctimoniously demand every line item skill with absolutely no exceptions.

You talk to programmers face to face, and they can seem quite reasonable. Then you see what these gutless Asperger's laced social retards actually do in their work, especially "lead engineers" and other powerless pseudo management types - who have tasted a microscopic bit of power and find that they get their rocks off on holding an upraised "NO" hand to applicants.

I don't trust other programmers unless I get to know them very well.

This is an occupation of douchebags and I do not expect decent, civilized treatment from my peers. Programming is feral but in an intellectually bullying way. "Do you know THIS? You're supposed to know THIS! You don't? You SUCK!"

And a lot of it has a component of self protection. You learn to shoot down competitors because otherwise you may be unemployed, and then you're the one running defense of your skill set.

Better to be the condescending technoid prick who shoots down perfectly good applicants than to be filing for unemployment.

Thoughts?

[Richardk]

I've seen and worked with those kinds of programmers and in general they are a PITA type of person. You minimize your contact with them during work and want absolutely nothing to do with them outside of work. It's some kind of super ego thing.

I recall one that rejected every good applicant that we got but liked someone that the rest of the team was lukewarm with. It was probably someone he could control.

The lists of skills are getting stupid and I'm not seeing any training for skills that are missing. As stated, if you don't have it then we're not interested.

Lastly I'm getting uncomfortable with what passes for programmers, network engineers, etc. I sometimes see people with these titles that don't meet my expectations yet they have the job and the power. You might know significantly more but yet they hold the Sr. title while you're the Jr. Of course, not every place is like this. In fact it's probably worse in smaller companies since someone declares a title and no one knows any better, so there's no challenge. For instance, writing an Excel macro does not automatically make you a "programmer".

So back to the lists. Why do they make them so crazy? Would they make the cut if they had to reapply? How long does it take to fill these jobs? I'm sure that the market is NOT flooded with people in excess of 50 or 100 marketable skills. And if the position stays endlessly open, what message does that send about the job and the company?

[ilconsiglliere]

I agree about the feral mentality of your technical peers. I have seen it first hand. There is this huge super ego thing going to prove that they are smarter and better than you. I guess its a form of intellectual snobbery while making your job secure by eliminating the competition. Oh, you dont know that, than you SUCK!!!!

These are the people that growing up were the straight A honors students. The kids that used to sit in the front of the class polishing the teaches apple. I am sure you know the ones I am talking about - the ones who diligently did their homework, asked for extra homework and were the ones first to raise their hand when the teacher would ask a question. As a kid we called them goody-goodys. The IT field is full of tons of these people.

Huge bloated egos that needs constant stroking and reinforcement that they are the BEST and everyone else sucks. This got have it all mentality has always kind of been around but its gotten much worse it seems.

It used to be that perm was harder than consulting but not any longer. Consulting seems to be asking for every single skill under the sun and than some. If you dont have it, we are not interested. Whats funny is that they are demanding all these skills and yet these are TEMP jobs!

If you cant get past the get consulting companies that are the gate keepers than what do you do?

[DG9]

At three months the clock is half way run out, after six you will not be considered, after a year no employer will touch you.  That is what I am seeing and hearing from folks today.  Between outsourcing and technology reducing the number of positions available, there are simply more people than jobs here now.  What's left then?  Maybe retail a few hours a week or a volunteer position.  Or, as the politions say, start your own business!  The new answer to everything for everyone!  It sounds like you are set to ride this out for a while, but beware eventually the tires must hit the road again...  Good luck my friend.  It is tough out t/here...

[Carrie Cobol]

Here's my theory based on what I've seen in the industry:

A decade or so ago, you had an IT department that consisted of a couple programmers, a DBA, a sysadmin, a couple operators, a pc support dude.  Management decided to do cutbacks so they axed one of the programmers and both operators.  This meant that the one programmer was doing the work of two, and the sysadmin and pc support guy had to also do the operations tasks.  A year or so later more layoffs, this time axing the sysadmin because the servers basically run themselves, right?  And the pc support guy had to pick up those tasks.  Next round of layoffs, they get rid of the DBA, forcing the programmer to also do the DBA work.  So now we have this configuration:

one programmer who does the workload of two programmers and the dba work
one guy (formerly pc support dude) who does the pc support, server admin, network admin, operations

That last guy finally burns his bulb and quits, so management thinks the only way to replace him is to advertise a job that consists of all those tasks combined.  That's what his job was, after all.  This is greatly oversimplified, but maybe you get the point.  You can also add in business analysis and project management work because those are often combined with other jobs.  I've seen way too many PM job ads that clearly described a lead developer job with PM duties, and too many BA job ads that described a PM with analysis and engineering duties.

It gets hairy when instead of asking for broad skills like I outlined above, they advertise for specific tools and call them skills.  This is a different problem, but exacerbates this problem.  Demanding experience with specific tools is what turns the above unreasonable requirements into utter ridiculousness - thus, a purple squirrel.

[I D Shukhov]

Our fellow programmers help draft these exclusionary purple squirrel reqs. Right?

For going on a couple of decades now I have learned to regard "fellow" programmers as my chief antagonists in earning a decent living.

Other programmers, who are in positions of power in their employer's organizations, are also the same smarmy douchebags who sanctimoniously demand every line item skill with absolutely no exceptions.

You talk to programmers face to face, and they can seem quite reasonable. Then you see what these gutless Asperger's laced social retards actually do in their work, especially "lead engineers" and other powerless pseudo management types - who have tasted a microscopic bit of power and find that they get their rocks off on holding an upraised "NO" hand to applicants.

I don't trust other programmers unless I get to know them very well.

This is an occupation of douchebags and I do not expect decent, civilized treatment from my peers. Programming is feral but in an intellectually bullying way. "Do you know THIS? You're supposed to know THIS! You don't? You SUCK!"

And a lot of it has a component of self protection. You learn to shoot down competitors because otherwise you may be unemployed, and then you're the one running defense of your skill set.

Better to be the condescending technoid prick who shoots down perfectly good applicants than to be filing for unemployment.

Thoughts?

There's a lot of truth here, but I could pick any profession and find one-upmanship behaviors.   I remember a quote from my late sister who would occasionally work as a waitress.  I complained about managers one time and she said something like,  "I've never had that much of a problem with managers.   Most of my problems are with the other workers."

(I won't even start on manager thinking.  If you think programmers hate each other, imagine what managers must think about  workers and other managers.)

The big problem is that workplaces themselves are the cause of the alienation.  Fix the situation and I suspect much, but not all, of the one-upmanship will go away.  The rest is human nature which can be understood by group therapy.

There are of course differences in capabilities, but they shouldn't be a cause for putting oneself above others.  I firmly believe that people have different kinds of intelligences and the real trick is to figure out what you are particularly good at and want to do.   Once you figure that out, find an organization where you fit in and has a cooperative culture.
 

[Walter Mitty]

Just because they can afford to be picky doesn't mean that it is in their interest to do so.  They obviously perceive it to be in their interest to be picky, or else they wouldn't do that, unless they can't stop their leg.   

What reasons could there be for such pickiness?  First, the possiblity that they don't intend to get any qualified candidates.  If everybody who applies is unqualified, then they are free to hire from guest workers.  The guest worker they hire is probably unqualified according to the same criteria,  but they've built an adequate defense for immigration  authorities.

Second, they intend to hire from the pool of applicants,  but they want the successful contractor to know that they were settling for less than they wanted.  This will put the contractor in his place, and prevent him from asking for a higher rate, or better working conditions, or a sane schedule.

Third, they just want to make applicants miserable.  There's an old, old Dilbert series about baiting the temp.  And dilbert himself is one of the tormentors in this series.  He's only the protagonist if you've never been in the contractor's shoes. 

But I lean towards the last:  they want to discourage most people from even applying.  By narrowing the list of applicants, it makes choosing one easier.  If they get 10,000 applicants, all of whom are at least nominally qualified, now they have a monumental task to pick the right one, and to use the right process in doing so.  If they get 100 resumes, maybe they can do a quick scan to reduce the list to 10.  Phone interviews might reduce the list to 5, and 5 interviews might be doable.
 
 

[Walter Mitty]

Gorn,

For comparison purposes, what occupation is largely made of people you would be glad to call your colleagues?

How about the occupation you are now in.  Are those people more collegial?

[I D Shukhov]

[The Gorn]

Gorn,

For comparison purposes, what occupation is largely made of people you would be glad to call your colleagues?

How about the occupation you are now in.  Are those people more collegial?

I have made no effort to analyze the relative position of software development in this regard. I would say anecdotally that programmers are the worst single group for demanding that everyone be just like themselves.

All I am saying is that today, hiring is downright antagonistic. Hiring parties create barriers that are insurmountable to everyone. Hiring used to be simply skeptical. Today it seems to be a situation in which the hirer seeks to "prove something" negative about your character, your experience, your knowledge and/or your work history.

[ilconsiglliere]

Gorn,

For comparison purposes, what occupation is largely made of people you would be glad to call your colleagues?

How about the occupation you are now in.  Are those people more collegial?

I have made no effort to analyze the relative position of software development in this regard. I would say anecdotally that programmers are the worst single group for demanding that everyone be just like themselves.

All I am saying is that today, hiring is downright antagonistic. Hiring parties create barriers that are insurmountable to everyone. Hiring used to be simply skeptical. Today it seems to be a situation in which the hirer seeks to "prove something" negative about your character, your experience, your knowledge and/or your work history.

I have to agree with this. Many technical areas are dysfunctional. Its that whole left/right brain thing. Part of it is that they have poor social skills and all think they are the special snowflake. They are so unique and different than all the other snowflakes.

Hiring today is antagonistic. My question is why bother if thats the way its going to be. You have to jump through hoops, once you do, they set the hoops on fire. Even after that they invent some other nonsense that you have to go through.

[choppedwood]

This thread helped me.  I drafted a long response, that I'm not going to post, where I went through all the things I'd done on my last FTE job.  I came up with about 25 different tools/technologies/skills that I did or touched (not saying I was good at even most of them).  But what I realized is that it didn't matter to me.  I looked at my job as providing solutions to problems using whatever tool fit the situation.  It also explains why I was so resistant to much of the "we should be using product X, because brand name Y is best, nonsense" that went on.  And, it makes sense to me, finally, why I'm having so much trouble fitting myself into a world of "must have X years of Y" or even figuring out if I was a DBA, BI analyst or developer.  I was all of those because at any given time any or all of that was needed to produce a solution.

Anyways, this helped me figure some of that out. 

[ilconsiglliere]

This thread helped me.  I drafted a long response, that I'm not going to post, where I went through all the things I'd done on my last FTE job.  I came up with about 25 different tools/technologies/skills that I did or touched (not saying I was good at even most of them).  But what I realized is that it didn't matter to me.  I looked at my job as providing solutions to problems using whatever tool fit the situation.  It also explains why I was so resistant to much of the "we should be using product X, because brand name Y is best, nonsense" that went on.  And, it makes sense to me, finally, why I'm having so much trouble fitting myself into a world of "must have X years of Y" or even figuring out if I was a DBA, BI analyst or developer.  I was all of those because at any given time any or all of that was needed to produce a solution.

Anyways, this helped me figure some of that out.

The problem today is that they regard all of us as interchangeable cogs. If the cog doesnt do XYZ than get a cog that does. We are commodities to be used, burned out and thrown away. They have no interest in training anyone or you coming up to speed. This is why you see all these ads with stuff about "must hit the ground running". Um, sure.

The business climate, H1Bs and offshoring have helped accelerate this. A larger pool of people competing for a declining pool of jobs. Its a classic case of supply and demand. When you have excess supply as in our case the demand can ask for whatever they want with impunity because there will always be someone that can do it.

For example I had a consulting company contact me and say that must have claims integration experience. Once they realized I didnt have it, it was over. I said they arent going to find anyone with this experience. Than the consulting company said that people will fly in from other parts of the country that have the skills they want because they want the work.

I am an IT generalist and its becoming a problem. Though I can do multiple things they dont care. They want you to only know ABC - oh you only know A & B but not C. You are off the candidate list.

[TechTalk]

I think this Wall Street article (see below) sums up the Purple Squirrel syndrome fairly well.

Why Companies Aren't Getting the Employees They Need
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204422404576596630897409182.html