Wow, hiring someone really blows!

Ian F said:

In the consulting engineering world, it's not much better.  We've had a hell of time filling positions at our offices around the country.  Here at the PA office it's a little better as we have a fairly constant flow of co-ops from Drexel University (Philadelphia engineering college with a mandatory co-op program).  More than a few have turned into long time employees after graduation. We have a couple of co-ops in my dept (Electrical Design) right now that look very promising. 

A number of our clients require drug testing for contractors to work on the site, and after a few embarrassments, we now drug test all applicants.  With cannabis becoming more widespread and accepted on a legal basis, this will be a situation that needs to be addressed. Currently, any THC detected will result in failure.

My mechanic currently has one guy working with him after another who had been with him for years retired rather suddenly and moved to Florida.  I'm slowly getting accustomed to the "new guy" (although he's actually worked there for a couple of years). I'm almost certain he would hire another tech if he could. 

My brother works for a company that does drug tests. As in, if you work for a F500 company and you went to a lab to get tested, chances are about 40% that it was a lab for the company he works for. He's selling more and more saliva tests, with specific instructions to the buyers about how to get people to pass them. I guess the saliva tests aren't very accurate, and easier to fool, but HR departments were complaining to him that they couldn't hire the people they wanted to because more and more people are partaking in the whacky tobaccy. 

It is also becoming a legal issue for HR, as it is often medically prescribed.

Finding a job is no picnic either.

Wanted: 5+ years experience, 24/7 availability, all your own tools, your own vehicle, ability to not kill the 3 people who are supposed to help you but sit on their thumbs all day, self restraint to not strangle the supervisor who couldn't find his ass with both hands and a map yet pulls down 6 figures, no vacation, no sick time, no benefits, $8/hour. 

You have the nerve to ask for a raise? You're fired. Complain about lazy co-workers? You're fired. Stop covering for the lazy co-workers because getting paid a single salary to do the work of 3 people is berkeleying stupid? Fired. Didn't file a request 6 months in advance for an ER visit? Fired. Dare to remind the powers that be that average 1 bedroom apartment rent is $650/month while only taking home $950 after taxes? Fired. 

I want to show up, do my job, and leave, and not need a second job to keep a roof over my head, gas in the tank and food on the table. I don't want to have to sift through your stupid HR bullE36 M3 keyword game for an interview either. 

Just my experience since 2004 in the labor force, nothing directed at anyone here as I'm fairly certain I've never worked for anyone here. 

BoxheadTim said:Yes, it may also have removed a bunch of qualified candidates but if you're not even bothering to read my lovingly crafted job ad all the way, you're not giving off the vibe I'm looking for.

I posted my resume on Indeed a few days ago. I received an email yesterday from a headhunter  that I responded with: If my resume was as poorly written as that job description, do you think you'd still be interested?  Nasty but it was deserved.

In reply to RevRico :

Really well said!! I remember those days where they wanted to give entry level pay but were looking for 7 years experience.  

Micheal graduated magma cum laude in his field and had wonderful recommendations from his professors and internships.  

He applied for a job while staying here and when he wasn’t selected it was because his commute would be excessive!  

Stupid HR!   

Suprf1y said:

BoxheadTim said:Yes, it may also have removed a bunch of qualified candidates but if you're not even bothering to read my lovingly crafted job ad all the way, you're not giving off the vibe I'm looking for.

I posted my resume on Indeed a few days ago. I received an email yesterday from a headhunter  that I responded with: If my resume was as poorly written as that job description, do you thing you'd still be interested?  Nasty but it was deserved.

I like that . I've been known to respond to the scatter gun recruiters with "which part of my resume that doesn't list experience in any of your must haves qualifies me for this position?"

Fueled by Caffeine said:

Robbie said:

#1 sign of a strong economy

It’s been like this for about 10 years. Even during the recession hiring was super difficult.  You need x skill everyone has y.  I stopped hiring for specific experience a long time ago and now hire the smartest person with drive we walks through the door. Burnt our lawyer or person working at a bank?  I don’t care if you’re smart you’ll figure it out. 

You're smarter than you let on, Iggy.

Appleseed said:

In reply to Dusterbd13 :

Thanks for giving a former criminal a chance. So many times, paid his debt to society doesn't ring true. 

 

Sounds like I need to quit a job I hate and look for one I don't.  

I'm a firm believer, and living proof, that is zebra can change its stripes. I took it on the chin from HR and upper management on both those hires though

Streetwiseguy said:

It took me from about 2003 to 2008 to replace a technician.  I hired three guys, two (both borderline mental cases- one with serious anger issues, the other would lie when the truth would be simpler) who quit, one I fired.  I am so very, very happy with the guy I hired.  If he leaves me, I will cry a long river of tears, so I make his life as happy as I can with money, gratitude and spare race car parts.

I have heard this so many times from business owners.  Then they finally get the good guy and they still will not pay them worth a damn.   

The other side of the coin is it has become THE thing now to poach employees from other companies.    A good friend cannot keep people.   They hire and train and somebody else will pay ridiculous money to steal them away.   They never stay anywhere more than a year of two and they are off to the next company. 

Fueled by Caffeine said:

It’s been like this for about 10 years. Even during the recession hiring was super difficult.  You need x skill everyone has y.  I stopped hiring for specific experience a long time ago and now hire the smartest person with drive we walks through the door. Burnt our lawyer or person working at a bank?  I don’t care if you’re smart you’ll figure it out. 

You are the kind of a guy I was looking for for years.  I never found one. 

In reply to spitfirebill :

“We don’t train people because otherwise our competition would poach them, we only hire (poach) trained people” has been a problem for quite a while.

Unfortunately, in a few industries the only way to get any raise is to change employers, and then people complain about short tenures.

In reply to docwyte :

As a follow up to what Ian suggested about the local schools and finding employees, can you use the same local schools to help pay for teaching the new employee the skills to do the job?

I'm sure getting ALL the experience needed can't be done, but if you hire someone on the condition that they finish some schooling, and you help them get the specific schooling that helps you (and perhaps not really some other industry), giving them also a path for improvement at work over a long time- do you think that would work?

For many of the industries out there, we are too old to be interesting or sexy.  Lots of people go into engineering, few want to work for auto companies.  Lots of people go get tech education, few get into trades.  And I really wonder if kids are actually being told where the shortages really are.  Which puts the pressure of teaching them into those old industries.

In reply to alfadriver :

Good point about telling high schoolers where the jobs really are. What’s more important tell them the track record.  

Mention the percentage of tradesmen laid off during the last recession. Auto engineers, accountants, short order cooks. 

Etc. 

Yeah, the loyalty thing is a two way street.  When companies stopped offering pensions employees stopped calling their jobs careers. Now it's every man for themselves. 

I work in a field that pays decently far into six figures for jobs that don't require a degree.  Unfortunately 1/2 of current HS graduates can't pass the background checks for the security clearance,  another 1/4 can't pass the drug testing,  another 1/5 can't pass the aptitude test and of the last 5% 4/5 don't want to work rotating shifts.   That magic 1% is the same group that everyone wants to hire, and of the ones we get hired about a third get a year into training before we figure out they can't handle the work.

I've seen the job fully staffed once, for 3 months,  in 8 years.  For the entire rest of the time there has been at least one trainee and the guys average @400 hours a year of overtime.   We poach anyone we can.

Fueled by Caffeine said:

Robbie said:

#1 sign of a strong economy

It’s been like this for about 10 years. Even during the recession hiring was super difficult.  You need x skill everyone has y.  I stopped hiring for specific experience a long time ago and now hire the smartest person with drive we walks through the door. Burnt our lawyer or person working at a bank?  I don’t care if you’re smart you’ll figure it out. 

That's how my company is too. The majority of our applicants, our much of our core product development staff, come out of industry. I'm not talking about the computer science side of things either, but the people that actually built products then interfaced with our or our competitors products on a user level.

We can teach you whatever you need to know to operate our product as long as we know you're teachable. The experience of working in the type of environments that we support is extremely valuable to the company because it factors heavily into our design and sales processes.

In reply to oldopelguy :

The golden handcuffs do work wonders.  And the loss of them can be a huge impact.

Why companies stopped that is very curious- as it's pretty clear that they spend WAY more money on salaries and churn than they ever did pay in pensions out.  Makes no sense.

Friend of mine used to run the QA facility at a juice plant 20 years ago.  He gave a math test to potential hires.  Three simple questions.  I think one was "What is 10% of 100.  You may use a calculator."  The other two were not much harder.  Add up this column of 3 numbers or something.  If anyone answered the 3 questions correctly, he hired them on the spot, whether he had a position open or not.

In reply to oldopelguy :

Are you hiring?  I'll gladly relocate! 

alfadriver said:

In reply to oldopelguy :

The golden handcuffs do work wonders.  And the loss of them can be a huge impact.

Why companies stopped that is very curious- as it's pretty clear that they spend WAY more money on salaries and churn than they ever did pay in pensions out.  Makes no sense.

If it is true that companies spend more on churn and increased salaries than they did on pensions (not saying I don't believe you, it could easily be true), then I think that is one giant ironic effect of unions... 

Can't even make this stuff up.

Robbie said:

alfadriver said:

In reply to oldopelguy :

The golden handcuffs do work wonders.  And the loss of them can be a huge impact.

Why companies stopped that is very curious- as it's pretty clear that they spend WAY more money on salaries and churn than they ever did pay in pensions out.  Makes no sense.

If it is true that companies spend more on churn and increased salaries than they did on pensions (not saying I don't believe you, it could easily be true), then I think that is one giant ironic effect of unions... 

Can't even make this stuff up.

Why is that an ironic thing about unions?  I don't recall them being the ones ending the pensions.  They are the ones blamed for the underfunded pensions, though.  

alfadriver said:

Robbie said:

alfadriver said:

In reply to oldopelguy :

The golden handcuffs do work wonders.  And the loss of them can be a huge impact.

Why companies stopped that is very curious- as it's pretty clear that they spend WAY more money on salaries and churn than they ever did pay in pensions out.  Makes no sense.

If it is true that companies spend more on churn and increased salaries than they did on pensions (not saying I don't believe you, it could easily be true), then I think that is one giant ironic effect of unions... 

Can't even make this stuff up.

Why is that an ironic thing about unions?  I don't recall them being the ones ending the pensions.  They are the ones blamed for the underfunded pensions, though.  

 

Right, so industry blames union pensions for being too expensive. So industry "wins" the pension battle by spending MORE on it's own solution.

Robbie said:

alfadriver said:

Robbie said:

alfadriver said:

In reply to oldopelguy :

The golden handcuffs do work wonders.  And the loss of them can be a huge impact.

Why companies stopped that is very curious- as it's pretty clear that they spend WAY more money on salaries and churn than they ever did pay in pensions out.  Makes no sense.

If it is true that companies spend more on churn and increased salaries than they did on pensions (not saying I don't believe you, it could easily be true), then I think that is one giant ironic effect of unions... 

Can't even make this stuff up.

Why is that an ironic thing about unions?  I don't recall them being the ones ending the pensions.  They are the ones blamed for the underfunded pensions, though.  

 

Right, so industry blames union pensions for being too expensive. So industry "wins" the pension battle by spending MORE on it's own solution.

Not buying it. If pensions were cheaper, than training/turnover, there would be pensions. 

There aren't unemployed actuaries for a reason.

RevRico said:

You have the nerve to ask for a raise? You're fired. Complain about lazy co-workers? You're fired. Stop covering for the lazy co-workers because getting paid a single salary to do the work of 3 people is berkeleying stupid? Fired. Didn't file a request 6 months in advance for an ER visit? Fired. Dare to remind the powers that be that average 1 bedroom apartment rent is $650/month while only taking home $950 after taxes? Fired. 

Add to that, we want you to come in early, stay late, not take a lunch and dedicate your heart and soul to this company 110%, accept pay cuts with a smile, accept staff cuts with a smile...all so we can eliminate your position without warning or reason.  

z31maniac said:

Robbie said:

alfadriver said:

Robbie said:

alfadriver said:

In reply to oldopelguy :

The golden handcuffs do work wonders.  And the loss of them can be a huge impact.

Why companies stopped that is very curious- as it's pretty clear that they spend WAY more money on salaries and churn than they ever did pay in pensions out.  Makes no sense.

If it is true that companies spend more on churn and increased salaries than they did on pensions (not saying I don't believe you, it could easily be true), then I think that is one giant ironic effect of unions... 

Can't even make this stuff up.

Why is that an ironic thing about unions?  I don't recall them being the ones ending the pensions.  They are the ones blamed for the underfunded pensions, though.  

 

Right, so industry blames union pensions for being too expensive. So industry "wins" the pension battle by spending MORE on it's own solution.

Not buying it. If pensions were cheaper, than training/turnover, there would be pensions. 

There aren't unemployed actuaries for a reason.

The only reason I don't believe you is I see what the effects of constant churn really is.  And the denial that the pension has anything to do with it.  When you see people moving from one company to another at the speed they do, it's pretty clear there's a price war going on.  Except for those of us who have pensions, and the clock is ticking on the knowledge transfer from them to new people.

Oh, and I've not had a chance to work with a new person long enough to actually transfer knowledge.  They come and go too fast.

And I have a hard time even getting an interview. Must be the beard. 

Last job I had with a cheap sodapop company that made cheap sodapop, I kept a file named "Existential_Justification.doc" to email out periodically when they were looking to whack people again.  I finally got pissed when they cut my (and everyone's) pay 3% (ended the 401K match), sent 2 emails to head hunters and had an offer letter in my hand 3 weeks later.  The "we have no money..." line was getting pretty thin.  I can read a 10K.