I've sat in front of enormous piles of resumes, desperately hoping that one candidate in 10 might be able to code fizzbuzz or reverse a linked list. Yes, the candidate pool is awful on average, but this is a survivor effect—the good candidates tend to get hired, and a handful of unqualified candidates keep spamming their resumes.
But as an economist once told me, the market clears. If you're realistic about the market price, you can absolutely hire qualified people. That's practically the definition of "market price." Price signals work; when programmer salaries get ridiculous, plenty of competent people take an interest in programming.
You can save money by offering other benefits, hiring outside Silicon Valley, being better at evaluating candidates than your competitors, not discriminating based on age/gender, or by figuring out how to work with talented remote experts. But you have to make an interesting offer if you want talented people.
Easy explanation is that there are a ton of people holding a STEM-related diploma but absolutely inept in this profession not even trying to compete. I know that from every class of software engineers in Russia, couple guys make a successful career, couple more become mediocre coders, couple more try for a while give up, rest not even bother...
Exactly. I've interviewed recent UC Berkeley EECS [1] graduates and found they couldn't write a line of code, and Berkeley is a top 10 engineering and top 10 computer science school (or at least was a the time; haven't checked rankings recently).
[1] Electrical Engineering and Computer Science; their B.S. degree in computer science. I think they have a B.A. as well.
One issue I keep seeing in these kind of studies is the use of the "STEM" acronym itself.
I'm sorry, but with the current job market, this kind of grouping makes NO sense. The jobs and opportunities are mostly in the middle two letters - technology and engineering.
Science and mathematics are still tied to academia enough that only the real go-getters with the ability to self-educate and work out how to transfer their skills to other fields will easily find careers. Despite the flaws in most of the institutions offering engineering degrees, an education in engineering/technology is still the most straightforward path to a career, with the most applicable job skills being taught.
I have a good friend who is a mathematician, masters degree. She works for an insurance company doing statistics as an actuary.
This is just based her anecdotes, but from her stories it sounds like the world of professional mathematicians/staticians is suffering from a talent shortage that completely dwarfs what we experience in the technology sector. A good mathematician is rare gold in the finance/insurance worlds right now.
A couple of friends of mine decided to 'walk a mile in their shoes' and became hiring managers. Craigslist is a wonderful thing, especially since it is very cheap to post a job listing. My buddies put out a very generic job posting for the types of jobs they were looking for. It was a way to gauge the heat of the job market, to see the competition, and mostly to see what it was like. Their hypothesis was at least 100 resumes. And being good scientists, they posted in a lot of big metro areas.
14 total resumes came in, 7 from India. In 10 major US metro areas, and this posting lasting a cumulative 3 months among the areas they got 14 resumes in. 5 Cover letters. 3 of the guys were ok, and hirable.
It was a shock. They thought they were in a really hot market and the competition was fierce. That must be the reason they get no calls back. Nope, not at all. At least in the Craigslist sphere, there were no job hunters to speak of. Personally, I don't know what to make of the data either. Lots of jobs were posted, but no-one was there and answering. The only thing that came to mind was that MOST of the craigslist postings were fradulent, just like my friend's.
This guy linked to the IEEE Spectrum article, but I don't think he read it, because they address the issue about defining STEM workers, and despite his anecdotal evidence, they came to the conclusion that, yes, the STEM shortage is a myth.
No, they don't address the issue in that article, they carefully circumvent it. Like all shortage-denial articles, they focus on education rather than actual practical competence.
There is no shortage of STEM graduates. There is a shortage of people actually capable of doing the jobs which, amongst other things, require a STEM background. And for most software development jobs, the latter isn't even the most important qualification.
The STEM shortage is a myth created by people who want to deny that there is a shortage of qualified knowledge workers by equating "qualified" to having a STEM degree.
Nobody actually in the business ever complained about a STEM shortage. We complain about a shortage of competent people.
This sounds to me like the issue is more university programs: people completing a STEM degree SHOULD come out of it able to take on a STEM job.
From the hiring side, I agree with the dearth of quality candidates, and on the job training is often the current solution.
From my own university experience: the wrong things were being taught, and depth was pretty much out of the question. I can only imagine its worse elsewhere.
Only due to my personal side projects did I end up getting the knowledge needed for a job.
This sounds to me like the issue is more university programs: people completing a STEM degree SHOULD come out of it able to take on a STEM job.
To be fair, college is not trade school, nor is it supposed to be trade school.
on the job training is often the current solution
10-15 years ago, this was standard operating procedure for college grads, as were decent training budgets to keep all employees up to date on skills. Only more recently have employers demanded a turn-key candidate while training budgets have been cut back or zero'd out.
It's pretty worrisome for the future. Many individuals in this thread complaining about lack of qualified candidates may find themselves unqualified to a future employer if they don't value training.
It's a concerning trend. Lot's of people go into the fields looking for high salaries and job opportunities, and then have no interest and thus talent in the field. There's so many totally inept people with even graduate degrees in computer science.
At the same time, look into some of the top University's CS exams and they're writing code on paper. They're not training effective and talented programmers, they're training effective exam writers.
This problem exists in the "hard sciences" too. There happens to be an intern in our lab, who is very motivated to do science, and actually fairly competent, but there are just some really critical things that are missing she just can't do basic mental arithmetic - it takes her minutes to figure out what volume to add to do a 1:20 dilution. Then she writes it down so that she doesn't have to do that calculation again in the future. She's always asking to make sure her procedure is correct, and has never creatively come up with an experiment on her own. This is compounded by self-doubt, there are procedures that need to be done extremely quickly, because there's an air-sensitive compound, and I've told her she needs to be snappy, and if she needs to, practice it 20 or 50 or 100 times to get the whole thing done under a minute or two, still no, and I think it's affecting the results, which of course, increases her self-doubt, so she tries to be more careful, which makes things slower, etc etc (she's not my intern so I can't be too aggressive in giving her criticism). This student has a master's degree and was applying to PhD programs at Harvard. I think Harvard rejected her, and the best grad school she got into had "people worse than her" (which I don't doubt, like I said, she's competent overall), so she's applying again this fall.
I can't take her aside and tell her, "you are not PhD material". I leave it to the reader to figure out why. She would be fine in industry as a lab tech. I presume something similar happens at a lower level where people who are techs, shouldn't even be at that level.
Contrast this with a high school intern in the other lab, who successfully built a giant 6 meter bioreactor that is actually being used to process waste at an industrial facility, and totally took down a professor that asked a dumb question during her "presentation on what she did".... I am terrified that she will leave STEM - she didn't get into as good a college as she should have.
Well, they are in alignment with the industry then, where the big players seem intent on hiring effective exam writers based on their technical screening process. How do you pass your undergrad courses? Memorize data structures, algorithms, and definitions, and write code on paper. How do you pass a Google interview? Memorize data structures, algorithms, and definitions, and write code on a whiteboard.
I cringe every time someone asks a question about interviews on /r/cscareerquestions and the inevitable reference to Cracking the Code Interview or something similar comes up. I cannot fathom that you can, and should be expected to, study or cram for an interview. It makes the interview the equivalent of an undergrad test, with the same value as a signalling device. I'm not sure which feeds which, and I'm sure there is two-way feedback in this system, but I don't think fixing undergrad education alone will fix the core of the problem, nor will encouraging more students to pursue engineering degrees as programs like MathMovesU attempt to do.
IDK, I could see this the other way around too. If you are currently doing the job, then you must be qualified for it, or are soon to be fired. There are probably some small percentage of people who just slide under the radar, but I would think if you were entirely incompetent and unable to do your job you would not last long.
Local anecdote: my last N interviews have gone from HR contact to phone interview to phone interview to take home project to (being flown out for) in person interview to ... rejection.
And the real reason that the "candidates are crap" is that too many employers no longer spend the time and resources to train their workers properly. Instead employees are expected to get hired with insanely specific skills and "hit the ground running" working for some clueless line and project managers who don't give a damn about what happens outside of their small-minded metrics.
The shortage is in jobs that are willing to take graduates/applicants that know that basics, or even has experience, and then TRAIN them on what they want. Those that can pass STEM are usually smart enough to be trainable. Companies are expecting schools to teach current skills (not just theory) or students to be 100% self motivated in learning those skills on their own.
I'm the lead developer at a tech startup in Silicon Valley and I interview about 2-3x a week. There is definitely a shortage of competent workers here. We will typically extend an offer to about 1 out of every 5 candidates because they just can't code or don't have the experience in the technologies we use. I've learned that resumes are very puffed up and that having a college degree really doesn't make much difference in terms of a candidate's competency. I disagree with the article about salaries being stagnate. In startups, especially for web developers, competition amongst companies is fierce and has driven up salaries.
Many studies use college degrees vs open positions as their data but I think this is a flawed model because what I have found is that college degrees and education / competency is only a loose correlation at best.
"... how many grads do not have a decent grasp of elementary algorithms and data structures, and are not comfortable with code."
This is more a fault of computer science education than the student. I was taking 16 credits of upper division CS courses at [not renowned but not bad university]. Half-way through the term I had yet to do any programming. I realize that CS is about more than programming (my four classes broadly were proofs, computer hardware, methods of software engineering, and stats for scientists/engineers). But the only way to become good at programming is to do it consistently. One or two big projects towards the end of the term leaves you brushing up on old skills instead of building new ones.
I'll be attending Hack Reactor this fall because I want to become a good programmer, not vaguely familiar with everything CS has to offer.
CS isn't about programming at all. While CS can help make a programmer a better engineer, it's not intended to teach programming skills; which is much more a vocational skill than a science.
I think the primary reason so many development shops ask for CS grads, is not because they should have learned programming at university - it's because they've already been selected for intelligence by getting into a more selective hard science university program. If programming skills were more important than intelligence, these jobs could be filled with folks who have a 6-month certificate from ITT -- but hiring shops have evidently found out that they get a better product from CS departments.
I kind of feel that CS departments should really emphasize these points to prospective applicants so they can go to HackReactor instead of wasting their time in CS programs - but unfortunately they have little incentive to do so.
Is it possible that industry automation reduces the workers needed for some positions, freeing them to look for other positions, thus increasing the pool of candidates? That would go some way towards explaining why projected STEM job candidate numbers are always below reality.
Automation affects many jobs. Just because a job isn't replaced entirely by a robot or program, doesn't mean it hasn't been rendered significantly easier or less time consuming, reducing the personnel required.
CAD is probably one of the oldest examples of this. What's to say that similar changes aren't taking place in many industries now?
There are several different localized shortages, but also a general glut.
If you're trying to hire well-trained software engineers with high-level CS knowledge in the Bay Area, good fucking luck, and make sure to pay plenty because you're getting nothing otherwise.
If you're trying to hire medical device engineers in North Carolina (pulling this out of my ass, but you get the point), there is a glut of unemployed medicine and biology grads to choose from, many with top-flight skills and work experience.
Why do we keep employing these overly large categories that conceal more than they reveal?
This is a view I've held for a while... that the shortage isn't with people holding square pieces of paper with fancy latin on it proclaiming competence. Rather the shortage is a talent shortage and degrees are a very poor indicator of talent.
There was another article on HN a while ago and it stated that only about half of STEM workers have a STEM degree. Meanwhile, 75% of STEM degree holders didn't have a STEM job. Maybe the problem lies with the process of getting a degree?
I agree the university process is part of the problem, but you need to be conscious of where the numbers come from. As the full Spectrum article mentions, different groups have different definitions of "STEM worker" and "STEM degree" that can vary the numbers significantly, so you may be comparing apples to oranges and not realize it.
[+] [-] ekidd|12 years ago|reply
But as an economist once told me, the market clears. If you're realistic about the market price, you can absolutely hire qualified people. That's practically the definition of "market price." Price signals work; when programmer salaries get ridiculous, plenty of competent people take an interest in programming.
You can save money by offering other benefits, hiring outside Silicon Valley, being better at evaluating candidates than your competitors, not discriminating based on age/gender, or by figuring out how to work with talented remote experts. But you have to make an interesting offer if you want talented people.
[+] [-] anovikov|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] SomeCallMeTim|12 years ago|reply
[1] Electrical Engineering and Computer Science; their B.S. degree in computer science. I think they have a B.A. as well.
[+] [-] robbles|12 years ago|reply
I'm sorry, but with the current job market, this kind of grouping makes NO sense. The jobs and opportunities are mostly in the middle two letters - technology and engineering.
Science and mathematics are still tied to academia enough that only the real go-getters with the ability to self-educate and work out how to transfer their skills to other fields will easily find careers. Despite the flaws in most of the institutions offering engineering degrees, an education in engineering/technology is still the most straightforward path to a career, with the most applicable job skills being taught.
[+] [-] drewying|12 years ago|reply
This is just based her anecdotes, but from her stories it sounds like the world of professional mathematicians/staticians is suffering from a talent shortage that completely dwarfs what we experience in the technology sector. A good mathematician is rare gold in the finance/insurance worlds right now.
[+] [-] Balgair|12 years ago|reply
14 total resumes came in, 7 from India. In 10 major US metro areas, and this posting lasting a cumulative 3 months among the areas they got 14 resumes in. 5 Cover letters. 3 of the guys were ok, and hirable.
It was a shock. They thought they were in a really hot market and the competition was fierce. That must be the reason they get no calls back. Nope, not at all. At least in the Craigslist sphere, there were no job hunters to speak of. Personally, I don't know what to make of the data either. Lots of jobs were posted, but no-one was there and answering. The only thing that came to mind was that MOST of the craigslist postings were fradulent, just like my friend's.
The job market is stranger every-day.
[+] [-] eli_gottlieb|12 years ago|reply
This is the basic assumption, yes. It's why most of us don't job-hunt on Craigslist.
[+] [-] jiggy2011|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gopher1|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bowlofpetunias|12 years ago|reply
There is no shortage of STEM graduates. There is a shortage of people actually capable of doing the jobs which, amongst other things, require a STEM background. And for most software development jobs, the latter isn't even the most important qualification.
The STEM shortage is a myth created by people who want to deny that there is a shortage of qualified knowledge workers by equating "qualified" to having a STEM degree.
Nobody actually in the business ever complained about a STEM shortage. We complain about a shortage of competent people.
[+] [-] daurnimator|12 years ago|reply
From the hiring side, I agree with the dearth of quality candidates, and on the job training is often the current solution.
From my own university experience: the wrong things were being taught, and depth was pretty much out of the question. I can only imagine its worse elsewhere.
Only due to my personal side projects did I end up getting the knowledge needed for a job.
[+] [-] epoxyhockey|12 years ago|reply
To be fair, college is not trade school, nor is it supposed to be trade school.
on the job training is often the current solution
10-15 years ago, this was standard operating procedure for college grads, as were decent training budgets to keep all employees up to date on skills. Only more recently have employers demanded a turn-key candidate while training budgets have been cut back or zero'd out.
It's pretty worrisome for the future. Many individuals in this thread complaining about lack of qualified candidates may find themselves unqualified to a future employer if they don't value training.
[+] [-] trekky1700|12 years ago|reply
At the same time, look into some of the top University's CS exams and they're writing code on paper. They're not training effective and talented programmers, they're training effective exam writers.
[+] [-] dnautics|12 years ago|reply
I can't take her aside and tell her, "you are not PhD material". I leave it to the reader to figure out why. She would be fine in industry as a lab tech. I presume something similar happens at a lower level where people who are techs, shouldn't even be at that level.
Contrast this with a high school intern in the other lab, who successfully built a giant 6 meter bioreactor that is actually being used to process waste at an industrial facility, and totally took down a professor that asked a dumb question during her "presentation on what she did".... I am terrified that she will leave STEM - she didn't get into as good a college as she should have.
[+] [-] vonmoltke|12 years ago|reply
I cringe every time someone asks a question about interviews on /r/cscareerquestions and the inevitable reference to Cracking the Code Interview or something similar comes up. I cannot fathom that you can, and should be expected to, study or cram for an interview. It makes the interview the equivalent of an undergrad test, with the same value as a signalling device. I'm not sure which feeds which, and I'm sure there is two-way feedback in this system, but I don't think fixing undergrad education alone will fix the core of the problem, nor will encouraging more students to pursue engineering degrees as programs like MathMovesU attempt to do.
[+] [-] dnautics|12 years ago|reply
There is also a flaw in the assumption that every STEM jobholder is qualified for a STEM job.
[+] [-] hackula1|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] seiji|12 years ago|reply
I'm getting worried I'm actually incompetent now.
[+] [-] MrBuddyCasino|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] angdis|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tekalon|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bcheung|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bcheung|12 years ago|reply
Many studies use college degrees vs open positions as their data but I think this is a flawed model because what I have found is that college degrees and education / competency is only a loose correlation at best.
[+] [-] hackula1|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ifben|12 years ago|reply
This is more a fault of computer science education than the student. I was taking 16 credits of upper division CS courses at [not renowned but not bad university]. Half-way through the term I had yet to do any programming. I realize that CS is about more than programming (my four classes broadly were proofs, computer hardware, methods of software engineering, and stats for scientists/engineers). But the only way to become good at programming is to do it consistently. One or two big projects towards the end of the term leaves you brushing up on old skills instead of building new ones.
I'll be attending Hack Reactor this fall because I want to become a good programmer, not vaguely familiar with everything CS has to offer.
[+] [-] rizzom5000|12 years ago|reply
I think the primary reason so many development shops ask for CS grads, is not because they should have learned programming at university - it's because they've already been selected for intelligence by getting into a more selective hard science university program. If programming skills were more important than intelligence, these jobs could be filled with folks who have a 6-month certificate from ITT -- but hiring shops have evidently found out that they get a better product from CS departments.
I kind of feel that CS departments should really emphasize these points to prospective applicants so they can go to HackReactor instead of wasting their time in CS programs - but unfortunately they have little incentive to do so.
[+] [-] kbenson|12 years ago|reply
Automation affects many jobs. Just because a job isn't replaced entirely by a robot or program, doesn't mean it hasn't been rendered significantly easier or less time consuming, reducing the personnel required.
CAD is probably one of the oldest examples of this. What's to say that similar changes aren't taking place in many industries now?
[+] [-] xfour|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] eli_gottlieb|12 years ago|reply
If you're trying to hire well-trained software engineers with high-level CS knowledge in the Bay Area, good fucking luck, and make sure to pay plenty because you're getting nothing otherwise.
If you're trying to hire medical device engineers in North Carolina (pulling this out of my ass, but you get the point), there is a glut of unemployed medicine and biology grads to choose from, many with top-flight skills and work experience.
Why do we keep employing these overly large categories that conceal more than they reveal?
[+] [-] robotcookies|12 years ago|reply
There was another article on HN a while ago and it stated that only about half of STEM workers have a STEM degree. Meanwhile, 75% of STEM degree holders didn't have a STEM job. Maybe the problem lies with the process of getting a degree?
[+] [-] vonmoltke|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|12 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] moron4hire|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rearry|12 years ago|reply