The world’s been coming to an end for some time now. Read this article keeping in mind that Dr. Michael Teitelbaum, VP of the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation said in testimony to Congress this past fall, “No one who has come to the question with an open mind has been able to find any objective data suggesting general ‘shortages’ of scientists and engineers. The RAND Corporation has conducted several studies of this subject [and] the evidence is more suggestive of surpluses.”
If you can’t make it through the article, download the research findings here.
I spent quite a few days at college career fairs the past few months (not shabby ones mind you – Columbia, Poly, Stony Brook) and stood in front of so many companies with a you-know-what-kind-of-grin on my face as I read in bold letters “United States citizens only” while smart budding techies walked past.
Another factor for “shortages”: quite simply moronic hiring practices that exclude based upon the perfectionism principle when in reality, perfectionism is a very slow death. Every recruiter has these hiring managers who want to hire perfect; can’t find perfect? Must be a shortage of perfect candidates!
Dare I even ask about older techies?
OK, I dare; I don’t know of many politicians who have ever recruited. Yet when they conceive economic stimulus initiatives, these initiatives offer monies for specified skills (ah, the glut of netadmins these reminds me of all the people trained via government money to join high-paying world of information technology) rather than to companies to help defer part of an employee’s salary while these people re-train. Sorry but tax credits just don’t translate into re-employment.
The only true shortage is a shortage of new ideas…
The Recruiting Inferno 