Re: RE: Midrange Jobs National Discussion

Jon has some valid points. I am very skilled in RPG400 and have taught 
myself RPG IV. Because I have been off the iseries for a few years due 
to family obligations and a very slow market, companies will not even 
look at me. Yet I see the same companies advertising for RPG 
programmers over and over for the same position, because the people 
they hire do not work out. As Jon said why not hire highly skilled 
people with aptitude and train them. If they were to hire me it would 
not take long for me to reach a high skill level with RPG IV and RPGLE. 
I am more than happy to start at a mid level salary and work my way up. 
Instead these companies hire programmers with less skills or aptitude 
for acquiring the neccessary skills and they end up looking for a new 
person 2-3 times a year. Where's the logic?

----- Original Message -----
From: Jon Paris <Jon.Paris@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Tuesday, January 30, 2007 2:44 pm
Subject: RE: Midrange Jobs National Discussion
To: midrange-jobs@xxxxxxxxxxxx

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" Our experience within the last few years is that it is hard to find
seasoned ISeries people who can handle large systems and large scale
projects.  When we go looking, the prospects are slim."

This to me is one of the great mysteries.  As has been apparent in 
thesethreads, there are many System i folks out there who seem to 
be looking for
work.  At the same time I constantly hear from customers that one 
of the
reasons they are considering moving off the box is a lack of qualified
staff.  You don't mention that you are looking for "cheap" staff - 
which is
often one of the problems - so why are all the qualified people 
not rushing
after your vacancies?

Have you considered training folks with experience in other 
languages?  Or
perhaps even training people with aptitude and experience in your 
industryto program?

As I noted in an earlier post - the staff shortage is one that 
System i is
simply seeing before other platforms because as a community we are 
smallcompared with Java etc. But I am convinced that outsourcing 
will be a
necessity before long because there simply aren't new kids 
entering the
field.  Comp-sci is passé - the kids aren't interested.

Jon Paris
Partner400

www.Partner400.com 



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