Is it that you couldn't find available skills, or that you couldn't find
people willing to work at the rate you wanted to pay? I can understand not
being able to find someone in your own backyard; that's what relocation is
about.
Obviously we have tried to find somebody in our own backyard first because
close proximity is always better IMO, but with that being said we are VERY
comfortable with a remote workforce (as most of ours is). It's just hard
finding the right individuals that have the right personality to work from
home every day of the week and be productive without having to guide them.
And when we do find those individuals it's hard to pull them from their
current employers as they are usually top notch people/personality to begin
with.
To end that paragraph I would say that we definitely don't try to go with
the cheapest possible route, though we don't hand out crazy salaries either.
What skill set were you looking for?
Somebody exactly like me :-)
Really in the end we look for individuals that are driven to succeed and are
team players (personality) and can pick up languages easily (i.e. RPG, Java,
.NET, PHP, ColdFusion, etc). Sure most all job postings have the team
player phrase, but for us it is extremely true because we don't necessarily
have a "I report to xyz" in our company - everybody needs to be self
sufficient.
Here is one of our job postings as an example:
http://rpg-xml.com/employment.aspx (yes I realize it says it will report to
the senior developer, which contradicts what I said above - more of a
formality than anything)
Instead, they attempted to get "senior RPG developers" for $35 an hour.
Depending on the situation and how many hours a company gave a remote senior
RPG developer this is a reasonable rate (i.e. 50hrs/week x $35/hr x
52weeks/yr = $91k). Then again not everyone wants to work more than 40
hours a week like I do :-) I know where you are coming from though - you
can't find full time consultants willing to work for that rate if you don't
dedicate a certain number of hours per week for them.
Thanks for your comments,
Aaron Bartell
http://mowyourlawn.com
-----Original Message-----
From: midrange-nontech-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:midrange-nontech-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Joe Pluta
Sent: Friday, July 27, 2007 8:58 AM
To: 'Non-Technical Discussion about the AS400 / iSeries'
Subject: RE: It's election time for COMMON again. He's baaaaaaaaaaack.
From: albartell
I actually think we now have a different problem in the US in that we
don't have enough qualified programmers.
This is an interesting viewpoint, Aaron, and is one promoted by pretty much
every sector looking to hire cheap labor. And I don't want to spend a ton
of time on the topic, but let's review it.
Look at the green card issue for tech
jobs that keeps popping up. I was at a recent advisory meeting for
the local college and it was interesting how everyone was finding it
hard to locate good talent in the local market and people were
thinking of going global simply because our population isn't providing
enough of the right people.
Now here is an interesting point. Is it that you couldn't find available
skills, or that you couldn't find people willing to work at the rate you
wanted to pay? I can understand not being able to find someone in your own
backyard; that's what relocation is about.
If it's simply a matter of getting the cheapest possible rates, then that's
when you're going to go offshore (and in many cases you're going to get
exactly what you pay for).
I felt the same pain as we had been looking for a solid RPG senior
developer for about 9 months and finally have one willing to work
remotely. We thought briefly about going global but that just
wouldn't be worth our time because of our size (smaller company).
Believe me, it was a VERY BRIEF thought :-)
What skill set were you looking for? I agree that it's not as easy to find
good System i talent as it used to be, simply because the rampant abuse of
the H-1B and L-1 visas have cratered the job market. Remember, during the
early 2000's, most companies wouldn't even think of having someone
telecommute. In fact, I find it amazing how many companies won't allow U.S.
citizens to telecommute, but think nothing of shipping a job overseas. Had
they embraced telecommuting (and many people would have happily worked for a
lower rate from home), we would probably still have a lot more people in the
job market. Instead, they attempted to get "senior RPG developers" for $35
an hour.
Ah well, on we go.
Joe
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