Tim Holloway wrote:
What geographical area are you looking in? Have you studied what's actually being used there?
I live in the Dallas, TX area. I talked to one of my former co-workers and updated him that our manager at the studio responsible for getting new business who was pushing a return to office model for training has canceled the last 6 meetings in a row and the last one he told us it's not necessary to be present in the office at this time. I asked him recently what we have as far as new clients, and he said nothing, because none of the ones he is prospecting to are going with us.
Someone in the office described the problem to me as this. They contact our company wanting to add some contractors to their projects, and give them a job description to post on our platform. Many apply and get interviews, and she takes the feedback and sends the best ones for the client to interview directly, and they often reply to her saying they wanted people with 8 years of experience, and all the ones she sent them have only 2-3 years, and she tells them that's what we've got. They either take the most experienced ones and let them learn as they go, or they go with a competitor of ours.
I've been on a hiring panel for an internal project, and getting people who know how to design a service in Spring Boot or create a React component was far and few between, and they were all looking for a project to get that experience the first time because we have nobody to direct our training, tell us what the best route is, how to learn the most relevant information, and they also cut the enablement trainings at the company because they find they aren't worth the money, so in other words, everyone that was hired gets no support or training, and the client expects when we get there that we know all these tools as they think our company is like a bootcamp and we do mock projects, and we don't. We really don't do anything when not on a project but watch Udemy and try building our own drill based projects, so last one I was assigned to I thought I was going there to use Spring Boot and work on services, but then they told me all I was doing was fixing vulnerabilities and pushing to production, and they were kind of shocked when I told them I didn't know how to do any of that, so they'd have to show me.
There was nobody there to shadow or pair with when I asked multiple times, and they told me they'd have people come help me as needed, but everyone that came to ask if I needed help said they only had about 5 minutes until their next meeting, and I told them how they needed to help was by training me to do the job side by side with someone first and then I'd get it in a couple weeks, but eventually they cut me from the project because they just didn't have the time or resources, and my company told them I was a senior associate when I am not.
When I tell people about the problems of the company, they are always like, "Well, maybe it's time to look elsewhere since your career isn't taking off there."
I'm sarcastically like... "Gee! Why didn't I think of that?" People seem to be under the impression that given the industry has a high demand, that it's as easy as just applying for jobs and getting another one in less than a couple months. These aren't tech people though that say this, but people who have no knowledge of the industry, so don't realize the high demand is for people who have many years experience, but the market is oversaturated with Juniors because the many who are struggling to find those first jobs or internships as well as many of the bootcamps that came about the last decade telling people they can get a job quickly after finishing the bootcamp, but there are too many fresh on the market and companies investing in them often find once they train and get experience, they're going to leave the company.
The senior level associates with much experience at our company consist of people who have been on projects with the same client for years, once who get released and get on another one probably the first day, and ones who are looking for jobs elsewhere since our company only gives about a 2-4% yearly raise and about a 3% yearly bonus in one lump payment.
All the jobs that are open in our company that I try to get people to apply to for a referral fee, all of them are pretty much people who have little to no experience.
One of my former coworkers says he saw me as probably one of the best ones in our office and HR told me that most others in my situation aren't getting any interviews for projects at all, so if I'm one of the highest experienced of the available associates and I can't get work, there has to be something wrong.
