Vox Article Takes an Unflinching Look at the Job Openings to Applicants Ratio

[Black Aeronaut]

Article here:
https://www.vox.com/recode/22673353/unem...-algorithm

While I do agree that some applicants are being a bit too ambitious in looking for a "promotion" or a different-but-similar job, it still appears that the majority of the onus is on the perspective employers for setting unrealistic expectations, failing to understand what these jobs truly entail, and refusing good applicants because they do not want to offer on-the-job training.

It's like I've said elsewhere.  I could probably have a great job managing factory automation because the Mk45 gun mount I worked on in the Navy is really no different.  It is a programmable, automated system with many moving parts, optical sensors, proximity sensors, and hydraulic solenoid valves.  It operates on a 1600psi hydraulic system with four separate hydraulic circuits, plus two low-power hydraulic pumps for maintenance and emergency use.  It's a pretty damn complex system that requires a lot of upkeep.

But do employers see in me the potential for a good maintenance technician who can keep their factory line running smooth?  Of course not.  They want someone who can not only turn a wrench and wrangle wire harnesses, but also knows like eight different programming languages because they use digital logic control units in the equipment, and they actually don't know which language they speak so they just spam a bunch of different ones in the job description. 

(As if you make your very own logic controllers with custom programming code?  Get the fuck outta town bitch.  We all know you buy the cheapest piles of shit from China or India.  And then you got the audacity to cry about them breaking all the damn time and try to pin it all on the techs working on them when there's next to no documentation, and if there is it reads like it was translated from poorly written Sanskrit by Google Translate.)

Oh, and they also want you working on the factory line with the other workers when you're not busy fixing or setting up something, and at only a couple more dollars an hour more than they are, and putting in 10-to-12 hour days six or maybe seven days a week.  Because PRODUCTIVITY!

[Labster]

As always, the three best ways to get a job are: network, network, and network.  Nothing about the current market changes that.  It's just harder to network now.  But you still need to know people to get into new places.  I'm interviewing in the morning for a company that does ERP, and I decided to look that up today because I couldn't figure out how you make money off erotic role-playing.  But how did I get in the door?  I had a friend recommend me to another friend who works at the company.

Definitely, one of the problems is that decadent Americans don't want to work in the same conditions as Chinese laborers.  I mean, come on, who needs a union when they already have suicide nets!  And yet, we have to compete in the global marketplace.

Maybe a part of this is like they say in the article, companies have these websites that make them think they can get the perfect hire.  But the perfect hire doesn't exist, no matter how many search terms you filter on.  Having worked in HR tech, I've become more convinced that all of this technology we've developed to measure people doesn't replace good management.  Employees are people, not data, no matter how hard you try.  I quit my last job pretty soon after I heard the CEO -- who's a relatively good guy, really -- use the line that our company existed to make the best use of our clients' "human capital".  Capital comes from Latin caput, as in "head of cattle" or as in "chattel".  If my job there was becoming a program to assess humans by their monetary value, it was seriously time to GTFO.

I definitely see the other side -- every hire is a risk.  And the more complex the job, the higher the risk.  It took my father about two days to figure out if a new guy would be a good deliveryman, but it took me three months to decide if a new programmer would be effective.  It's easy to determine that someone can write a program, but hard to know if they can understand the complexities of your particular software system, and it takes lots of expensive time to know for sure.

[Spoilsport]

I was tinkering on an Alien fiction and that came up: "Do you really think the Company would think twice about spending human resources on getting whatever weapon or tech is down there?"