patrick.net

Just like housing, the shortage (or excess of) engineers (or nurses, or teachers or whatever else) is relative to location.

I know that whenever I'm traveling, I pick up the local paper and check the want ads... in most places I will see adds for computer scientist, IT managers, database administrators, etc. also ads for nurses, and healthcare professionals. Very few ads for civil engineers, chemical engineers, nor for doctors or pharmacists. So to say that there is "an engineering shortage" or a "shortage of health care workers" oversimplifies the problem.

I can say that, even with 9%+ unemployment, it can be hard to find good people. I don't know why this is - its just my direct experience.

FortWayne says

I remember when they told us we lack skilled factory workers, so they outsourced them all to China. I remember when they told us we lack enough customer service folks, so they outsourced them to India.

In 2001-2002, they tried to outsource Programming and much of the IT work to India, but we ended up with auto check out scanners that say...
"Please remove all items from the bagging area and start over".
... and when we were having meetings here in the states it was 3a.m. over there. Thankfully that didn't work out, and the work came back after a year.

I don't know about engineer shortage, but there certainly isn't a shortage of companies calling me. But by the time they call me, they've all ready gone through the lethargic cheap work force, and know that cheap and good isn't synonymous with Development.

Good comments from all although I'd argue that in some ways we might all be right on this

Dan8267 says

It's so bad that many engineers, particularly in IT, are leaving the industry and entering fields like photography -- and how is that a growing field when everyone has digital cameras nowadays? Enrollment in computer science had been rising considerably in the 1990s and once outsourcing took off in 2000, the number of enrollments have dropped significantly. Go figure, no college student wants to enter an industry that is shipping all its job to third-world nations.

I'm basically in that camp. I earned a AS in 2000. As I graduated plenty of companies were dropping left and right. I was haggled by some every now and then to go back to finish the degree. I was going to but one of the local schools pretty much had old classes and not much that was really technical.

Programming is non physical work. It also is much more complex than before. Back in the 80's there were times when computer clubs would have people make software on one floppy disk..send it in and it might get published. Now the idea of even buying software is alien. Once you take into account the greater number of people that have computers, the sophistication of todays software, piracy and open source it is no wonder why no one really buys software (at least in the physical sense). App stores actually turn it into a closed system where companies (apple comes to mind) approves or disapproves a product.

I have actually met people that did not believe that the world wide web really is around the world.
https://www.elance.com pkennedy says

It has nothing to do with companies wanting cheap engineers. There are just a lot of engineers that aren't engineers. I've done a lot of screening, with just open ended salaries. Post the job, see what you get. It's terrible in most cases.

There are a lot of people who can perhaps fix a PC, but there aren't many people who can do capacity planning for a large company to figure out how much equipment they're going to need and if they're going to need to expand in other areas to handle the capacity. Programmers will hammer out code that generates huge bottle necks, creating night mares elsewhere. Others will just buy up whatever looks neat on the market not realizing the support that each product requires.

Fixing a PC is pretty pointless to be honest with you. I gave away my A+ books 11 years ago. As long as you can back up data then it is fine. The time of zip drives is over..hell any drive might be over. USB might be replaced by putting it into the cloud. Yes I use libre office but any group work I do I perform with google apps. I used to use Windows and have panic attacks if I lost the cd..with ubuntu I can repair the whole thing and sit back as long as I can access the web.

The whole computer/computing etc industry has been constantly cheapened. Since companies do things different what specific work would be valued by another company in IT? Significant programs are mostly made by teams rather than just a individual person.

I think it also depends as what is really an engineer. I might be hated for saying this but I don't think computers can really be engineered. Engineers I know are chemical engineers or those that work in aerospace.

At my last job the computer system was a poor joke. It might have looked well in 1985 (mostly command line) but not today. They use linux but it is an old kernel and kubuntu for some odd reason. Eventually the corporation asked IT to do a few things. IT said it could not be done *HUGE* mistake. Corporate fired pretty much all of them. New systems are starting up to at least take the steam out of needing to use the old one for a few things gradually.

Computers are great don't get me wrong but I really don't think it is worth it to get into as a profession unless it is more specific. The only person I know that recently graduated in IT with a job is into robotics. What was seen as a joke or a toy decades ago has to be a bit of the future. Nano technology might be the next big thing.

corntrollio says

I deal with many people in tech companies, and not all of them are like the Microsofts of the world hiring all kinds of H-1B people. I'm always told that it's hard to find qualified people who fit exactly what people need.

As I live in south Florida, I don't know the details of the Washington state or California market. However, from what I'm told by people who have worked on both the east and west coast, there isn't much difference. The year makes more difference than which coast you're on.

That said, I can assure you that there are qualified engineers, but I don't believe any company knows how to tell the difference between a high-quality engineer and a mediocre one during the hiring process. You really have to try out an engineer to know how good he is. Similarly, engineers really don't know how good or bad a company is until they try it out. The key is retaining good engineers.

corntrollio says

I've also been told that it's hard to keep qualified people because other companies are trying to poach them

What they call poaching, we can call paying engineers what they are worth (or closer to it). The thing is, companies pay as little as they can get away with when they hire, saying the new employee hasn't proved himself yet. However, companies don't give raises anymore. And since inflation is a constant, the only way to maintain real income is by switching from one company to another. That has become standard practice in IT. And of course, it never pays to take a counter-offer.

In fact, most companies don't do a good job of distinguishing good programmers from mediocre ones even after they hire. To make this evaluation, one must not only look at the UIs of applications finished and how quickly they were done, but one must also look at the code and see if it is quality code. This takes more effort than most managers are willing to do. Worst still, many managers of software developers are not software developers and don't know how to program themselves! So, of course, they can't tell the difference between great code and slop.

Now I will say that a great developer is worth 100 times what a mediocre developer is, no exaggeration. This is true because technology amplifies the difference between what a great producer and what a mediocre produce can accomplish. Back in the bronze age, a great stone cutter could produce few more stones for the pyramid than an average stone cutter. But today, great engineers do things that average engineers could never accomplish. Solving the problem of indexing the Internet is something average engineers couldn't do if given a thousand years.

That said, any company that wants truly great engineers (and particularly software developers) can easily find them by offering a salary a mere 20% higher than their competitors. The developers will produce wealth far more than a mere 20% more.

As for absolute numbers, I believe that only about 1% of the people on this planet could write a web server from scratch (just basic I/O API provided like in C) to save their lives. At of that 1%, only 10% are competent enough to work in the IT field. And of that fraction, only 1% are truly great. However, that leaves the world with 7 million competent programmers and 70,000 truly great ones.

And although the population of the Earth will continue to rise, unless there is both good job security and income for engineers in general and software developers in particular, I suspect that the number of competent engineers and great engineers will both decline. It doesn't pay to work your ass off every day of the week and continuously learn new things, if companies just want cheap, low quality labor from third world countries.

Being great at anything requires a huge investment of time and effort, which is essentially an investment of wealth. The time it takes to become an expert in all the different competing technologies is enormous, and it entails the loss of opportunity of pursuing other interests and enterprises. As such, anyone who pursues this strategy needs a substantial return to justify the investment.

corntrollio says

I'm always told that it's hard to find qualified people who fit exactly what people need.

This is because the idiots doing the hiring don't understand what's important and what's not important. The make a laundry list of technologies they want to see on a resume because they don't know of a better way to determine if a candidate is a good fit for a position. A laundry list is actually a terrible way to judge candidates, but it's used so often that all IT resumes read like a laundry list.

Manager: I want someone who has experience pushing red square buttons.

Candidate: I've pushed many different types of buttons. Round ones, square ones, oval ones, irregularly shaped ones, red ones, blue ones, green ones, black ones.

Manager: Yes, but do you have experience with red square buttons?

Candidate: Well, I have experience with red circular buttons, and blue square buttons. I think I can pretty easily figure out how to push a red square button. But no, I don't have experience with that exact configuration.

Manager: I'm sorry, but that's what we use here. I don't think you're qualified for this position.

Imagine if chemist were hired based on the specific chemicals they had worked with in the past. The 93 naturally occurring elements can create trillions upon trillions of combinations. It would be ridiculous to hire chemists based on which tiny subset of these possible combinations they have produced in the past. Yet, that is how IT managers hire.

In reality, there's not much difference between Java and .NET, between My SQL / SQL Server / DB2 / Oracle, between JSP / ASP, between this JavaScript framework and that one. And really, a good developer tends to write code that isn't specific to a particular vender, anyways. What's important is does the developer understand and have experience with databases, object-orient design and development, managed platforms, mobile computing, distributed software, etc.

Whether his database experience is in Microsoft SQL server or IBM's DB2 doesn't matter for shit. Nor does it matter if his experience with EJBs is in Web Sphere or Web Logic. These are trivial differences like red button or blue button. A good developer will learn the particulars as needed. And a good developer with only Java experience will do a better job at .NET development than a mediocre developer with extensive .NET experience. This is something that hiring managers just don't get. And the reason they don't get it, is that most of them don't and haven't developed software.

Nomograph says

It's a complete myth that Silicon Valley tech companies want cheap engineers. Tech is an extremely competitive and fast moving sector, and they actually want the very best engineers money can buy.

I don't work in Silicon Valley, but I do know that IBM has a presence there and that company isn't interested in getting the best engineers it can. It used to back in the 1990s and possibly 1980s, but it abandoned that philosophy around the year 2000. Now IBM doesn't produce hardware or software. They are just a bunch of walking suits that provide lip service tech support.

It's really sad because some of the smartest and most hard-working developers I ever had the pleasure of working with where true blue beamers. Most of them have left the company during the past ten years, some through early retirement and others through downsizing. IBM even sold its Boca campus, the birthplace of the PC, a few years ago. There is a lot of history in that place.

To answer the comment about the anti-education slant:

In my experience a higher degree is at best thought of as work experience. A person with a bachelors and 5-7 years of experience will make about as much as a new Ph.D. Even after several years in industry the difference in salaries is not nearly enough to justify the fiscal sacrifices of graduate school.

For example, my wife and I both earned our Ph.D.s in chemistry from the UC system. It took both of us a year or more to land our first industry jobs in the Bay Area. This was in 2004-5 prior to the recession and according to the statistics presented by the American Chemical Society at the time this was not unusual. When we finally did become employed our compensation packages were roughly equivalent as what my sister was earning at a major pharma company as a Research Assistant III with a BS. All our salaries have tracked more or less equivalently since then. My wife and I each gave up 8+ years of earning potential to go to graduate school. I once calculated the salary discrepancy, it was too depressing. Even today we have yet to break even and I doubt we ever will.

I don't think anyone here is really anti-education, just anti too much education.

New renter says

For example, my wife and I both earned our Ph.D.s in chemistry from the UC system. It took both of us a year or more to land our first industry jobs in the Bay Area.

This is what's wrong with business in America. It is utterly ridiculous that it took two people with Ph.D.s in chemistry over a year to find a job. Chemistry is an extremely useful subject whose practical applications range from drug development to engineering new substances and materials. Chemistry is one of the most important fields in the 21st century if only because of designing new building materials like carbon fiber. But it also relates to biotech and nanotech. There should be a higher demand for chemists today than at any other time in human history.

And I image that getting a Ph.D. in chemistry is exceptionally hard. There can't be as many Ph.D.s in chemistry as there are MBAs. And chemists are more valuable. I can write an application that can manage a company as well as the typical MBA, but it would be a hell of lot harder to write an app that can replace chemists.

New renter says

I don't think anyone here is really anti-education, just anti too much education.

I don't think there is such a thing as too much education. However, education and degrees are not the same thing. And degrees are way overpriced.

Hopefully, you'll come out ahead in the long run. It's sad that our society is doing everything to discourage people from entering high tech fields while all the time politicians pay lip service to developing science and engineering skills.

In the 18th century America was an agricultural society. In the 19th century it became an industrial society. In the 20th century we were a manufacturing society. In the 21st century we have to be a tech development society. It makes no more sense to go back to manufacturing automobiles than it does to go back to being farmers. We've lost the manufacturing industry and can't and shouldn't get it back. Instead, we need to move forward onto the industries that will dominate the next phase of our economy: technological research and development. It is the next natural phase in the ongoing evolution of economies. And if we don't start embracing that vision, China will.

Dan8267 says

I don't think there is such a thing as too much education. However, education and degrees are not the same thing. And degrees are way overpriced.

A degree is supposed to be a metric of education; however in retrospect it seems to me a person can do much better by imply obtaining a minimum of formal education - a BS in my field of chemistry, work in industry and get a more valued "education" than an academic one all the while earning 2-4x as much money, at least for the short term. It may be possible that the higher degrees will pay off eventually but I would say the risk to return is highly questionable at best

Dan8267 says

And I image that getting a Ph.D. in chemistry is exceptionally hard. There can't be as many Ph.D.s in chemistry as there are MBAs. And chemists are more valuable. I can write an application that can manage a company as well as the typical MBA, but it would be a hell of lot harder to write an app that can replace chemists.

Thanks for the vote of confidence; however I had an experience recently that makes me skeptical of software as a replacement of a skilled professional.

My father wrote his living trust using Quicken Lawyer. He was very proud of himself for having saved hundreds of dollars by not using a lawyer. In the trust he left his house to my siblings and myself. He bought the house in 1978 so the prop 13 assessment is relatively low. He made it very clear to my siblings and myself that he wanted one of us to have the house for the prop 13 assessment advantage. Unfortunately he like so many don't understand prop 13/58 as well as he thought he did. He did not grant the executors authority for non-pro rata distribution of the real property to preserve the tax basis for a single beneficiary. I don't believe Quicken clearly advised the need for this for his wishes to be possible. Now we have to sell the house as the extra tax makes it unaffordable.

Dan8267 says

And if we don't start embracing that vision, China will.

Didn't we say the same things about Japan back in the 80's? I also remember the same hyperbole about a shortage of scientists and engineers back then - its the main reason I went into science in the first place.

New renter says

Didn't we say the same things about Japan back in the 80's?

Yes, but Japan screwed themselves over with a housing bubble that reflected our own. Japan refuse to acknowledge the bad investments or let their banks take a loss. As a result, their entire economy came to a stand still. After two loss decades, Japan is still recovering from their housing bubble and their mistakes during its bust.

America has already experience one lost decade and is onto experience a second due to mismanaging our fiscal crisis in some of the same ways that Japan did and by making different mistakes as well.

Still, Japan hasn't experience the kind of brain drain that the U.S. and western Europe has. As a result, a lot of the major electronic companies are still Japanese. In a few decades, I think the major high tech companies in America with be U.S. in trademark only.

Dan8267 says

, Japan hasn't experience the kind of brain drain that the U.S. and western Europe has

?

The US has profited immensely from importing smart people.

Japan has not, and their educational system really isn't that good in creating the large numbers of worker-brains that the #3 global economy really should.

I think China is going to clean Japan's clock this decade and next, economically.

Demographically, the baby boom echo aged 15-19 peaked at 10M in 1990:

But there is no echo echo. By 2020, there will be only 6M in this cohort:

Talk about brain drain!

Dan8267 says

We've lost the manufacturing industry and can't and shouldn't get it back.

I disagree with this.

We'd be better off making our own stuff instead of eg. shipping $300B/yr of future claims against our wealth to China.

China does not have any comparative advantage over us. They just manipulate their currency and cut tons of safety and environmental corners to beat us on price.

This is all going to end very badly for us, not being willing to pay our own way in the world.

Dan8267 says

screwed themselves over with a housing bubble that reflected our own

funny thing about their housing bubble is looking at that chart again:

in 1985 their baby boom was hitting 35-39 and their kids were aged 10-14, putting maximal pressure on the housing stock.

In addition, the yen was adjusted down from ~250 to ~150 during the 80s bubble. This gave Japanese trading firms immensely increased buying power and this wealth effect was felt at home. The world was temporarily their oyster in the late 80s.

But Japan's baby boom was a lot narrower than ours, so the demographic pressure soon abated -- the following cohorts were 20% smaller in the 1990s.

And the flipside of the higher yen began hollowing out Japan, moving jobs out to the peripheral markets, and China.

Dan8267 says

I've personally talked with coworkers who have admitted to actively discouraging their own kids from entering engineering. The accepted advice is major in something that requires physical presence.

I agree completely with this statement. I earned a BS degree in Nuclear Engineering (ABET 4 year degree) but took my first job out of school to be blue collar worker as an apprentice operator. I now have a Reactor Operator license which is a federally issued license from the NRC (Nuclear Regulatory Commision). The plant can’t be run without licensed people. Hell we can’t even have fuel onsite without a licensed operators. A physical presence is required.

I'm not sure why anyone would pursue a PhD in science today. If your going to spend that much time and money on higher education, why not go to medical school? Become a specialist, and you will easily make 4 times more than a chemist.

For engineers who graduated in 2011, they have a 31% unemployment rate. And for the vast majority of those lucky enough to fund jobs, their starting salary was under $30,000. So where is the shortage? Lawyers start out at $160,000 and you NEVER hear anyone argue we have a shortage of lawyers.

http://electronicdesign.com/careers/Infographic2011.aspx

“Too many experienced engineers are currently unemployed,” said a postgraduate student attending the University of Colorado in Denver. “There doesn’t seem to be a stable career path. Job security appears to have disappeared.”

One postgraduate student at Virginia Tech complained: “When I entered my studies in medical physics we were told there was a huge demand and that everyone got a job. Now my friends who have graduated spend months searching and end up taking any job they can find, even if it’s not at all what they wanted.”

http://electronicdesign.com/article/careers/Engineering-Salary-Survey-2011-Faces-of-the-Engineering-Lifecycle/2.aspx

Bellingham Bill says

China does not have any comparative advantage over us. They just manipulate their currency and cut tons of safety and environmental corners to beat us on price.

It's hard to argue that they cut safety when they didn't have it to begin with :-p

Certainly the argument can be made that they manipulated their currency but then again many countries do simply because oil is priced in dollars. If a currency drops against the dollar there goes the price of energy. I've met fair amounts of Haitians over the past 20 years. In the early 90's when the US embargos were on gas was around $50 a gallon! Even other countries have issues. The former shah of iran actually had to import gasoline due to a lack of refining capacity..so they'd export oil. It would be refined and then we'd charge them to get pretty much their own materials back to them.

Technically under bretton woods the USA manipulated their currency..Italy devalued the lira every now and then..just add a few zeros to the end of it.

In the USA we can make anything. We have the material, manpower, technology etc. But it's the costs and regulations that get us. Chances are we look at china the same way how europeans look at the us.

I agree about Japan. They have significant issues. The nuclear incident alone is going to be quite complicated to compensate people and to deal with for quite a long period of time. Chernobyl I've looked at and if it follows the same pattern they might raise taxes for the area and end up with social ills of anyone living close to the plant (survivors of Chernobyl have higher rates of vices given that if a nuclear incident cannot kill them what can?) They hold massive cash reserves but if they spend it the yen increases in value and hurts their exports...add in some xenophobia and it ain't pretty.

China's demographics are interesting too:

When China began ramping up its neomercantilism they had 240M 20 yos:

In 2020, they will have 190M, a loss of 20%:

thenuttyneutron says

. I earned a BS degree in Nuclear Engineering (ABET 4 year degree)

I've always wondered if you had to get security clearance to pursue a nuclear engineering degree. How much big brother do you have to deal with if you get such a degree?

HousingWatcher says

I'm not sure why anyone would pursue a PhD in science today. If your going to spend that much time and money on higher education, why not go to medical school? Become a specialist, and you will easily make 4 times more than a chemist.

Because some people threw up when they had to dissect a frog in high school. I'm not saying me, but some people. I had a friend who did. Yeah, a friend. His name was John. John Smith.

Besides touching sick people is gross.

I agree with those that say that we have a shortage of GOOD engineers. I work in a consumer electronic hardware division at my company (parent company is very large), and the pay + benefits are very competitive. We have a heck of a time getting good people, and retaining them. Lots of people come through to interview, but most don't seem to have much real passion for engineering. We don't demand that people live in the office or anything, but we like to see people that have a personal interest in technical work, and that curiosity that drives one to continuously learn. We usually have to go through a lot of candidates until we hit someone that conveys a sense of this. Also, a couple of our good, passionate people got poached by one of our competitors, and it is proving to be a chore to replace them. Good people are in high demand.

I guess I should be happy since it probably means a guaranteed raise for me next year, to try to keep me from jumping-ship (and I have to do their work in the interim). Yeah, I am a huge nerd and consider myself one of the "passionate" engineers...hell, my hobbies outside of work are quite a bit more technical than my work-work. Anyway, I doubt that there is ANY shortage of degreed engineers. There IS a shortage of passionate individuals that love engineering and have the drive necessary to soak up technical knowledge and commit the effort to building an intuitive understanding of new topics.

If you are looking for something with chemical engineering that isn't pharma based I'd suggest maybe looking at eink. It uses less power than lcd and maybe led but video is starting to creep in. kindle and nook and sony pretty much license the same technologies. Sometime cheap that can replace physical books can become a huge seller in the developing world. Add in some handwriting recognition and it could act as processing of documents as well.

That also reminds me what ever happened to that pharmacist shortage? I thought I remembered hearing some statistic that soon nearly 25% of all prescriptions will just be sent in the mail.

Pharma is laying off by the boat loads. Good luck finding a chemist job.

Dan8267 says

I've always wondered if you had to get security clearance to pursue a nuclear engineering degree. How much big brother do you have to deal with if you get such a degree?

I was not required to obtain any clearance to study Nuclear Engineering. I did however go through an extensive background check, took the MMPI, and interview with a psychologist before I was granted unescorted access to the power plant. I have to go through this process every few years.

Dan8267 says

I've personally talked with coworkers who have admitted to actively discouraging their own kids from entering engineering. The accepted advice is major in something that requires physical presence.

Gee Dan, it sounds like we've met.

Nomo's post sounds like the grad school recruitment pitch.

Wonder why that would be?

thenuttyneutron says

took the MMPI

MMPI Scales

Damn, that sounds Orwellian. Especially the part that was design to detect sexual orientation. Doesn't sound like something your employer or the government should know.

One of the sample questions: (True or False) I have diarrhea once a month or more. And Uncle Sam needs to know that why? Another: (True or False) My sex life is satisfactory. ref

Nomograph says

Not true at all. Ph.D. chemists can make solidly in the six figures right out the starting gate, and they have ZERO DEBT from graduate school. Many rise through the ranks of big pharma or other large corporations and make huge salaries.

Others take a more entrepreneurial tack and become extremely wealthy in the startup environs. Here in La Jolla you can't swing a dead cat without hitting a chemist who hit it big.

Still others combine a chemistry Ph.D. with another degree such as J.D. or MBA, and go on to highly lucrative careers in IP law or science business.

Of course, many who are less skilled, less motivated, or just plain unlucky chemists who remain at or near the bench. These are the folks who risk being flushed out during lean times.

The question isn’t whether one can do well; the question is how LIKELY one is to do well in a career in science or engineering. The CA lottery has made lots of millionaires but I wouldn’t bet my future on winning big there. The point is that an advanced degree in science requires much more of an investment and is much less likely to pay off than in years past.

Don’t get me wrong, I have met a LOT of scientists over the years including some of those La Jolla chemists you hit with your cat. The sad part is that what you call hitting it big is what used to be a normal life for many but is now only for a few.

New renter says

what you call hitting it big is what used to be a normal life for many but is now only for a few.

That's the gotcha! reality (conveniently) left out of the grad school recruitment pitch.

Without a steady stream of grad students to do her bidding, whatsa poor (state supported) girl to do?

New renter says

The point is that an advanced degree in science requires much more of an investment and is much less likely to pay off than in years past.

Don’t get me wrong, I have met a LOT of scientists over the years including some of those La Jolla chemists you hit with your cat. The sad part is that what you call hitting it big is what used to be a normal life for many but is now only for a few.

But some of that is a tad hypocritical though. If the argument is that there isn't a whole ton of jobs with in the market well that's because it might require higher degrees. If everyone had a given degree than the value of it goes down.

Naturally the amount of demand dictates the amount of labor that is needed regardless of skill. I worked at a place that had a welder for stainless steel. That requires a tank license in the state. He was paid $75/hr!......sounds huge right....BUT they'd only need him about four hours a week!

A friend of mine does work at a big pharma company and has done pretty well for himself. Yes there have been layoffs but most of that was dead weight (middle..redundant positions after a merger)

Any time a job requires more education/skills you are going to see applicants coming from a much wider area than simply the city or state level.

The other thing to remember is if we want to admit to it or not there are some that cannot find employment due to their actions and the "system" so to speak. Drug tests are performed even at mcdonalds and walmart..that stuff started by just a bit in the 80's. Background checks can sometimes go nearly 30 years back. If you want to work in a form of security and you cannot legally own a firearm that can hold you back. Some require credit checks under the concept that if you directly handle cash or have access to credit information (credit/debit cards and their numbers), ssn's that you cannot work there if you are in debt. If you were in a trial and proven innocent that still can hold people back. Some will even examine civil cases.

Some places are sticklers for standards.
I know of a fire department (quasi governmental authority not a town one). You have to have military experience to be a firefighter in it. If you have a divorce and you are younger he's accused people of having drinking problems..there's no union in it and everyone that works there is part time doing full time work at other fire departments in the area.

Dan8267 says

This is because the idiots doing the hiring don't understand what's important and what's not important.

Look, I agree there are some people doing hiring who are stupid. For example, I've seen job listings where someone asked for 5 years of experience in something that hasn't even been around for 5 years. But there are people who know what they're looking for who can't find people, despite paying well and knowing what experience someone should have.

Dan8267 says

What they call poaching, we can call paying engineers what they are worth (or closer to it). The thing is, companies pay as little as they can get away with when they hire, saying the new employee hasn't proved himself yet. However, companies don't give raises anymore.

Yes, I think I'd agree that they need to pay more. But the point is that for the good people, the pay keeps rising. The mediocre people don't deserve pay on that level.

Dan8267 says

That said, I can assure you that there are qualified engineers, but I don't believe any company knows how to tell the difference between a high-quality engineer and a mediocre one during the hiring process. You really have to try out an engineer to know how good he is. Similarly, engineers really don't know how good or bad a company is until they try it out. The key is retaining good engineers.

I think there is a kernel of truth in this because your process will never be perfect, but there are ways to do it. You can review people's code if they do software, and you can look at their prior work product for other types of work. It's not that hard to figure out when someone's BSing experience.

bmwman91 says

There IS a shortage of passionate individuals that love engineering and have the drive necessary to soak up technical knowledge and commit the effort to building an intuitive understanding of new topics.

I'd agree with this, but this is probably true of any field. There is a general shortage of intelligent, motivated, passionate individuals in almost any field.

It's sort of like how an MBA will not automatically get you a job. If you went to a non-top 10 school, your MBA is almost worthless -- you probably wasted 2 years of working or however much of your free evenings to get that MBA if you went to certain schools, unless your job prior to B-school required you to get an MBA or paid for it so that you'd come back after graduation. Similarly, just because you are an engineer by degree does not make you a qualified worker.

HousingWatcher says

Lawyers start out at $160,000 and you NEVER hear anyone argue we have a shortage of lawyers.

This is a big myth:
1) this is only for big law firm jobs, which are a very tiny portion of the overall law job market
2) even at many top schools, not that many people end up in big law
3) the median salary for lawyers is actually much much lower because most of the other law jobs pay a lot lower -- there are actually two peaks in the data -- one much lower around $60-70K and one for big firms

We don't really have a shortage of lawyers because, like for MBAs and for many other degrees, lots of people go to crappy law schools to become lawyers and are surprised that they have no job prospects. Law schools are partly to blame because their marketing materials generally lie outright about job prospects -- every school jukes the stats a lot. "Oh that person worked at starbucks, they left the law, so that shouldn't count in the stats..."

Nomograph says

All a PhD, or any other degree for that matter, buys you is a chance to compete. There are no guarantees.

Exactly. It may have been the case that a PhD in the 60s and 70s automatically gave you certain opportunities, but the market is more competitive now. That doesn't mean that it isn't hard to find qualified Chem PhDs -- it still is. Some people went to lower ranked schools and were unimaginative in their dissertation or maybe were just unlucky and didn't get good results. It's no surprise if they don't do as well as high flying, highly-motivated, creative top school grads.

Nomograph says

Of course, many who are less skilled, less motivated, or just plain unlucky chemists who remain at or near the bench. These are the folks who risk being flushed out during lean times.

Exactly. Luck is a factor too.

Nomograph says

SCIENTIST
North America-United States-California-San Diego
Job Posting:21-Sep-2011-Requisition ID 7541110919
Apply
|Add to My Job Cart

RESEARCH ASSOCIATE-Neuroscience Drug Discovery
North America-United States-California-San Diego
Job Posting:14-Sep-2011-Requisition ID 7083110909
Apply
|Add to My Job Cart

SCIENTIST-Neuroscience Drug Discovery
North America-United States-California-San Diego
Job Posting:14-Sep-2011-Requisition ID 7002110908
Apply
|Add to My Job Cart

MOLECULAR/CELLULAR NEUROSCIENTIST
North America-United States-California-San Diego
Job Posting:14-Jul-2011-Requisition ID 2350110624
Apply
|Add to My Job Cart

SENIOR RESEARCH SCIENTIST
North America-United States-California-San Diego
Job Posting:06-Jun-2011-Requisition ID 3944110331
Apply
|Add to My Job Cart

Great - now are any of these these positions active?

I've been in the job market enough to recognize that just because a position is advertised it may not be real or active. Companies go out on fishing expeditions all the time or have a position with an internal candidate already in mind but need to advertise the position for legal reasons. I've also seen job reqs pulled for lack of funding. Heck, the conspiracy minded might accuse employers of running impossible to fill ads to facilitate the shortage myth.

Ever read "The Grapes of Wrath?"

corntrollio says

All a PhD, or any other degree for that matter, buys you is a chance to compete. There are no guarantees.

Exactly. It may have been the case that a PhD in the 60s and 70s automatically gave you certain opportunities, but the market is more competitive now. That doesn't mean that it isn't hard to find qualified Chem PhDs -- it still is. Some people went to lower ranked schools and were unimaginative in their dissertation or maybe were just unlucky and didn't get good results. It's no surprise if they don't do as well as high flying, highly-motivated, creative top school grads.

Or aren't willing to spend 12+hrs/day 6 days a week in the lab for $30k anymore. A new Chem Ph.D. buddy of mine interviewed at an environmental chemistry company in San Diego which offered him exactly that.

A mutual friend of ours was working in that company. Those were the kind of hours she was putting in herself. She told us that job had only been advertised because the owner was facing a mutiny from his workers. He clearly didn't want to hire anyone, just go through the motions to appear as if he had tried but couldn't find anyone.

This discussion brought to mind the question why there are no cries of a shortage of "qualified" CEOs and other company officers. Boards are clearly willing to pay enormous sums for even mediocre talent yet there has never seemed to be any concern of a lack of qualified applicants.

Skip college and try stripping instead:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/10/25/strippers-in-williston-no_n_1030834.html

Strippers In Williston, North Dakota Raking In $2,000 Per Night In Tips

New renter says

Great - now are any of these these positions active?

I've been in the job market enough to recognize that just because a position is advertised it may not be real or active. Companies go out on fishing expeditions all the time or have a position with an internal candidate already in mind but need to advertise the position for legal reasons. I've also seen job reqs pulled for lack of funding. Heck, the conspiracy minded might accuse employers of running impossible to fill ads to facilitate the shortage myth.

Certainly those are good points. I would say that red flags would be if the experience required cannot really exist. I remember when Windows XP came out and I saw an ad looking for 8 years experience with it when it was only out for three..

Sometimes jobs are posted internally..other times they aren't. I've seen plenty of jobs on indeed that I found out later weren't posted internally. Of course that frustrates the crap out of employees already there. My first job they actually took out a newspaper ad and didn't tell anyone ahead of time..boy were they pissed.

zzyzzx says

Skip college and try stripping instead:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/10/25/strippers-in-williston-no_n_1030834.html

Strippers In Williston, North Dakota Raking In $2,000 Per Night In Tips

As thousands of men move to Williston, North Dakota seeking high-paying jobs working for oil companies, area strippers have seen their salaries skyrocket, CNNMoney reports. Strippers claim that they can make $2,000 to $3,000 per night in tips -- more than in typical strip club hot spots like Las Vegas -- dancing for the oil rig workers, many of whom moved to the town without their families.

If the homeowner isn't insulted by your offer...you didn't bid low enough!!!

Tempting...So tempting.
I knew people who took that route. It takes a strange combination of an enormous ego and low self-esteem.

Still does one have to service the VIP lounge for those kind of tips?

Nomograph says

SCIENTIST
North America-United States-California-San Diego
Job Posting:21-Sep-2011-Requisition ID 7541110919
Apply
|Add to My Job Cart

RESEARCH ASSOCIATE-Neuroscience Drug Discovery
North America-United States-California-San Diego
Job Posting:14-Sep-2011-Requisition ID 7083110909
Apply
|Add to My Job Cart

SCIENTIST-Neuroscience Drug Discovery
North America-United States-California-San Diego
Job Posting:14-Sep-2011-Requisition ID 7002110908
Apply
|Add to My Job Cart

MOLECULAR/CELLULAR NEUROSCIENTIST
North America-United States-California-San Diego
Job Posting:14-Jul-2011-Requisition ID 2350110624
Apply
|Add to My Job Cart

SENIOR RESEARCH SCIENTIST
North America-United States-California-San Diego
Job Posting:06-Jun-2011-Requisition ID 3944110331
Apply

My issue isn't only whether the jobs are there but whether they pay enough to make up for 7-10 years of low wages and potential student loan debt? If the same job requires a BS and 10-15 years of experience or a Ph.D. with 5 years there is NO point to taking the Ph.D. route.

The key to getting people interested in science and engineering is to show them that the sacrifices they will make have a real chance of paying off and DON'T squander them on expensive boondoggles (I'm looking at YOU space shuttle and international space station!)

New renter says

Tempting...So tempting.

I'd be a stripper - if my skin fit better.

I interviewed a guy today who had a double masters (CS & EE) and more than 8 years of industry experience.

He couldn't implement a trivial serialization problem -- the kind that any first-year CS student should be able to handle.

Anyone who claims there's no shortage is full of shit.

Please, if you know good software engineers in the bay area, NYC, seattle, or boston, send me a message. I could use the referral bonus.

Edit:

And, in case you're wondering, someone with that experience will make around $150-200k, plus bonus and equity. The benefits are pretty obscene, too.

Kevin says

I interviewed a guy today who had a double masters (CS & EE) and more than 8 years of industry experience.

He couldn't implement a trivial serialization problem -- the kind that any first-year CS student should be able to handle.

Anyone who claims there's no shortage is full of shit.

Please, if you know good software engineers in the bay area, NYC, seattle, or boston, send me a message. I could use the referral bonus.

Edit:

And, in case you're wondering, someone with that experience will make around $150-200k, plus bonus and equity. The benefits are pretty obscene, too.

Great, if you can send me a job description and some contact info I'll be happy to check around. I know quite a few software engineers who may fit your needs.