5-Minute Roast, Vol. 2, No. 10
A Poke in the Eye of the Online/Multimedia Industrial Complex
[scientifically tested to take no longer than 3 minutes to read, unless you're scanning the classifieds while reading]
A Poke in the Eye of the Online/Multimedia Industrial Complex
[scientifically tested to take no longer than 3 minutes to read, unless you're scanning the classifieds while reading]
The High-Tech Brain Drain: Reality or a Cute Rhyme?Silicon Valley -- These are high-flying times in high tech. Any 22-year-old hack that knows how to program in C++ can command a six-figure salary, a mountain of stock options, and the keys to one of the three remaining San Francisco condos. And if you think programmers are hard to come by, just try to find a good CEO. Every fast-talking, suit-wearing, middle-aged white guy is taken, and the available ones are either under SEC investigation or used to work at Apple.
Now comes a stream of reports and half-truths from the press (SF Examiner, Upside) that the whole employment crisis is just an overblown myth. Some even suggest that it's a ploy to get the government to relax immigration laws so companies can import entire Indian towns for big coding projects.
We at 3MR wanted to get to the bottom of this controversy, so we convened some of the brightest and loudest for a roundtable discussion of the facts -- or at least some warmed-over, muddled opinions. The panel includes Ben Dover, crack head-hunter, Enrico Enrager, gadfly and myth debunker, Monica Lewdinsky, who worked in the White House Chief of Stiff, uh, Staff office, and Max Schlickting, 3MR editor and moderator of the panel.
Schlickting: Is there a real hiring crunch, or is this a rumor that won't stay crunchy in milk?
Dover: Max, I don't eat breakfast. Don't have time. I have dozens of positions to fill at dozens of high-tech companies hungry for smart people. We really need smart people, we're dying for smart people. (If we were any smarter, we'd hire ourselves...)
Enrager: Oh, sure, you'd just love to hire one of your friends, wouldn't you? This whole shortage is based on the idea that there are only a handful of smart people, and everyone else who's applying is deficient: too old, handicapped, don't schmooze enough, don't drive Ferraris, etc. Shouldn't you reach out beyond your group of elitist friends?
Dover: That's a load of bunk! There was an opening for a vice president at Cystscape once, and we interviewed a black woman! There are rumors that Steve Jobs might hire a woman as CEO of Apple...or was the rumor that he was using pictures of dead women in Apple's ad campaign? Nonetheless...
Lewdinsky: Our government figures show that there are less programmers graduating from college than there were 20 years ago. However, our figures don't account for students who are recruited out of high school.
Dover: Yes, yes, we need more training for college students so they have the skills we desire...
Enrager: Classes like "Cramming for Ship Dates," "Selling Your Soul for Stock Options," and "Yuppie 101: Overpaying for Real Estate" would help you out, right?
Lewdinsky: Why not train interns who would work for free, then give them direction, focus and love...
Schlickting: Let's not go there. Dover, can you explain the thinking behind the massive hires going on?
Dover: If a company has a project that relates to the Net, it has to strike fast while the opportunity is hot, hire lots of smart people. Get their startup company staffed up to 200-400 bodies --
Enrager: Then you'll realize you're not making numbers and lay off half of them. What's the point? Why not just staff up at reasonable numbers in the first place? Wouldn't you say that most of the instant millionaires in the Valley are on paper only? There isn't a product, a service, an actual DOLLAR REVENUE -- just a lot of hot air so Wall Street buys into the IPO, no?
Dover: That's not fair. Some of the executives we've placed have worked for companies for an entire year. Some have even stayed beyond the time they could sell their options. This is a shortage of crisis proportions! There's still no CEO at Apple or Wired! It's a brain drain!
Enrager: Your brain's drained! You just want to exploit people!!
At this point, Enrager and Dover give each other choke-holds while Schlickting and Lewdinsky make out furiously. All's unfair in love and war...and high-tech recruiting.
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"3-Minute Roast" is a weekly, advertisement-free, opinionated rip on anything that strikes our fancy in the online world.
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