As with everything I post here, the following is my opinion and you are welcome to disagree.

IT recruiting is a mess right now in our area.  I feel bad for all the good recruiters and PMs who are trying to find people to staff projects.  I get calls and emails from recruiters regularly and I don’t have anyone to send them.  Of course I’d rather take advantage of the sweet recruiting bonus at SafeNet anyway, but the fact is I just don’t know anyone who is looking.

The ITAA is currently lobbying to remove H-1B visa caps because according to them 859,000 tech jobs are going unfilled every year.  The ITAA is obviously lobbying for cheap labor to drive down yours & my salaries, but there is clearly something going on right now.  No, I don’t think we’re going to see salaries at 1999 levels nor should we, but things are picking up right now.  There is no one to do the work.

Part of the issue right now is that companies are simply not investing in hiring and retaining junior level developers.  Every project I see requires “One senior and 3 mid level” developers.  People don’t become mid-level developers by going to grad school or by doing a single internship one summer: they do it by building systems, initially as junior developers.  Hopefully with some guidance from someone who has already built many systems. 

When I was getting my start, I was lucky enough to have fantastic mentors, people who had the skills and could work with me to make me better.   There was also a company directive stating that it was part of their job to spend that time with me.  If I ever saw one of these guys on the street (my first job was in Madison, a ways from me) I would shake their hand, buy them a drink, and thank them for helping to give me a good start.  In fact, one of the reasons I have tried to pursue more senior level positions in my career is to be able to work with less experienced people: find the ones who “get it”, and spend time with them turning them into the next great developer.

I just don’t see companies making this investment today.  The kids with CS degrees are having trouble finding work because they are not yet mid-to-senior-level.  The kids a few classes younger than them are not going into CS majors because they see these kids having trouble finding work.   A myth starts that “American kids don’t like CS” and we get lobbyists at the soapbox talking about how poor our educational system is.  Good paying jobs + Availability of Jobs = Students in that major.

Companies refuse to hire inexperienced people and then complain that there’s no one out there who’s looking for a job because most people are (wisely) taking decent care of their people.  They need to hire someone for a particular project, meaning they need someone with X,Y,Z skill set already.  “We have a deadline and there is no time to bring someone up to speed on this.”  Their mid and senior level people, the good ones who get stuff done who might also make good mentors, they are already overworked as they try to balance their own work with helping out their supposedly mid-level “peers” who aren’t getting the work done because they don’t “get it”, but were lucky enough to get in before the bubble burst and have a “mid level” title now.  Everyone is running around as though the skies were falling and no one is investing in the next generation of talent.  If you cannot find the talent, you need to seriously consider home-growing the talent that you need.  People will learn your business while they learn your technology.

I will close with this: I do very well at Safenet, so I am not looking for work.  However, the one thing that an employer could do that would show me that they “Get it” would be to offer to pay me a great salary to be a tech lead and mentor of junior developers.  I would certainly send the brightest kids in their direction.  Invest in the next generation of talent, or we are going to have several messes on our hands.