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AI Businesses United States Technology

Now Fighting for Top Tech Talent: Makers of Turbines, Tools and Toyotas (wsj.com) 124

Posted by msmash from the tussle-continues dept.
The tussle over technology talent is reaching far beyond Silicon Valley. From a report: Firms from industrial giants to car makers are rethinking the way they recruit as they compete with each other and traditional technology outfits for people with expertise in high-tech fields like machine learning, artificial intelligence and cybersecurity. For some positions that Siemens AG needs to fill, there may be a universe of fewer than 2,000 qualified people in the U.S., said Michael Brown, vice president of talent acquisition in the Americas for the German industrial conglomerate that makes everything from gas turbines to mammography machines. "The question is how many of those are looking for a job?" Mr. Brown said. Finding the right potential candidates on sites like LinkedIn isn't easy because "they're tired of being found."

Siemens has 377,000 employees world-wide and about 50,000 in the U.S. At the moment, it has about 1,500 open jobs across America, most of which require some software or science-related background. Employers are handicapped by several factors, data show and recruiters say: Cutting-edge skills are evolving faster than universities can train people, the supply of talented young workers entering these fields isn't satisfying the huge demand for them, and mobility -- a worker's willingness to uproot their life for a job in a new place -- has declined. The odds of luring rare, coveted candidates away from their current job or city are long, Mr. Brown said.
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Now Fighting for Top Tech Talent: Makers of Turbines, Tools and Toyotas More

Now Fighting for Top Tech Talent: Makers of Turbines, Tools and Toyotas

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  • I've heard for years... (Score:4, Informative)

    by Type44Q ( 1233630 ) on Friday June 01, 2018 @12:05PM (#56710424)
    I've heard for years that 'tool and die' is where it's at...

  • The Problem (Score:5, Insightful)

    by darkain ( 749283 ) on Friday June 01, 2018 @12:11PM (#56710454) Homepage

    "The supply of talented young workers entering these fields isn't satisfying the huge demand for them"

    "Facebook, Amazon, and Hundreds of Companies Post Targeted Job Ads That Screen Out Older Workers "

    Need I say more?

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by methano ( 519830 )
      There's no problem finding tech talent in any field. The problem is in finding talent that will work for not so much and won't cost much in insurance costs.

      Maybe if we nationalize health insurance, with industry footing some of the bill, we could start utilizing some of the older tech talent (like me, who can run circles around these young whippersnappers) without fear of going bankrupt when they get cancer.

      Just a thought.

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by Gr8Apes ( 679165 )
        I'd have to agree that the health insurance industry has infected not only health care, but industry in general in the US. Imagine being told by HR that your next 2 hires must be under 30! I kid you not. The reason? Our health insurance is going to hit the next price tier if we hire anyone older.
      • Yeah because raising taxes to pay for that just works so well with the economy. Pretty sure we just spent the last 30 years testing that theory out and it isn't working all that well.

        • Public expenditure per capita for healthcare in the US, with its notionally private insurance system, is already more than total expenditure per capita for healthcare for most European nations except the UK. If the US moved to system like there's it would be a tax cut.

          • BAAAAAAAHAHAAHAAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHA......You actually think we have a private insurance system.

            I spent 20 years in the Air Force under a public/socialist health care system. It worked ok at times (dental was pretty good) other times it was pretty fucked up and useless (pretty much everything not dental).

            Now that I retired from the AF and am back in the really, real world guess how different my health care is. The only difference is I have slightly more choice where I get to go, otherwise it is not much

    • Yes, wages have been flat, that needs to be said.

      In a capitalist system there are never any true shortages, you just have pay what the market demands.

      You can't simultaneously gripe about lack of talented candidates while only raising wages 1-2% annually in complete lock step with your competition. If these people are vital for the company to survive they should be paid whatever is needed. After all, that is the argument for inflated CEO pay.

      • Or you can find competent candidates, train them, and give them a work environment and/or pay sufficient to keep them with you. And suck it up when you hit a brief downturn and hold off on your layoffs so you don't give them a reason to go work for your competition.

        Thinking everyone has the skills because someone else trained them doesn't work. Not paying enough to someone who has the skills when very few others don't (see first issue) doesn't work.

        If you want to lowball your pay and benefits, train the ski

  • Old trick, new dog (Score:3)

    by thunderclees ( 4507405 ) on Friday June 01, 2018 @12:11PM (#56710456)

    Assuming that this is really true and not just another attempt to justify bringing in cheap, exploitable, incompetent, foreign labor it sounds like they should train workers for these jobs.
    They could either pool resources and form a school/cert and share graduates or do this in house.
    Something like this is being done now by Swiss luxury watch makers to train talent to do repairs and maintenance.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by AvitarX ( 172628 )

      If this is true, there isn't the capacity to train them at universities.

      • There were examples of this kind of thing at universities in the US.
        Chrystler used to have a partnership with schools where they would pay for a 2 year degree and for tools and the budding mechanic would work for them for a certain amount of time after graduation.
        In general though US universities do not seem to do this well.
        They are often expensive and have no interest in this.
        They can be this way since they can fill a seat with a subsidized foreign national.

    • The point is: Technology is moving too fast for university training to keep up. People need to continually re-train. People that do that already have jobs.

      Pointing out that 400 year old technology (mechanical watches) is 'trainable', isn't on point. If they found low residue oils that broke up the Rolex maintenance gravy train, they wouldn't use it.

      • Re:Old trick, new dog (Score:4, Interesting)

        by Comrade Ogilvy ( 1719488 ) on Friday June 01, 2018 @12:56PM (#56710774)

        Your point is correct, but I would suggest the underlying problem is that companies are unwilling to figure out how to train up people to these jobs. In the short term, it is quite expensive to train up 5 people when there is a good chance 3 will be poached. But not having key necessary skills can potentially be even more expensive.

        • On the other hand, technophiles that just naturally continually retrain can write their own ticket.

          Some employers are blinded by need of formal training or certs. Hence cert monkeys...

    • Gotta agree. Universities are not the answer, though. They are too far divorced from the work-environ. I interview new grads a lot and we almost always despair and hire someone else with experience and a degree in English, Music, or uhm nothing at all. This constant business weasel whining needs to always be post-fixed with "at the current wage". Yeah, you can't hire, boo fucking hoo, PAY MORE DUMBASS. Problem solved. If you're business requires a razor thin .01% margin and the only way you can scrape by is
  • The underlying problem is the recruitment process. HR and the recruiting agencies are obstacles that are hard to overcome.

    The requirement for people with 10 years experience of a concept that is only 5 years old is a problem. Racism, ageism and sexism are problems.

    Most present systems are over-reliant on buzzword matching, which might work better if everyone agreed what the buzzwords were, and what they meant.

    It is not much use attracting people to your job if you then reject them due to inability to e

    • Additionally while AI for example is quite old, it's been recent advances in AI that have really put it back on the map. The broad study course I took 20 years ago probably isn't going to qualify me for these things without substantial study. Access to education & retraining for people in technical fields that are either outdated or offshored is expensive and hard to obtain. It might not be hard to take a person with a graduate degree in computer science from one field and retrain him to do AI for examp

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by PPH ( 736903 )

        it's been recent advances in AI that have really put it back on the map

        Not really. When I got into the field, I picked up a set of The Handbook of Artificial Intelligence (by Cohen and Feigenbaum, copyright 1982). I recognize many of the cutting edge AI technologies as originally described by these books. Even though they have been re-labeled with a new set of buzzwords. What has advanced is the hardware. Where a mainframe or minicomputer would have taken many minutes to arrive at a solution, the same algorithms run on my phone in milliseconds.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Gamasta ( 557555 )

      I disagree. I was hired six months ago by Siemens (in Germany) and have yet to meet somebody from HR. Sent my CV because of a job posting which went straight to the technical manager who posted the job offer; went on the interview and was given an answer right away. I was called on the phone a few times afterwards by HR (always the same person) after the interview to get updates on when they were sending me a contract; it came a few weeks after the interview. I quit my old job (30 day notice) and started th

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by PPH ( 736903 )

        Siemens is a company that very much values expertise.

        This. The parent poster was describing more of an experience with American companies. And it's not just in hiring individuals. In my area of expertise, it's difficult to find an engineering firm that hasn't been scooped up by Thales or Schneider Electric.

      • Germany has good unions and apprenticeship systems that gives people realy skills not 2-4 years of pure classroom.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by kimanaw ( 795600 )

      Its actually much worse than that now (at least in IT). I've recently been casually looking for work, made the mistake of posting a CV on a couple of the usual sites, and am now bombarded with emails/texts/phone calls entirely from Indian offshore boilerrooms. Some of the voicemails are laughably tragic: the din of background noise from an Indian call center, and the caller's accent so thick I can't understand a word of it. I'd be surprised if any self respecting candidate - qualified or not - would tolera

  • Siemans seems like a smart company. They hire in smaller centers where the labor is cheaper.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by Gamasta ( 557555 )

      Maybe true for the US. In Germany HQ is located in Munique, one of the most expensive areas in Germany. A lot of research is done in a much smaller town called Erlangen, which recently ranked 4th in salaries paid in german cities and is very expensive to live in or buy property. I know because I live there.

  • It's a bubble, and it won't be long until it pops (Score:5, Insightful)

    by RobinH ( 124750 ) on Friday June 01, 2018 @12:26PM (#56710564) Homepage

    We're in a ridiculous bubble market right now. Some examples: at our company we're struggling to hire, more than we ever have, and new people are leaving 2 days in because they got a position somewhere else. Yep, it's great for employees, but please realize we're talking completely unskilled employees here. I've talked with people from other places and it seems to be similar everywhere. Also on the skilled side, I just went hunting for a plumber to sell me a new water heater for my house, and one plumber I used before just ignored my request, and then another one gave me a quote and then isn't getting back to me, even though I'm eager to get the job done and pay him. He claims they're very busy. Where my wife works they'd announced they want to increase the size of her department but they've had several unfilled positions for over a year and can't fill them.

    This is what happens when the economy starts doing well - it goes into an uncontrolled upward spiral. That's why the government is increasing interest rates, to try to keep inflation from growing. What happens is, since everyone's eager to hire and buy stuff to fulfill demand, they're all willing to pay more and that's why inflation grows quickly. In reality there's not much flexibility in labour so once we get the unemployment rate down low, inflation starts to rise.

    Unfortunately efficiency starts to drop. Training new people who are job hopping costs a lot more. Also, companies start to put off routine maintenance because they don't have enough maintenance people and there's a big push to produce more product to fulfill the demand. New capacity can't be brought online this fast because it requires large capital investment, and labour is already scarce.

    On the radio I'm starting to hear a lot more advertisements for big loans "even if you have poor credit" and lots more ads for cheque cashing and payday loans. The wording is reminiscent of the ads that were on the radio leading up to the 2008 crash (at that time they were pushing interest-only mortgages). Giving people with bad credit more access to credit is a big red flag. You're dumping more demand into the marketplace (those people immediately spend that money), but the risks of default go way up.

    It's also been a relatively long time since the last recession - longer than usual anyway. We're due.

    I can't tell you when this is going to burst, but we've been through times like this before and they generally don't last very long. I suggest saving what you can now while times are good, because jobs are likely going to be scarce a few years from now. If you're looking for a job, find one at a company that's been around for a few economic cycles. Then hang on tight.

    • They're selling bags of dry dog food on the internet again.

      I thought that was a sure sign of impending pop, but it's been over a year.

  • Gosh (Score:3)

    by cascadingstylesheet ( 140919 ) on Friday June 01, 2018 @12:27PM (#56710572) Journal

    Gosh, that sounds like a problem. Whatever shall we do?

    Wait! I know! Maybe we could just import more cheap ... er, I mean, invite talented folks from abroad!

    (What's that Bob? Yes, that's right; we don't want our job postings showing to anyone over 35.)

    Anyway, where was I? Yes, woe is us! Just no domestic workers out there :(

  • drop must have an degree and Taleo!

    Also better recruiting I deal with some that just seem to like to say we have a big list of names but seem very clueless about the job or even where the job is.

  • kill H1B (Score:3)

    by WindBourne ( 631190 ) on Friday June 01, 2018 @12:58PM (#56710786) Journal
    Seriously, this is why we need to kill off H1Bs, and instead, do greencards. If we need ppl here for tech, then they should be allowed to stay.
    Secondly, we need to restore our education system that we had before Clinton/W got ahold of it. Not everybody is cut out for college. Look at CHina/Europe/Japan. In America, we require nearly all students to take our tests such as GRE, ACT, SAT, etc. Elsewhere, by soph year, they have weeded out those that will go to college and those that will not. The ones not going will follow down a blue-collar path and learn various trades. We need to do the same here. there is nothing wrong with learning a trade, esp. when we need them.
    Third, we really should do more teaching of the trades in the military. In particular, right now, in the last 6 months before getting out, have them return stateside, take up classes and do work on the base.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Agripa ( 139780 )

      Secondly, we need to restore our education system that we had before Clinton/W got ahold of it. Not everybody is cut out for college. Look at CHina/Europe/Japan. In America, we require nearly all students to take our tests such as GRE, ACT, SAT, etc. Elsewhere, by soph year, they have weeded out those that will go to college and those that will not. The ones not going will follow down a blue-collar path and learn various trades. We need to do the same here. there is nothing wrong with learning a trade, esp. when we need them.

      But if these students do not accumulate crippling educational debt, our system of debt peonage will collapse.

  • Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Friday June 01, 2018 @01:42PM (#56711078)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • Their shortage would be solved over night if they doubled the engineering positions' salaries

      Nope, it wouldn't make a difference, it wouldn't increase the number of engineers, it would just mean the same number making double the pay.

  • It's not that there is a lack of talent. Every time I see statements like this it comes down to there's no talent willing to work for peanuts. If you run a multi-million dollar operation you can afford to pay the people who actually make you profitable. That's what it really comes down to. The CEO can have a grand strategy, but without people who know what they're doing to implement it they might as well go fishing and drink beer all day. Part of the problem is there are still people willing to give aw
  • "and mobility -- a worker's willingness to uproot their life for a job in a new place -- has declined. "

    Why is this even a factor? Very few high tech positions have any need for a worker to ever be physically present... even fewer if you have a few less skilled individuals to function as hands.
  • "Cutting-edge skills are evolving faster than universities can train people" This is your problem - you expect a university to do your training! Shows that companies have gotten so used to recruiting from abroad that they have forgotten that they used to lead the way in R&D and training!

  • Bad Recruiting Tool. (Score:3)

    by jythie ( 914043 ) on Friday June 01, 2018 @04:51PM (#56712180)
    I know most people in this thread are pointing out issues like 'pay more' or simply trashing companies for wanting to hire talent,.. but there is a piece of story that I think highlights a big part of the problem.. linkedin and 'being found'. Hunting and hiring, when not going through people's social networks, has become a pretty frustrating experience all around. Candidates get a never ending stream of spam that barely matches their skills, and employers are hard to find since they are mostly hidden behind generic recruiters that will not tell you who is hiring till you agree to work for them. The noise to signal ratio has gotten really bad, and the middlemen have been making it worse.

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