So many unemployed...so few with the right skills

Lawrence1895

themucaro wrote: »

Same in the company I work in - we can't find a Russian/German translator, madness considering the Eastern European influence in Ireland today

Did you try in the language section on this site already?

I would be able to translate some stuff into German and from German into English anyhow, I'm a German native

DaveDaRave

Nolanger wrote: »

How difficult is for an IT graduate to buy a book on Lotus Notes development and learn it themselves? We've too many people who need to be trained. No wonder they can't get jobs.

Pretty much anything you learn in an I.T degree can be learned by yourself with ease.

Nolanger

So why don't they do it then? If you study Java or C++ in college how difficult is it to learn Lotus Notes development? Stick it on your CV, write a few Lotus apps at home, and apply for one of these available jobs?

syklops

Copper23 wrote: »

I wouldn't agree.

As I've said over and over in this thread.
Some people seem to get a CS degree being thaught mainly Java, for example, then someone tells them they can have the job if they can do it in C++ and they freak out.

If you have a CS degree it makes bugger all difference what the language of choice was during your tution. If you reached a high enough degree of learning you'd understand not the language but the pincipals of computing behind it. Languages are only different semantics on the same principals. Any decent CS student could pick up a new language in a few days and be flying, thats my opinion.

But as I said,you have too many people freaking out because they think learning a new programming language is a lot more than changing a few semantics and understanding the core principals of that language and how it could be different to the one(s) they know. It is basic stuff for a CS student. Yet you hear them freak at the very thought of a different language and have a look of shock on their face when presented with some PERL script or something. I don't know how they get the degrees in the first place if that is the level of their understanding of the topics they learned.

You are right in many ways, but you are forgetting one thing, and that is interest. A lot of people were told IT is the place to be so they went and did IT degrees, even CS degrees, and they turn up on time, and leave on time, and study what they are told, and get their degree. And then there are the people who are truly interested and go the extra mile. I didnt go to college, though I regret not doing so now, but at the time, they pretty much were only teaching programming, and pretty much only teaching java, which gets sucky pretty quick IMO. I learnt C when I was about 16 on my own, when I was 19 I picked up perl in about a weekend, and over the years I have worked hard and I have my dream job now. So despite skipping college I did ok in the end. Still wish I had gone though. My team-mate is about 2 essays away from a PhD. On the one hand, I am envious, but on the other, we do the same job and earn the same(until he gets head hunted by someone).

bnt

Nolanger wrote: »

How difficult is for an IT graduate to buy a book on Lotus Notes development and learn it themselves? We've too many people who need to be trained. No wonder they can't get jobs.

You're missing the point. The things employers are looking for are all over the place. Time spent studying one thing is time not spent studying something else, something that could be even more in demand next year. It's JavaScript last year, LotusScript this year, maybe Python next year. You don't know in advance, and you can't be expected to know, so how can you decide what to study, just in case some employer might want it in the future?

The point has already been made that people need to be flexible and are flexible: it's the employers who make inflexible demands, expecting applicants to have loads of experience doing exactly what they want. Never mind that it could probably be learned quickly - they demand a "track record" (HR Speak) in exactly that, no time to learn and grow on the job. As I said before: I would accept a lower salary to compensate for the time I would need to learn a new skill on the job, but that would still not be good enough, because I would have no "track record" in that skill.

Besides: even if I knew LotusScript was going to be in demand, I could get a book on LotusScript (or whatever) and study it till my eyeballs fell out, and it would cut no ice with employers, because I would have no employment experience using it. Unless employers looking for these "vertical" skills are prepared to accept some measure of "on-the-job learning", these positions are going to remain unfilled. Who the hell would study LotusScript - the automation language of a nearly-dead groupware system - for fun? :rolleyes:

thebman

Yes I actually know Lotusscript but would not take a job in that area as I would not like to specialise in that field as it could become too difficult to get a job in Java/C# in which there are much more job opportunities due to employers requiring 3 years experience in that language to get past HR and even for some IT managers to be willing to even consider you as a candidate for a job.

The whole programming and IT moves fast works both ways and employers would do well to learn the lesson. If you keep systems where it doesn't benefit your employees careers to work on then you will struggle to find quality candidates as nobody wants to pin themselves into an area with few job opportunities and hiring policies will mean that is exactly what will happen someone who works in a language going nowhere.

chicken fingers

35k is not market rate for a java developer.
And they want another (fairly rare) skill, lotus script?

Maybe at the right salary (thats about 50k) they would get the right employee.

flas

to be fair its down a lot to the employer in this country, they want to find someone who knows how their company works from outside their company instead of training up potential employees... and its also that they are terrified that they will hire the wrong person, its reflects ad on the HR people doing the hiring for the company and in some cases they look at someone who would be the perfect fit for the job but they dont hire them for fear of it going wrong...

Capt'n Midnight

chicken fingers wrote: »

35k is not market rate for a java developer.
And they want another (fairly rare) skill, lotus script?

Maybe at the right salary (thats about 50k) they would get the right employee.

that's an interesting point

did the job ad list a salary and was it at least market average ?
if you are looking for legacy skills then you may have to entice people out of other jobs

Not listing a salary on a technical job means a lot of people won't even bother looking at it on the assumption that it isn't going to be great

thebman

chicken fingers wrote: »

35k is not market rate for a java developer.
And they want another (fairly rare) skill, lotus script?

Maybe at the right salary (thats about 50k) they would get the right employee.

35K can be market rate depending on experience and location.

Yahew

35k is not market rate for a java developer.
And they want another (fairly rare) skill, lotus script?

Maybe at the right salary (thats about 50k) they would get the right employee.

I am amazed it took so long to get to this sound argument. The OP is talking about an employer who is trying to attract talent. He offers some money. Nobody turns up.

The sensible thing to do in this case is to offer some more money. There are probably people out there with experience in Lotus who are now doing c#, or c++. They could do that job, however. Probably they are on 50k+. To get him or her, you need to offer more money; in fact that is the only sane reaction to a labour shortage, or to a shortage in any commodity and labour is a commodity.

seamus

strangel00p wrote: »

their main customer would be probably be the government where notes is used extensively.

Seriously? That actually explains, in one sentence, everything that's wrong with the Irish government.

Yahew

thebman wrote: »

35K can be market rate depending on experience and location.

its not the market rate if they cant get anybody.

youcrazyjesus!

You've answered your own question. There are so many tech managers out there who seem to take joy out of writing the most obscure and rigid job spec imaginable then spending months bitching that there's nobody out there who has the right mix of skills and experience, a mix of skills and experience only their company needs.

Find somebody good and intelligent who knows one of them extremely well then let them learn as they go, ffs.

It's amazing how such intelligent people can behave like simpletons in another arena.

CrazyRabbit wrote: »

Where I work, my dept has been trying for over 9 months to hire someone with a specific skillset (Lotusscript + Java/Javascript) and has been unable to do so. There has been dozens of interviews, with no suitable candidates (most failing the technical exam).
One of the managers jokingly suggested that it would be quicker to grab a random person from the dole queue & train them from scratch.

It's got me wondering....exactly how skilled is our workforce?
Even if there was a sudden influx of new jobs to the country, would we be able to fill those jobs with appropriately skilled people, or would we be reliant on foriegn nationals (i.e. 80% of the people on my team are foriegn nationals).

So, I guess my main question is..how skilled are Irish people relative to people from other countries?

Yahew

As for the technical exam - what was that in? If somebody knows lotusscript very well he probably wouldn't remember his bubble sorts, nor would it be relevant. The standard C type test for these kind of roles are also moronic. Not that - at 35k - you can expect much.

strangel00p

seamus wrote: »

Seriously? That actually explains, in one sentence, everything that's wrong with the Irish government.

Why? I found Lotus Notes to be an excellent application. A lot of the places I worked where notes was deployed had very impressive systems. I'm currently developing on sharepoint and it's really poor compared to notes.

CrazyRabbit

Yahew wrote: »

I am amazed it took so long to get to this sound argument. The OP is talking about an employer who is trying to attract talent. He offers some money. Nobody turns up.

The sensible thing to do in this case is to offer some more money. There are probably people out there with experience in Lotus who are now doing c#, or c++. They could do that job, however. Probably they are on 50k+. To get him or her, you need to offer more money; in fact that is the only sane reaction to a labour shortage, or to a shortage in any commodity and labour is a commodity.

OP here.

There wasn't an issue with salary. There was many people applying, just none with any half-decent skills in the areas needed...just lots of degrees and certificates that proved nothing (they failed the technical exam). We'd rather hire someone with real practical skills instead of someone with a dozen degrees. Knowledge != skill & ability.

Anyhow, we did get someone in the end (about 6 weeks ago). But we found him in Argentina, and I'm joking. We struck gold...this guy has more skills than we actually needed.

Yahew

CrazyRabbit wrote: »

OP here.

There wasn't an issue with salary. There was many people applying, just none with any half-decent skills in the areas needed...just lots of degrees and certificates that proved nothing (they failed the technical exam). We'd rather hire someone with real practical skills instead of someone with a dozen degrees. Knowledge != skill & ability.

Anyhow, we did get someone in the end (about 6 weeks ago). But we found him in Argentina, and I'm joking. We struck gold...this guy has more skills than we actually needed.

At €35K you weren't going to get anyone good, unless he came from somewhere where that was a good salary. I dont live in Ireland but I make more than twice that, and if I had any Lotus Script experience, I obviously wouldn't apply.

Here's the thing. Every time you cant fill a job, you should raise your prices. In your case you went abroad, however that kind of attitude feeds back onto why the best are not doing Engineering, IT and Science degrees in Ireland anymore. No financial reward.

Theres no use in complaining unless you pay more.

CrazyRabbit

youcrazyjesus! wrote: »

You've answered your own question. There are so many tech managers out there who seem to take joy out of writing the most obscure and rigid job spec imaginable then spending months bitching that there's nobody out there who has the right mix of skills and experience, a mix of skills and experience only their company needs.

Find somebody good and intelligent who knows one of them extremely well then let them learn as they go, ffs.

It's amazing how such intelligent people can behave like simpletons in another arena.

The technical exam was written by the team members. We can barely get managers to respond to emails...

strangel00p wrote: »

Why? I found Lotus Notes to be an excellent application. A lot of the places I worked where notes was deployed had very impressive systems. I'm currently developing on sharepoint and it's really poor compared to notes.

Lotus Notes & LotusScript are seriously bugged. And the interface is outdated. But, it is very very good for document focused applications. It's also extremely cheap compared to other solutions. However, a smart company will use multiple platforms/tools/programming languages and use each fin their strongest areas.

And how 'good' it is overall, really depends on how good your Domino Designers are

CrazyRabbit

Yahew wrote: »

At €35K you weren't going to get anyone good, unless he came from somewhere where that was a good salary. I dont live in Ireland but I make more than twice that, and if I had any Lotus Script experience, I obviously wouldn't apply.

Here's the thing. Every time you cant fill a job, you should raise your prices. In your case you went abroad, however that kind of attitude feeds back onto why the best are not doing Engineering, IT and Science degrees in Ireland anymore. No financial reward.

Theres no use in complaining unless you pay more.

During the boom period, 35k (+bonuses + perks) wouldn't have been enough. But in todays market, it is. There's a lot of people out of work in Ireland who would love to have an income of 35K a year.

Liam Byrne

ScumLord wrote: »

I have two unemployed friends that I've told should learn something like web design as it's a piece of piss and is an area where experience and work already done count more than a collage course. I gave them books but they wouldn't red them.

Absolute rubbish! Proper Web Design is far from "a piece of piss"

BTW you might also invest in a dictionary before slagging of other professions - being able to stick pieces of paper together is obviously no use in computing - better suited to ransom notes and the like.

Irish Slaves for Europe

CrazyRabbit wrote: »

During the boom period, 35k (+bonuses + perks) wouldn't have been enough. But in todays market, it is.

Well obviously it isn't otherwise you wouldn't have struggled to fill the job. 35k is peanuts for the skills you were looking for. It's important to remember the software sector has been virtually untouched by the recession, and our export sector has never been stronger.

Eric Cartman

This country in some sectors such as IT has become too focussed on a degress in computer science , the recession eliminated a certain amount of it. Degrees are important but not the end of the world if you dont have one, there are a lot of people with a lot of skills in this country that they dont have a qualification for and a lot of employers wont give them a chance because of that.

swordofislam

Would any posters who believe that they can identify the company here please PM me with the name of it.
S of ISLAM

7sr2z3fely84g5

Eric Cartman wrote: »

This country in some sectors such as IT has become too focussed on a degress in computer science , the recession eliminated a certain amount of it. Degrees are important but not the end of the world if you dont have one, there are a lot of people with a lot of skills in this country that they dont have a qualification for and a lot of employers wont give them a chance because of that.

i think its down to looking good on company porfolio on amount graduates they have,saying that why would you need a degree/dipolma to assemble a pc in a poor foreign country?..

Nolanger

strangel00p wrote: »

I found Lotus Notes to be an excellent application. A lot of the places I worked where notes was deployed had very impressive systems.

Same here - loved the layout. Unfortunately the thinking these days is that it's out of date and new technologies (i.e. Microsoft) are 'better'.

strangel00p

Nolanger wrote: »

Same here - loved the layout. Unfortunately the thinking these days is that it's out of date and new technologies (i.e. Microsoft) are 'better'.

True that, probably the reason IBM are currently renaming the entire lotus suite - excellent technology but associated with a bad name.

chicken fingers

35k is not that much, thats less than 600 per week after tax.

1) Lotus Script developers are mostly older people who already work on contract for the various government departments who use lotus at 250-350 per day*.
2) Java Developers are not short of work, and they get paid well enough.

So they want both skill sets, yet they are not willing to pay market rates?
I do understand the need to be competitive, but not offering anywhere near the market rate might indicate that the company is near broke.

I am sorry if a lot of you guys are out of work or scraping by near minimum wage, but talented developers don't just fall from the sky. Its a skill, its not that easy, and relatively few people have the mind for it.

Their best bet is probably to bring in talent from elsewhere.
Get them work visas and pay him the 35k, or just outsource the lot of it to India.


*Anybody who works in IT for a gov department will confirm this. Notes/Domino is heavily used and they have 1000s of custom apps that always need updating, in addition to constantly developing new apps.

embracingLife

tommyhaas wrote: »

Thats a dangerous road to go down though for a number of reasons. Both the authenticity and the standard of these qualification obtained in certain countries is questionable. Another issue then is the Medical professionals. Surely they wouldnt be happy working alongside others with questionable qualifications, both from a profesional view point and from a selfish one (''I should earn more then them because I was trained to a higher standard etc'')

While Im not saying these taxi drivers are not good doctors, I dont think a Medical liscence obtained in the likes of India or the Philippines should entitle the holder to practice eleswhere without a substantial period of training and equivelancy exams

In relation to your assumption that "......a Medical license obtained in the likes of India or the Philippines should entitle the holder to practice eleswhere without a substantial period of training and equivalency exams" ?!

I know several Filopinos here in Ireland, mostly nurses and a few doctors, who tell me that their nurse qualifications are accepted in the USA immediately after qualifiying Nurse colleges in Philippines but not Ireland. When they came here they had to do a few months study and pass an exam before Ireland would recognise their qualification. They said the study was a regurgitation of what they had already learned!

Several of the nurses have since left Ireland as they couldn't get pernament residence or full time work contracts and have gone to USA/Canada/Australia and immediately got work. They are mostly in their 30's and 40's age group and have been working as nurses since their early 20's, so they are not wet behind the ears and many worked in Middle East before coming to Ireland approx 2000 and 2001.

Of the few who are doctors, they told me doctor training in Philippines is much more intensive than here! A doctor only receives the full "Doctor" qualification after approx 5 years(!) of study and a further 3 years(!) in the position of junior doctor! While in the role of "junior doctor" they still attend university on a weekly basis. However, when they came here they could not work as a doctor immediately and had to study for approx 2 years and then sit the doctor exam,similiar to what the final exam Irish junior doctors sit. They also said that their doctor qualification is recognised in USA too.

On another point all the Filipinos I know speak English better than lots of Irish nurses! They could not understand the Dublin accent of thier collegues and were completely confused by it! So,if fluent English is a requirement of non-EU medical staff I have to say that the non-EU medical people I know passed it with flying colours and its the "native" Irish medical staff that could do with brushing up on their English and the ones who are doctors are extremely polite and well spoken English speakers.

seamus

strangel00p wrote: »

Why? I found Lotus Notes to be an excellent application. A lot of the places I worked where notes was deployed had very impressive systems. I'm currently developing on sharepoint and it's really poor compared to notes.

In my experience with Notes - though I'll admit I haven't come across many installations of it - companies install the entire suite and then just implement it as a mail system. They also tend to scrimp on maintenance.
The result is a bloated mail client which is frustratingly slow and complicated for your average end-user along with a mail server creaking on an underpowered back-end system.

I have never once heard an end-user say, "We use Lotus Notes, and I love it". They always roll their eyes or say that it's the worst piece of crap they've ever come across.