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

maninasia

doovdela wrote: »

You serious? I didn't know that!? Had an idea some of the big companies might do that but search on a database sort of thing with those that had required keywords etc but didn't know that companies might use automated software to search CV's and applications.

What is wrong with training someone up especially for a role, its difficult enough to get someone with specific skills/experience why can't employers reason that out I suppose they go with the cheaper option. They rather pay a high salary for someone who ticks all the boxes rather than giving someone the job who hasn't enough skills/experience for the role whose paid a lower salary and has to be trained up might cost more for the employer? Who benefits more for the employer/company/employee? I suppose it alls boils down to what is most cost effective and will bring profits to the company.

Yes, some large companies use this type of software, lazy HR departments use it to screen out or screen in applications as they come in. That's why you should keyword your CV and application to the specific job at hand or at and put in all the industry jargon. It's also how recruiters search of course.

thebman

seamus wrote: »

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.

Yes that is the problem right there with Lotus Notes.

Misconfiguration and not trying to use it for what it was designed for. It is much more than a mail client and it is rather expensive to use it for just that purpose.

I did find when I used it that it worked much better than Outlook as a mail client if you ignore the start time of Lotus Notes itself which in a proper organisation would be open anyway. Notes mail files open much faster than Outlook does and even just the opening and retrieving of mail always happened so much faster on notes than Outlook when I used it.

If your not making your own databases using Notes to facilitate your business, I imagine it would be frustrating to use but it is good for pulling information from different sources and displaying them in a familiar way to users in an application they already have open if used properly.

smash

CrazyRabbit wrote: »

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.

Sorry but 35k is nowhere near enough and this is reflected in the lack of applications from skilled people that you have received to date. Have a look at some of the salaries here http://www.jobs.ie/Jobs.aspx?Categories=&Regions=&Keywords=Java

AudreyHepburn

I think a major problem is how picky potential employers about the skills set they require.

I applied for position not so long ago where I had everything they needed bar the length of time I'd worked in the industry. They wanted some-one with three years and I have two. So I didn't get the job. I have a new job now though.

Perhaps employers need to look at their own tactics first before critising everyone that hands them a CV.

Some-one else suggested taking some-one one that has some of the skills needed and then providing training in the rest. Don't just rule some-one because they are not 100% what you are looking for.

That or try to tailor the salary you offer to the skills set. If you want a top notch employee you really need to be paying a top salary.

Carter P Fly

I have a job but have been looking to move and have been looking at ads on the various employment sites for the last 6 months now and the simple fact is the Employers expect to much for to little money.

I have a huge range of skills having worked in the IT industry for 14 odd years now but nearly all the ads have huge lists in their 'reqirements' sections that I have never had any exposure to. I could pick them up no problem but it amazes me how the absolute vast majority of ads have completly unatainable 'perfect candidate' lists.

And the funny thing is when I do find ads where I Tick all the boxes theyre offering at leat 10 k less then my current position.

syklops

AudreyHepburn wrote: »

I think a major problem is how picky potential employers about the skills set they require.

I applied for position not so long ago where I had everything they needed bar the length of time I'd worked in the industry. They wanted some-one with three years and I have two. So I didn't get the job. I have a new job now though.

Perhaps employers need to look at their own tactics first before critising everyone that hands them a CV.

Some-one else suggested taking some-one one that has some of the skills needed and then providing training in the rest. Don't just rule some-one because they are not 100% what you are looking for.

That or try to tailor the salary you offer to the skills set. If you want a top notch employee you really need to be paying a top salary.

I dont think the problem is how picky employers are, its more how ignorant HR staff are of technical knowledge. There are some IT specialists who go into HR in the hope of having an edge over their colleagues, and these can be awesome if you find one, but they are very rare.

What happens is, HR/Personnel receive the job spec and approximate salary for the job opening and they go through the CVs they have and look for matches. Unfortunately, taking the earlier example of them looking for someone with LotusScript and Javascript, few HR people know that a person with LotusScript and Java, should be able to learn enough JavaScript in the course of a long week end, to do the job. They are not told that as it is not on the job spec.

The only solution to this, is to provide a job spec with everything on it, like Carter P Fly has seen, e.g. Candidate must have C, C++, Java, Assembly, Fortran, Morse code and Semaphore, and have HR match some of the skills. Unfortunately, job specs like that intimidate most people and so they get few applications.

thebman

syklops wrote: »

I dont think the problem is how picky employers are, its more how ignorant HR staff are of technical knowledge. There are some IT specialists who go into HR in the hope of having an edge over their colleagues, and these can be awesome if you find one, but they are very rare.

What happens is, HR/Personnel receive the job spec and approximate salary for the job opening and they go through the CVs they have and look for matches. Unfortunately, taking the earlier example of them looking for someone with LotusScript and Javascript, few HR people know that a person with LotusScript and Java, should be able to learn enough JavaScript in the course of a long week end, to do the job. They are not told that as it is not on the job spec.

The only solution to this, is to provide a job spec with everything on it, like Carter P Fly has seen, e.g. Candidate must have C, C++, Java, Assembly, Fortran, Morse code and Semaphore, and have HR match some of the skills. Unfortunately, job specs like that intimidate most people and so they get few applications.

Yes "Candidate must have" does because it implies you need all those.

A sensible job description would have" candidates must have one or more of the following" because it implies if you don't have the full list, you can still apply and that they aren't looking for someone with the skill sets associated with those languages and not someone that is an expert in all of those languages.

Carter P Fly

The point is they list a huge list under Titles such as "requirements" and "Essential" etc so You read it and dont bother applying as you dont have the experience in the specfics they are insisting upon.


The people who do apply for these jobs are Just chancing their arms and have none of the experience or skills required to even make it past an interview.

starlit

What I find annoying about some job adverts they can mislead people sometimes.
They don’t outline all the requirements for the job until you speak to recruiters or HR assuming you apply for the job and realise not all the requirements are mentioned in the ad and that you actually don’t meet all the requirements which is annoying or that they don’t state the role or title of the role properly until after you apply or speak to them. For example I applied for a Marketing Job recently and they never stated it was a Digital Marketing position. They just stated it was a Marketing Researcher position and never outlined in the requirements stating digital marketing.

Am I right in feeling that the wool was pulled over my eyes or I just applied to the wrong type of job or what? I applied thinking what I studied in college in my degree and what I have learnt while working would come in handy but no not enough. Can't seem to win, or be the right candidate or find the right job...finding the balance its just getting tiring despite coming from a BIS and IT background with my qualifications. Its disheartening to think I have work experience on top of that in 'IT' and worked in various other jobs more related to my degree.

Sheeps

Anyone got any graduate IT jobs going?

nitrogen

CrazyRabbit wrote: »

Training costs money. Budgets are very tight.

Another problem with how education is perceived in Ireland: to learn a new skill, you don't need to go on a course and get a pointless certificate.

Lotusscript!? You're probably talking about less than one percent of programmers having this experience. As I'm sure many people have said already, why not simply hire a VB or a Javascript programmer, and they can learn Lotusscript.

Programmers can learn quickly in a week or two, you don't need to authorise it with HR as training costs.

thebman

nitrogen wrote: »

Another problem with how education is perceived in Ireland: to learn a new skill, you don't need to go on a course and get a pointless certificate.

Lotusscript!? You're probably talking about less than one percent of programmers having this experience. As I'm sure many people have said already, why not simply hire a VB or a Javascript programmer, and they can learn Lotusscript.

Programmers can learn quickly in a week or two, you don't need to authorise it with HR as training costs.

You have to train them anyway is the other thing.

Training someone and training them and throwing Lotus script samples at them to learn is not a big difference.

nitrogen

thebman wrote: »

You have to train them anyway is the other thing.

Training someone and training them and throwing Lotus script samples at them to learn is not a big difference.

I certainly wouldn't use the word training for someone coming from a Visual Basic background. Any experienced programmer has taught himself/herself several languages and frameworks. More than likely a good VB programmer would have made progress within a week. But if the company can't see how retarded they are in their search, let them at it.

To The OP; There are lots of reasons why a US MNC wouldn't be able to fill positions here. Apart from skills availability and Irish candidates going abroad for better rates of pay, which have been mentioned already, there is the issue of Ireland's current attractiveness (or lack thereof) on the European jobs market for the purposes of attracting inward employment migration.

As well as just employing irish people, many multinationals employ lots of other nationalities from Europe and the rest of the world in Irish call centres, headquarters, centres of excellence and so on. These are locations based in ireland but serving many different countries. The target new-hires for many of these positions are well qualified young european professionals with a first native language, excellent english to go with it, and usually a third European language to boot.

They are highly employable and sought after, and a job here isn't the only option they have. Irish based multinationals have to compete for these people on a pan-European market, because native Irish candidates don't have their language and local and market knowledge, and may not have their qualifications either (a result of years of under-investment in our education sector). Our multinationals have to sell Ireland as a desirable destination for these guys to come and live and work in, and whether you like it or not, Ireland is not exactly easy to sell as a place to come and live at the moment. Many people wouldn't be here if they had any choice.

The weather is sh1t 90% of the time in comparison to most of Europe, our public transport infrastructure would be put to shame by places like Frankfurt or Copenhagen, and our salaries are falling faster than those in many other European countries as we scramble to correct our lack of competitiveness left over from boom time pay-rises. This all adds up to an erosion of quality of life in comparison to the rest of the continent. Ireland is hardly the quality of life capital of the world at the moment, and the type of candidates these companies are struggling to hire can afford to take that into account, in a way that many people on the dole queues here can't.

Snowie

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?

#

would you beleive im doing 4 course in the summer action scipting java scripting and dream wevear since youve said that ill do lottus and im a dab hand in html :cool: to

see you ina month or two :cool:

CrazyRabbit

Snow-Monkey wrote: »

#

would you beleive im doing 4 course in the summer action scipting java scripting and dream wevear since youve said that ill do lottus and im a dab hand in html :cool: to

see you ina month or two :cool:

You're a few weeks too late. We already hired someone a few weeks ago from Argentina. He has Lotuscript/xPages, HTML, PHP, SQL, C#, C++, Java, Javascript, & Python experience. This guy really loves to code.
Unfortunately, he makes the rest of the team look under-qualified

P.S...I hope your coding has less spelling mistakes..it's kinda important

Yahew

If you keep going abroad to get work, you won't get Irish workers.

Lux23

Why didn't you take ons someone already living in Ireland who had some of the experience and train them up?

Nolanger

CrazyRabbit wrote: »

You're a few weeks too late. We already hired someone a few weeks ago from Argentina. He has Lotuscript/xPages, HTML, PHP, SQL, C#, C++, Java, Javascript, & Python experience. This guy really loves to code.
Unfortunately, he makes the rest of the team look under-qualified

Bet he taught himself most of those skills rather than learning in college?

ricman

Look at the average secondary school ,theres not much importance put on encouraging kids to get into science, it or engineering,the leaving cert is outmoded.You memorize alot of data,you get x amount of points,then maybe you go to college.Look at the time kids learning religion, irish .
We need to scrap the leaving cert and make an educational system which encourages, creative thinking,problem solving ,technical skills.
Or to put it simply we are a small country ,we need alot more science,engineering ,computer science graduates.
Our education system is 30 years out of date,but with teachers,lecturers on great salarys ,whos gonna complain about it.
An economy cant thrive on just people building houses and stupid bankers giving easy credit ,eg 300k for a 1bed apartment.
a good programmer ,technician needs more skills,than i just read alot of books and now i can pass an exam.

Nolanger

The LC is indeed to blame for stopping kids to think, learn for themselves, and even be a bit different.

thebman

One just needs to look at the genetics question on the biology paper TBH (at least this was the case in my day).

An entire question was dedicated to genetics and it was the only question you had to think on the day for and it was the least answered.

It was essentially a logic question. It was possible to do the question in about 10 minutes leaving you way more time to focus on the other questions than if you skipped this question.

Most people don't answer this question for reasons known only to themselves. I did it and laughed at its simplicity.

Quite simply, give students a choice of memorizing something and being guaranteed points or learning a formula and maybe messing it up on the day and they will memorize at the moment so we need to work out why that is.

Yahew

thebman wrote: »

One just needs to look at the genetics question on the biology paper TBH (at least this was the case in my day).

An entire question was dedicated to genetics and it was the only question you had to think on the day for and it was the least answered.

It was essentially a logic question. It was possible to do the question in about 10 minutes leaving you way more time to focus on the other questions than if you skipped this question.

Most people don't answer this question for reasons known only to themselves. I did it and laughed at its simplicity.

Quite simply, give students a choice of memorizing something and being guaranteed points or learning a formula and maybe messing it up on the day and they will memorize at the moment so we need to work out why that is.

It depends on the LC subject. It also depends on how stuff is taught. I was never asked to memorise anything but I am mid-30's. It has probably dumbed down.

However biology is mostly rote. Not sure what can be done there.

maninasia

The study of science should be hands-on, but that would cost too much and would be too difficult to implement with too many students in each class. The whole system needs to change to be more project based.