[Orbiting_Rosie's_Head]

Backers of the H-1B program argued Tuesday that the visas aren't taking away U.S. jobs, because some technology companies still can't find qualified workers for some positions. Ingersoll-Rand has searched for more than a year to fill a plastics engineer and an industrial robotics engineer position, finally settling on a Canadian resident in both cases, said Elizabeth Dickson, advisor of immigration services for the industrial equipment manufacturer.

This situation is caused by the fact that these companies hiring want an exact match in qualifications, even though most engineers can come up to speed on just about any system or software package in a matter of weeks, if not days (I am an engineer with 16 years experience). Brain-dead Human Resources managers don't get it. They would rather hire an idiot with all the right words on their resume than a smart person who is talented and can adjust skills quickly to meet any demand. Couple this idiotic hiring practice with the fact that Ingersoll was probably offering about half of the $$$ that they should have, and it is easy to see why they are having "trouble" filling positions.

[dfwgator]

It's terrible, I was talking with some bubble-headed bleach blonde HR person the other day, and she was totally clueless about technology. She had no idea about what Oracle or even what the term GUI meant.

[dfwgator]

It's terrible, I was talking with some bubble-headed bleach blonde HR person the other day, and she was totally clueless about technology. She had no idea about what Oracle or even what the term GUI meant.

[adx]

Brain-dead Human Resources managers don't get it.

You got that right. I'm an EE trying to get a start, and I run into this all the time. They must assume you're too stupid to pick up a new software package that's used in your profession. Even more frustrating is if you know one package, and they want somebody that knows another package that does the same thing (schematic capture programs come to mind), but the HR bubble-head chycks don't know that.

[SauronOfMordor]

This situation is caused by the fact that these companies hiring want an exact match in qualifications, even though most engineers can come up to speed on just about any system or software package in a matter of weeks, if not days (I am an engineer with 16 years experience). Brain-dead Human Resources managers don't get it.

You are assuming stupidity, rather than a deliberate effort to disqualify all applicants other than the (H1B) applicant they really want to hire, and whose resume they used to write the qualifications for the fake "ad"

[ninenot]

Yup.

As an HR pro, I can write a job description that you will NEVER match.

Further, the project managers always down-size their labor cost estimates to look good--thus, the salary pegs go down a few notches.

Since I am an 'outside' HR type, I've seen it hundreds of times---"we want X, Y, Z, A, B, C, all for $XX,000.00" And one finds rather quickly that the people they want are actually $XX,000.00 plus around 25%.

They manage to hire some yock that can't do the job--and wonder why the hell THAT happened...

[DuncanWaring]

Ingersoll-Rand has searched for more than a year to fill a plastics engineer and an industrial robotics engineer position...

They were probably looking for someone who'd work for $25,000 a year.

I was laid-off a week ago from a "major manufacturer of aerospace electronic equipment".

When I started at that company 19 years ago in one of their Flight Management groups, I knew a fair amount about airplanes, but nothing about "Flight Management". I subsequently developed a significant portion of the "vertical navigation" function from scratch, part of which I now hold a patent on.

I recently, pre-layoff, interviewed with another group trying to build a Flight Management computer.

I was told my "vertical navigation experience isn't current enough" and I "...didn't know enough about their particular hardware architecture".

Idiots.

Those reasons would have been enough to disqualify me from the original job, which I excelled at.