[AusNOG] Off Topic - Brisbane recruitment recommendations

[Mark Newton]

On 13 May 2016, at 10:20, Skeeve Stevens <skeeve+ausnog at eintellegonetworks.com> wrote:
> 
> Mark,
> 
> If you think 100k is peanuts, you've been earning way too much for way too long and are far out of touch with reality.

Give it a rest, Skeeve.

You've provided a list of skills you want, and a statement that says you have trouble filling your requirements at a $100k price point.

I don't need to hold any opinion about whether $100k is peanuts to observe that basic microeconomics says you're not paying enough.

The people you say you want exist. They probably aren't even bothering to talk to you because your price isn't worth the effort. If you were paying more, they might get out of bed to answer your phone calls, and you wouldn't believe they were rare.

"Out of touch with reality."

> Those who are employees are always going to talk up their wages as much as possible.

Most employees rarely talk about their wages AT ALL. Now who's out of touch?

> The issue is not that it is too little for too much. The issue - and why I posted in the first place - is that the skill sets for a lot of the roles are just not there in desired combinations

Have a good hard think about why you believe that statement is true.

> In about 2-3 years when there are experienced and self-taught people and Unis produce people with a bit of a clue and the baseline expectation is: Cisco + Juniper + Linux + Devops awareness/scripting skills, and cloud skills - those people will be worth about $60k-$75 on the low-end,

$60k-$75k is a realistic expectation for a first year CS graduate.

It's below average wages in Australia right now (average individual full time adult pre-tax earnings in Australia is currently at $77,000 -- that's an economy-wide figure, includes brain surgeons on the North Shore and McDonalds burger flippers in Hobart)

At the rates you believe you should be paying for these specialist, rare, expert combination of skills, why do you think they're so hard to find?

> You can disagree with those approximate figures - but few employers (who actually have to pay the money) will disagree.

You only need a handful of employers who're slurping up the labor supply by paying market rates to make the ones paying below market rates believe there's a skills shortage.
 
> I'm not trying to talk anyones worth down

That's actually the precise exact thing you are doing.

IT engineering skills are in high demand, and are absolutely crucial for the current health of virtually every sector of Australia's economy, and even more crucial in future. Why shouldn't people with expertise expect to be well compensated? 

   - mark


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