[AusNOG] Off Topic - Brisbane recruitment recommendations

[Skeeve Stevens]

Mark,

You've mis-read.  I didn't say I wanted anything.  That wasn't a job
advert.  That was a list of areas in the industry that people are
struggling with at the moment, not an all encompassing list of skills I was
expecting in one job role.

"Average" is such a meaningless word and is useless in comparison between
people. It is a purely statistical number that sadly people if they are
getting less think they are 'below average' for an industry or location
(Tassie is 12k below Sydney 'average' as an example) or above average or
just average - which people don't like to think of themselves as.

You live in a different world Mark, I get it. You've made sweeping
statements about 'average' which mean nothing. Industries
<https://www.livingin-australia.com/salaries-australia/> vary extremely and
there are many many variables which including skills, experience,
certification (if important), age (sometimes), creativity, common sense,
complimentary soft-skills, etc etc etc. Average doesn't mean anything to
me, because no one is average.

With Work Visas, cloudification of human skills, off-shoring, locals better
have a damn good reason for charging higher than your 'average' or what
people are prepared to pay. Because the sad (to locals) fact is that 80% of
IT job functions can be done from anywhere in the planet.  You better make
sure that the 20% that needs to be done locally is relevant and
outstanding.  There are a lot of immigrants in the country at the moment
with master degrees, CCNP/IE level certs filling the cubicals of Telstra,
NBN, Optus and every other large carrier out there... and who are way way
more hungrier than your typical Australian.

I am just being devils advocate here. You'r view is skewed into getting as
much as you can for the skills you have - and I agree. But I also
understand employers only being able to afford so much so they can
competing.

The normal IT industry is not competing with Google, Amazon, etc. They will
always take the cream top 1-2%. They can't take that many and it is
seriously competitive. The rockstars will always be worth a LOT more money
- like you. But there are only like a couple of hundred people at your
level... that still leaves a lot of amazing talent available out there -
the ones who haven't been stolen by the US that is.

...Skeeve

*Skeeve Stevens - Founder & The Architect* - eintellego Networks Pty Ltd
Email: skeeve at eintellegonetworks.com ; Web: eintellegonetworks.com

Cell +61 (0)414 753 383 ; Skype: skeeve ; LinkedIn: /in/skeeve
<http://linkedin.com/in/skeeve> ; Expert360: Profile
<https://expert360.com/profile/d54a9> ; Keybase: https://keybase.io/skeeve

On Fri, May 13, 2016 at 11:20 AM, Mark Newton <newton at atdot.dotat.org>
wrote:

> 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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