While interpersonal skills are important, in many jobs I've had there is WAY too much emphasis put on them. I personally believe this is because it is a skillset that a manager can understand while the non-technical types don't understand the technical competence. For certain I.T. people and programming-types it's much more important, IMHO, that they understand the technical side as 95% of their job should be in front of the computer (this is excepting support personnel that have to deal with the public). I've seen quite a number of work situations where it is the other way around.

Except it was a small company, so I was the technical person too.... so yes, the non-techs were talking to the tech directly... which only worked because I could break down technical issues for the non-technical people and I could understand them when they talked about thingies and whatchamacallits.

Management are finally discovering what experienced IT staffers have been warning them about for years- failure to invest in training and mentoring entry-level staff will result in shortages over all levels of skill in the future.

Skilled staff are not a commodity. They are not widgets that can be easily replaced. Moreover, the attrition rate for the IT field is high- I am one of 4 people I know among my extended group of friends with more than 20 years in the business who are still working as non-management. Everyone else has either changed professions to something else, or is in management.

The unemployment rate for IT staff in my region is less than 3%. I stopped trying to get requisitions for new staff to train up years ago when I realized that until their pants are on fire, management at most companies simply won't understand that it can take three to five years to train up a good IT staffer, provided the will and funding are there to do it. So, this new "news" is not a surprise to me, and I've taken a more laid back approach as I've realized that there isn't any purpose to changing some peoples' minds about the growing staff shortage. As of now, I'm enjoying the ride, letting people call me and determining where I'm going to have to argue least about pay.

As everybody skilled in economics knows, there are always better payed job that you currently have, and there is always somebody that is ready to get less pay than you get for the same position.

Don't forget the ageism thing. Shocked no one mentioned this.

Must have 25 years Java experience... and the unwritten rule is be under 30.

Sometimes ageism shows up in ridiculous combos, where the only way to get that combo is to already have that specific position, or be about 60.. and they only hire kids under 30.

Sorry, I don't buy your argument.

If you strike possessing security clearance from the listed of mandatory requirements, and change it to "must be able to obtain a security clearance", your field of candidates will open up. Yes, you will have to pay for someone to get cleared, and that is not cheap, but there is an acute shortage of information security practitioners as it is.

The reality is IS pro's with TS/SCI clearance command a premium due to the insatiable demand from the U.S. Government and firms that do business with the same.

The only problem I have with this conspiracy theory is that it might be true for some giant company like MS or Intel which has political connections and hires lots of H1Bs, but it surely can't be true for some piddly little 500-person (or even 3000-person) company. The smaller companies don't have a lot of political connections, and time is of the essence to them; they can't wait the time needed to get a bunch of temporary visas to import cheaper workers, in fact the smaller companies usually don't seem to have any imported workers in my experience. Yet I still see lots of ridiculous requirements in job requisitions from smaller companies.

If the position has been open for six months and you have not received a qualified resume then you are doing something wrong.

Not to mention the jobs that want 10 years experience programming in languages that aren't even 10 years old.

I've actually seen this, in fact.

I've been a professional game developer for quite a few years now, but during my last bout of unemployment between jobs (in 2010), I remember seeing a Craigslist job ad asking for somebody with 5 years of iPhone game programming experience.

When I had graduated in 2003 and was actually looking for an entry level position, I came across one ad wanting a senior Linux administrator with 15 or more years of Linux experience. Another ad that I saw wanted 5 years of Java Swing programming experience (while I understand that actually may have been barely possible, it would have probably required that one have previously been an actual Sun employee).

This sounds like good advice. A lot of these people without people skills, especially the younger ones, probably simply haven't been in an environment where they were taught any in a positive manner. Broken or single-parent homes are the norm these days rather than the exception, and personally, as someone who grew up with a single parent, you don't get a whole lot of social training when you don't have any siblings and your one parent is gone all the time for work (including evenings). Schools certainly don't teach socialization, at least not in a positive way (more like Lord of the Flies style), so I think a lot of kids get their socialization skills in college. But this isn't all that great for technical majors since there's no women there, and only a limited amount of interaction with (male) peers for lab projects.

I've bought specialized software from some small home-grown companies of 3-4 programmers with at least 50% of the programmers being H1b. Yes it isn't evidence, but it does happen more than you think.

Too many job ads are looking for insane amount of skills in one person...They ask for a "Unix Admin" person who knows how to code in C++, C#, manage an Asterisk server, install mange & tune 1000 RHEL servers, use NAGIOS, maintain a SAP system, automate sysadmin tasks using bash/ksh/perl/PHP/C/C++, setup and manage IIS & Apache, admin websphere & coldfusion, install manage and tune Windows 2003/2008/2008R2, manage VMware/vSphere/ESX/ESXi servers, perform second level support for Windows users, manage printers, travel onsite for servicing, be on call 24/7 (for no extra pay), and be able to interact like a jolly good fellow with customers, co-works and management, oh, and write documentation and explain things as well as Carl Sagan could.

Offered pay: $40,000-50,000/year

Sure...lots of people like that...and all are willing to do it for $40,000 a year

I don't think so...

But it gets worse!

If you don't put all the appropriate keywords they want, they won't even look at your resume, even if you could do all the things they ask for...for example, I had one recruiter, after seeing I had installed, patched, secured, put on line and monitored Solaris servers, ask me if I had ever configured a Solaris system. I explained that what I had listed includes "configuration", but he refused to send the customer my resume until I added "configured" to the sentence.

Then you get past the HR people...and you end up with a trivia contest from the tech people...who only know one way of doing things since they learned it by rote ...so if you don't do it their way, you don't get the job...

Am I bit bitter at this point in my job search? Yes, just a tad. 10+ years Linux/Unix admin experience...and still can't get a job!

Depends on the size of the company. If you're a ten-person team, that could reasonably be one job because the time spent on any one of those tasks could easily be way less than a full-time position.

That said, as soon as you add the security clearance requirement, your applicant pool dries up. There's no good way around that unless you actively poach from other companies in your field. If you're big enough to do that, you're big enough for those to each be separate positions.

It's actually self-interest to develop each member of my team:
1. If they piss off somebody important, that's going to land on me. Likewise, if they do a great job for somebody important, that's also going to land on me. So it's worth teaching them the people skills.
2. The more my subordinates can handle without me, the less I need to do and the more I can focus on longer-term and bigger-picture issues, and the more I can focus on managing upwards rather than downwards. Also, it means I can take vacations.
3. If I'm trying to be promoted, I need to have somebody ready to take on the work that I'm currently doing (unless I want to go insane doing 2 jobs). Grooming a subordinate (who's going to have a certain amount of loyalty to me for making that effort) to take on my job is the safest way to do that.
4. If my subordinates leave the company, they'll be more likely have good things to say about me, which makes it easier to find good employees.

Simple solution to get management to understand the value of IT have a no IT day. One day, no email, internet, IP phone etc. They'll come back crying before lunch time.

Do you have a reference from an MBA text book to point this out? I didn't get taught any of that with my MBA.

Economics 101 Supply and Demand with Substitution.

Your salary is based on the Supply of available workers and the Demand for that type of work. (which under this condition would show that IT workers should be paying a lot more) Then you have Substitution, meaning while there is a lot of Demand and short Supply the Companies have substitution available.

Lets say a DBA. I good DBA is an excellent asset to a company. They can extract data and find information that you didn't even know you had, you can get your systems running really fast. Now however if you don't have that DBA depending on the company size how much are they loosing with Excel Files and Access Databases, and people who have to do a lot of time intensive work. So the DBA will need to compete with the inferior substitution because if his salary is too high, it isn't worth it, because there may be alternate methods.

In my area DBA's get good money because they are valuable. However if you are a just a programmer it isn't that their work is easier or they are lazier, but because there are more available, so that means their prices are less.

Now if you prove yourself a hard worker, (and the company is using proper HR policies), The company will see your value as greater and give you a raise, and try harder to retain you. Because there is a demand for a hard worker and less of supply of such.

Now a lot of companies will try to dig from the bottom of the barrel to try to find a Diamond in the rough "A really good employee for cheap" now this is a method of disaster, however that is what they do, because their cash is tight.

The MBA classes do teach that the higher you pay a person the harder they will work (not the opposite) however, most of these MBA's you talk about are not MBA's but some guy with a AB or BB degree. and just because they are in a higher position, you figure they are MBAs.

That is an MBA and Basic Economists analysis of why the salaries are the way they are.

I would agree with that sentiment. I work for a major retailer and I can tell you that starting ten years ago I was amongst the last people to be hired with the intent of developing a workforce internally. Now all of our developers are either contractors or work for our Bangalore based "owned presence." It's next to impossible to mentor developers now because we have virtually no interaction with them, and the burnout factor on both sides of the ocean is running incredibly high.

We're one of the major employers for technical people in the area and as more people burn out and leave it's creating a negative image in the technical community and fewer and fewer people are even willing to come and work here now. So the only people coming to apply are desperate for a job, blinded by our brand, or woefully inexperienced for the positions we are hiring for. After the shine wears off they burn out and leave in short order creating that much more negative image for us.

Bingo! This is why I quit doing corporate, I got so damned tired of being looked at as this money sucking leech and being expected to fix a bazillion wrong things with no damned money and little help. These bean counting pricks act like you can keep those POS PCs forever, that nothing ever breaks down, and that ANY money IT asks for is a waste. Now with work conditions like that, is it any damned wonder that nobody wants the fucking job?

Now I work with consumers and small business and while the pay isn't as good you know what? They are ACTUALLY GRATEFUL for the job you do! And they will actually LISTEN to your suggestions without looking at every damned thing as a way for you to "waste money", not to mention they don't call you 24/7 and expect your ass to jump like a frog on a hot plate. Fuck corporate IT, it is one of the shittiest jobs I have ever worked! Between the bad attitudes, the fighting for every penny, the long hours, the PHB bullshit, frankly I'd sit on a street corner with my acoustic and a tin cup rather that do that God damned job again!

Now with work conditions like that, is it any damned wonder that nobody wants the fucking job?

Ha! Right on target. I would add to that the number of interviews I went to that I was well qualified for the job and the company was holding out for someone younger, or who would work unlimited hours for $30K.

Industry crapped on a whole generation of IT people and now it's coming around to bite them in the ass. Oh, we can't find qualified IT people. Ahhhh. Someone call the waaaaaaaaambulance.

As an accountant I can confirm "MBAs" don't know shit about finance and accounting.

MBAs were created because people highly skilled in one thing eventually get promoted into upper management, which requires a whole new bunch of skills and knowledge which they've never needed to learn before because it was never relevant before. It's a very broad, but very short course where the intention is to teach just about enough for them to get the gist when someone competent in a particular field (e.g. the senior accountant or head of marketing) is talking about things in the board meeting. This means they get taught at a very high (i.e. strategic) level and not fundamental basics.

The problem is that the arrogant ones then think they've got the super-smarts and try to "get creative" with something when they have no grasp of the fundamental concept. Seriously, some of these guys think they have a much better idea about specialist areas after a couple of weeks on an MBA course than guys who have a decade of higher+ learning and decades of direct experience.

What you want an MBA for is the newly-promoted director of engineering who's been an engineer all his life, knows everything about engineering and just needs a crash-course on the crap the other guys are talking about in the board meetings.