Tech jobs in the midwest?

Wed Oct 5 11:33:58 PDT 2005

Roy S. Rapoport wrote:

>On Wed, Oct 05, 2005 at 10:21:06AM -0700, Michael T. Halligan wrote:
>  
>
>>From time to time I seem to hear a lot of people complaining about the 
>>economy in the bay area.. This always seems
>>to be followed by a lot of press about H1B visa caps, etc.  This always 
>>gets followed by a flurry of spam from recruiters,
>>most of them offshored recruiters in call centers, calling me about 
>>"wonderful jobs in ohio".
>>    
>>
>
>I think it's more "a wonderful job in Ohio."  I find it hard to believe
>there's more than one.  And once you're there ... it's a little hard to
>find another one.
>  
>

Ohio is a funny one, though. A decade ago, I had a friend in 
Pennsylvania who worked
in Ohio making $120k doing SAP programming with a sweet package (they paid
his rent in Ohio, his weekly first class flights, $30 per diem eating 
expenses, a company
car, etc).  He still does it, making about the same amount, which in 
Bethlehem, Pennsylvania
is the equivalent to $240k in the bay area.  When I asked him how that 
was a good deal for
his employer, he said his employer's other option was to pay an EDS like 
company $350k+
for the same position.

Perhaps big business is just inherently inefficient?

>>about the job situation (which I think is overblown
>>by a few overtly vocal people), and will continually keep spamme... err 
>>    
>>
>
>Given how hard it is for us to find good people, I'd tend to agree.
>
>  
>
>>Recruiters from the midwest are fun.  Am I the only one being 
>>spammed/called by them so often, unsolicited?
>>    
>>
>
>I've not gotten those calls.  
>
>-roy
>  
>

I get them all the time. Three e-mails, and two calls today. 75% of the 
time they're offshored Indian
recruiters over low quality VOIP connections who did a keyword search on 
Oracle and decided that
I would be a great candidate for their fabulous Oracle DBA position 
making a mind-blowing $75k in
Geary, Indiana or some equivalent cesspool. The other 25% of the time 
they're recruiters in the Midwest
who used to make a great living at firms like Andersen or EDS staffing 
overblown $350/hour button
pushers before the market got flooded by $25/hour button pushers.

What's fun is I'll social engineer the customer out of them, then call 
up the customer, and find out
what the real rate is, then call them back.  The last call I 
successfully did this was for some aerospace (read: boeing)
company town with a "Linux Architect" position they wanted to pay 
$35/hour for, which I found was $165/hour once
I actually got to  the person @ boeing who had hired the consulting firm 
that had contracted the staffing firm who
spammed me.

Someday I'll understand how the headhunter market still exists with 
their unrealistic margins. I've run the numbers,
staffing bodies just isn't a good, scaleable business.

-- 
Michael T. Halligan
Chief Technology Officer
-------------------
BitPusher, LLC
http://www.bitpusher.com/
1.888.9PUSHER
415.724.7998 (Mobile)
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