Don Omar Ft. Natti Natasha - Dutty Love

Hi Mark,Another piece of advice I have told my coalelgues is that the initial HR recruiters are but gatekeepers with the first objective to get past these people and get to the hiring manager (or obtain the hiring manager’s name and/or contact information) and then to get that initial telephone interview with the hiring manager. It’s part of the game. Sometimes this is successful and sometimes not so. I advise that if they are turned down at any point to ask for feedback as to why (but do so in a positive and constructive manner) so that they can learn if their approach is not appropriate or if they are indeed missing one thing or another from their experience or skills inventory. At a minimum, this allows the applicant to have a certain amount of closure or, if they for have missed emphasizing something on their resume, to try to recover for a secondary meeting and another chance to talk with the hiring manager.When you are dealing with a pre-screening “Committee,” and hopefully that is the case (obviously HR recruiters never tell fictional stories to applicants) the candidate does not know what the group dynamic is like of the “Committee”. Some member of the “Committee” could be having a “bad day.” You just do not know as there is very little information or feedback in most cases. If you, as an applicant, are trying to approach a job search ethically and honestly, you really would expect that all the important (or “need”) requirements would be in the job requisition description. That is the responsibility of the Company and the HR recruiter. Many of us do wonder about that… Could there be some hidden “need” that should be the description… etc.In the example I cited, we only have one side of the story but it is all the information that is available. What we know is what we know, and what we do not know, is what we do not know. Attempts to solicit feedback were unsuccessful as were attempts to find out who the real hiring manager was.This large Internet company in Mt. View is very good when it comes to hiding information.What I did advise my colleague was to NOT dismiss the company entirely but if he finds another opportunity, avoid this particular HR representative as he does appear to be a flake, but stick to the course and not give up. Apply for the new opportunity and again, tailor your resume to the opportunity. “If you do not ask [for the job] you do not get [the job].”As for your last question: “the notion of a talent shortage in the US. “ My own opinion is that this is a fabrication (at least for now and especially in the IT/IS Tech industry throughout the US) and it was probably started by executives looking to boost their own bonuses by shipping IT jobs overseas and making it look they were saving their company money. This outsourcing trend has hurt all areas of the US and moved a great deal of the IT/IS and R&D investments to “cheaper” labor countries. Are these workers of the same quality as those in the US? In my opinion, No. Now I should say that it’s not to say that this notion of a talent shortage will not be the case within the next 15 to 20 years. As a member of the Association of Computing Machinery (ACM) and the IEEE, we are seeing the enrollment numbers for IT/IS and Engineering related degrees at US universities on the dramatic decrease. Many US university students who may have opted to go into the IT/IS profession are now seeing US based jobs beginning exported and are changing their majors to business related degrees. Fewer IT/IS and Engineering graduates now mean a talent shortage of professionals in the future – it becomes a self fulfilling prophecy.Is there currently a talent shortage of IT/IS professional in the US? No. Should the INS’s H1-B VISA policy have greater scrutiny? Absolutely. Are companies “being very, very picky because they see a lot of people out there looking for work in the wake of the recession?” Yes. And I expect that it will be to their detriment both from a Company reputation standpoint, as well as, a real monetary standpoint.Thank you,Jim