Maybe looking at someone older?

There have been two articles in LinkedIn in the last couple of days complaining about the difficulty companies are having finding people to fill positions in IT related areas.

They both seem to have one focus. Where do we find the students or graduates to fill these positions?

OK - you have to have young people to take on the positions, try internationalising your outlook. In Spain at the moment 26% of the population is unemployed. The number in Greece is similar.

You want to offer me a small bet that there are not a sizable number of IT graduates in that lot? It isn't only construction workers that are paying the price of the economic collapse in both countries - it goes right across the board. Set up an office in Barcelona or Piraeus, offer the work to all the talent that you can find there. I bet that you will not be disappointed!

And then there is the second question that I can raise at this point. Why students? Why graduates? The rest is verbatim what I wrote in my own response to one of these articles. I think that the point is extremely relevant.

Why not check out (across Europe) the large number of experienced IT personnel who are currently unemployed and could easily learn the new skills required?

Why not check out in particular the large number of people over 50 who are in that category and have a proven grasp of maths and computer science? A lot of talent is available if you look in the right places.

Older people will need training? So do the graduates you cannot find! And will learn and will contribute and will commit themselves to what is required.

And given the fact that people live longer they will may well be prepared to work past the statutory retirement age (I personally have no interest in retiring!).

It is not that the talent is not available, it is just that people responsible for hiring do not have the imagination to look in the right places, and have some silly misconceptions about older working personnel when they do!

Postscript. In December last year I had an interview with the HR Manager and the Systems Manager of an international software development organisation. They were impressed. they also promised me that my details would be passed on to the Technical Manager involved in the project that they working upon and I could expect an interview with that individual within six weeks. Eight months later - I have heard nothing.

I have seen them advertising this position again or summat similar since February. There is one particular skillset (working on an Axway platform) that I did not possess. If they had hired me in February, I would have learned all the prerequisite skills and be more than fully competent to carry out the role. Last week they readvertised the position. With unimaginative thinking like that ....