How To Land A Tech Job at Apple, Google and Facebook
With 14 million Americans unemployed, it is difficult to fathom that there are companies that can not find qualified candidates to fill job vacancies. Oil industry has had a chronic skilled labor shortage dating way before oil hit an all-time high of $145 in 2008. Nowadays, working at McDonald’s at the Bakken oil shale in North Dakota fetches about $25 an hour, while truckers get $70,000+ a year vs. $40,000 elsewhere.
But the talent crunch is now hitting the technology sector fast and furious spreading beyond the Silicon Valley in California and central Texas Austin, into cities as disparate as Indianapolis and New York, according to MarketWatch. The article described how more than two dozen start-up tech execs flew from Austin for two days to try to poach Silicon Valley talent and ended up leaving empty handed.
MarketWatch article also quoted CareerBuilder.com that
“Tech and engineering jobs are one place we’re really feeling a worker shortage….. job openings are there for software developers, systems engineers, product managers, mobile-app developers and database administrators.”
Indeed, you can’t automate software development which still requires human brain skill and insight. And the tech worker crunch is set to get worse. According to CIO.com, more and more corporate IT executives are looking to pull the plug on outsourcing (i.e. insourcing) due to a number of factors including poor service quality, desire of more control over the future direction of the IT function, etc.
Moreover, MercuryNews noted that even the $60 billion IT outsourcing industry of India is hiring “thousands of expensive engineers and business development specialists in Silicon Valley and [U.S.] nationwide,” due to the growing complexity of outsourced work, and since the best Indian engineers are hired away by American giants such as Hewlett-Packard (HPQ), IBM and Accenture, Indian outsourcing companies instead are finding U.S. employees a much more attractive option.
So as dismal as the U.S. employment outlook seems to be, tech sector led by innovation is one of the very few bright spots left. When one in four young professionals consider working for Google their dream job, this timely infographic sent over by our friend Tony highlights some facts and tips on what you may need to land a gig at Silicon Valley. Of course, a college degree would definitely better the odds particularly in the science and tech field.
The views and opinions expressed herein are the author’s own, and do not necessarily reflect those of EconMatters.
Via EconMatters
