[FRIAM] !RE: A million tech jobs unfilled

[glen ☣]

Yes, it's wrong, in _general_.  Perhaps someone's already mentioned it.  But the truth is that "it's not what you know, but who you know".  That's always been the case.  E.g. I knew a very technical engineering-oriented (white male), with a physics degree, working for me in a programming position.  After I left the company (because it was dying), he was laid off.  He couldn't find another gig there in the valley.  So he got his "project management certificate" and restarted the job hunt, thinking it would round off his tech with some mgmt.  It failed.  So he moved back home to the midwest, where he continued his search ... to no avail.  He acquired more certifcates, again uselessly.  He finally landed a part-time teaching job at a community college.  He's since expanded that into a kinda-sorta full-time teaching career (at that college and elsewhere).

His flaw, as I tried to describe before he got laid off, was that he didn't schmooze enough with the valley gurus-in-power.  He (like me) disliked those people so much that it made such schmoozing painful.  The difference is that he thought what he knows matters as much or more than who he knows.

Given that yesterday was women's day, this article is relevant:

https://theestablishment.co/being-a-nerd-is-different-now-that-im-a-girl-5f9231389b09#.xgahtqy3t

Even if you enjoy schmoozing with a crowd, it can get complicated.  We live in a complex foam of siloization.


On 03/09/2017 09:21 AM, Nick Thompson wrote:
> Thanks.  I have learned a lot from the blow back.  Apparently Tech jobs have become more siloed in the last decade, so people can get stuck in their soloes (Silos?  Is that like “potato”?)  I have a relative who may be stuck in a silo, even while living in Eastern Mass.  I would think that such a person would take a few months off and do a certificate or a crash course somewhere and emerge in another silo, if the opportunity is as great as it seems to be.   I used to tell my undergraduates, “smart, flexible people will always find work.”  Is that wrong? 

-- 
☣ glen