Lack of technical people on marketplace?

robatwork

Is there a general dearth of technical talent out there?

We have advertised for a senior technical person with wide ranging windows and support skills.

Really surprised at the few CVs that are coming in.

South of England but not London - hardly a lack of people in the region though.

As an aside, on the few CVs that have made it to my desk, not ONE is fully free of grammatical errors. Shocking.

ohreally

Is the salary pitched at the calibre your seeking to recruit, might need to consider reviewing.

Gavin83

How much in terms of salary/overall package are you offering?

There certainly shouldn't be a shortage of people for such a role so I can only assume there is something wrong with your application. I'd assume the above but maybe your advertising in the wrong place?

[Deleted User]

I'm well paid technical person. I have a job because I'm also a good technical person. To hire me, you'd need to offer me 15-20% more than I'm on now to make me consider moving jobs.

So, offer more money and you'll find more applicants. Simples. Offering under market rates gets you poor quality applicants or people who hated their old jobs/bosses

getmore4less

Depends were you are and the package.

There has always been a shortage of good technical people and those that do become available usually get work quick through networking.

Even when times were not so good 4-5 years ago everyone at my place(shutdown) that wanted got jobs quickly mainly through networking, some have since moved on to better jobs.

The very good people migrate to the better employers this way.
If your current employees can't bring people to you that may tell you something.
Do you do offer recruitment bonuses?
No one internal applied or good enough(even with training)?
What's your leaving rate.

Commutes will limit your catchment area.

Also any indications of flexible working and work from home, some won't consider jobs without those now.

Biggest problem is likely to be package.

robatwork

It's difficult to know where to pitch the salary as half the job is unpacking boxes and trivial loading software, the other half may involve complex VPN troubleshooting. Small company = wide job spec.

What's a recruitment bonus? Like a golden hello?
Nobody internal is suitable.
Current incumbent has been in place about 8 years so no issue with him moving on.

As a small company we've always kept it simple - if you need a car you get one, otherwise you don't. So the package is really all about the salary. The job needs to be "in office" - it can't be done remotely due to the interaction needed and the above "box shifting" element.

Do Tech Support people really work from home - I can understand programmers ......?

Gavin83

robatwork wrote: »

Do Tech Support people really work from home - I can understand programmers ......?

It depends on the job and the company. I work as a DBA and can do everything I'd do in the office from home. Our remote systems are good and I never see the customers anyway, partly because most of them are located in a seperate office. I wouldn't expect Servicedesk employees or desktop support to work at home though.

As your a small company I expect your wanting a general all round IT person to basically support all your IT needs.

As for the salary I would suggest that if you aren't getting any interest then it is too low, especially considering no other perks are available. It may well be worth revising, unless your willing to be really patient.

Out of curiousity what is the salary being offered on this role?

davisc02

Hi Robat,

"It's difficult to know where to pitch the salary as half the job is unpacking boxes and trivial loading software, the other half may involve complex VPN troubleshooting. Small company = wide job spec."

There's most of your problem, anyone with a good all round knowledge of skills such as networks,servers,database, backups etc are probably going to be attracted and offered better roles than something you are offering. A good IT all rounder should never be out of work in the South East, I often get a "Fantastic Opportunity" email offering me roles like this and I just hit the delete button. From what you have described this would be an ideal job for someone wanting to break into IT and trained up using the guy who has been there 8 years as their teacher.

"Do Tech Support people really work from home - I can understand programmers ......?"

Yes, I work for a large IT services provider and as all of the servers are based at data centres around the UK and most support staff work from home and do everything they can do from their laptops at home as they can sitting in some dreary office listening to middle management talking rubbish. With most IT jobs there really is no need to be in the office anymore certainly not 5 days a week.

Hope this helps

Cheers

getmore4less

Agree this is really not a senior technical role

may be worth having a look at your skill mix/head count.

1/2 the job could be done by an intern/work experience person.

Have you considered a part timer for the more technical stuff probably some people around that are semi retired that might be interested

Jakg

ohreally wrote: »

Is the salary pitched at the calibre your seeking to recruit, might need to consider reviewing.

I'm going to have to agree with this, in the absence of any other information. These people do exist - and they are looking for work - but for some reason they are skipping right past your ad.

getmore4less

Can you give an idea of what type of business and where the IT fits within it.
(rough is good enough if you want to avoid identifying)

If there is 1/2 persons worth of setting up new machines that's a lot of machines or getting done very inefficiently.