[ale] pay rates vs. experience

[deritchie at gmail.com (David Ritchie)]

On Fri, Apr 27, 2012 at 8:04 AM, Lightner, Jeff <JLightner at water.com> wrote:
> On the most recent posting on the Ale jobs list I had to laugh when I saw a
> pay range of 65k-75k for everything THAT job entailed such as SAN
> administration, managing 5000 domains in BIND just to name a couple.?? Even
> funnier was that it was 6 months CTP ? Really? ?They can?t figure out
> whether someone is worthwhile in 3 months??? True you don?t really get fully
> up to speed in a new complex environment in less than 6 months but it should
> be obvious long before that whether you are CAPABLE of getting up to speed
> or not.

Some headhunters use the term 'purple squirrel' to describe candidates
that meet these qualifications.
Needless to say, these jobs don't get filled quickly - purple
squirrels are almost always already
working, don't have to take contract jobs, and don't work for low $$.
Headhunters hate these positions because they have to spend a lot of
time working to fill them.

Re wage rates -  there are employers that believe that because people
building houses are out of work, that system administrators are in the
same boat. not clueful....

Often, when a person has a lot of qualfiication but not a lot of time
in service, it is a warning that you
really have to look at experience. Some  candidates writing down every
item that was at the
previous companies he/she worked for, whether or not they actually
have any experience with the
technology.

Best regards,
Dave Ritchie