That assumes that they care about losing "the best". They would rather have a bunch of mediocre workers that get the job done and accept poor treatment than have good workers who want crazy shit like market wages and to be treated like human beings. At a certain point "good" is no longer profitable, you reach the point of diminishing returns. Cheap > good again. The Walmart effect in action.

Bottom line: They're cheap. They can hire 4 of them for the cost of one FTE here. That's all they care about. Dollars are easy to quantify; quality of work is more difficult, especially when you're a walking haircut in an empty suit with an MBA and remarkable myopia. Trying to get an MBA to understand the difference between "cheap" and "good" is like talking to a wall most of the time. In their mind, they are the same. They don't understand what their reports do, and refuse to listen to them when they raise a problem that might require 1) actual work on their part, or 2) (shock horror) SPENDING MONEY.

You might want to get your sarcasm detector checked :)

Because, frequently, they are better off financially on unemployment. Finding a minimum wage job that provides health coverage is pretty much impossible; if you're on assistance, you probably qualify for Medicaid. So, minimum wage + buy your own health insurance (although the ACA makes this much more feasible), or (probably) better than minimum wage and Medicaid coverage. Is it any shock what some people choose? If the minimum wage wasn't such a fucking joke, and we had a single-payer health system like all the grownup countries have, this would cease to be so big a problem.

I don't know why they bother; if those are exempt employees (which they are, if the employer has any brains). It's perfectly legal to require your exempt employees to work many many more hours than the 40 they're getting paid for on paper, and not compensate them for anything over 40. At least for now, if someone complains about long hours, as far as the employer is concerned, they can either 1) shut the fuck up and get back to work, or 2) be threatened with replacement by a cheaper worker. It's harder to do that in technical roles, but not impossible. The effort is probably worth it if you make an example out of someone; the others will be less likely to complain if they see someone frogmarched to the door for speaking up.

So, it's ok to treat them like slaves, because they have a lower COL? Sounds a bit like socialism, "From each according to their ability, to each according to their need."

$40k a YEAR, you mean.

Just rare enough to be worth a premium, and to have the audacity to demand things like good benefits and a work-life balance.

Why do they hate America?

/thread

You ever want to really confuse them? Tell them your keyboard doesn't have a Windows key, like my old IBM model M. They'll spend all kinds of time walking you through trying to find it..

"Please to be looking at the left side of your keyboard, do you see the button C T R L?"
"Yes, I see it."
"The Windows key is being right next to that one"
"No, there's no key right next to it, there is one that says A L T a little further over"
"No, there has to be a key between that has the Windows logo"
"I'm telling you, there isn't. Why don't you tell me what you're trying to do and I'll find a different way"
"You are lying! You have a Windows key there, you have to"
"Nope, old keyboard. What are you trying to do?"
Then you listen to them flip through the script and again insist you must have a Windows key if it's a Windows computer.

It's great fun. I've wasted 90 minutes of their time this way. Another thing I like to do is, when they say there's a problem with my Windows computer, I ask them "Which one? I have several", which is true. I ask them for the machine name, the IP, everything they should know if they're getting a trouble report, right?

The goal is to get them to hang up on YOU.

If you are really good, you will be paid what you are worth. Whatever those "agent" skims from you will not eat into your worth

That seems to imply that if you're merely "good" or "competent" you won't be paid what you're worth (as in, less than the rock stars, but market rates). Not everyone is a rock star, and they need to eat too. They can still bring value to your organization greater than what you pay them.

Just as an aside I don't recruit in the IT space. I recruit for civil engineers. I did have a brief stint in the early 2000s in IT recruitment but I left that sector as fast as I could as it is extremely difficult to determine if someone can do what they say they can and the general attitude from "candidates" is extremely hostile to recruiters.

There's good reason for that. In my experience 99% of all recruiters that work in the IT space are useless idiot C students who don't know, for example, the difference between Java and Javascript. They could be selling cars with the same tactics. Some recruiters will send your (sometimes doctored without your knowledge or consent) resume to a client company without contacting you first; this becomes awkward when you independently apply for that position but you get tossed for not being able to keep track of where you've applied. Then there are the boiler-room operations who will lie to you about a position being open (as in they filled it last week) just to get you in to their offices and consequently into their databases, so they can brag about how many people with a given skill set they have when they sell their services.

And, more frequently than you would expect, the recruiter will lie to you about the compensation package to get you to take the job (so they can get paid). I have first-hand knowledge of this one. Cost me the equivalent of $20,000 in total compensation (salary + 401k contributions) a year. (Granted, I bear some responsibility for that one, as I didn't insist on the job offer being put in writing before I showed up the first day. I didn't want to not go in on my first day because the recruiter couldn't get their shit together, and I was out of work at the time.)

I even saw where some recruiters will operate under a pseudonym for a time, until their sleazeball tactics catch up with them, and then they'll mysteriously "have left the company", to be replaced by someone who sounds just like them.

These are recruiters that give the whole industry a bad name. Many IT workers also resent the fact that you're an impediment between themselves and the hiring manager, and recruiters may or may not be able to accurately convey the details of your skill set, because they have no actual knowledge of what any of it means. They just shotgun out emails to everyone that matches a keyword search. This is why two or three times a day I get an email pimping out some awesome 3 month contract in a city 1500 miles away doing something that isn't actually in my skill set.

It's unfortunate, but most recruiters in the IT space are either liars or idiots, sometimes both.

Always one, isn't there.

Refuse to work for anyone who asks you to take a drug test.

I already do. Most employers in my field have figured out that there's no reason to test if there aren't signs of a problem.

Heck, start a competing company that hires all the excellent potheads they refuse.

Not everyone that smokes pot is a "pothead". That's like saying everyone who likes a beer or two is an alcoholic.

If you want to work for XYZ Corporation, then XYZ Corporation has a right to make sure you aren't stoned when you come to work.

I agree. The pee test doesn't tell you that, and being around people smoking (but not smoking yourself) is enough to spike a positive.

The question I have, is do you want the job more than you want to smoke pot, or not.

You've missed my point. The issue is not whether or not I would pass the screen. The issue is that it's invasive, humiliating, and unnecessary. The issue is that it's one more way for your employer to control your life. The issue is that a joint on the weekends isn't going to make you a dangerous/bad worker. The issue is that it's not a crime in a lot of states. The issue is that it's none of their fucking business if it doesn't impact your ability to do your job, and it doesn't. We don't keep people from working if they drink a beer (or 17) on the weekends, and having an alcoholic on your payroll is worse than having someone who's used pot an indeterminant number of times in the last 30 days. But we don't test for alcohol.

But, keep buying into the Reefer Madness hysteria if you want. History will make a fool of you.