Georgia Gov. Nathan Deal released the findings yesterday of his High Demand Career Initiative, which highlights overall trends, high-demand careers and skills, challenges, recommendations and what Georgia businesses anticipate they will need in five to 10 years.
One of the urgent recommendations was to increase the pipeline of workers with the skills needed for Georgia growth industries, including agriculture, aerospace, automotive manufacturing, defense, film, television, interactive entertainment, healthcare, life sciences, information technology, logistics and manufacturing.
Here is what's baffling: Industry leaders, politicians and academics decry the lack of skilled workers in these fields, yet many science, technology and math grads contend they can’t find work.
And often those workers are older.
Making that point today is Philip Buonpastore of Dahlonega, an engineering professional, freelance writer and book author.
Buonpastore sent me this essay in response to a study I wrote about a few days ago in which the nation's top CEOs lamented their ability to find American workers with the technical skills needed for even mid-level jobs.
By Philip Buonpastore
Credit: Maureen Downey
Credit: Maureen Downey
As a 50-something college-educated man with a long resume of technical and engineering employment, I was perplexed to read last week’s article in the AJC that claimed CEOs of major U.S. companies can’t find skilled technical workers, and 98 percent of those surveyed said lagging science and math skills were hurting their businesses.
Like many in my age group, including a sizable percentage of associates and friends, I have been actively searching for technical-engineering based employment for years, regularly submitting resumes to all types of high-tech companies.
I have used all the recommended steps suggested for finding the right position. These include having a “LinkedIn” page, tailoring resumes to fit the type of work, not including dates when I thought it would be an obvious indicator of my age, adding links and attachments showing my accomplishments in a specific employment role, etc.
Generally, I rarely receive anything more than an automated, “Thank you for submitting your resume” response, an automated rejection email, or no response at all.
Most of my peers come from a time when college degrees had a little more practicality than what many schools now offer. My degree was in electronics engineering technology, with a course curriculum that included electronic circuit theory and design, robotics and software programming. The degree program also required college course work in physics, and math courses from algebra to calculus. Both technical and academic course work were required to graduate with a degree.
Still, here’s an article stating that Siemens and companies like them cannot find people with an adequate technical background, and that these companies have to go as far as sending educators to Germany to learn how to teach employees advanced manufacturing skills. Add to that, these employees might also need remedial education in math and even language skills.
So, I submit these companies are simply looking in the wrong place. Age discrimination aside — and I suspect this is probably the main reason older workers are overlooked — companies might not be considering older pros because they perceive these workers have fewer years left on the job.
But let’s look at some statistics. According to information readily available on the Internet, the average time an employee stays in a job now is 4.4 years. That statistic is considerably less for “millennials,” who tend to stay in the same job for three years or less.
Now take into account the added requirement that some being hired by tech companies also need additional training and education.
In contrast, the older, experienced professional who came out of a high school and college system generally did so with a better education than many educational institutions now offer, and with skills that are a direct match for these employers. He or she is also probably less likely to go “job hopping” in the hope of better pay and advancement, preferring instead to find a position that suits them and staying there.
I would think that in the vast majority of cases, the right company and the right job will yield employment longevity that will exceed 4.4 years by a considerable amount.
So until it becomes more apparent that high-tech companies are taking advantage of the readily available resource of employable older professionals like me, I remain doubtful prospective job candidates with the required technical skills are simply not available. It is just as likely those who do have the skills are not being considered for the available positions.
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