Is Xtra Effort perpetuating age discrimination?

Below you will see a reader’s response to Xtra Effort’s recent email about 2010 hiring trends among enterprise technology companies.

What are your thoughts?

Mark

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Randy, thank you for the note. This is a consistently observed theme among new venture backed or earlier stage technology companies, with many exceptions.   Over 60% of Xtra Effort’s 20,000+ candidate pool has more than 8 years experience, and we certainly don’t want to alienate them. However, we are simply sharing an observation we have made.  We also find this observation to be troubling, because Xtra Effort would benefit without this unwritten hiring condition. However, we found the exceptions to be encouraging, and hope they become the norm as the economy continues to improve.

More established enterprise technology companies may not have this hiring bias, but Xtra Effort does not have has as much exposure to their hiring needs.

The data may suggest to be more experienced Sales and PS personnel to begin to create a niche for themselves, i.e., supply chain, virtualization, service desk mgt, etc.. “Niche” can be defined as knowledge of the technology, relationships with the solution’s user and executive sponsor community, and credibility regarding the use cases that dictate the specific class of technology’s need.

Thanks again for your comments and feedback.

Mark

From: Randy

Sent: Monday, December 27, 2010 12:07 PM
To: markrodman@xtraeffort.com
Subject: RE: 2010 Enterprise Tech. Co’s hiring activity; Trends for 2011

Mark,

I appreciate being a part of your network but I have to say I take exception to the following “Employers continue to want to hire Sales and PS candidates with 2 –  8 years experience to reduce salary cost, receive fresh new ideas, and have a work culture that is more receptive to web 2.0 technologies.”

Is this really what the data is saying?  That only sales candidates with 2 to 8 years experience are desired to reduce salary costs and they have fresh ideas and would be more receptive to web 2.0 technologies?  There are many quality sales individuals that I know, myself included, who are experienced and can run circles around those with 2 to 8 years experience in a sales cycle and conitnually embrace new technologies and put forth fresh new ideas with whatever company they are working with.

These statements pretty much portray age discrimination.  I don’t know how many of your candidates in your network have more than 8 years experience but I’m one of them and I have to admit I take exception to these statements.

How many firms are requiring this?  5?  15?  Is this representative of the entire industry?  Could this be companies within your network only and don’t represent the broader industry?  I happen to know of a lot of companies that value experience with the ability to embrace new technologies.

I guess I’m asking if these are really the messages you want to put across to your broader candidate pool?  If they are, I guess anyone with over 8 years experience is going to be in a bit of trouble in this industry if we believe these trends to be true of software sector unless they fall into one of the “exception” groups.

Regards,

Randy

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Date: Sun, 26 Dec 2010 23:46:02 -0500
From: markrodman@xtraeffort.com
To: Randy

Subject: 2010 Enterprise Tech. Co’s hiring activity; Trends for 2011

 

Randy, Available to you is a sampling of 2010 hiring data across Xtra Effort’s clients.  The information includes compensation, location, technology/service offering, and role. Interpretation of the data and the implication for 2011: Employers continue to want to hire Sales and PS candidates with 2 –  8 years experience to reduce salary cost, receive fresh new ideas, and have a work culture that is more receptive to web 2.0 technologies.   However, we see an increasing frequency of exceptions, including  employers who:   · Value the rolodex, or require candidates with deep, stable, and proven experience within a particular industry niche or technology offering  ·Are realizing their product category, brand, & processes are not mature enough, and require “higher touch” customer facing processes to address complex tech./bus. issues (and hence more experience) Salary and total compensation are increasing by up to 20% Increased use of Web and Sales 2.0 technologies to improve Sales and PS productivity Hot Technologies: SaaS/Cloud, Virtualization, Compliance, analytics (fraud prevention, customer retention, web marketing, etc) , data storage, Single Sign On, and health care related technologies Specialized consulting and integration firms  are well positioned to help enterprises and vendors understand and implement the above technologies. Review Xtra Effort 2010 client hiring detail Click here to review active current day Xtra Effort client hiring requirements  Separately, we have created an easy means for you to refer potential Xtra Effort candidates and hiring managers via a new utility. Check it out, you may want to use this novel referral utility for your business; or you may appreciate Xtra Effort’s $500 Amazon.com Candidate Referral Program. Happy New Year. Mark P.S. for you non New Englanders, the Boston area is finally getting its share of precipitation … in the form of snow!