Is The Economy Heating Up?

As I see the one year anniversary of my last paycheck coming up, I've begun to see more and more BA ads on LinkedIn, Dice and the others.

But the requirements remain huge, unrealistic and stiff as a board.

You still don't know what's important- especially for a couple of recruiters. The recruiters know exactly what the client wants, but doesn't put it in the listing (when did a job ad become a 'requirement?' and why didn't anyone ask me before marketing idiots destroyed another phrase?). I keep applying for jobs that appear to be spectacular matches...only to receive the same canned e-mail in return:

Boy, you look really good and thanks for the time and effort you put into it. Sadly, you're not qualified. I can't tell you why because I received over 200 resumes from people who want to be BAs. I'll give this to my secret...um....Administrative Assistant and archive it so if anything comes in that matches your basic and untidy "qualifications,"  I can give you a call.

In the meantime, if you use the link in this e-mail and drop $30 on a resume blasting scam, I stand to make $7.50, making that deluge of 200 resumes pretty profitable if I get a 10% return.

You can bet if that firm ever calls me, I'll be right there for it- bright eyed and bushy tailed.

A couple companies now have my resume. They SAY they have BA roles and I'm pretty hopeful. They're all contract and a year or less...but hey... I'd rather not actually make that one year anniversary. That would suck. Big time.

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Taking Advantage of BAs Because They Can

There are a lot of BAs who were working (and deserved) low six figure pay before Wall Street idiots did what they did. Most of us worked as consultants because that's where the cash was. Now we're seeing:

• Ridiculous job requirements/software backgrounds in areas other than Health Care, Insurance and Financial- those I can understand- specialized domain knowledge. But database cleaners? Portals? (everyone seems to be moving to SharePoint and this seems to be a real big deal requiring years of experience with the tool- right- you're telling people who can create custom Portals with dozens of interfaces and multiple layers with extensive User Profile functionality doesn't directly relate? Balderdash)l E-Commerce or Basic Business Intelligence? Gimme a break.

• 10+ Years of Experience: Who are these people? There wasn't any such thing as an IT BA in 1999, the concept was just starting to spread with the use of requirements documents (Use Cases). BAs back then were what we tend to call Financial or 'Real' BAs today- the ones who can look at market data and prepare forecasts and other magic stuff accountants and actuaries do. But can they describe how their PC is supposed to connect and how the User is suppose to work the actuary engines?
  

• Demand 6 months or less since the last job: I got a call from a recruiter yesterday- "Scot the job's a perfect fit with your background- what have you been doing since October 2008?" I said, "Looking for work." The recruiter said he was sorry, but the longest gap this company would accept is six months. I laughed, silently (yuh never know if the recruiter might do you some good later). I told him to tell the company I was researching and writing a book: How BAs Fit in the Agile Method. No dice. Well, Dice.com, but not for this job. I figure they lost a tremendous resource. Me.

• Demanding Salary Requirements or Back Salary Levels: I used to make a lot of money- at least as far as most of Chicago's Companies are concerned. They want all the ridiculous requirements and pay $20-$30 per hour. Now, I know I'm going to have to take a salary hit, but these HR people are filtering people out for high pay because they think higher paid people will leave when the economy straightens out. Um, genius, why wouldn't you want a bargain between now and then? If it were me, I'd hire the person, knowing that as long as salaries were low, I was getting a bargain and work the bejesus out of me then shake hands like a mench at the end. Nope- they'll hire a lesser experienced or newly minted BA instead. Is it any wonder some of these companies are in trouble??? I put either $5/year in the field (freakin' developers made the fields number text since my last job search) or leave it blank if I can. Mebbe I can tell them I'd take $45/hour with a smile and a sigh of relief and you'd have a friend for life.

And the silly HR keyword searches, uploading resumes created in Word and the parser screwing every little thing up. I'm sorry the HR people are being inundated- but they are filtering out some great people with superb skills and extensive experience. 350 resumes for a single position? When I was looking for people I would have killed for those numbers so I could get the best person I could.

And the Hiring Managers? Please. Why would you search for a new resource without the gig budgeted and approved? Why are you asking me questions that have absolutely not relevance to what you said the job was all about on the phone? Manhole covers? Why are you wasting your time and mine? I had to pay cash money to come here and talk to you- money I don't have because I make all of $317 a week unemployment.

You can't blame all of this on the economy. A friend and fellow BA twittered this: Why are there so many idiots working and so many really good people looking for work?

The system's broke. We need to fix it.

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