I fully agree, companies whine and complain that they can’t find any skilled labor without ever acknowledging that it’s their job to train and take risks on the newbies. Instead they just want the perfect candidate for their specialized position to be gift wrapped and at “market rate” and desperate enough to go through multiple interview stages.

Even in my job, I’ve asked over and over for them to hire a junior/apprentice that I can train up from the beginning on our complex system and work, but they just want to hire short term contractors instead. We end spending the same amount of time training them as a junior, but then 6-12 months later when their contract is up, they go off somewhere else and we have to do it all over again and never build on our foundations.

I was hired as a contractor, and stuck through until I was an employee, and I’m now 5 years in, but it was not easy. It was essentially a two year paid interview.

And most don’t make it that way. If I was hired as a real employee as a junior, and able to train my way up with the masters of my company, who knows where I’d be and how not-delayed and not-over-budget our project would be.

When I talk to business about it, they moan how employees and contractors come from different budgets and the stock market favors contractors so their hands are tied, and I call bullshit on that. It’s bad business and the solution is obvious - train up the workforce you want to have.

It’s like buying a good pair of boots once, or buying cheap boots every year.