Why Recruiting Rubyists Is Hard

   Recently I had cause to not-quite-rant on LinkedIn. A recruiter (who, AFAIK, hadn't done anything wrong) asked in the Ruby on Rails group:

So...any idea's on why it is hard to find a Ruby on Rails Developer in Chicago for a contract to hire?

   I didn't expect much of a reaction to my reply, but so many people have been "Like"ing it, either on LinkedIn or by email to me, that I figured I should share it with the world.  Even though it wasn't a rant, this seemed like the most appropriate forum.  It was:

There are plenty of RoR devs in Chicagoland.  There has to be more to the story. Is your client:

- insisting on the "to hire" part, and getting RoR devs applying who are sick of the nonsense usually attached to a so-called "permanent" position, and have zero interest in that part?

- insisting on other unpalatable terms, like a "we own your brain 24/7" IP policy?

- offering a small fraction of the market rate for RoR devs? (Possibly thinking that stock options, or even equity, in their little startup, is worth anything!)

- insisting on 100% onsite work, in a location that's a long commute for most people, when the work could easily be done remotely?

- insisting on 9-5 hours, M-F, no flexibility?

- insisting on long hours, including weekends, and not paying extra for overtime, or maybe even not paying for it at all?

- using outdated other tools and/or techniques?

- offering boring work in a dead-end position utterly unrelated to the core business of the company?

- widely unpalatable for other reasons, like how some people would never work for one of the major political parties or the other?

You see, RoR (and Ruby in general) is in a candidate's market right now -- it's mainstream enough to have high demand, but not quite enough yet to have high *supply*.  So, we Rubyists are in a reasonable position to insist upon companies (and recruiters) treating us decently, like real human beings with a life, not fungible robots.

   The funny part is that among the people liking the comment was... the recruiter herself.  That gives me refreshing hope for the recruiting industry.  There's at least one recruiter out there, who knows (if not before, then at least now!) how horribly the recruiting industry usually treats candidates, and how at least some candidates feel about it.