IBM Plans To Triple Entry-Level Hiring in the US (bloomberg.com) 39
IBM said it will triple entry-level hiring in the US in 2026, even as AI appears to be weighing on broader demand for early-career workers. From a report: While the company declined to disclose specific hiring figures, it said the expansion will be "across the board," affecting a wide range of departments. "And yes, it's for all these jobs that we're being told AI can do," said Nickle LaMoreaux, IBM's chief human resources officer, speaking at a conference this week in New York.
LaMoreaux said she overhauled entry-level job descriptions for software developers and other roles to make the case internally for the recruitment push. "The entry-level jobs that you had two to three years ago, AI can do most of them," she said at Charter's Leading With AI Summit. "So, if you're going to convince your business leaders that you need to make this investment, then you need to be able to show the real value these individuals can bring now. And that has to be through totally different jobs."
LaMoreaux said she overhauled entry-level job descriptions for software developers and other roles to make the case internally for the recruitment push. "The entry-level jobs that you had two to three years ago, AI can do most of them," she said at Charter's Leading With AI Summit. "So, if you're going to convince your business leaders that you need to make this investment, then you need to be able to show the real value these individuals can bring now. And that has to be through totally different jobs."
inflexible old folks (Score:5, Insightful)
I went through this at U.S. West, First Data, and Experian back in the late 1990s. The last one was the bitter end of my ever working for another large company. Having seen the downsizing/reengineering/rightsizing wars of the late 20th century firsthand, I don't have any trouble predicting what's going to happen in the late 2020s.
Starting a company is hard, nerve wracking work, but if I fail it's on me. No amount of money could tempt me into a Fortune 500 in this environment.
Re: (Score:3)
Ya, I am finishing up a stint at a very large organization and the experience has been eye-opening at how disposable staff is, especially when the sins of management is on the line.
And knowing what I know now, I would have tried my fortune elsewhere. It's not quite Kligon promotion (I've manage to survive and I only have a modicum of social skills), but there is no doubt any continued employment isn't based on skills, aptitude, or even need but whatever astrology management is using this month.
Get it while
Sounds awful. (Score:5, Insightful)
Since AI tools can handle most routine coding tasks, the company’s junior software developers now spend less time on that and more time working with customers. In the HR department, entry-level staffers now spend time intervening when HR chatbots fall short, correcting output and talking to managers as needed, rather than fielding every question themselves.
It certainly sounds like IBM wants people to fix broken shit code that AI barfs out. I'm sure that won't have any native long-term consequences or anything. /s
Re:Sounds awful. (Score:5, Insightful)
Since AI tools can handle most routine coding tasks, the company’s junior software developers now spend less time on that and more time working with customers. In the HR department, entry-level staffers now spend time intervening when HR chatbots fall short, correcting output and talking to managers as needed, rather than fielding every question themselves.
It certainly sounds like IBM wants people to fix broken shit code that AI barfs out. I'm sure that won't have any native long-term consequences or anything. /s
It sounds to me like IBM is seeing short-sighted thinking by management at companies around the globe, and is doing what smart companies with piles of cash should be doing — tying up all the people who could fill those discarded roles so that when those companies realize how screwed they are, they will end up paying overpriced IBM consultants at a premium to do what they could have had employees doing if their c-suites weren't so busy being penny-wise, pound-foolish.
I mean, it's taking a calculated risk, but it's a smart risk, IMO.
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"tying up all the people who could fill those discarded roles" Think scale. IBM isn't big enough to do this for even 5% of the talent out there for other companies to hire.
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And on top of that, IBM resists hiring people who aren't typical droids. It's not that they never do it, but they are always trying to hire the most boring people possible so they will buckle down and fit into their big inflexible corporate structure which sucks the life out of every acquisition.
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"tying up all the people who could fill those discarded roles" Think scale. IBM isn't big enough to do this for even 5% of the talent out there for other companies to hire.
If they focused on the U.S., they could easily do a lot of damage. There are only O(4.4 million) software engineers in the U.S., and the unemployment rate is around five or six percent, which is maybe 250k unemployed software engineers or thereabouts. If they hired even the best 25k, that would probably cause a big drop in the quality of the pool that remained. And for a company the size of IBM, that's not an outrageous number of people.
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This is the definition of a reverse centaur.
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It does. But that is not a job any junior person can handle competently.
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Non-Paywalled LInk (Score:3)
Re: Non-Paywalled LInk (Score:2)
So, basically, it is a push to hire more salespeople in the hope to sell the slop the "AI" is producing?
Ok, that's very IBM.
Sure...plans... not promises (Score:4, Insightful)
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It means it this time! The hiring will triple from 3 to 9, and those 9 will be ex-interns who are kids of senior management.
Get 'em while they're malleable and cheap (Score:5, Insightful)
Since H-1B's are harder to get nowadays, and opening offices in a bunch of countries isn't cheap (along with the employee-friendly/business-hostile employment laws outside of the USA) Hiring people just out of school might make some sense.
Now, in a few years' time after the junior employees have groked all the tribal knowledge from the seasoned veterans, the seasoned veterans will be introduced to the IBM job cut guillotine just like they were during the great recession.
The lesson I learned when I was employed is that I should have changed employers more often. Staying put means seasoned veterans get screwed in their 40's and 50's.
So the H1B thing is kind of a misnomer (Score:1)
I mentioned it on another comment but the fees the Trump administration imposed don't have any effect on reducing H-1B desirability because they are so much cheaper than local talent. A recent study showed they make around 20 to 30% less than hiring lo
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A recent study showed they make around 20 to 30% less than hiring locally and they also have fewer benefits.
Cite?
So⦠(Score:2)
They are hiring three interns instead of the previous one? Bravo!
I will believe it when I see it (Score:1)
Trump is absolutely destroying the economy but he is chasing off the immigrants though. Still I think that's going to turn out to be mostly low-skilled work that gets chased off I don't think it's going to have a large effect on the kind of positions and promotions folks here are looking for.
A recent study showed that the $100,000 fee for H1 B's has no effect whatsoever because they tend to make 20 to 30% less than a locally
Whoa! (Score:3)
Are they really going from 1 to 3?
IBM has been offshoring the fuck out of the company for the last decade or more. Domestic hiring is virtually non-existent.
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going after the ex-Amazon IT staff? (Score:4, Informative)
This is my guess.
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There's negligible technical value in Amazon IT staff. They're mostly sales people.
Translation (Score:4, Informative)
IBM plans to reduce salaries 3x because people can just type stuff into Claude.
Fresh meat! (Score:4, Informative)
IBM needs to reload it's stock pile of people for their annual layoffs. That way their headcount remains the same at the end of the year and they can still grind up their quota of souls like usual.
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The only truth spoken in these comments.
The Blackening of Boxes (Score:2)
In the early '80s I had a friend who had a car which he would often be repairing. It was an old car even then. It was larger car of the time, probably a Holden. Everything mechanical was roomy. I remember him saying that you could probably open the bonnet, climb in and stand beside the engine. The engine was pretty simple, and had quite a bit of room for error. It was not precision engineering, but it worked, even if it wasn't finely tuned. Even though he wasn't a mechanic, his hobbyist knowledge allowed hi
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Heh, I was that guy; worked on '60s era Chevies in the '80s and '90s. I even installed EFI on a '69 Camaro but when it came modern cars with integrated computer controls, I couldn't keep up.
As for work, I run super computers. But they're still linux; rather easy to work on like the old '60s cars.
chatbot monitors (Score:2)
IBM has historically hired most of the workforce right out of college and expected them to stay on indefinitely. Get a little too old and you get laid off. Its cheaper that way. So now they are hiring inexpensive labor to monitor the chatbots.
From the article;
"Since AI tools can handle most routine coding tasks, the company’s junior software developers now spend less time on that and more time working with customers. In the HR department, entry-level staffers now spend time intervening when HR chatbot
Re:chatbot monitors (Score:4, Insightful)
Ah, so they are setting themselves up for failure. No surprise. Because monitoring LLMs is a job that requires a lot of experience and insight.
And the AI failure becomes more obvious (Score:2)
While it was always clear to smart people, what this shows is that the core promises of the LLM-peddlers are simply one thing: Lies.
Just asking (Score:2)
We've been treated to ghosting after accepting a job offer. We've had really unrealistic salary expectations - we've had expectations of promotion to senior management positions in a few months. We've had exceptional disrespect, and belief they they are now fully formed, and not only know more than the "olde fartes" All from people who have potential, but wild expectations for themselves.
I mean that BMW and glass walled penthouse apartment won't pay for itself
If IBM is hiring, then that ship has sailed? (Score:2)
At least that was the sort of Funny I was hoping to see on this story...