[coopdog]

The pay is actually pretty great in Australia (living costs are also high though).

I think another problem is that there's no one with the -exact- skillset they're after. Why take a chance on a local person that would take a couple of weeks to get up to speed when a foreigner has the exact skillset you're after. Not that I'm against foreign visas, but they do let industry off the hook on the whole training thing to a degree.

[boyter]

That's one of my other complaints. If you are hiring someone for a full-time position if they are anyway decent they can learn whatever skills are required. Im sick of being overlooked for jobs because I know CodeIgniter rather then Cake or am more familiar with MySQL then Oracle.

[jasey]

This is partly due to recruiters really having no idea how to judge candidates other than scanning resumes and cover letters for buzz words.