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61% of “Entry-Level” Jobs Require 3+ Years of Experience

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Re: 61% of “Entry-Level” Jobs Require 3+ Years of Experience

#71

Post by michaelt »

whorleater wrote: post #56
hayksaakian wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1) Yes. Any job with entry level requirements will get 20-100 applications on craigslist in seattle (my experience). More or less applications on more or less popular platforms 2) Yes. Half or more of the applications I've reviewed are totally unqualified. Either they ignored the requirements or fudge it and flop on the interview. 3) Tech has even more noise than my personal experience due to higher pay scales and in…

>without any personal interest / passion in technology Can I not work in tech without being passionate?

Passion is a relative term.

Nobody goes to work at Facebook or Google thinking "wow, I'm so passionate about adverts and tracking, I want to build a world with more ads and tracking in more places". It's normal not to be passionate about your work in that sense.

However, some people find computers frustrating, stupid or boring. Such a person probably wouldn't enjoy a job working with them all the time - and it's difficult to build the skills that let you advance your career if you're averse to or bored by practising them. You need to be passionate in the sense of finding the work sufficiently non-loathsome that you can readily motivate yourself to do it.

Re: 61% of “Entry-Level” Jobs Require 3+ Years of Experience

#72

Post by StaticRedux »

3+ years doesn't mean 3+ years "in a job". That makes no sense. (Well, maybe for some companies it does, but you don't want to work there anyways). For some reason people can never get over that.

It means 3+ years with a technology. It means don't walk in the door out of a Java college having used nothing else and apply to work on a Triple A game written in C++. It means don't show up after a weekend html course and apply for a job using Node/React. And before you say "well that isn't me for so and so reason", it happens ALL the time to employers.

An entry level position does not mean you get to learn on the job from scratch or near scratch. It means that you are at least capable enough to work on small or easy problems and features and an employer or other devs can coach you along the way and you'll know what they are saying to you.

That's all it means (to any reasonable employer).

Re: 61% of “Entry-Level” Jobs Require 3+ Years of Experience

#74

Post by stinkytaco »

I worked part time for a couple of years before I ended up full time in my profession. It's a luxury few people have, but quite common in my line of work.

But having hired people, I see this from the other end. I have precisely one person under me. It's all we can afford and I'm in municipal government, so positions are not easy to create. Given that situation, and how hard it is to get rid of someone, I have to be really careful who I hire and that means favoring experience. I expect more supervisors than not are in my position, wanting to mentor but not being able to take the risk.

Re: 61% of “Entry-Level” Jobs Require 3+ Years of Experience

#76

Post by holografix »

whorleater wrote: post #56
hayksaakian wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1) Yes. Any job with entry level requirements will get 20-100 applications on craigslist in seattle (my experience). More or less applications on more or less popular platforms 2) Yes. Half or more of the applications I've reviewed are totally unqualified. Either they ignored the requirements or fudge it and flop on the interview. 3) Tech has even more noise than my personal experience due to higher pay scales and in…

>without any personal interest / passion in technology Can I not work in tech without being passionate?

Yes you can, I’ve been in tech companies where a fair few of my colleagues are not interested in tech. They want to be part of a “winning” organisation and make money.

I sure as hell wouldn’t hire someone who has no interest in what my company is doing and that level of interest would have to increase relative to the role.

What tends to happen is you get very slick operators who don’t produce anything because they don’t understand/don’t care and all they do is get information from A spin it in a way that makes them look fantastic and push it to B.

Given enough people like that in a tech org it’ll collapse.

Re: 61% of “Entry-Level” Jobs Require 3+ Years of Experience

#77

Post by ken »

Waterluvian wrote: post #5

Won't the market sort out whatever this is? Is there a specific unfair mechanism at play that would prevent supply and demand from finding its balance?

The market always clears, but while that's good for the market, it's not necessarily good for the participants.

For example, if women don't apply for jobs unless they meet 100% of the listed requirements [1], and men are much more willing to fudge it, that means this particular market won't clear in a fair manner. This hiring data isn't public, so a company won't lose sales over it, so the market can't correct it on the other end, either.

And that's probably not the only way to slice the set of job-seekers into people who will/won't apply for a job based on the requirements. Essentially, impossible-sounding criteria do filter your set of applicants, but not by the criteria you claim to care about.

[1]: https://hbr.org/2014/08/why-women-dont-apply-for-jobs-unless...

Re: 61% of “Entry-Level” Jobs Require 3+ Years of Experience

#78

Post by DaiPlusPlus »

treis wrote: post #75

I call bullshit. I searched "entry level developer" on indeed and spot checked 10 of them. Not one said 3 years experience required.

As other posters have pointed out, did the ads say 3 years’ experience in a similar job - or 3 years’ experience with a particular language, framework or platform?

Even if someone has a Bachelors in CS, I wouldn’t hire for an entry-level C++ gif without 3 years’ experience with the language: I expect them to pick it up during their time in academia - especially as many (of the best) start coding in high-school or earlier. So in fact, I’d be alarmed if an applicant with a CS degree didn’t claim at least 3 years experience with a common instructional language like Java.

Re: 61% of “Entry-Level” Jobs Require 3+ Years of Experience

#79

Post by psyc »

pagnol wrote: post #46
jamestimmins wrote: post #27

The buried lede here seems to be "In real life, folks need to apply to 150-250 jobs to get a job". I'd be so, so interested to see the breakdown here, and what causes these types of numbers. Are there just enormous numbers of applicants for every job? Are people applying for jobs they aren't qualified for? How does this compare in tech vs the rest of the job market? The signal/noise ratio must be absurdly low if this…

I've similarly always struggled to make sense of these kinds of claims, because in my life so far I was offered a job every time I applied, so I'm wondering if I'm either living in an area where the job market is much less competitive or if I'm aiming too low. It's out of the question that I'm some kind of hotshot, on the contrary my CV is a mess and I dropped out ouf college.

My ratio for applications to offers, over 20 years and 7 jobs, is less than two. My last job search lasted 12 hours, from start of search, to signing a contract. I've explained to people in the past that I'm extremely selective about applying. I only apply to jobs I think I would love, where I can clearly communicate why I'd be a great hire. I'm sensitive to early red flags, and avoid job descriptions that don't make sense or have contradictory reqs. I also have only worked in Boston and Seattle, two of the very hottest markets.

Re: 61% of “Entry-Level” Jobs Require 3+ Years of Experience

#80

Post by nopassion »

holografix wrote: post #76
whorleater wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>without any personal interest / passion in technology Can I not work in tech without being passionate?

Yes you can, I’ve been in tech companies where a fair few of my colleagues are not interested in tech. They want to be part of a “winning” organisation and make money. I sure as hell wouldn’t hire someone who has no interest in what my company is doing and that level of interest would have to increase relative to the role. What tends to happen is you get very slick operators who don’t produce anything because they do…

I used to work on email archival. Anyone who says they’re passionate about that is either lying or doped up on barbiturates.
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