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

talent.works

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

#121

Post by fzeroracer »

DaiPlusPlus wrote: post #78
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 ear…

You make a lot of assumptions that end up not playing out so well. For example when I was at university we didn't have a single core language we used for everything; classes bounced around between C#, Java, C++, Python, Ada, HTML, Javascript and so forth. There are graduates that have wide experience but not depth.

Which speaking as an aside; I was denied an internship back in college because I didn't have three years of professional experience in Java. Needless to say I found it absurd at the time.

You also assume that the best people are coding earlier or have the ability to code earlier. Some of the best developers I've worked with didn't start coding until later in their life.

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

#122

Post by kushalc »

stinkytaco wrote: post #66
kushalc wrote: post #42

Hey guys, I'm the author of this post! (And also happen to be TalentWorks CEO.) A friend sent me this link, I'm happy to answer any Qs. Also, we're hiring. :) If you're sick of spending all your hard-earned education and experience to help Facebook, Google, Amazon, etc. increase ad CTR by 0.001%, we're working on some pretty cool technical problems. Just email me at kushal@talent.works.

Hmmmm... what have you got for someone with no experience? j/k, but I am curious how much time you think is average for a job search in terms of both hours spent and days/weeks before finding something. You talk about "time and stubbornness" but I'm interested just how much time and how much stubbornness. I realize this varies widely by industry, but I would expect there's some sort of white collar average.

We're actually hiring for no-experience positions too! (TBH, some of my best hires were no-experience, high-potential fresh grads who've turned into powerhouses.) I don't suppose you want to be a Marketing Assistant? ;)

To your specific Q, yes, it does vary dramatically by location and specialty. In fact, we did an analysis about exactly that a few months ago! Even for white-collar positions, it ranges from ~14 weeks (software engineers) to ~90 days (HR specialists) to >>90 days (mechanical engineers):

https://talent.works/blog/2017/09/22/how-long-does-it-take-t...

When you dig in, even specialties that take the same time have very different reasons. For instance, mechanical engineers see a pretty high interview callback rate to job applications, it's just that there aren't _enough_ mechanical engineer job openings out there! OTOH, there are tons of HR specialist job openings but you need to apply to a million jobs to even get one reply.

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

#123

Post by TheOtherHobbes »

lifeisstillgood wrote: post #99
StaticRedux wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm speaking on the subject based on experience in my own field (I don't presume to know other fields). But I believe what I said applies anywhere. > An entry level position does not mean you get to learn on the job from scratch or near scratch.

in most fields it means exactly that - or it means "there is a well known educational syllabus that you have already followed and the next X years are the well known practical side of that education. At the end you will be rewarded with membership of a profession" it works for lawyers, civil engineers and accountants. not for software engineers it seems.

Layers and accountants have specific post-graduate examinations. Doctors and dentists have an extended education combined with on-the-job training.

In the UK engineers can apply for chartered status, which assesses professional experience.

The reason software developers have none of these things is because the entry qualification for some jobs is "I know some javascript", while for others it's a post-graduate understanding of statistical distributions and vector calculus.

There's no professional accreditation system, no reliable way to assess professional competence, and a lot of the tools (and ideas, and systems) are hacked together with no formal rigour by people who like solving puzzles more than they like making things that work reliably.

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

#124

Post by rifung »

johnnyfaehell wrote: post #39
dotcoma wrote: post #3

Do we need more evidence that "Entry-Level" means "poorly paid"?

To be fair, I think even the senior levels aren't exactly well paid. According to https://taketheexit.de/ 55% of developers feel heavily underpaid and that's something I can believe easily.

Sorry couldn't you elaborate on why you can believe it easily? I feel like people in tech are paid very well so this is a surprise to me. If anything I feel overpaid despite being paid much less than most of my peers

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

#125

Post by bproven »

Another interesting factoid I gathered from this is the "avoid ageism" tip about removing dates from graduation + only list last 10 years of job experience. I've always suspected it, but this supports it as a reality. Sad reality that we throw away experience...

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

#126

Post by betterbeehome »

vonmoltke wrote: post #98
michaelt wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 diff…

> You need to be passionate in the sense of finding the work sufficiently non-loathsome that you can readily motivate yourself to do it. That is a major abuse of "passion". While the original definitions are even stronger, something you are "passionate" about is something you actively seeking out to do. Something that is merely "sufficiently non-loathsome" is not a passion.

This. How can people say something so wrong headed like "Passion is a relative term." No you're just manipulative.

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

#127

Post by thenanyu »

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?

I think it always helps to care about the quality of your craft. "Passion" seems to be the prevalent HR-speak for that concept.

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

#128

Post by nitwit005 »

StaticRedux wrote: post #72

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…

You're imagining reasonable behavior, but that's demonstrably not what's going on. We've all seen job ads that request more years of experience in a technology than the technology has existed.

These are just number made up on the spot by people who can't be bothered to think about it.

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

#129

Post by antisthenes »

crankylinuxuser wrote: post #38
crazcarl wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You absolutely shouldn't lie. But you also shouldn't let your lack of experience stop you from applying to entry level jobs.

You're absolutely right! You should never lie, especially when random company HR wants 10 years of NodeJs and its been around for 2 years. Perhaps lying to get past the know-nothings in HR is acceptable. Probably not a good idea to lie to tech people you would work with.

I think it's absolutely OK to lie until you get to the in-person interviews where there's less emphasis on buzz keywords and more focus on your actual skills.

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

#130

Post by runevault »

nopassion wrote: post #80
holografix wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I think there are two sides of equation. You can be passionate about the literal problem (search, AI, whatever) or the underlying problem with tech (I could imagine finding interesting problems around new indexing techniques, rapid access, etc if you wanted to really get into the nitty gritty)
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