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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

#151

The best I saw on LinkedIn was "3 years of experience required in TensorFlow". Released in late 2015...

This to me indicates that it is recruitment companies applying these metrics (3y+, 5y+, 10y+) as a standard for job ads and companies just go with it.

I.e. 3y+ is just a shortcut way to sort CV's, not a requirement.

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

#152
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…

[deleted]

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

#153

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'm currently trying to hire cloud solution architects, including in Bangalore. I have had >2000 applicants for the role. About 15 made it through resume & phone screens. I have found 1 so far that could make it through onsite interviews. This is just one data point from the opposite POV: especially in tech, it's extremely hard to find qualified people at the time and place you need them, especially if you need specialists.

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

#154

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…

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…

>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.

Common advice is that job posters put insane requirements on their posting because they don't really expect an entry level applicant to have 15 years experience in HTML5, Joomla, C++14, Bootstrap, Hypercard, Quechua, nuclear physics, and Go, just a little bit of exposure to half of them. It's not surprising that unreasonably underqualified people respond to job postings with unreasonably high expectations, and that all job postings end up not being taken seriously.

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

#156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

And those date ranges can vary wildly for extremely differing reasons. Especially for white collar jobs, you may have a negotiation period that last weeks-to-months, especially if you're currently employed while applying.

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

#157

I get it though. The employer is thinking: Why do I pay you to train you? You should pay me to train you. Lets bring back the apprentice system.

That is amazingly short sighted by an employer. They don't deserve to have an employee they can train. A company is losing the opportunity to train employees. And if they don't put the effort in early.. They are probably losing their top talent and don't even realize it.

Right, it's a thinking ahead investment scenario with risk. But if you look at it from a transactional point of view it makes no sense: I pay you to educate you while you provide me with nothing.

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

#158

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 was a recruiter for 8 years, and maybe 1 in 100 applications turned into a hire. I suspect a big factor is the barrier to entry for applying has been lowered. Just fill out a quick form and click submit, so people will apply to any job that looks remotely relevant. An increase in applications makes sifting through those applications increasingly burdensome, and tools have not really made mentally parsing a resume e…

I was also a recruiter for a while and when hiring I am always amazed at the absolute dismal amount of effort given when people apply for good jobs. Hiring is hard, someone with the right skill set will have a terrible mentality, hiring for the mentality is extremely tricky and can lead you down the road of groupthink if you're not careful. I'm still amazed how entirely incompetent people rise to managerial levels on who they know but its very, very hard to break into even with a modicum of talent.

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

#159
post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Same - I've interviewed exactly twice, and gotten both jobs. This isn't to say I've only had two jobs but all advancements/movements stemmed from those two jobs I interviewed for (the second after moving cities and being out of my original network). This has led me to actually be nervous about the prospect of having to interview, because was my success a fluke? Or had I found great fits for jobs? Both interviews I re…

It's probably influenced greatly by industry and region.

The entry level job market is paradoxically the hardest due to the competition and limited opportunity to differentiate.

My first three job searches out of college required several months with 150-200 applications each, and I was an ivy league grad with a finance degree.

It was really tough to get an interview without knowing anyone. I initially tried limiting my search to positions and companies I was passionate about via career websites, but my hit rate of even getting a response was ~5%, so I realized I needed to up the number of applications to get a reasonable pipeline of opportunities.

Thankfully I've passed that point in my career and have specialized, so my last two positions have been through recruiters that approached me. I won't forget how stressful the early career can be though.

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

#160

Speaking as someone currently in that position (developer with two years of experience) my personal experiences seem to align quite well with the data they collected. When companies say 'entry-level', they seem to be referring to around 2-3 years of working experience. Not just college + internships, but actual professional experience. It's an extremely silly market to be in right now if you're a fresh grad. All this…

Can you please elaborate? Honestly, I'm interested to hear how anyone with such a low level of technical skill managed to get anyone to believe they were anything more than a junior. It also interests me because recently I've had a number of recruiters try to convince me that I'm a senior just because I've been programming for a living for 12 years. I'm honest enough with myself to admit that although I've used several languages during that time the jobs were all similar, freelance/sole developer CRUD jobs which didn't really challenge me so there was no continuouse progression technically. Sometimes testing was an afterthought so on that basis I wouldn't even qualify as mid-level. The thing is that "senior" means something completely different to a recruiter and maybe also to a manager?
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