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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

#311

Post by johnnyfaehell »

rifung wrote: post #124
johnnyfaehell wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

The average Developer/Engineer/etc works about 60 hours a week, they work on things that generate millions of dollars. They, for the most part, get paid less than the accountant does. I've literally made a company millions in profit, the entire IT department probably earned less than 10% of the amount of that profit amount. The ROI in IT is extremely high, yet you'll see salespeople whose ROI is much lower making a lot more money. A lot of people will say our salaries being below that of accountants, lawyers, etc is because our barrier of entry is much lower. I believe this not to be true, look at the average job board and you'll see a lot of companies who are literally only looking for seniors. Once you get in, you're fine, but getting in when you don't have the qualifications can be a lot harder. It seems like those industries have spent decades/centuries building prestige into their industries while IT seems to put up with an OK salary with lots of pressure and overtime.

For the majority of skilled workers, IT workers are poorly paid. While we make more than the median salary, the amount of skill, effort, the time it takes to become good at the job is a lot higher than those making the median. You then have the culture of overtime. It's not uncommon to see PRs from people at 10 pm, be told you need to work the weekend, for projects that aren't fully defined and/or have months left to go in development.

Overall, I feel that as an industry, we've massively undersold ourselves and made top-level execs not fully appreciate the value that we as an industry bring. Nevermind the average person, they completely don't value the industry what so ever. The amount of people who default on Web Agency bills who would never default on any other vendor bill is massive. People wanting an ecommerce website for a few hundred pounds.

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

#312

Post by johnnyfaehell »

toomanybeersies wrote: post #114
johnnyfaehell wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Everybody feels underpaid. You earn more money, then you spend more money, then you wish you had more money. I recently doubled my salary, and I still feel underpaid. In reality, I earn above median wage for my age and experience, and live a comfortable life. But we can always do with more cash.

There is a difference between wanting more cash and feeling underpaid. The fact the stat says only a percentage of people feel underpaid kinda rules out your statement that "Everybody feels underpaid".

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

#313

Post by aczerepinski »

godelski wrote: post #310
aczerepinski wrote: post #279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've noticed that people conflate "years of experience" with "time elapsed since the first time you did the thing" all the time. I would love to see job postings that require 2,000+ hours of experience for junior level or 10,000+ hours for senior level.

I've noticed that people conflate "hours worked" with "skill level" or "effectiveness level". I mean they definitely correlate on average, but 100hrs experience for one person is equivalent to 1khrs to another. Figuring out skill level is hard. And no matter what job you are at and skill level, it requires training. But if we're talking junior positions, that means "we are going to teach you." I feel like that part i…

Sure but I'd argue that there are likely to be more similarities amongst people with 2,000 hours experience than there are amongst people with 1 year of experience. 1 year could mean anything from "watched three udemy courses" to 4,000 hours of hands on keyboard in a full time position + hobby projects.

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

#314

Post by misterhtmlcss »

Brockenstein wrote: post #309
protonimitate wrote: post #296

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm curious to hear what kinds of skill gaps you see and the severity of issues they bring, and if there are common knowledge gaps or it's more random.

I would have to assume, coming from that sort of background. College makes you take classes and learn skills that "you" don't care about or don't see immediate value to, but you have to do it anyway. Maybe not all of them are CS classes either. It's possible for a self-taught to developer to learn a lot but stay in their safe bubbles of expertise, work or school can push you out of your comfort zones quite frequently…

As an evolving self-taught I think it's too early for me to speak confidently on this topic, however I will add my two sense for what it's worth. Additional background; I'm the local Admin for a Free Code Camp (FCC) group so I meet lots of aspiring self-taughts btw.

1. Many many self-taughts (ST?) aren't joining coding for passion, they are joining because they want to change careers and think coding is easy. They think this (IMO) because it's famous for hiring non-graduates.

2. They then proceed to join groups like FCC in massive surges that closely correlates what's happening in the job market; which doesn't fuel me with confidence in their conviction to become a ST dev. It's kind of like joining the gym Jan 1; if you wanted to be healthy why wait until your NYE resolution. So like a gym 90% of those that join then go silent in our group nearly immediately.

3. I'd say about 1-4% of those who join even complete FCC and of those I genuinely believe they've all found success. Ironically FCC draws in a ton of weak links because it's free, but also because it's free very very few of us ever finish and get a certificate.

If I had a chance to hire an ST that was junior I'd definitely be curious about their story. Their story will tell you so much about the 'man' they are:

- Did they go balls deep and pay $15k+ and give up sleep and life for 3+ months? What did they do afterwards? What did they do before?

- Did they chip away at FCC for 1-2 years building out a portfolio, FINISHING at least the FE certificate?

You see where I'm going here? In my life I've never met someone who did truly well without an internal desire to get it done and that can't be taught. The real advantage of an ST can be their resilience and determination to do what is needed to succeed and if you ignore that amazing skill/asset just because he's without a paper then it's definitely a mistake.

So while I'm not advocating for STs over Grads, I am saying they can be very special and valuable assets that are worth taking a long look at when you get their resume.

You'll see more of me soon; I'm quiting my job May 1 to focus on finishing my skills to a commercial standard, which I've waited two years to do; I'm finally near the finish line and I can't be more excited to be going full time on my passion.

This was written on my phone; so apologies if I'm vague, impolite or grammatically a fail. It's hard when you're trying to work and quickly add two cents of value on a topic you love.

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

#315

Post by watwat1 »

usernam wrote: post #304
amorphid wrote: post #295

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> When I receive a CV from an indian person (from India), I don't know if I should expect 100% lies or what, even from qualified seniors. Be careful about going there. Discrimination is illegal & unnecessary.

I'm not really making any. This almost seems like a completely different way to present yourself which is taught to people.

Stop it.

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

#316

Post by Rinzler89 »

alphaalpha101 wrote: post #143
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…

>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. It's funny really because I thought I was perfect for software development as a teenager. Already knew how to program, spent a huge amount of my free time…

What's your current job if i may ask? I'm in the same boat as you now.

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

#317

Post by Balgair »

hyperdimension wrote: post #206
Balgair wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Jesus! That's really awesome! I'm at ~700 jobs and only had 1 offer that was pretty bad. (Optics and/or Bio-tech)

...surely you didn't mean 700 jobs? 70 jobs? 700 applications? Or am I completely mistaken and you are a much more well-traveled person than I am?

700 applications, about 25 phone interviews, 2 offers to fly out, 1 (bad) actual offer. Still waiting to hear back on a lot of the jobs.

Granted bio-tech is a bit different of an environment. There are a fair few certs you can get. Also, I recently found out that a few large companies only hire interns and the job postings are just for legal compliance. That info felt like a punch in the guts, sooooo many hours wasted.

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

#318

Post by mywittyname »

Chyzwar wrote: post #227
bad_user wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's nothing wrong with " Senior ". Lots of years of experience translate to having a proven track record of delivered value, along with management skills and experience of failure, things that can't be substituted by talent or knowledge acquired from reading about the works of others. > a person with 3-4 years of experience to be a "Very Good Engineer" Not the same thing — this is actually the same problem as wit…

Lots of years of experience prove nothing. If someone was working for 10 years in Java backend apps, using outdated tech and in an environment that delivered value is secondary to risk, he/she is not senior. 3 years is minimum for getting close to being competent. I would argue that before that you will deliver very little.

Your experience is not limited to what you do at your job. My previous job was working on a 10+ year old Java backend app and my current job is doing data mining and ML (which I was qualified for and hit the ground running). There is almost no overlap between the positions, yet I've performed well enough in both roles.

One should not expect that people use every skill they have at every job they do.

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

#319

Post by mywittyname »

JustSomeNobody wrote: post #275
dorgo wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some years ago they introduced job titles at the place where I work. My boss asked me: which job title do you want? I said: senior developer. Her said: ok. Master of the universe would have passed too.

I think I would have gone with something unique like, "Computer Programmer."

Undetectably Sentient AI.

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

#320

Post by sb8244 »

gaius wrote: post #276
sb8244 wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How did they get to be seniors in their companies? They didn't give the title to themselves, so someone must value their skills. Is having the title mutually exclusive to being humble or self aware?

They didn't give the title to themselves LinkedIn is full of people who have mysteriously sprouted a Senior prefix that they definitely didn’t have when I was at the same company at the same time. So it probably is self-granted in most cases.

Very true. I hope references catch up to them!
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