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How to overcome “years of experience” requirements when applying for jobs

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Re: How to overcome “years of experience” requirements when applying for jobs

#31

Post by drivebyacct2 »

dasil003 wrote: post #17
csallen wrote: post #9

I think the op's point was completely ignored: Different people progress at different rates. When you're in high school, you have roughly the same amount of schooling experience as your peers. That doesn't change the fact that you may be taking advanced classes while they take remedial ones. It's easy to accuse the op of arrogance. And who knows, maybe he is arrogant. But in the end, that's just an ad hominem and is…

Sure there is a valid point in there, but I don't think it's one worth pursuing. If you make a fuss out of it then you're not really giving a good impression; you come off as a difficult person who is focused on the wrong things: in this case, the written requirements rather than end goal of judging if you are right for the company. No matter how demonstrably smart and skilled this kid is, I would walk out of the int…

It's amazing the amount of assumptions and prejudices being leveraged due to the perceived young age of the person inquiring. Especially given that there is nothing to indicate that he was making a fuss of it more than asking on StackOverflow.

Shockingly, some do progress at a faster rate than others. I turned in a large project that I wrote during my senior year of high school and received extremely high marks on it for my senior year project in a high(er) level CS course in University. I got positive remarks on architechtural decisions and things that come via experience and having experience with code. I've been doing it since I was in middle school, I finished a project for my first client before I started my senior year of high school. I still kick myself for not doing a partnership with the fellow the following summer; the idea he wanted me to implement became rather popular a few years ago.

Some people progress faster than others. It doesn't mean they're necessarily arrogant or full of themselves. It means that ageism and the notion that "more experience = more better" is silly. There is code I see churned out by developers that have resumes twice as long as mine that absolutely terrify me.

Re: How to overcome “years of experience” requirements when applying for jobs

#32

Post by pnathan »

imjk wrote: post #3

As an employer, I give you this advice: Just apply. We make exceptions for smart or motivated people all the time. After all, your resume's gonna be viewed by a human who'll give it a subjective assessment. If by chance the company you're applying to is so rigid in their standards that they can only make decision based on objective measures, it's probably not a company that you want to be at.

In some company hiring systems, the resumes sit in an online queue and may well not be seen by a human. :-/

Re: How to overcome “years of experience” requirements when applying for jobs

#33

Post by jamesflorentino »

It does make sense though that companies might be looking for someone who has developed a sense of judgment over the years. Similar to how fathers (responsible ones) become less naive on decision-making as the family's dependency on him grow which is why we turn to him (or our mothers) for advise. Because they may be less skilled or knowledgable than us, but they've been around long enough to know how to react to difficult problems.

I think that is the most important aspect in achieving your goals in a company. You need effective decision making skills on top of your technical abilities.

Re: How to overcome “years of experience” requirements when applying for jobs

#34

Post by kwekly »

csallen wrote: post #9

I think the op's point was completely ignored: Different people progress at different rates. When you're in high school, you have roughly the same amount of schooling experience as your peers. That doesn't change the fact that you may be taking advanced classes while they take remedial ones. It's easy to accuse the op of arrogance. And who knows, maybe he is arrogant. But in the end, that's just an ad hominem and is…

This is already built into the requirement: 3 to 7 years.

After three years he/she is open to apply for what might take others 7.

Re: How to overcome “years of experience” requirements when applying for jobs

#35

Post by nahname »

In my experience, companies that use years of experience as a candidate filter are not companies you would want to work for. Number of years of experience is easy to determine, but pretty much useless in determining someone's skill. What it really shows is that the people in charge of hiring are either lazy or incompetent. Neither speak well to the quality of people going into the company, so once again, why would you want to work for them?

Re: How to overcome “years of experience” requirements when applying for jobs

#36

Post by jaredsohn »

nahname wrote: post #35

In my experience, companies that use years of experience as a candidate filter are not companies you would want to work for. Number of years of experience is easy to determine, but pretty much useless in determining someone's skill. What it really shows is that the people in charge of hiring are either lazy or incompetent. Neither speak well to the quality of people going into the company, so once again, why would yo…

>Number of years of experience is easy to determine

Only if defined in a naive way (i.e. ignore personal projects, work experience during middle school/high school/college, have some arbitrary way of interpreting what it means to have experience in a particular language.)

Re: How to overcome “years of experience” requirements when applying for jobs

#37

Post by nahname »

jaredsohn wrote: post #36
nahname wrote: post #35

In my experience, companies that use years of experience as a candidate filter are not companies you would want to work for. Number of years of experience is easy to determine, but pretty much useless in determining someone's skill. What it really shows is that the people in charge of hiring are either lazy or incompetent. Neither speak well to the quality of people going into the company, so once again, why would yo…

>Number of years of experience is easy to determine Only if defined in a naive way (i.e. ignore personal projects, work experience during middle school/high school/college, have some arbitrary way of interpreting what it means to have experience in a particular language.)

You can certainly make the number more or less meaningful by including a comparison against what the individual accomplished over that period. Regardless, the question was an individual's number wasn't high enough.

Re: How to overcome “years of experience” requirements when applying for jobs

#38

Post by pyre »

InclinedPlane wrote: post #23
timwiseman wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I fully agree, though I will caveat that many companies, mostly larger ones, have the vast majority of resumes funnelled through HR. HR may be much more inclined to just toss a resume that doesn't check every box that was listed as a "requirement" for the job than a hiring manager actually would. Of course, that may fall under the "it's probably not a company that you want" category, but it is well worth noting.

Every job I've had in the last 7 years has been from an employer or recruiter coming to me. Shooting off a resume through the typical HR stack is almost always a crap shoot.

I don't think that everyone can claim to have companies beating down their door.

Re: How to overcome “years of experience” requirements when applying for jobs

#39

Post by ctl »

ChuckMcM wrote: post #27
csallen wrote: post #9

I think the op's point was completely ignored: Different people progress at different rates. When you're in high school, you have roughly the same amount of schooling experience as your peers. That doesn't change the fact that you may be taking advanced classes while they take remedial ones. It's easy to accuse the op of arrogance. And who knows, maybe he is arrogant. But in the end, that's just an ad hominem and is…

I think the OP missed the bigger point, which is that knowledge comes at various speeds based on an individuals ability to absorb learning, but experience comes from hours invested and the variety of situations experienced. The OP seems to have conflated the concept that someone asking for a certain number of years of experience are looking for a particular subject matter knowledge level, when they are really looking…

Your argument is unconvincing.

It takes certain skills to be an effective "intermediate software developer." (Here I use the word skills very generically, so in particular it includes the things that you call experience.) If a hiring manager has found that many people have those skills after 3 years of work, it is probably true that some people have those skills after 2 years of work.

Therefore: the OP might have the skills to be effective at the job he wants. So for God's sake can somebody just give a good-faith answer to his question? The amount of condescension he's getting is ridiculous.

Re: How to overcome “years of experience” requirements when applying for jobs

#40

Post by dasil003 »

drivebyacct2 wrote: post #31
dasil003 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure there is a valid point in there, but I don't think it's one worth pursuing. If you make a fuss out of it then you're not really giving a good impression; you come off as a difficult person who is focused on the wrong things: in this case, the written requirements rather than end goal of judging if you are right for the company. No matter how demonstrably smart and skilled this kid is, I would walk out of the int…

It's amazing the amount of assumptions and prejudices being leveraged due to the perceived young age of the person inquiring. Especially given that there is nothing to indicate that he was making a fuss of it more than asking on StackOverflow. Shockingly, some do progress at a faster rate than others. I turned in a large project that I wrote during my senior year of high school and received extremely high marks on it…

What does this have to do with my comment? My point was there is nothing to be gained by calling attention to and arguing about job requirements.
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