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There is no talent shortage

apaitch.com

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Re: There is no talent shortage

#41

Post by xiaoma »

rdl wrote: post #37
xiaoma wrote: post #13

It is a weird market. I've been job searching pretty hard for the past month in SF and the response has been a bit frustrating. I get tons of people reaching out to me after meeting me at tech meetups, etc, but I'd say over half of those leads end up cutting me at an HR filter before I can even get an interview! From what I understand it's due to two things-- at 34, I'm older than others going for junior positions. I…

If you're looking for a job, it would be worth putting your email address and a website or linkedin profile or something in your hn profile.

The LinkedIn profile was a great suggestion. Thank you!

Re: There is no talent shortage

#42

Post by Styck »

graeme wrote: post #9
prodigal_erik wrote: post #2

I didn't encounter programming by luck. I was mesmerized by the first computer I saw, and soon sought out programming through library books and hobbyist magazines. At that time, home computers were rare and expensive, so I was lucky that my parents' indulgence made my obsession possible, but now? They're so common that it's very likely John's family had a desktop on which he could simply type "I want to program compu…

You're assuming that someone knows what "I want to program computers" means. I didn't. I loved playing around with computers. But no one in my family was technical. None of my friends programmed. I literally had no idea what programming was. Most people don't, even those who are otherwise very effective with computers. Now I've started, much later, and I love it. This xkcd comic is relevant: http://xkcd.com/519/ I'm…

I had no idea either. I started programming in college but it wasn't until we were taught assembly that I realized that what I had been doing as a kid with softice had been assembly all along.

Re: There is no talent shortage

#43

Post by zanny »

tikhonj wrote: post #31
zanny wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You went to Berkeley. You get a somewhat different response from PR than someone like myself, who went to a crappy liberal arts school with no name in PA. They recognize the school, and expect that to be a substitute for skill - "oh he went to Ivy League / big state school, he must be a genius". Versus "I have never heard of that place, must be dumb not to go to an Ivy League". Anecdote: I like to think I can write f…

I'm actually still going to Berkeley :). The only reason I brought it up was because the allegorical students in the blog post also go there. I have actually avoided HR. I've been too lazy to send out resumes, and I only really want to work at small startups (at least for now). All of the interesting offers I got had some concrete spark independent of my education: for example, I got one after doing well at a hackath…

It also helps you are in CA. Like I said, I live in PA (specifically, rural PA, and I went to a local school) getting any networking whatsoever with not just the Bay area but any reasonable techy area is a pain. You don't know how nice it is to be a few hours train ride from networking galore until your next door neighbor is an Amish bishop :P

Re: There is no talent shortage

#44

Post by zanny »

k_kelly wrote: post #32

Then what does a talent shortage look like? This article is arguing that the current situation is because companies wont employ below a minimal technical competence. New, brand new, out of college only done programming in college programmers can expect massive starting salaries, the best equipment, and probably lunch and accommodation with a strong chance that they'll get a higher salary the year after. Few companies…

I am a brand new, out of college, only done programming in College (graduated in 2 years) and job hunting is a PITA because 99% of HR's don't even look at me. The BS in CS is not everything, maybe from a top school, but I got mine from a no-name liberal arts college. When the school name doesn't raise eyebrows you do need a sizable experience portfolio to get interviews.

Re: There is no talent shortage

#45

Post by te_chris »

coryl wrote: post #16
dspeyer wrote: post #10

This article is playing word-games. When employers and economists talk about talent, they mean capability, regardless of whether it's natural or comes from hard work. Your dictionary may say "natural aptitude or skill", but that's irrelevant to the job market.

I hope most people know by now that "natural talent" isn't real. See books: Outliers, The Talent Code

Two pseudo-scientific books as proof. Seems legit.

In all seriousness, this is ridiculous, of course natural talent exists, what gladwell et al are really getting at to me is that it's not enough to have natural talent and execute once. That isn't how success works in the real world, even if it outwardly appears that way. I have Los of friends who are artists and I moved cities last year from one where the local ar school was very practically focused to one where the prominent art school is obsessed with concept and object art. The art and quality of artists in the new city is laughable, apart from those who have been trained in and practiced their craft elsewhere or in their own time however. It's an inescapable fact that if you want to be good at something you need to practice and fail.

Re: There is no talent shortage

#46

Post by flywheel »

DividesByZero wrote: post #25

This is my situation - I only really found out I loved code in University, and only worked out what I really need to do to do that kind of work I want to do since entering employment. I'm still relatively young (24) but even I feel this experience gap in talking to potential employers. That said I'm now actively building a portfolio by working nights on real products and leveraging what experience I do have as heavil…

Coffeescript is a mistake that people without more experience make. If you think you may want to move your company's codebase to coffeescript you are going to be screwing them. It's not a 'sexy' new thing, it's a buzzword. You won't impress most people who have more experience if you bring up your knowledge of coffeescript.

Re: There is no talent shortage

#47

Post by zanny »

Styck wrote: post #42
graeme wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're assuming that someone knows what "I want to program computers" means. I didn't. I loved playing around with computers. But no one in my family was technical. None of my friends programmed. I literally had no idea what programming was. Most people don't, even those who are otherwise very effective with computers. Now I've started, much later, and I love it. This xkcd comic is relevant: http://xkcd.com/519/ I'm…

I had no idea either. I started programming in college but it wasn't until we were taught assembly that I realized that what I had been doing as a kid with softice had been assembly all along.

Count this as a "me too" comment. I played on the DOS terminal for years, wired together old machines into LANs and did hex editing of WoW binaries when I was 12 without realizing how close to hacking that was.

I heard about Python / C++ / etc, but didn't try "diving in" until college with CS1. Basically, IT knowledge instead of CS knowledge.

I can't help but feel that anyone that is =22. The <22 grew up on GUI in the Windows monopoly, and probably never needed to dig in to computers to get things "working" as much as the elders did, which would actually introduce them to CS much earlier.

Re: There is no talent shortage

#48

Post by zanny »

apaitch wrote: post #23
tikhonj wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly. The "talent shortage" is a lack of employable programmers period , not just a lack of exceptional programmers. And this is easy to see: everybody I know in my class (also Berkeley, coincidentally) has managed to get an internship or full time job without much effort. This includes both people with and without experience before college. I managed to get a couple of interesting offers despite never sending my…

From the outside looking in, it certainly doesn't seem like everyone is eager to snatch up mediocre graduates. I can't say I've done much research on the subject or crunched numbers, but I noticed two things: 1) Complaints about "talent shortages" from top companies and startups in the Valley and otherwise. 2) Companies evaluating people based on experience, GitHub profiles, open source contributions, etc. Not that i…

This is basically my scenario. Got the BS in CS by rushing my degree, but getting into FOSS is proving harder than I would expect, mainly because every project has "some" technology, from automake to some framework like qt or something else that I never learned and thus feel helpless trying to get into, especially on anything with more than 200k LOCs. Getting into something like that is getting through a brick wall with a twig.

Re: There is no talent shortage

#49

Post by jiggy2011 »

Ok, really how common are people who have started 2 companies and written an OS by the time they start college? I did CS at a pretty good university (AAB A level requirement) and there were plenty of uber-nerds in the class but nobody had done anything like this.

I did a bit of casual freelance work building basic PHP/HTML websites and fixing/building PCs before I started college, but never anything I would have dreamed of incorporating a company for. In fact I'm not sure how many jurisdictions would even let one start a company at that age?

Re: There is no talent shortage

#50

Post by coryl »

te_chris wrote: post #45
coryl wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hope most people know by now that "natural talent" isn't real. See books: Outliers, The Talent Code

Two pseudo-scientific books as proof. Seems legit. In all seriousness, this is ridiculous, of course natural talent exists, what gladwell et al are really getting at to me is that it's not enough to have natural talent and execute once. That isn't how success works in the real world, even if it outwardly appears that way. I have Los of friends who are artists and I moved cities last year from one where the local ar s…

of course natural talent exists

Well then, what is natural talent, how do you objectify and measure it in a person, if it so obviously exists?

Success is best correlated with time invested in skill development. Natural talent is bullshit, it's like attributing height to a basketball player's success.

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