Why reskilling won’t always guarantee you a new job • Hacker News Board

Re: Why reskilling won’t always guarantee you a new job

#101

Post by fairity » Wed, Nov 25, 2020, 9:41 PM UTC

aroundtown wrote: post #24

bilbo0s wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In reality, employers report difficulty hiring because the wages they offer don’t match the skills they’re after, she says AND only about 60 to 70% of US computing and engineering graduates land jobs in STEM I don't know man? The implication there is that there exist up to 30-40% of new computing and engineering grads who on the one hand are without jobs in STEM, and on the other are willing to leave the STEM jobs th…

One of those 30-40% checking in. When I graduated with a CS degree in '07 (US) the first job offer I received was for $25k. I was so angry at that offer. I told the hiring manager that I couldn't possibly work for less than $35k they scoffed at that, I told them no thanks. I could make more money flipping burgers. I kept looking for work. Had another offer for $32k with one week of vacation a year, and no health care…

I see a few possibilities that explain your situation --a couple of which you've already mentioned.

1) You've gotten unlucky i.e. each job you've applied to had a 5% acceptance rate, and you've just happened to roll 1-19 out of 20, n times in a row. If this is the case, keep your head down and apply to more places. .95^30 > 20% but .95^90 2) You're not applying to the right places. There are literally thousands of startups that would kill to hire a good, remote software engineer for $45K. Take a look at workatastartup.com

3) You're not actually a good programmer. This may sound harsh, but some of us don't have the points of reference to accurately determine how our skillset stacks up against others.

4) You're not easy to get along with or manage. When hiring for junior positions, companies are less likely to put up with jerks than for senior positions.

I realize some of this may sound harsh. My intention is to help you.

My advice is to apply to startups and offer to work for free for a month. Do this 3 times, and there's almost no chance you will not get an offer if you're good programmer who's easy to get along with.

Re: Why reskilling won’t always guarantee you a new job

#102

Post by chrk33 » Wed, Nov 25, 2020, 10:42 PM UTC

i_haz_rabies wrote: post #38

chrk33 wrote: post #15

I think a seasoned developer needs about 3 months to get familiar with a new framework/toolset within the same environment e.g. moving from React to Angular. What can a person without prior in-depth knowledge learn in a Three-month, full-time software-engineering course? This does not sound to me a programme wherein they genuinely want people to get into software development. But disprove me please, if you have exper…

I did a 9 week bootcamp and I've been a productive developer for 5 years now (I was an unproductive developer for the first year). I was incredibly lucky to find a company willing to take a chance on me, because I was completely useless at first. This is not an advisable strategy for changing careers, especially for someone with dependents.

That is the kind of outcome I would expect from a bootcamp like that: it gives the impression whether the person has the interest and the aptitude for software engineering and then a long way to get good at it. The article does not get into details about the course which is mentioned and I do not want to make presumptions but if they advertise their course as an entry ticket into the IT job market - especially in the current circumstances - then to me it is a borderline malevolent type of business model.

Re: Why reskilling won’t always guarantee you a new job

#103

Post by zamfi » Wed, Nov 25, 2020, 10:45 PM UTC

lordnacho wrote: post #99

zamfi wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How it’s phrased is irrelevant to who bears the burden of proof. You are the one making the claim, therefore the burden of proof is on you to back up your claim, no? This is true regardless of how extraordinary the claim is. I find your claim that “markets cannot provide full employment” not at all obvious, regardless of phrasing, and am asking for evidence. Your response suggests you don’t have any. By this logic, i…

> How it’s phrased is irrelevant to who bears the burden of proof. It's a principle that the person who presents a positive case is the one who needs to come up with the evidence. I can say "there's no god" without evidence, it's the guy who says the God of the Bible is real who has to explain what he means. > I find your claim... Note the reply chain, I didn't claim anything. > By this logic, if I say something like…

Sorry, did indeed get you confused with the parent poster!

> It's a principle that the person who presents a positive case is the one who needs to come up with the evidence

Great, a nice positive claim — where’s your evidence for it?

Re: Why reskilling won’t always guarantee you a new job

#104

Post by mreome » Wed, Nov 25, 2020, 10:52 PM UTC

jjav wrote: post #85

dcolkitt wrote: post #8

The biggest thing from the employer side is that the cost of a single bad hire can be potentially enormous. This is a combination of legal (threat of wrongful termination lawsuits, COBRA) and cultural (nobody likes to feel like a jerk boss, morale problems among the remaining employees). The rule of thumb among managers is don't hire anybody unless you're 90% sure they'll work out for at least a year. That creates a…

> What we need is another category of transitional employment, with both much lighter regulatory barriers to turnover In the USA (based on COBRA mention I assume you're in the USA) employees can be let go for no reason whatsoever effective immediately and without any notice. There can't possibly exist a "lighter regulatory barrier" than that!

I think the biggest cost isn't termination itself, but rather the paperwork/overhead involving with a new full-time employee combined with the risk of wrongful termination lawsuits. Even if such a lawsuit is entirely baseless, it takes time and money to deal with.

It's the reason so many companies prefer contractors to short-term full-time employees. You avoid all the new-hire overhead, and you can always renew someone's contract for another six months, but if/when you want to let them go you just let the contract end and that's it.

Re: Why reskilling won’t always guarantee you a new job

#105

Post by zamfi » Wed, Nov 25, 2020, 10:55 PM UTC

ubercow13 wrote: post #96

zamfi wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The fundamental problem is a lack of jobs, because there is no market mechanism by which the private sector will create sufficient jobs to hire everybody who wants work. This is an extraordinary claim, and requires extraordinary evidence.

Doesn't really seem extraordinary, it seems self evident, otherwise why is unemployment a problem at all?

Self-evident that the market can't provide enough jobs for everyone?

The labor market in nearly every country -- certainly every wealthy one -- is highly regulated, so it's hard to know how one could even have experience with this, let alone claim it to be self-evident.

Unless your claim is (unlike the parent poster, perhaps) that the US's highly-regulated labor market doesn't provide enough jobs...which I would agree with...but we'd probably disagree on the cause!

Re: Why reskilling won’t always guarantee you a new job

#106

Post by anm89 » Wed, Nov 25, 2020, 10:58 PM UTC

> An ambiguous action in response to a highly varied problem does not guarantee a uniform outcome for every member of society.

Who would have guessed?

The inverse claim would be the interesting one. If reskilling regardless of how that was defined guaranteed you a job.

Re: Why reskilling won’t always guarantee you a new job

#107

Post by smnrchrds » Wed, Nov 25, 2020, 10:58 PM UTC

oniTony wrote: post #81

smnrchrds wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ontario Society of Professional Engineers did a study on engineering labour maker in Ontario 5 years ago. Their findings show that this is not the reason behind the majority of people with engineering degrees doing non-engineering work. I don't know how the results compare to those in the US or UK, but it certainly is an eye-opening data point. Some highlights: - According to the 2011 NHS, only 29.7 per cent (67,045…

This talks specifically about the regulated and licensed profession of “Engineering”, which excludes most of Software jobs.

Yes. I was responding to the parent, which talked about STEM in general. This report is mostly about the E, although it mentions the T and M as well, for example in Figure 4 on page 10.

Re: Why reskilling won’t always guarantee you a new job

#108

Post by smnrchrds » Wed, Nov 25, 2020, 10:59 PM UTC

908B64B197 wrote: post #78

smnrchrds wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ontario Society of Professional Engineers did a study on engineering labour maker in Ontario 5 years ago. Their findings show that this is not the reason behind the majority of people with engineering degrees doing non-engineering work. I don't know how the results compare to those in the US or UK, but it certainly is an eye-opening data point. Some highlights: - According to the 2011 NHS, only 29.7 per cent (67,045…

3 things: MBAs, Finance and Consulting. Engineering filters heavily for analytical skills and is math heavy.

All of those are among the professions which require a degree. The 1/3 who end up in professions that does not require any degree are not those who have gone into management or finance.

Re: Why reskilling won’t always guarantee you a new job

#109

Post by smnrchrds » Wed, Nov 25, 2020, 11:04 PM UTC

908B64B197 wrote: post #94

HarryHirsch wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's one problem right there: overfinancialization crowding out the productive economy.

I'd be curious to interview incoming freshmen. I'm sure there's a percentage of them enrolling in engineering with absolutely no intention of practicing it either.

> I'm sure there's a percentage of them enrolling in engineering with absolutely no intention of practicing it either.

Yes. And that percentage is 1%. Figure 1 in the linked report addresses this.

Intents of 2013 Ontario engineering students after graduation to work in engineering:

- 57% Yes, I definitely will

- 35% Yes, I probably will

- 7% No, I probably won’t

- 1% No, I definitely won’t

Re: Why reskilling won’t always guarantee you a new job

#110

Post by mreome » Wed, Nov 25, 2020, 11:14 PM UTC

i_haz_rabies wrote: post #82

troupe wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you have much tech experience before the bootcamp?

Zero! I was a newspaper reporter.

The argument could be made that you had a lot of valuable experience though. If I were looking to hire a new programmer, and had someone with experience as a reporter, I’d be thinking about all the places that experience would be useful. It would suggest to me that you’re a good writer, communicator, you can deal with the general public, and function reasonably well in a high-paced, short-deadline, office environment. A decent programmer who is an excellent communicator is hard to find and can be incredibly valuable, and if I couldn’t get you up to speed as a programmer, you could still make an great technical documentation specialist, marketer, etc.

If I was looking at someone with the same amount of programming training who had previously flipped burgers or been the proverbial “ditch digger” I’m not going to see many parallels for those skills.