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Why reskilling won’t always guarantee you a new job

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

#111

Post by jjav »

mreome wrote: post #104
jjav wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 someo…

> It's the reason so many companies prefer contractors to short-term full-time employees.

I don't know that they do, at least not here in Silicon Valley.

Finding short-term and/or part-time contract/consulting roles is difficult. I did consulting here for a few years (2017-18) and it was a challenge since companies only want regular full time employees. Eventually I quit swimming against the current and went back to a full time role.

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

#112

Post by mreome »

gabereiser wrote: post #27
sjg007 wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This single bad hire myth needs to die. It's just simply not true. Organizations should have feedback loops in place to monitor and mitigate the issue. And if you don't, then the person doing the hiring should take on that responsibility. This is the cost of doing business and should be factored in. Transactional employment exists in FAANGs and other big tech. They are called contractors.

Can’t up-vote this enough. The myth is just laziness in not wanting to have hard conversations and establish feedback that corrects behavior or fills gaps in skill sets. Invest in your people. That “bad apple” may have some things going on at home that they are unaware of how it’s affecting them. That “bad apple” could have a grievance no one is willing to listen to. That “bad apple” could have a better idea that was…

I fully agree on-the-job training should be much more common, especially in larger companies, and in many fields you can end up with a better fit by just training someone in exactly what you need rather then trying to find someone who knows it all already. That being said, I have firsthand experience hiring/training/supervising in fields that are almost entirely on-the-job training, and it can be very difficult to determine if a potential new-hire will learn well, and you will always have more then a few new-hires who will still struggle with the most basic aspects of the job even after many weeks of hand-holding.

> That “bad apple” may have some things going on at home

Dealing with this is a potential minefield from a legal perspective though. The answer you get here could very well suggest an abusive domestic situation, suicidal feelings, or worse. You need someone with special training to even ask this question. Once asked, at best the answer is usually something you can’t do anything about, at worst it’s something you ethically have to do something about that involves police or lawyers. Within that, you have a whole class of answers that you cannot do anything about, but also put you in a position where should you need to terminate the employee afterwards for ANY reason, you leave yourself open to wrongful termination suites.

To be clear -- I'm not saying this is how it should be; I would much prefer to live in a world where everyone looked out for everyone else, but a business (especially a public company) can't base it's policies on an ideal world, they have to base their policies on the litigious/capitalist framework they currently exist in.

The whole equation is different between a new-hire vs long-term employee of course, but it’s never without risk.

> have a grievance … was shutdown

These are more nuanced, and the exact situation/details would matter, but unless they were shut-down in a unprofessional way, or the grievance is a serious issue from the business’s perspective, a new-hire not doing their job just because they are upset about something like this is a pretty big red-flag in my book. These things happen to everyone, in every company, at some point. It would be worth having a discussion with the employee about it, but from my experience, this is a personality trait, and not a behavioral issue that can easily be changed.

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

#113

Post by sgerenser »

fairity wrote: post #101
aroundtown wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 st…

I don’t think it would be legal for a company to allow someone to work for free (or anything less than minimum wage in the state in question). However offering to work at a very low hourly wage on a temporary/probationary basis could work.

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

#114

Post by mreome »

jjav wrote: post #111
mreome wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 someo…

> It's the reason so many companies prefer contractors to short-term full-time employees. I don't know that they do, at least not here in Silicon Valley. Finding short-term and/or part-time contract/consulting roles is difficult. I did consulting here for a few years (2017-18) and it was a challenge since companies only want regular full time employees. Eventually I quit swimming against the current and went back to…

I've always been under the impression that the norms in Silicon Valley are often different from the rest of the country, so that's not surprising. My experience is limited to the North-East/East-Coast though, so it's possible that this is a more regional thing, or possibly even specific to the industries I work in.

It's possible that state-level laws come into play here too. For example the fact that non-competes are not enforceable in California, where they are generally enforceable on the East-Coast could be a factor in the kind of relationships companies favor.

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

#115

Post by bradlys »

aroundtown wrote: post #68
alistairSH wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's insane. Are you in a small market or something?

I was in a medium sized city with college and engineering firms. I've moved to a major metro for my first job and then several times since for my partner, to non-tech heavy cities as their career is more specialized and isn't available everywhere. Current city has repressed wages across the board. It's a place with a "low cost of living" and several universities that pump out local students who want to stay here at a…

Even $45k sounds ridiculously low if you have a few years of experience. Is there any reason you haven't tried getting a remote job? I can't imagine anywhere even offering less than $60k for someone with a few years and is remote (and is US based).

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

#116

Post by the_only_law »

bradlys wrote: post #115
aroundtown wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was in a medium sized city with college and engineering firms. I've moved to a major metro for my first job and then several times since for my partner, to non-tech heavy cities as their career is more specialized and isn't available everywhere. Current city has repressed wages across the board. It's a place with a "low cost of living" and several universities that pump out local students who want to stay here at a…

Even $45k sounds ridiculously low if you have a few years of experience. Is there any reason you haven't tried getting a remote job? I can't imagine anywhere even offering less than $60k for someone with a few years and is remote (and is US based).

I made less than that starting in a small city (just under a million in the MSA) in a poor state working for the state government (one of the employers constantly hiring and willing to take a chance on an uneducated kid with a couple of years of freelance experience) and this was after mass applying to positions all over the country.

There were a ton of issues on my part and things I still don’t understand and can only ascribe to chronic poor luck, though I won’t go into it all in this particular comment. I make better money now, more than most people my age probably make on average, but probably significantly less than most developers with similar experience. I probably won’t be able to recover the rough start which is likely annoying seeming as for the amount of money I’m likely to cap out at I probably could have done something much more interesting.

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

#117

Post by nitrogen »

908B64B197 wrote: post #72
jriggs wrote: post #66

I think 3 months of full-time study is more that enough time to get the fundamentals of software development and land an entry level dev job. This is especially true when paired with a career preparation program. Many bootcamps have 90+% verified placements rates after graduation

I'm extremely skeptical of bootcamps, especially after learning that some of the TA's at Lambda are hired to help with teaching as little as two months into the program as students[0]. I guess that counts toward their "placement" stats! Not only that, but Lambda (probably the most notorious bootcamp out there) seems so desperate that they will offer a fresh grad at no cost to any company for a 4 week trial period. [1…

I've worked with some Lambda grads who I considered worthwhile hires. They had previous degrees that had prepared them for the type of critical reasoning that makes a good programmer.

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

#118

Post by aroundtown »

the_only_law wrote: post #116
bradlys wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even $45k sounds ridiculously low if you have a few years of experience. Is there any reason you haven't tried getting a remote job? I can't imagine anywhere even offering less than $60k for someone with a few years and is remote (and is US based).

I made less than that starting in a small city (just under a million in the MSA) in a poor state working for the state government (one of the employers constantly hiring and willing to take a chance on an uneducated kid with a couple of years of freelance experience) and this was after mass applying to positions all over the country. There were a ton of issues on my part and things I still don’t understand and can on…

Your story sounds a lot like mine.

I'd say unless you have really experienced it first hand, or know someone who has, it is hard explaining to others how having a short stent of misfortune can really snowball and keep you down. As much as we hear the great fortune of those that get lucky at the right time, we never hear about those that miss out at the wrong time.

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

#119

Post by lordnacho »

zamfi wrote: post #103
lordnacho wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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?

Heh, funnily enough you can't prove a principle. But you can find people who support it with reasonable sounding arguments.

https://philosophy.stackexchange.com/questions/678/does-a-ne...

It boils down to negative claims being quite sweeping, eg "there's no life on other planets" would be on the face of it quite hard to show.

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

#120

Post by zamfi »

lordnacho wrote: post #119
zamfi wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Heh, funnily enough you can't prove a principle. But you can find people who support it with reasonable sounding arguments. https://philosophy.stackexchange.com/questions/678/does-a-ne... It boils down to negative claims being quite sweeping, eg "there's no life on other planets" would be on the face of it quite hard to show.

Come on, friend — the very first accepted response there is:

> I would say that generally, the burden of proof falls on whomever is making a claim, regardless of the positive or negative nature of that claim.

If your intent was to convince me that I’m right, you are doing a wonderful job. :)

I might add: your selective quoting of this link also throws some doubt on your claim in another thread that we can solve all of confirmation bias through the educational system...glass houses, stones, etc. - we all preferentially seek out evidence that supports our prior beliefs, and we do it throughout our lives. It takes crazy, sustained effort to avoid, not just a lesson in separating fact from fiction!

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