Similar anecdote, I started developing apps for the iPad as soon as it came out (2010). Around 2014, a recruiter didn't want to give me a senior position since "they usually look for people with 8+ years of experience". ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
IBM looking for 12 years’ experience in Kubernetes administration
121–130 of 265 posts
Re: IBM looking for 12 years’ experience in Kubernetes administration
#122It's like asking for ten years' experience with Swift. The job descriptions (especially in hidebound companies like Big Blue) tend to have mandated experience levels. HR folks aren't engineers, so they should not be expected to know. However, this should be highly embarrassing to the hiring manager, who I'm sure, was handed the ad text for approval, and probably rubberstamped it without thinking.
It would be trivial for someone to Google it, then make a canonical list for the entire HR department. You’re talking about maybe 30 minutes of work to prevent your company from looking like corporate clowns.
You're underestimating the amount of friction at most companies. For all your recruiters to use your measly google sheet, it has to be encoded somewhere on your intranet, a memo has to be sent by the director (whom you have to persuade that this is the correct thing to do) that there is this sheet, and you then become the point person to approve all the job ads because "you took initiative in the area."
Re: IBM looking for 12 years’ experience in Kubernetes administration
#123If I wanted to apply, I’d just evaluate the definite integral of Km(t), the number of Kubernetes systems I managed at time t, over my lifespan so far and put that on my resume as my years of experience.
E.g., if I had 6 systems for 3 years, that’s 18 years experience on the resume.
PS: I'd only do this on resume copies sent to companies with obviously impossible experience requirements like this one. For companies with experience requirements that are actually obtainable, I'd just put the usual number of years of my lifespan I've worked with the technology.
Re: IBM looking for 12 years’ experience in Kubernetes administration
#124Re: IBM looking for 12 years’ experience in Kubernetes administration
#125Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's how you identify job postings that are looking for a 10x developer ;)
Hmm, I wonder if I’ve been looking at these requirements all wrong then. If a year of work experience is about 2000 hours, maybe what they’re really saying is they want someone with 8000 hours of experience, which I guess is possible in 1.5 years.
No, it's just HR being HR. They don't know what they want.
Re: IBM looking for 12 years’ experience in Kubernetes administration
#126Isn't the whole X years of experience with kind of silly anyways? You grow as a programmer by exposing yourself to new ideas and ways of doing things, but this pretty much gives you a low number of years in a bunch of stuff, not impressive on a resume.
+100, person. Some people drive cars their whole lives and still get nervous in parking lots, freeways. Some kids are competent sliding on snow at 60 mph on mtn passes. Time doing is ridic.
Going fast is not the only metric to use to hire someone. To use your example, you might be a great driver that can go 60mph on the snow but you drive the same way when there's traffic on the street, you're basically unaware of the problems you can cause.
This is true in the same way on engineering. Too many kids deploy feature and release it in production without testing or without accounting edge cases that at scale cause massive problem to the user base. While this could not be a problem in a startup it's a big issue in traditional corporation and where error are not an option (you wouldn't consider giving the software of a medical device to somehow who has demonstrates skills but don't know what issues may cause)
Like an African proverb says: If you want go fast, go alone. If you want go far go together
Re: IBM looking for 12 years’ experience in Kubernetes administration
#127Recruiters putting silly time requirements on skills is nothing new. My favorite moment of this type was at a meetup for .NET, where a recruiter came in and asked for too many years of experience, and the entire room burst out laughing. She just smiled, accepted the grief we all were giving her, and changed the job description to be accurate. I forget the exact wording she used, but I remember the gist of her respons…
The software jobs requirements (where I work) are written by team leads/software engineers, pretty much the same people that would be doing the interviews.
This is obviously the correct way to do it. I say "obviously" sarcastically because you'd be surprised how many companies just don't understand this or have policies that disincentivize reality.
Re: IBM looking for 12 years’ experience in Kubernetes administration
#128Meh. It’s probably just 2 years mistyped. Shouldn’t be on front page HN.
I assume it's on the front page because the majority of HN applicants have at one time or another seen job listings with impossible requirements as prerequisites. "Minimum 12 years Rust experience", etc.
The unstated half of this is that the honest programmer would say, "Well that's clearly impossible, I should either let them know or not apply," while the sleazy programmer tells the recruiter with a straight face that yes, he has the requisite 10 years' Swift experience, and gets the job.
Re: IBM looking for 12 years’ experience in Kubernetes administration
#129Speaking of dubious recruiting practices, can anyone explain why applicants frequently get ghosted? I mean some companies give zero reply after the workflow system acks receipt of an application. I feel this reflects poorly--in public--on a company's culture. The glossy "work here" page means nothing if there's no follow through in practice. A human may have spent days researching your company and preparing a cover l…
After I had worked as a software engineer for about 5-6 years, struggling with impostor syndrome during portions of that time, I decided to apply for a job at Google mostly just to see what would happen. Guess what happened? They ghosted me. Nothing. No 'thanks, but no'. Just nothing.
I remember that it I felt embarassed and was frankly a bit ashamed that I hadn't received a reply. It took a while before I realized that I had in fact gotten ghosted as well. I waited for a reply from them for weeks. My self esteem took a definite hit from that. This was about 5 years ago now, so I've since gotten over it - but it changed my perception of Google as an employer from a place I'd be lucky to work at, to a place that I would have a really hard time applying for a job at again.
Re: IBM looking for 12 years’ experience in Kubernetes administration
#130Recruiters putting silly time requirements on skills is nothing new. My favorite moment of this type was at a meetup for .NET, where a recruiter came in and asked for too many years of experience, and the entire room burst out laughing. She just smiled, accepted the grief we all were giving her, and changed the job description to be accurate. I forget the exact wording she used, but I remember the gist of her respons…
> if I was an expert in the technology I'd be doing it, not looking for people to do it, But this doesn't pass muster, it doesn't require knowing the technology, just a quick search of when the language was invented May as well be a truck driver recruiter who doesn't know what a CDL is. Or a real estate agent that can't search MLS.
Wrong job recruiter for recruiting the job?