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Discussion: Job seekers can't find a job and Employers can't find an employees

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171–180 of 381 posts

Re: Discussion: Job seekers can't find a job and Employers can't find an employees

#171
> I guess my question here is that what else that you have experienced that worked/not worked. Also what would be the dream solution.

Can we think of decoupling job seekers/employers first and initially having an intermediate who'd assess basic skills and requirements of job seekers and match them with companies passing the filter? I guess we'd need some standardization in how those skills and needs are formulated. A bigger problem is to have that intermediary. Uber for job matching?..

Re: Discussion: Job seekers can't find a job and Employers can't find an employees

#172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a very large number of employers. If you want to convince me they're all unreasonable, you'll need to show me some pretty compelling evidence.

They're almost all cargo culting the same whiteboard algorithm hiring criteria for otherwise humdrum jobs so yeah, they're all kind of unreasonable. An HR fad can cause structural employment just as easily as bona fide requirements not being met.

They are cargo cutting, I was about to make the same point. I am more likely to get a leetcode quiz from a small company trying to emulate a FAANG company than I am from an interview with an actual FAANG company. Leetcode is part a costly signal given the study that has to be put into it, and part IQ test. I think part of the proliferation of leetcode is due to the illegality (edit: in effect even though not explicitly) of using IQ tests. But if someone could have a certified IQ test they could reuse that one test result for the entire job market improving liquidity. It would be no worse than leetcode as the IQ part of leetcode is in effect already an inefficient and arduous IQ test that people have to take repeatedly. The costly signal was supposed to be university but the academies have sold out their responsibilities. I think the effort to democratize university education, instead of lifting people up, has instead dragged universities down. The reason I think the solution is difficult is that we have to chose between a more fair world where just about anyone can get a degree and IQ tests are illegal but we have to keep taking these leetcode tests. Or a less fair world where an IQ test / SAT score and a university certificate is sufficient.

Re: Discussion: Job seekers can't find a job and Employers can't find an employees

#173

You forgot the middlemen: recruiters. I have yet to find more than 2 or 3 recruiters who actually know the space that they're working in, don't make unrealistic demands, and have basic empathy for the job seeker. As an example of this, I was messaged by a recruiter last week asking if I was interested in a potential position, and when I asked him about the position, he asked if I was willing to send over not only my…

Knowing the space that you're working in when you're a contract recruiter is far less important than being a good salesperson.

I don't care how many technically aligned recruiters you've read articles from over the years, the simple fact of the matter is that the people who are at the top of the leaderboards at these companies couldn't give two shits about the technology. Their job is to land asses in seats, and they are ultimately in a vastly better position if they focus and refine their talents on selling and networking as opposed to learning about the problem domain. I still keep in touch with people from my recruiting days, and the high school dropout with 3 years experience when I joined a company is still a senior manager over the Cornell grad. They both make excellent money, but the dropout is easily the better salesperson.

When you've interviewed enough people, you can sniff out the bullshit artists, and virtually all decent to great candidates have a certain cadence to how they describe their roles and responsibilities regardless of the tech stack. I don't need to know the ins and outs of SAP AR and Treasury, I just need to know that the candidate has a consistent work history, is up to date, and can confidently describe their work. Client managers are more likely to go back to recruiters who can consistently put candidates in front of them, which is yet another reason why the numbers / networking game is more important.

Re: Discussion: Job seekers can't find a job and Employers can't find an employees

#174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Leetcode (or hacker rank or others) and other algorithmic qualification (have recruiter ask for years of experience in exactly X) is an understandable response to the automated firehose tools that allow applicants to deluge companies with applications with relatively low effort per app. Companies have to find some way to filter out the percentage that have very low likelihood of succeeding. I hate it, but I don’t see…

My observation has been that the causality is the other way around: the pointless mindgames of employers trying to find "the best" people via interviews led to job-seekers finding ways to game a system that was rigged against them. However, regardless of "who started it" in this round, ultimately, it is unquestionably a situation we can lay at the feed of industry, which abandoned decades ago the practice of actually…

That tracks reasonably well. We have a fair amount of success at hiring college grads, which we obviously have to train to professional proficiency.

We have some success stories, but much longer search times and far more interviews per start when we hire for experience-required roles.

Re: Discussion: Job seekers can't find a job and Employers can't find an employees

#175
post #13

I don't understand the hiring people industry. The questions thrown at me are trivia, if I knew the answer, or not, it doesn't mean anything. People are looking for weird specifics for things that ... really don't need it. The job inevitably doesn't even rely on those specifics. I'll learn whatever anyone wants, I like doing that ... no honestly I do. Can I just talk to the folks I'll potentially be working with / fo…

> I'll learn whatever anyone wants, I like doing that ... no honestly I do.

The trouble is that _everyone_ will say this during an interview, but few have the ability or interest to _actually_ learn on the job.

How to tell the difference?

Re: Discussion: Job seekers can't find a job and Employers can't find an employees

#176
post #19

From jobseeker point : We need better interview process. I don’t understand leetcode style of interviews when we have ChatGPT to generate code. Even OpenAI has tough coding rounds.

Friend of mine interviewed there. Left the coding part of the interview with the strong impression that they were using him to train some kind of code LLM.

Heh I did a coding interview for one the Ai companies that post here all the time(Imbue i think it's spelt) and when I got rejected I was wondering if it was just some AI training thing...

Re: Discussion: Job seekers can't find a job and Employers can't find an employees

#177
post #163
post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll throw in my personal example from 2012 when I was laid off. Senior dev, about 30 years experience at the time. A friend knew of an opening somewhere but they wanted GWT experience, I didn't have it so they wouldn't talk to me. 6 weeks later they were still looking. Like I couldn't learn GWT in six weeks? If they hired any decent dev after a good general screening and gave him the docs they could self-learn GWT i…

The risk is that they hire someone who doesn't know GWT and six weeks later (and six months later) they still don't know it. The ability to do self directed learning of a new skill / technology is something that is difficult to find (a lot of developers that I know don't know how to learn a new version of Java or framework and are still writing code exactly as they did when they graduated college... and they could pu…

The people I have meet who were slower to learn things generally had factors that could be overcome. Burnout is a huge one. If I'm being told to learn this new tech every 3-6 months and not given enough time to become an expert in the thing I previously learned, then why should I put in the effort? Its not a building block in my career. This is how it is for me (plus a disability). It never benefits me, so where's the incentive?

Re: Discussion: Job seekers can't find a job and Employers can't find an employees

#178
post #13

I don't understand the hiring people industry. The questions thrown at me are trivia, if I knew the answer, or not, it doesn't mean anything. People are looking for weird specifics for things that ... really don't need it. The job inevitably doesn't even rely on those specifics. I'll learn whatever anyone wants, I like doing that ... no honestly I do. Can I just talk to the folks I'll potentially be working with / fo…

Because it has been observed [1] that a lot of people turning up to coding interviews don't know much about coding. I'm sure in the ML sector right now, it's hell. Seven figure salaries are going to get some optimistic over-reachers desperate to try and get in the door and BS their way through the first few months. My own experience: I had a CEO and board member of the startup I was CTO'ing push a dev my way. "Brilli…

> "If there isn't a gem, I don't think it's doable, or maybe we should wait until it's done".

Yikes. But I have also known many people with this mindset (and it appears to be workable for a certain subset of the tech industry)

Re: Discussion: Job seekers can't find a job and Employers can't find an employees

#179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Leetcode (or hacker rank or others) and other algorithmic qualification (have recruiter ask for years of experience in exactly X) is an understandable response to the automated firehose tools that allow applicants to deluge companies with applications with relatively low effort per app. Companies have to find some way to filter out the percentage that have very low likelihood of succeeding. I hate it, but I don’t see…

My observation has been that the causality is the other way around: the pointless mindgames of employers trying to find "the best" people via interviews led to job-seekers finding ways to game a system that was rigged against them. However, regardless of "who started it" in this round, ultimately, it is unquestionably a situation we can lay at the feed of industry, which abandoned decades ago the practice of actually…

The situation is bad enough that even for a moderate-sized codebase a newly hired employee is expected to contribute within increasingly (decreasingly?) short time. Getting familiarity with existing codebase is one of the most specific levels of training "on position", yet even that training is deteriorating to shorter and shorter times.

Re: Discussion: Job seekers can't find a job and Employers can't find an employees

#180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is definitely it. The problem is that the job market has positioned it that coming with "gumption" and no real world skills (in past positions) there is a low chance that the company will take a risk on you. So doing these shifts are extremely hard.

My experience has always been that if you take 6 months to contribute to open source centered around the new thing you want to work on, you'll quickly meet people that will allow you to get a job.

Unless you're looking to be hired in the US and live in a US territory, in which case you'll be hard pressed to find any employer who will hire you.
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