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

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

#241

Post by setgree »

kjkjadksj wrote: post #192
jeltz wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All people I know who have been good at leetcode have been good at coding (of course they may lack other important skills but that you can assess with other questions). You can't become good at leetcode without being good at logical thinking. But not all good coders are good at it because it also requires skills unrelated to the job to be good at leetcode. I do not advocate for leetcode tests, but I think they have a…

It would be better to see how many hours they’ve played something like starcraft 2 for logical thinking and working under pressure

I think if you actually selected for this, you would get people who are very low in the conformity and desire-to-please-boss categories

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

#242

Post by alephnerd »

pseudocomposer wrote: post #211
pjc50 wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Structural unemployment happens when the perceived skills of the workforce don't match the perceived needs of employers https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Market_for_Lemons : when "buyers" cannot distinguish between good and bad due to informational issues, even the good products (or in this case employees) cannot find buyers. Market failure. It might be improvable by the relevant parties getting together and agreei…

Unions have historically solved this problem. Non-union accreditation programs don’t seem to have the same effect, though in some industries they do have a positive effect on salary.

It would only make it harder for new grads, as unions aim to help their constituents increase salaries, which means paying non-union hires waaaaaay less.

Look at the Automotive Engineering industry in Ohio/Penn/Mich for example - a union contract engineer will earn a decent amount, but the majority of new hiring is non-union.

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

#243

Post by cmilton »

csa wrote: post #110
giantg2 wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"You have to be lucky (including knowing someone, ie networking), not necessarily good." Yes, and the network effects are largely detrimental to minority groups since networks tend to be biased toward similar people.

> the network effects are largely detrimental to minority groups “… detrimental to low socioeconomic status groups, within which minorities are over-represented”. FTFY, not to be a pedant, but to highlight the fact that many white people from certain backgrounds also struggle with this, while well-connected minorities largely do not. In fact, connected minorities essentially have super-powered network effects since t…

I think you may be assuming the parent poster's definition of minority.

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

#244

Post by smsm42 »

tlb wrote: post #8

It's not any kind of paradox. Structural unemployment happens when the skills of the work force don't match the needs of employers, so there is both unemployment and difficulty hiring. Structural unemployment is usually high when there's a rapid change in demand for skills, as of course there is in tech. It results in crazy high salaries too. People with machine learning experience are getting 7-figure offers, while…

It's not the skills problem. Looking for a job, I know that my skillset would match the employer - in fact, thousands of employers likely - because I have successfully done such jobs in the past. But I have no way to prove it to a potential employer than going through an expensive and friction-laden process which could fail at any stage for a reason totally unrelated to the main question of qualifications - like some random interviewer not liking my answer to a weird question like "tell me about your three biggest failures" or getting some obscure pet detail of a language wrong when nobody actually uses that corner precisely because of how hard it to get right, or not solving irrelevant leetcode puzzle fast enough. Immense effort on both sides is spent to go through these dances - and almost all of it is wasted. I wish there were some good solution for it. So far there's none.

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

#245

Post by cjbgkagh »

tptacek wrote: post #239
cjbgkagh wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This has been true for a long time but I would suggest that it's no longer true, or at least less true. Such aptitude tests, the opaque form of IQ tests, are now increasingly and effectively being challenged on the same disparate impact that IQ tests were. Rather recently the NY Teachers aptitude test was demonstrated to have disparate impact resulting in a payout of $1.8B. Perhaps one way to get rid of leetcode woul…

The teachers aptitude test involved errors in scoring the test, not a conceptual problem with aptitude testing teachers.

As it appears you are more familiar with the case than I am, it would be helpful if you could point out what those errors are?

As best I can tell 'Judge Wood ruled that an older state-certification test, which was intended to measure teachers’ knowledge of the liberal arts and science, was racially discriminatory.'

Elsewhere I'm seeing "The court found that Black and Latino teachers clearly passed these tests at lower rates than white teachers. In order to prove that this wasn't illegal, the defendants had to show that the test actually demonstrated what it promised: that teachers who did well on the test would do better in their jobs."

It seems to me that the error was using the wrong test and it was the wrong test because it had disparate impact. What it does not appear to be is a case that is not about disparate impact because it instead had errors.

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

#246

Post by martindbp »

Maybe it's similar to Tinder. In the past you got a few local applicants and you made your pick, but now you get hundred of applicants, so you narrow your requirements while probably filtering out good matches, just like girls who filter on 6 feet tall and six figures.

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

#247

Post by nfriedly »

SJC_Hacker wrote: post #138
tlb wrote: post #8

It's not any kind of paradox. Structural unemployment happens when the skills of the work force don't match the needs of employers, so there is both unemployment and difficulty hiring. Structural unemployment is usually high when there's a rapid change in demand for skills, as of course there is in tech. It results in crazy high salaries too. People with machine learning experience are getting 7-figure offers, while…

> People with machine learning experience are getting 7-figure offer This sounds like a gross exaggeration. Unless they did something like start a company. For an IC at least, even at FAANG it would be bit crazy to start at more than ~$400k. If a project lead, then its obviously more and you can make bank as you move up the ladder.

They're probably including equity, not just cash. Equity can be worth significantly more than the base pay at higher levels.

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

#248

Post by cmilton »

PaulRobinson wrote: post #91
duxup wrote: 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…

Who hired the engineer? It seems like they failed to make a successful hire, but that happens sometimes.

>but I kind of want to have a conversation about how they code, what they do, what their method and see if it rings true.

I think these are great ideas. What kinds of things were you asking in your interviews?

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

#249

Post by tptacek »

cjbgkagh wrote: post #245
tptacek wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The teachers aptitude test involved errors in scoring the test, not a conceptual problem with aptitude testing teachers.

As it appears you are more familiar with the case than I am, it would be helpful if you could point out what those errors are? As best I can tell 'Judge Wood ruled that an older state-certification test, which was intended to measure teachers’ knowledge of the liberal arts and science, was racially discriminatory.' Elsewhere I'm seeing "The court found that Black and Latino teachers clearly passed these tests at lowe…

Ahh, I'm looking at a much more recent case in New Jersey, not this one from 10 years ago. The test you're talking about isn't an IQ test; it's a heavily and obviously culturally-loaded literacy test. The whole point of actual IQ tests is to isolate intellectual aptitude from cultural literacy.

(I'm writing as if I think real IQ tests are a good idea, and they are not --- in fact, that's my whole point: there's a mythology that IQ tests aren't used because they're illegal, but they are not that; what they are is ineffective.)

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

#250

Post by cjbgkagh »

tptacek wrote: post #240
cjbgkagh wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those I assume also have big legal departments, for smaller companies such lawsuits can be extinction events. This has been previously discussed in detail on HN 12 years ago; https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2414135 I would suggest that times have changed since then and disparate impact lawsuits are now more likely to prevail in 2024 than in 2012, so the in-effect aspect has increased since then. I know quite a f…

This NY Post story is speculative; the VC firm that did this (stupid) hiring thing, of asking people to take a free online IQ test and a Meyers-Briggs personality test(!) , got called out on Twitter and backed down, blaming the process on an intern. They weren't sued. I'm not saying you won't get dunked on if you, for instance, Wonderlic-test applicants for your tech company. You will. But I don't think you're going…

I'm grasping at straws looking for a counter example to my overall assertion, that it is not a great counter example does not undermine my case. I made a genuine good faith effort to find them - you could help me out a lot if you could list these companies that boast publicly about administering IQ tests. That would go a long way to demonstrating that such tests are not in effect illegal.

My assertion is that IQ tests are already known to have disparate impact and with laws as they are in effect they are illegal. My next assertion is that aptitude tests will suffer the same fate as IQ test because they too will be shown to have disparate impact for the same reasons. That not all such aptitude tests have been sued already under this law does not make them safe from lawsuits as the burden of proof is on the company using them.

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