Discussion: Job seekers can't find a job and Employers can't find an employees • Hacker News Board

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

#251

Post by nfriedly » Mon, May 20, 2024, 5:31 PM UTC

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…

I once got asked FizzBuzz in a take-home interview, and the tool they were using flagged me for completing it very quickly and with an answer the tool had seen before.

Fortunately they gave me the opportunity to explain that it was a well-known interview question dating back to 2007 (with that blog post as evidence), and that I had previously asked this question in interviews, so I basically had the answer memorized. (I think the fact that I had correct, unique answers for the other questions helped me also.)

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

#252

Post by cjbgkagh » Mon, May 20, 2024, 5:37 PM UTC

tptacek wrote: post #249

cjbgkagh wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 myt…

The efficacy of IQ tests are a separate argument and the general abandonment of IQ tests by corporations as a demonstration of their inefficacy would be more substantive if such tests were not in effect made illegal at the same time. I.e. if IQ testing conferred no possible legal liability then the spontaneous abandonment of their use might be evidence of their ineffectiveness.

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

#253

Post by em-bee » Mon, May 20, 2024, 5:50 PM UTC

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.

to qualify, unions may have solved this problem in the US. in europe, which has a stronger apprentice culture, unions don't have any role here.

(i am not saying this to criticize the comment but just to point out one of the many differences between unions in the US and europe)

the problem with apprentice programs is that they lag behind the changes in the industry. when i was in school there were none for software developers for example. there are now, but the second problem is that apprentice programs are considered of lower status compared to studying at a university. think blue-collar programmers vs white-collar software developers. the pay is also different.

i don't know anything about union accreditation programs, but i can imagine that they would be targeted at the available jobs, and with unions in the US having more influence at who gets hired, they probably can make sure that an accreditation actually leads to a job.

apprentice programs traditionally also promised that you'd get hired at the company where you learned, but this is no longer certain. together with the status and pay differences it is no surprise then that the number of people starting apprentice programs is declining.

on the other side university studies are not targeted at the industry. which only adds to the perception of candidates not matching employers needs. as an employer it is difficult to tell whether a candidate with a diploma is actually capable of doing the job.

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

#254

Post by hiAndrewQuinn » Mon, May 20, 2024, 5:50 PM UTC

shagie wrote: post #163

ralphc wrote: 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 fact that self-directed learning is so rare even among programmers will never cease to baffle me. I got into computers precisely because it was so perfectly suited to self study. It appealed perfectly to the autodidact-venerating Frank Zappa fan in me.

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

#255

Post by juancn » Mon, May 20, 2024, 5:57 PM UTC

It's a market failure. A difficult one to solve, but not impossible.

There's a mismatch between skillset in the workforce and what is required by the employers.

The way around it as an employer is to hire for potential, not actuality and train the people you hire to become the ones you need.

Some companies realize this and get out of the quagmire faster.

The issue becomes a lot worse when there's a bubble, such as the current AI gold rush, where finding people with actual experience is very very hard.

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

#256

Post by smsm42 » Mon, May 20, 2024, 5:59 PM UTC

sokoloff wrote: post #153

banannaise wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Structural unemployment happens when the perceived skills of the workforce don't match the perceived needs of employers, so there is both unemployment and difficulty hiring. A lot of engineers will tell you that companies are often expecting both too much (precise types of experience) and the wrong things (leetcode-type challenges, unnecessarily specific knowledge...), which leads them to pass over perfectly qualifie…

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…

But when companies would "filter" you out because your resume didn't match some stupid algorithmic quirk, you have no way to even get to an interview without mass-filing to any opportunity that at least somewhat resembles the one you want. You don't know the rules of their gatekeeping, and have no chance to learn them because everyone uses slightly different but equally broken gatekeeping system. You know to have any chance you must pass this gatekeeping system. You know the chances of success are low, because you don't even know what they are looking for, and they can't tell you because that would invalidate their whole system. So, you need to send out a lot of submissions, to have any reasonable chance to even get to talk to somebody. And since you have to do that, you can't spend too much time on every submission. Hello, automated tools. It's a nightmare both employers and employees are trapped in, without any reasonable way to resolve it. Yes, personal referrals help - but what if you want to work somewhere where you don't have anybody to personally refer you?

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

#257

Post by rmbyrro » Mon, May 20, 2024, 6:03 PM UTC

banannaise wrote: post #63

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…

Structural unemployment happens when the perceived skills of the workforce don't match the perceived needs of employers, so there is both unemployment and difficulty hiring. A lot of engineers will tell you that companies are often expecting both too much (precise types of experience) and the wrong things (leetcode-type challenges, unnecessarily specific knowledge...), which leads them to pass over perfectly qualifie…

Leetcode type challenges are just a proxy for logical habilities, which are highly desired for SWE positions. It's not meant to evaluate every ability. Despite imperfect, I don't know of a better indicator that has similar cost. An employer won't spend a lot more to evaluate with perfection how good we are with logic.

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

#258

Post by smsm42 » Mon, May 20, 2024, 6:03 PM UTC

danaris wrote: post #159

sokoloff wrote: post #153

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 happens anyway - nobody's payroll dataabse is running on leetcode puzzles, so if you hire somebody, they must spend time - sometimes months - on learning the new systems and getting the lay of the land and how the things are done. It's inevitable.

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

#259

Post by anal_reactor » Mon, May 20, 2024, 6:06 PM UTC

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…

> many white people from certain backgrounds

Sad Eastern European noises, aka "You are on this council, but we do not grant you the rank of master"

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

#260

Post by mock-possum » Mon, May 20, 2024, 6:08 PM UTC

My big thing is there’s no personal contact possible via the application process anymore. Every form I fill out results in the same response from a ‘no-reply@‘ email address:

> Thank you for your interest in COMPANY NAME and for applying to the JOB TITLE in LOCATION.

> Having reviewed your application, unfortunately, we won’t be proceeding with your application at this time. Due to the high volume of applications, we are unable to provide individual feedback at this stage. We kindly request that you wait 6 months before reapplying to this position.

> We wish you all the best in your job search and future professional endeavors.

All I ask is 15 minutes on the phone with any technical employee - team lead, cto or vp of tech, engineer team member, even a junior dev - I just want to talk to somebody about what tech your working with, and what the day-to-day looks like on your software dev team.

Instead I get a list of demands in the form of a job position, an arduous application process of correcting your AI’s poor parsing of my resume, a few weeks of waiting, and a polite fuck-you-form-letter at the end turning me down. It’s an awful experience. It makes me wonder whether I need to be looking at a different industry at this point.