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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

#321

Post by sarchertech »

b20000 wrote: post #137
sarchertech wrote: post #115

What really needs to happen is that we need to hire fast and fire fast. Stop it with the 7 rounds of interviews. Assume after some discussion and basic verification that the person isn’t lying about past experience. Hire the first candidate that passes your bar instead of interviewing and ranking 20 candidates. If it turns out that you have hired every tech employers worst nightmare, a person with great experience wh…

you can already hire and fire fast in the US but nobody does it. there is just a bunch of BS talk about "cost of hiring" and "risk". i also found that "verification" consists of "trick questions". if you can't answer the trick question, then people assume you are lying or a fraud. this doesn't work very well and optimizes for people able to answer trick questions and for those who get turned on asking these type of q…

I’m not talking about trick question interviews when I say verification. I mean a chat with an experienced developer about past projects and verifying past job history.

You’re right that it’s already possible in the US. It boggles my mind how risk averse companies are with respect to hiring compared to nearly every other aspect of business.

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

#322

Post by UncleOxidant »

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 skills of the work force don't match the needs of employers

I know someone who was laid off from an AI group at a large chipmaker last year- his group was eliminated. But because he wasn't doing LLMs, he was doing CNNs for vision, it took him about a year to find a new gig teaching Machine Learning classes - not his preferred gig or level of pay. He could easily have transitioned from CNNs to LLMs but the algorithms sorting the resumes didn't seem to think so.

Personally, I've worked on optimizing code to make machine learning algorithms run faster/more efficient - also compiler/LLVM work. When I was laid off over a year ago I'd apply for things and it was mostly crickets - had a few interviews which often ended up in ghosting. I gave up looking and am working on a startup with some other who've found themselves in a similar situation - no pay at this point, only equity.

Anyway, I think your premise is flawed: AI/ML skills are in demand, but even people with those skills are having a hard time getting back into the industry. Maybe the companies doing AI/ML are spending so much money on GPUs now that they can't actually afford to hire people?

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

#323

Post by joquarky »

jongjong wrote: post #207
mistrial9 wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

not arguing this but, the assumption here is a certain kind of production web developer and similar things.. not all coder problems are hired this way.. unfortunately, ranks of new company leadership actually do not know themselves about this, dealing with money and personal power relationships daily.. so they copy others in the hiring practices and so do the personnel and low-level managers, who are vulnerable to te…

What I find weird is that the kind of people that they're hiring are the kinds of people who are easier to replace with AI. AI is useless at big-picture reasoning when coding. It's only good for short snippets. Yet companies seem to reject developers who are good at big-picture, architectural thinking.

And architects generally know where security gaps are likely to occur. If their livelihoods are threatened, it won't take long to find alternative funding for their skills.

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

#324

Post by giantg2 »

drewcoo wrote: post #313
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.

Elite is a minority. I don't think minority means a group faces biases.

I didn't say all minorities. But yes, in other contexts elite people may face other biases (eg jealousy, which could even apply if the hiring tech folks feel threatened).

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

#325

Post by joquarky »

jongjong wrote: post #169
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…

Some of those interview questions have ridiculously short time constraints. You need to be perfectly rested and well practiced in order to finish the exercises in time. Some of these tests seem to select for cheaters because only cheaters who either knew the questions ahead of time or who used AI to solve the problem could finish them in time.

My last take-home wanted a sudoku solving app coded from scratch in 30 minutes in an unusually restricted online sandbox IDE that would disqualify you if you defocused the window.

I have 28 years of verifiable professional software development experience on my resume.

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

#326

Post by cjbgkagh »

kasey_junk wrote: post #305
cjbgkagh wrote: post #287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As best I can tell P&G is an aptitude test that only resembles fake IQ tests and more resembles a mix of leetcoding and personality tests - probably sharing the same benefit of opacity. Other info I found on it suggests that it’s easily gamed which is something real IQ tests are designed to be resistant to. I’m not trying to ‘no true Scotsman’ this but it would be helpful if the company described their test at least…

The search terms you are looking for are P&G Digit, P&G Switch and P&G Grid. Here is official AON documentation (who also use P&G Switch) on Switch calling it a Deductive Logical Reasoning test. https://assessment.aon.com/aon.assessment/media/files/factsh...

I was able to find those things but I fail to see how they are relevant. My point is the IQ test are in contrast to leetcode tests because the IQ test is transparent and transferable between organizations. These tests are neither transparent nor transferrable. Aptitude tests like this have been safe from disparate impact lawsuits for a long time but not for any legal basis. My point is that while such aptitude test leaves them less exposed than IQ tests it does not eliminate it. That they haven’t been sued yet isn’t evidence of lack of legal exposure.

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

#327

Post by thisisfatih »

martindbp wrote: post #246

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.

I feel like Tinder has similar issues with job seeking and employee finding

In fact after a second thought, its almost identical.

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

#328

Post by the_real_cher »

baby_souffle wrote: post #71
the_real_cher wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Im curious if this is true.

Yes and no. My sources are telling me they get a few hundred applications per day for just one role. Beating those odds will be a lot easier if you know the hiring manager.

I mean that essentially means that if you don't know the hiring manager then your chances of getting the job are one in hundreds if not thousands.

which essentially means you have to know the hiring manager to get the job.

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

#329

Post by the_real_cher »

bradlys wrote: post #317
baby_souffle wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes and no. My sources are telling me they get a few hundred applications per day for just one role. Beating those odds will be a lot easier if you know the hiring manager.

Only works if your issue is getting through to the hiring manager and getting approved. Ultimately, what I’m seeing is that companies are just more picky when it comes to interviewing too. Everyone is asking harder or less common leetcode questions than before and are evaluating more strongly than before. It’s significantly harder to get an offer these days even if you get an interview.

I mean how bad is it out there if you have 5 to 10 years of experience the degree and a few certs like rhcsa and AWS professional?

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

#330

Post by joquarky »

JohnMakin wrote: post #86

Current job market reminds me of ~2016-2017 when you'd see absurd job postings requiring 5+ years of kubernetes experience (kubernetes wasn't released until 2015). I suspect it'll shake out, but I imagine a lot of people will have to learn new skills and adapt - that's how it's always gone in tech. The fact that people seem blindsided by it is a little surprising to me, we've seen this cycle before.

> I imagine a lot of people will have to learn new skills and adapt

I've had quite a few months to ponder this, but I keep looping on what can we adapt to?

Specifically, what problem should I try to tackle that is unlikely to be immediately solved by some new emergent property of the latest LLMs?

I feel like the only safe bet is to "adapt" out of the tech industry entirely.

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