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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

#341

Post by 20240521 »

nfriedly wrote: post #251
PaulRobinson wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.…

This post is absolutely perfect in summing up the state of Software Engineering hiring.

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

#342

Post by voidUpdate »

iteria wrote: post #271
voidUpdate wrote: post #88

I got my first job out of university about 2 years or so ago, and it was immensely frustrating. I must have applied to easily over a hundred postings on linkedin, the vast majority of which never replied to me to even acknowledge that they'd received my application. Only two ever replied to me, one of which was my current employer. What would have been very nice was a brief explanation of why I wasn't chosen, what ma…

There's too many applicants for that. You're getting canned responses because a human probably never even saw your resume. The other issue is that there is a small amount of people are _extremely_ unstable. Giving them any kind of feedback encourages them to harrass the company and employees. It's like 1% of applicants, but when you're dealing with this many people it means you are guaranteed to run into someone like…

I never got any response from the majority of my applications, not even a canned "thank you for your application, unfortunately we have rejected you". It felt like shouting into the void. I did manage to get a couple of responses from directly emailing companies I had an interest in, all of which were "sorry, we don't have any jobs open". I was even introduced to the CEO of a company by my lecturer who knew him well, and his response boiled down to "no, you'll have to apply just like everyone else". So much for industry connections Yes, I applied just like everyone else. Got no response

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

#343

Post by b20000 »

alephnerd wrote: post #302
b20000 wrote: post #281

Earlier quoted context omitted.

unions are long established in europe, at least in western europe, and are a cornerstone of the social system. even white collar jobs have unions. this is in contrast to the US where unions are almost entirely non existent for white collar jobs like software engineering.

Union Law in a lot of "Europe" (a broad term so very dependent country to country) is much less adversarial with businesses than in the US. At least in Western Europe, the big Unions won't fight tooth and nail over mass layoffs (eg. Volvo in 2009-12 Sweden versus GM in 2009-12 US) and make it a major political issue, as the Union Leadership has larger ambitions beyond their Union. A lot of this seems to stem from the…

from where I am in europe, I have different memories... unions were pretty aggressive when it came to companies like Volvo

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

#344

Post by b20000 »

sarchertech wrote: post #321
b20000 wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I have had experiences where a so called experienced developer "tests" me by asking a "trick question" related to something I created to verify whether I indeed created the thing. If the "thing" you built in the past has any level of complexity, you simply cannot remember all the details of what you built, and only the most recent aspect will be fresh in your memory to recall. So chances are very high you will fail the trick question. This is why trick questions don't work.

long interview cycles with lots of coding interviews make sense only when you have someone who has built nothing, and you need to find out if he would be able to build something. as soon as you have built something of any substantial size, coding interviews are no longer necessary especially if you have a CS degree and have reasonably good grades. the interview behaviour we see makes sense for countries where the cost of hiring and firing is very high, and this is not the case for the US.

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

#345

Post by pjc50 »

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.

People have fixated on the word "union", but when a group of white collar people get together to set standards and gatekeep them it's called a profession. In the UK, this is usually structured as "chartered". It covers other types of engineers (see the repeated discussion of whether software engineering is engineering; iron rings in Canada; etc) as well as accountants and surveyors.

Older craft professions had guilds. Lawyers go back still further in history and have their "bar" exams.

But in all cases it requires imposing a costly barrier to entry in exchange for not having to prove yourself over and over again to potential employers. Nobody makes a lawyer do fizzbuzz before hiring them.

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

#346

Post by dsattt »

nerder92 wrote: post #310
dsattt wrote: post #303

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So the problem is paying them. You want a founder for an engineer's salary.

You mean what we shouldn't offer a salary and only equity?

You need to offer more, not less, bro, wtf.

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

#347

Post by em-bee »

bugglebeetle wrote: post #340
alephnerd wrote: post #302

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Union Law in a lot of "Europe" (a broad term so very dependent country to country) is much less adversarial with businesses than in the US. At least in Western Europe, the big Unions won't fight tooth and nail over mass layoffs (eg. Volvo in 2009-12 Sweden versus GM in 2009-12 US) and make it a major political issue, as the Union Leadership has larger ambitions beyond their Union. A lot of this seems to stem from the…

>Union Law in a lot of “Europe” […] is much less adversarial with businesses than in the US. US labor law was designed to be adversarial at the firm level because that gives individual firms greater power to crush unions and prevents sectoral bargaining and sympathy strikes. One can see the vestiges of “European” labor organizing in the film industry, which has an exemption to this that was grandfathered in.

can you elaborate on that please?

i don't see how US law wants companies to crush unions. and what is that film industry exemption about? any references?

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

#348

Post by thiago_fm »

adra wrote: post #100
thiago_fm wrote: post #15

Job market has deteriorated a lot. Most companies are afraid to invest because of a possible recession and AI. Companies are only hiring people that perfectly fit their criteria. No more budget for junior devs and people that needs any kind of training. Most companies keep roles open but don't hire anyone, because typically they have recruiters in house and need to give them something to do. I know this based on mine…

Graduating into Y2K, there was definitely a period where new grads and a bunch of experienced devs couldn't find work at least for a couple years. I can only guess that it also happened to some extent during GFC.

But back then we had a much smaller amount of people graduating, you should see numbers how things have inflated towards CS.

Lots of people that would instead study another STEM subject picked up CS because of salaries and hype, now are without a job and could be instead an electrical engineer or any other profession that has a real career.

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

#349

Post by red-iron-pine »

pjc50 wrote: post #345
pseudocomposer wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

People have fixated on the word "union", but when a group of white collar people get together to set standards and gatekeep them it's called a profession . In the UK, this is usually structured as "chartered". It covers other types of engineers (see the repeated discussion of whether software engineering is engineering; iron rings in Canada; etc) as well as accountants and surveyors. Older craft professions had guild…

...because the state Bar Association has required them to pass a test just to show up. In most states the same organization requires a degree from an accredited law school just to sit the test (though I think there are like 2 states that let anyone sit the Bar Exam).

Put another way, everyone has to do the fizzbuzz leetcode test just to be in the industry. But you only have to do it once.

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

#350

Post by whamlastxmas »

20240521 wrote: post #341
nfriedly wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.…

This post is absolutely perfect in summing up the state of Software Engineering hiring.

Don’t practice obscure arbitrary brain teasers? No job for you. Too good at the brain teasers? No job for you.
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