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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

#351

Post by CM30 »

One of the main reasons for this is that entry level roles have basically disappeared in many industries. The idea of hiring someone who knows nothing (or a little bit) about the work in question, then training them to get better seems to have become a foreign concept for most companies now.

As a result, you've got a lot of people who would probably do better in one of these roles applying for just about everything that pops up online, since they don't really have that many options. Someone who just finished a coding bootcamp shouldn't be fighting for a senior position, but there are plenty of those who are.

There's also the aforementioned skill mismatch too. The tech jobs being hired for right now have a certain set of requirements, but many of the people being laid off in this industry (or other related ones like gaming) have entirely different skills. So if your company didn't use the latest tech or used tech that's rather niche compared to the mainstream, good luck getting a job. The places that used your skills are either now outsourcing everything or closing down entirely.

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

#352

Post by CM30 »

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.

Exactly. A lot of the problems asked of people are basically "do this multi week task that a team would probably work on at the actual company, except in an hour or two".

They also make you question whether you'd want to even work at a company with this sort of setup. Like, imagine a software engineering role where your boss wanted each project done within an hour, with no help from other developers or external sources, with a tech stack you're only told about the day the problem is given to you. Would anyone really consider that a good (or even tolerable) working environment?

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

#353

Post by red-iron-pine »

MarCylinder wrote: post #66
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…

Completely agree here. My company interviews for and hires based on soft skills. Yeah, certain hard skills help. I don't want to teach you excel or basic computer skills. But we work in data analytics/marketing and my coworkers consist of people like a theater major, an anthropologist, someone that previously negotiated govt contracts for Lockheed, a sommelier, and more. Yeah, we hire mostly at entry level, but our t…

to paraphrase a State Dept. interview I was in: we can't teach communication, intuition, drive, or curiosity -- not when you're 25. those skills can be taught, but if you're not demonstrating those now we can't help you.

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

#354

Post by banannaise »

g9yuayon wrote: post #273
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…

> wrong things (leetcode-type challenges, unnecessarily specific knowledge.. I'm curious about the dynamics of this. If leetcoding or requiring some specific knowledge is too much for candidates, those employers will not be able to find enough talent, so they will be forced to lower their standards and the mismatch should be gone, right? Case in point, I'd venture to guess that no more than 10% of the tech workers tr…

If the corporation as a unit were a perfectly rational actor, sure.

In practice, most corporations seem quite happy to collectively hand-wring over how they can't find new talent, squeeze everything they can out of the talent they currently have, and direct their existing personnel at direct profit-earners while letting systems gradually fall apart due to lack of maintenance.

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

#356

Post by no_exit »

em-bee wrote: post #347
bugglebeetle wrote: post #340

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taft%E2%80%93Hartley_Act

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

#357

Post by bradlys »

the_real_cher wrote: post #329
bradlys wrote: post #317

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Go to Leetcode, look up a bunch of LC hards, and you'll start to get an idea. Even with practicing those well and doing well overall, I am finding employers are looking for something exceptional. You can pass all of those questions optimally but if you don't add something "extra" on top - it seems like they're really ready to move onto other candidates.

This isn't even for top compensation either. I'm finding that the offers overall are meager as well.

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

#358

Post by VirusNewbie »

jongjong wrote: post #182
danaris wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Yes, looking at big company interview processes, it can give you a huge unfair advantage if you can know what kinds of technical questions would be asked ahead of time. It's kind of ridiculous and counter-productive that employers are obsessed with selecting developers who can solve problems under time pressure. The kind of developer who writes code quickly may also be the kind of developer who jumps to conclusions t…

>he kind of developer who writes code quickly may also be the kind of developer who jumps to conclusions too quickly

I'm the opposite of this, but when I wanted a really high paying job, I just practiced a bunch to code quickly. That was actually my biggest hurdle, sometimes I'd understand the problem but I couldn't bang out actual working code fast enough.

Other times I'd get so nervous that I wouldn't have time to code that I'd stumble on the thinking part. Once I deliberately practiced for speed, I was much calmer in interviews.

And now I have a really high paying job. shrug. Now, it's not the best at finding outright geniuses, but making people solve slightly harder than trivial coding questions is a pretty consistent filter for people who can't code.

If you're good at coding and you can't do it, then it's just a matter of practicing a bit.

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

#359

Post by VirusNewbie »

bradlys wrote: post #315
rmbyrro wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It really isn’t. Asking people stuff like N Queens, Trapping Rain Water, and other such questions is really about if you’ve seen the problem before and studied enough to solve them optimally in under 20 minutes while explaining out loud. It really is about testing how much you prepared for the interview and not the job.

I interviewed at Netflix and Google and not once did I see a question that was on leetcode. I had to think very hard about how to solve each of their coding questions. However, they didn't need any tricky esoteric algorithms either which I think was really well done.

Microsoft on the other hand, did exactly what you said, they just pulled the classics, which I think is less helpful. I guess it filters on people who have a moderately good memory and are willing to study.

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

#360

Post by jongjong »

VirusNewbie wrote: post #358
jongjong wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, looking at big company interview processes, it can give you a huge unfair advantage if you can know what kinds of technical questions would be asked ahead of time. It's kind of ridiculous and counter-productive that employers are obsessed with selecting developers who can solve problems under time pressure. The kind of developer who writes code quickly may also be the kind of developer who jumps to conclusions t…

>he kind of developer who writes code quickly may also be the kind of developer who jumps to conclusions too quickly I'm the opposite of this, but when I wanted a really high paying job, I just practiced a bunch to code quickly. That was actually my biggest hurdle, sometimes I'd understand the problem but I couldn't bang out actual working code fast enough. Other times I'd get so nervous that I wouldn't have time to…

Yes but what kinds of people have the time to practice puzzle solving? Not everyone. For example I've been coding for 10 years, I used to be good at solving puzzles under time constraints but I'm not as good at it anymore because I prioritized practical architecture and other code design skills. I'm a much better coder today by all relevant metrics. My problem is that I sometimes run out of time during the tech tests. It's arbitrary... Sometimes I get lucky with the questions sometimes not. An unfamiliar problem will take longer to solve.
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