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Why reskilling won’t always guarantee you a new job

bbc.com

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Re: Why reskilling won’t always guarantee you a new job

#41

Post by selestify »

hi41 wrote: post #36

This article speaks to me. I had experience on mainframe and wanted to get a job in Java. I learned Java however the interviewer would always say I was missing something. It could be J2ee, Jboss etc. with the Java ecosystem so large, can someone please help me how to learn. Is J2ee still in use or has all development moved to cloud. Where do I even begin to learn modern technologies. TIA.

That sounds like suboptimal interviewing on their part. So long as you understand programming fundamentals, you should have no trouble looking up documentation on the fly while on the job, as opposed to memorizing everything before the interview. It might take you a little bit to get ramped up and productive, but that’s normal.

I have only been asked once to answer specifics about the idiosyncrasies of a particular language or framework. Everything else I’ve been asked is about generic algorithms and data structures. Sorry that this doesn’t help much, I just find the kind of interview you encountered pretty frustrating.

Have all the companies you applied to been like that? Because clearly you and I have different interviewing experiences.

Re: Why reskilling won’t always guarantee you a new job

#42

Post by dilyevsky »

hi41 wrote: post #36

This article speaks to me. I had experience on mainframe and wanted to get a job in Java. I learned Java however the interviewer would always say I was missing something. It could be J2ee, Jboss etc. with the Java ecosystem so large, can someone please help me how to learn. Is J2ee still in use or has all development moved to cloud. Where do I even begin to learn modern technologies. TIA.

J2ee is now called just Java EE afaik (for a while now). I think Spring was new hotness a few years back and java ee was waning could be totally something new now.

Re: Why reskilling won’t always guarantee you a new job

#43

Post by alistairSH »

aroundtown wrote: post #24
bilbo0s wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In reality, employers report difficulty hiring because the wages they offer don’t match the skills they’re after, she says AND only about 60 to 70% of US computing and engineering graduates land jobs in STEM I don't know man? The implication there is that there exist up to 30-40% of new computing and engineering grads who on the one hand are without jobs in STEM, and on the other are willing to leave the STEM jobs th…

One of those 30-40% checking in. When I graduated with a CS degree in '07 (US) the first job offer I received was for $25k. I was so angry at that offer. I told the hiring manager that I couldn't possibly work for less than $35k they scoffed at that, I told them no thanks. I could make more money flipping burgers. I kept looking for work. Had another offer for $32k with one week of vacation a year, and no health care…

That's insane. Are you in a small market or something?

Re: Why reskilling won’t always guarantee you a new job

#44

Post by ptmcc »

x87678r wrote: post #7

On a related note changing tech stacks and industries is hugely more difficult than I expected. I started in C++ in a steel company and moving to Java with Financial services was so different it was like starting from scratch. Now I'm trying to move more JS/Python in tech land and again its much harder than I expected just to get basic tooling, workflow done, let alone trying to get someone to hire you.

I've experienced this as well, even after years of experience. The fundamentals all transfer, but ramping up on an entirely different language/stack/toolchain, an entirely different business/industry, and an entirely different company culture/management/process all at the same time can be a really big challenge, especially in more senior roles where expectations of autonomy are high.

But eventually you finally get over the hurdle and it starts to click. I've done it a few times, and each time I have to remind myself that I've done it before and I can get through it.

Fortunately, so much of being an effective senior engineer is not about programming. But it's hard to remind myself of that when I feel like a "bad" programmer in a new stack for a while.

Re: Why reskilling won’t always guarantee you a new job

#45

Post by gwright »

save_ferris wrote: post #11
dcolkitt wrote: post #8

The biggest thing from the employer side is that the cost of a single bad hire can be potentially enormous. This is a combination of legal (threat of wrongful termination lawsuits, COBRA) and cultural (nobody likes to feel like a jerk boss, morale problems among the remaining employees). The rule of thumb among managers is don't hire anybody unless you're 90% sure they'll work out for at least a year. That creates a…

> What we need is another category of transitional employment, with both much lighter regulatory barriers to turnover as well as more relaxed cultural expectations about job security. In the olden days we'd call this an "apprentice". Today it might be an "intern", but the general expectation is that only applies to very young workers- not those respelling or making a lateral move. I agree that this is a good idea, bu…

> I agree that this is a good idea, but the market won't accommodate this kind of labor change without government help.

Why do you think that? It seems to me it is the government that is creating the financial and legal risk of hiring the wrong person or the base cost of hiring an unskilled laborer.

You also seem to be thinking about a subset of jobs that require some sort of advanced training/skills. But things like a universal minimum wage are examples of government regulation that increase the cost of labor for even the most basic of jobs.

Re: Why reskilling won’t always guarantee you a new job

#46

Post by an_opabinia »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #20
freetime2 wrote: post #18

> Why, then, do policymakers and business leaders continue to focus on reskilling? Lafer thinks it gives them an easy way out by laying the blame for workers’ dim employment prospects on their failure to acquire the right skills rather than facing up to deeper structural changes in the economy. He says that a better option might be a push for better pay and conditions in other in demand industries that employ lots of…

Installing renewables, as well as installing EV charging stations and upgrading electrical infrastructure is going to be a Herculean effort, lots of good jobs to provide for folks in that domain. I believe many on Native American lands still don’t have running water, internet, or power. Should be a top priority for such a jobs corps.

When Alaska and Wyoming have the same number of senators as California and New York, the problem becomes not the lack of resources or even the wild inefficiency of serving rural communities, which are problems everywhere in the world that nonetheless have better infrastructure, but plainly, Republicans, which only exist here.

Re: Why reskilling won’t always guarantee you a new job

#47

Post by pydry »

freetime2 wrote: post #18

> Why, then, do policymakers and business leaders continue to focus on reskilling? Lafer thinks it gives them an easy way out by laying the blame for workers’ dim employment prospects on their failure to acquire the right skills rather than facing up to deeper structural changes in the economy. He says that a better option might be a push for better pay and conditions in other in demand industries that employ lots of…

>I subscribe to the Keynesian philosophy that the government should at the very least hire displaced workers to dig holes in the ground and fill them back up.

Keynes didn't actually advocate this. He just said that it would be stimulative to do this - i.e. that it was sufficient as a means of escaping a liquidity trap.

He was much more keen on public works programs "government as an employer of last resort" that built things like the Lincoln tunnel.

I find it deeply ironic that this myth of what he said is most popular among gold bugs - people who advocate digging up gold and subsequently burying it.

Re: Why reskilling won’t always guarantee you a new job

#48

Post by Gunax »

hi41 wrote: post #36

This article speaks to me. I had experience on mainframe and wanted to get a job in Java. I learned Java however the interviewer would always say I was missing something. It could be J2ee, Jboss etc. with the Java ecosystem so large, can someone please help me how to learn. Is J2ee still in use or has all development moved to cloud. Where do I even begin to learn modern technologies. TIA.

Welcome to entire roles. It's about hitting a checklist.

Or, they just didn't like you for another reason and that's an easy excuse.

Re: Why reskilling won’t always guarantee you a new job

#49

Post by an_opabinia »

baron_harkonnen wrote: post #26
dcolkitt wrote: post #8

The biggest thing from the employer side is that the cost of a single bad hire can be potentially enormous. This is a combination of legal (threat of wrongful termination lawsuits, COBRA) and cultural (nobody likes to feel like a jerk boss, morale problems among the remaining employees). The rule of thumb among managers is don't hire anybody unless you're 90% sure they'll work out for at least a year. That creates a…

> The rule of thumb among managers is don't hire anybody unless you're 90% sure they'll work out for at least a year. This used to be the the way people thought, but the trend I've seen is it's becoming more and more common to just continuously fire people. In my last two jobs at very different companies it was pretty insane the rate that good employees got fired based on "culture mismatch" related issues. Amazon and…

Believe it or not, there is no legal precedent or basis around Performance Improvement Plans. Their use as some kind of magic lawsuit shield hasn’t been tested in any court, ever, by anyone, and it has no basis, especially those words “performance improvement plan,” in any law or regulation, at least in California, Delaware or Georgia (some places I’ve checked before). “PIP culture” is more like “PIP cargo cult.”

Re: Why reskilling won’t always guarantee you a new job

#50

Post by credit_guy »

freetime2 wrote: post #18

> Why, then, do policymakers and business leaders continue to focus on reskilling? Lafer thinks it gives them an easy way out by laying the blame for workers’ dim employment prospects on their failure to acquire the right skills rather than facing up to deeper structural changes in the economy. He says that a better option might be a push for better pay and conditions in other in demand industries that employ lots of…

And what if you don't have the skills to build up roads, clean our cities, provide services? Do you reskill?
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