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It could be even simpler than that -- maybe there's a really popular job board that's attracting all the customers? MySpace losing hundreds of thousands of user

It could be even simpler than that -- maybe there's a really popular job board that's attracting all the customers? MySpace losing hundreds of thousands of users didn't mean there were less teenagers.

felipellrocha 10y ago
Oooor, even simpler... Tech hiring is down 40%... C'mon, guys... Ockham's razor. Hell, a couple of friends of mine were laid off, and are having a hard time finding employment...
- exacube 10y ago
  this is not ockham's razor. people here are refuting the 40% hiring decline, so it's not an explanation to choose from to begin with.
- dajohnson89 10y ago
  Ockhams' razor does not magically remove confounding variables.
- trishume 10y ago
  That's not a good application of Ockham's razor, it's not about which explanations sound simple, and you need priors. If I gave you some data saying that telecom industry sales have been correlated to GDP for decades and suddenly telecom industry sales dropped 40%, GDP dropping 40% is really unlikely and you wouldn't guess that. 40% is huge
  - jknoepfler 10y ago
    Completely agreed. A 40% decline in real tech-hiring rates would be a shocking, sudden decline. The simpler, most consistent, and most likely explanation is that the author's data isn't representative of the big picture. It's very similar to "my helloworld.c won't compile, the compiler must be broken"
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
  - mark-r 10y ago
    40% drop in GDP is huge, you're right. 40% drop in open job listings isn't huge, because it's not the same as overall employment. I'm quite sure we've had drops like that before, although I don't have any references at the moment to back it up. Edit: if the author has only been in the business a couple of years, he may not be aware of the historical boom/bust nature of it - yet.
- the_rosentotter 10y ago
  It's "Occam's".
  - vidarh 10y ago
    Both are used. It is named after William of Ockham (though he did not invent it, nor name it).

felipellrocha 10y ago

Oooor, even simpler... Tech hiring is down 40%... C'mon, guys... Ockham's razor. Hell, a couple of friends of mine were laid off, and are having a hard time finding employment...

exacube 10y ago
this is not ockham's razor. people here are refuting the 40% hiring decline, so it's not an explanation to choose from to begin with.
dajohnson89 10y ago
Ockhams' razor does not magically remove confounding variables.
trishume 10y ago
That's not a good application of Ockham's razor, it's not about which explanations sound simple, and you need priors. If I gave you some data saying that telecom industry sales have been correlated to GDP for decades and suddenly telecom industry sales dropped 40%, GDP dropping 40% is really unlikely and you wouldn't guess that. 40% is huge
- jknoepfler 10y ago
  Completely agreed. A 40% decline in real tech-hiring rates would be a shocking, sudden decline. The simpler, most consistent, and most likely explanation is that the author's data isn't representative of the big picture. It's very similar to "my helloworld.c won't compile, the compiler must be broken"
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- mark-r 10y ago
  40% drop in GDP is huge, you're right. 40% drop in open job listings isn't huge, because it's not the same as overall employment. I'm quite sure we've had drops like that before, although I don't have any references at the moment to back it up. Edit: if the author has only been in the business a couple of years, he may not be aware of the historical boom/bust nature of it - yet.
the_rosentotter 10y ago
It's "Occam's".
- vidarh 10y ago
  Both are used. It is named after William of Ockham (though he did not invent it, nor name it).