4 ms·

If you aren't "actively looking" but would bite if "that special snowflake" came in, aren't you actively hiring? Maybe you're more like passively hiring, but I

by wayn3 10y ago

If you aren't "actively looking" but would bite if "that special snowflake" came in, aren't you actively hiring? Maybe you're more like passively hiring, but I'd still consider them hiring.

busterarm 10y ago
I didn't want to be obviously derisive in my post. The two companies in question were obviously stroking their own egos. They didn't have an actual need for someone and it was all about how many/what type of degrees someone had and from where before they'd even consider looking at a candidate. In one of the cases, when the company did actually hire a person, that person had no work to do -- it was purely a means to justify their ask to investors for more money. We hire the best people!
- wayn3 10y ago
  Does that make you angry? They'll soon fail anyway. Some people don't internalize that this is a sellers market. There are orders of magnitude more open jobs out there than there are qualified people to fill them. You shouldn't concern yourself with a bunch of toxic idiots trying to milk VC for a while.
  - busterarm 10y ago
    Not really, actually. I get it. It's the waste/needless entropy and it makes me more sad than mad anyway. I have to consider that some of the effort I spend chasing what looks like a great job might actually be a complete waste of time with no chance whatsoever. I've been pretty vocal about my experiences, good and bad, job searching. I usually even like to name and shame and strangely enough it has paid off for me in connecting with the kinds of people I want to work with. I've been happily employed for a year now and have a good network of opportunities available to me.
  - ryandrake 10y ago
    > Some people don't internalize that this is a sellers market. There are orders of magnitude more open jobs out there than there are qualified people to fill them. The "shortage of engineers" meme that just won't die. If this were actually true, one or more of the following would be happening: 1. Qualified people would not be having difficulty finding work 2. Salaries would be increasing and low-paying open jobs would decrease in response to short supply until the market went into equilibrium
    - wayn3 10y ago
      The market is in equilibrium. Physics and Math graduate unemployment rates are virtually zero, and practically all of us work in software. That a lot of CS graduates actually can't do the job may be a pity, but its not our problem. Qualified people don't have difficulty finding work (by definition - if they're qualified, they will get hired). Shortage of engineers is a meme? "If you gave us another 100k great engineers we would only hire about 15k of those" - said none of the big 4 ever. They are perpetually hiring and they will absorb any capable engineer who comes their way. You know that. Don't pretend there's a shortage of jobs for qualified software engineers. That's just silly.
      - bulatb 10y ago
        > by definition - if they're qualified, they will get hired It sounds like you're explicitly committing the No True Scotsman fallacy. It's also an example of Goodhart's law: the people getting hired are demonstrably most qualified at getting hired, but the correlation between being good and being hired is quite clearly less than 1.0.
        wayn3 10y ago
        It sounds like you're trying to tell me that its more difficult to be perceived as a competent engineer than it is to actually be a competent engineer. If you're good at what you're doing but somehow suck at presenting yourself in an appropriate way, retain an executive coach for 5 hours or whatever..
      - 10y ago
ryandrake 10y ago
Maybe we need a different word for it then, because they're not hiring. They're "looking" and maybe "interviewing". A lot of companies who say they're hiring are really just trawling for deals.

by wayn3 10y ago

If you aren't "actively looking" but would bite if "that special snowflake" came in, aren't you actively hiring? Maybe you're more like passively hiring, but I'd still consider them hiring.

busterarm 10y ago

I didn't want to be obviously derisive in my post. The two companies in question were obviously stroking their own egos. They didn't have an actual need for someone and it was all about how many/what type of degrees someone had and from where before they'd even consider looking at a candidate. In one of the cases, when the company did actually hire a person, that person had no work to do -- it was purely a means to justify their ask to investors for more money. We hire the best people!

wayn3 10y ago
Does that make you angry? They'll soon fail anyway. Some people don't internalize that this is a sellers market. There are orders of magnitude more open jobs out there than there are qualified people to fill them. You shouldn't concern yourself with a bunch of toxic idiots trying to milk VC for a while.
- busterarm 10y ago
  Not really, actually. I get it. It's the waste/needless entropy and it makes me more sad than mad anyway. I have to consider that some of the effort I spend chasing what looks like a great job might actually be a complete waste of time with no chance whatsoever. I've been pretty vocal about my experiences, good and bad, job searching. I usually even like to name and shame and strangely enough it has paid off for me in connecting with the kinds of people I want to work with. I've been happily employed for a year now and have a good network of opportunities available to me.
- ryandrake 10y ago
  > Some people don't internalize that this is a sellers market. There are orders of magnitude more open jobs out there than there are qualified people to fill them. The "shortage of engineers" meme that just won't die. If this were actually true, one or more of the following would be happening: 1. Qualified people would not be having difficulty finding work 2. Salaries would be increasing and low-paying open jobs would decrease in response to short supply until the market went into equilibrium
  - wayn3 10y ago
    The market is in equilibrium. Physics and Math graduate unemployment rates are virtually zero, and practically all of us work in software. That a lot of CS graduates actually can't do the job may be a pity, but its not our problem. Qualified people don't have difficulty finding work (by definition - if they're qualified, they will get hired). Shortage of engineers is a meme? "If you gave us another 100k great engineers we would only hire about 15k of those" - said none of the big 4 ever. They are perpetually hiring and they will absorb any capable engineer who comes their way. You know that. Don't pretend there's a shortage of jobs for qualified software engineers. That's just silly.
    - bulatb 10y ago
      > by definition - if they're qualified, they will get hired It sounds like you're explicitly committing the No True Scotsman fallacy. It's also an example of Goodhart's law: the people getting hired are demonstrably most qualified at getting hired, but the correlation between being good and being hired is quite clearly less than 1.0.
      - wayn3 10y ago
        It sounds like you're trying to tell me that its more difficult to be perceived as a competent engineer than it is to actually be a competent engineer. If you're good at what you're doing but somehow suck at presenting yourself in an appropriate way, retain an executive coach for 5 hours or whatever..
    - 10y ago

ryandrake 10y ago

Maybe we need a different word for it then, because they're not hiring. They're "looking" and maybe "interviewing". A lot of companies who say they're hiring are really just trawling for deals.