4 ms·

Something you didn't mention is the huge amount of pressure on "junior developers" to meet requirements like "5 years of experience in X, Y, and Z." There's an

by tps5 10y ago

Something you didn't mention is the huge amount of pressure on "junior developers" to meet requirements like "5 years of experience in X, Y, and Z." There's an arms race between hiring companies lying about the experience they expect their junior devs to have and the prospective employees lying about the experience they have. To be fair, the prospective employees probably started it. As someone who did a dev bootcamp, we were under a lot of pressure to make ourselves appear more interesting AKA selling ourselves AKA telling a story AKA lying. That's how those places stay open, they get to say "80% of our students found a job within 3 months!" (Note: the actual learning part of the bootcamp was fantastic, really enthusiastic teachers always happy to help, great environment for learning. But the "help you find a job" part of it wasn't so good). I was pretty uncomfortable with the whole lying thing. Fortunately I found a company that looked at my projects, asked questions, and didn't react negatively when I honestly told them I had no experience with X, Y, and Z. I'm not trying to apologize for the guy in this story. What he did was clearly unethical. But there's more to this story than some guy who is a pathological liar.

at-fates-hands 10y ago
>> Something you didn't mention is the huge amount of pressure on "junior developers" to meet requirements like "5 years of experience in X, Y, and Z." THIS. Not sure how many times I get an email from a recruiter and the requirements portion goes something like this: - At least 3 years experience - Expert in (list various JS frameworks here) - Expert in (list various responsive frameworks here) - Expert in REST and SOAP services - Expert in MySQL It's like companies are looking for developers who don't have any experience, but want them to be experts in everything so they can pay them nothing while getting someone who's fluent in all these technologies. There is indeed a race to the bottom to fill junior spots while still having astronomical expectations as the desired skill sets. I mean, three years in, I was still struggling with CSS quirks and IE. Being able to write decent Javascript? Not even close. I had little or no deep knowledge of why I was writing my JS one way instead of another. Was I an expert? Psssshhhh no way.
- ashark 10y ago
  > - Expert in MySQL That crap gets me especially. Look, there are zero candidates who can truly claim to be a "MySQL expert" applying for your CRUD dev job, because all of the people who can truly claim that are making more money doing just that and not having to worry about the other junk in your requirements list.
- importantbrian 10y ago
  When I have looked for jobs in the past, I will sometimes apply for positions like this even if I don't have all the requisite skills if the job looks particularly interesting otherwise. I have found that these kinds of postings typically come from a communication error between the technical manager and HR. If you can get past HR and to the manager they are typically much more realistic, and are totally fine if you don't know technology x, y, or z as long as they feel comfortable that you can learn it, and you are strong in at least one or two of the other areas.
- HeyLaughingBoy 10y ago
  Protip: it's just a wish list. Apply anyway. You might be the only one who does.
- digler999 10y ago
  if you have that attitude, you must be the same guy/girl that freaks out when your Whopper doesn't look like the one in the Burger King commercial.
ng12 10y ago
Eh. As much as we like to complain about it tech is still one of the most meritocratic fields out there. If you can code you can get jobs. And as someone who's done a couple hundred interviews I don't really care what's on someone's resume. If there is a correlation between a good resume and good coding skills it's pretty weak.
- HeyLaughingBoy 10y ago
  I can concur with that last part. One of the strongest developers I've ever hired had one of the worst resumes. If it weren't for the fact that he had a friend on the team who vouched for him, we'd have never bothered with the interview. I remember reading the resume then walking over to my boss's office to ask "why am I even wasting time phone screening this crap?" and getting the answer "Steve knows him and says he's pretty good. Cut it short if he's not."
- kafkaesq 10y ago
  As much as we like to complain about it tech is still one of the most meritocratic fields out there. Relatively meritocratic, yes. But at the same time, suffused with bullshit. In particular as regards to the (generally inflated and useless; and let's face it, nearly ubiquitous in tech position ads, even still) "N years of X" requirements that the commenter was referring to. And as someone who's done a couple hundred interviews I don't really care what's on someone's resume. So would you mind letting your HR people (you know, the ones who write the aforementioned position ad copy) in on this little secret? As in, just walk up and tell them sometime and say: "Actually, we don't really care if they have 5 years of Angular or 3 months. We just want someone who's good. Meanwhile these ads you're writing with these made-up and generally useless years of platform experience are turning away, in droves, the very species of developer -- hardcore generalists with solid fundamentals, both intellectually and coding-wise (in any language) -- that we're so desperately looking for." Or would that just confuse them?

by tps5 10y ago

at-fates-hands 10y ago

>> Something you didn't mention is the huge amount of pressure on "junior developers" to meet requirements like "5 years of experience in X, Y, and Z." THIS. Not sure how many times I get an email from a recruiter and the requirements portion goes something like this: - At least 3 years experience - Expert in (list various JS frameworks here) - Expert in (list various responsive frameworks here) - Expert in REST and SOAP services - Expert in MySQL It's like companies are looking for developers who don't have any experience, but want them to be experts in everything so they can pay them nothing while getting someone who's fluent in all these technologies. There is indeed a race to the bottom to fill junior spots while still having astronomical expectations as the desired skill sets. I mean, three years in, I was still struggling with CSS quirks and IE. Being able to write decent Javascript? Not even close. I had little or no deep knowledge of why I was writing my JS one way instead of another. Was I an expert? Psssshhhh no way.

ashark 10y ago
> - Expert in MySQL That crap gets me especially. Look, there are zero candidates who can truly claim to be a "MySQL expert" applying for your CRUD dev job, because all of the people who can truly claim that are making more money doing just that and not having to worry about the other junk in your requirements list.
importantbrian 10y ago
When I have looked for jobs in the past, I will sometimes apply for positions like this even if I don't have all the requisite skills if the job looks particularly interesting otherwise. I have found that these kinds of postings typically come from a communication error between the technical manager and HR. If you can get past HR and to the manager they are typically much more realistic, and are totally fine if you don't know technology x, y, or z as long as they feel comfortable that you can learn it, and you are strong in at least one or two of the other areas.
HeyLaughingBoy 10y ago
Protip: it's just a wish list. Apply anyway. You might be the only one who does.
digler999 10y ago
if you have that attitude, you must be the same guy/girl that freaks out when your Whopper doesn't look like the one in the Burger King commercial.

ng12 10y ago

Eh. As much as we like to complain about it tech is still one of the most meritocratic fields out there. If you can code you can get jobs. And as someone who's done a couple hundred interviews I don't really care what's on someone's resume. If there is a correlation between a good resume and good coding skills it's pretty weak.

HeyLaughingBoy 10y ago
I can concur with that last part. One of the strongest developers I've ever hired had one of the worst resumes. If it weren't for the fact that he had a friend on the team who vouched for him, we'd have never bothered with the interview. I remember reading the resume then walking over to my boss's office to ask "why am I even wasting time phone screening this crap?" and getting the answer "Steve knows him and says he's pretty good. Cut it short if he's not."
kafkaesq 10y ago
As much as we like to complain about it tech is still one of the most meritocratic fields out there. Relatively meritocratic, yes. But at the same time, suffused with bullshit. In particular as regards to the (generally inflated and useless; and let's face it, nearly ubiquitous in tech position ads, even still) "N years of X" requirements that the commenter was referring to. And as someone who's done a couple hundred interviews I don't really care what's on someone's resume. So would you mind letting your HR people (you know, the ones who write the aforementioned position ad copy) in on this little secret? As in, just walk up and tell them sometime and say: "Actually, we don't really care if they have 5 years of Angular or 3 months. We just want someone who's good. Meanwhile these ads you're writing with these made-up and generally useless years of platform experience are turning away, in droves, the very species of developer -- hardcore generalists with solid fundamentals, both intellectually and coding-wise (in any language) -- that we're so desperately looking for." Or would that just confuse them?