6 ms·

Falsehoods Programmers Believe About Hiring

45 points by shubhamjain 8y ago

bitwize 8y ago
Some of these are wrong. Number 2 is an example. A company with a req out specifying that it wants n years of Angular experience won't countenance you if you don't have n years of Angular experience. For unpopular tools (e.g., MUMPS, COBOL) they might be willing to onramp complete neophytes just to avoid paying the high prices the dwindling number of experts can command. But for in-demand languages and frameworks, the company can always hire, and will always prefer, someone who can "hit the ground running". If a company is flexible about experience, they will say so by not mentioning the exact tech stack used and/or by saying something like "Need 5+ years of object-oriented (C++, Java, C#, etc.) experiencr". Number 3 is spot on. You can meet all the requirements, but if you don't have the "soft skills" and are not a cultural fit, you will NOT be hired. Introverts may as well find another line of work, especially since you will in most cases be working cheek-by-jowl with your co-workers at long noisy tables, individual desks having followed individual offices into the dustbin of office-layout history. My parents are trying to get a dog. Back in the day they could go over to a friend's house and pick a puppy out of a crate for free. Today the easiest place to get a dog is at a rescue shelter -- and they charge high fees (still lower than breeders) and make you fill out long application forms. They can do this because they have way more prospective dog owners than they have dogs. The shelter is looking for an ideal "forever home" for each dog, and the list is long enough to where they probably donpt have to countenance anyone less than ideal. They also face stiff liability if they let a dog fall into substantially less than ideal hands. It's the same with tech jobs, although if adopting a dog were really like getting a tech job, the dog shelter would give you a week to build a bespoke doghouse as part of the application process, evaluate it for safety and comfort, and still give the dog to someone else leaving you with no dog to put in the doghouse you built. But the principle is the same: companies are awash in candidates and can afford to be as picky as they need to be to put together their special-snowflake software teams.
- coaxial 8y ago
  > It's the same with tech jobs, although if adopting a dog were really like getting a tech job, the dog shelter would give you a week to build a bespoke doghouse as part of the application process, evaluate it for safety and comfort, and still give the dog to someone else leaving you with no dog to put in the doghouse you built. I smiled
- madhadron 8y ago
  > Some of these are wrong. Number 2 is an example. A company with a req out specifying that it wants n years of Angular experience won't countenance you if you don't have n years of Angular experience. My experience, both hiring and being hired, is the opposite. I have found that lists of required technologies are actually mild suggestions. We're probably both right, which implies that we're moving in interestingly different bubbles. > Introverts may as well find another line of work, especially since you will in most cases be working cheek-by-jowl with your co-workers at long noisy tables Again, our experience is completely different. I have always had my own desk.
  - TooBrokeToBeg 8y ago
    > My experience, both hiring and being hired, is the opposite. Same. > I have always had my own desk. Outside of your headphones on at your desk, you still need to be more social during work hours than it used to be (30 years ago). Meetings are a thing, standups are a thing. Having your own desk doesn't preclude this. What he means by "introvert" is an important question.
    - CM30 8y ago
      Not ncessarily. There are companies with private offices like the old days, even if they're not the majority any more. There are companies where the atmosphere isn't meant to be all 'social' and sales people aren't sat in the same room as the programmers. And there are tons of companies who don't have many meetings, standups, etc. Hell, there are tons who don't make their programmers go to any. Just got to look around, maybe at smaller or less 'modern' companies if you want that sort of environment.
- mieseratte 8y ago
  > But the principle is the same: companies are awash in candidates and can afford to be as picky as they need to be to put together their special-snowflake software teams. We're awash in candidates, alright. Vastly unqualified candidates. For the same reason we have to treat applicants with healthy skepticism, shelters must because there are far too many folks who will adopt a pet and mistreat or simply return it.
  - vonmoltke 8y ago
    > We're awash in candidates, alright. Vastly unqualified candidates. Have you ever considered that your resume screening process sucks? I see a lot of "meh" candidates, but not many who are "vastly underqualified".
    - pkaye 8y ago
      How do you differentiate between "meh" candidates and those "vastly underqualified"?
      - vonmoltke 8y ago
        "Meh" candidates can eventually solve the problems given with a solution that works, albeit one that is messy and unoptimized. "Vastly underqualified" candidates can barely stitch together working programs and are incapable of solving problems that do not have an API call in the libraries they are familiar with.
    - mieseratte 8y ago
      I say candidate to mean "someone who submitted an application" of which there are many, many unqualified. By the time they hit onsite, there aren't too many.
      - vonmoltke 8y ago
        I don't think it is appropriate to make judgements like "vastly unqualified" based solely on a resume, unless you are seeing something like people with absolutely no programming experience applying for senior roles (which, BTW, is something I very rarely see myself).
fwdpropaganda 8y ago
From my experience, 11 is not a myth. I'm trying to change industry and so I have no previous relevant experience. So the only times when I've actually got interviews was because I sent out ~100 CVs. Understanding the company has never got me an interview.
nlawalker 8y ago
>> 3. Technical skills matter above everything. -- More than programming proficiency, what is valued more is the ability to communicate clearly, to work well with the team, and to understand the business goals. For sure! But before we go any further, please implement binary heap and longest common subsequence in C++ on the whiteboard.
- anitil 8y ago
  I haven't had the 'pleasure' of that kind of technical interview, so I can't speak to that. To the point of #3 I'm believing it more and more. I'm writing less code as I go on, but spending more time talking to people trying to tease out why people want things the way they say they want them.
olliej 8y ago
Number 4 is ambiguous - assuming you’re competent nepotism gets you way closer to getting a job than almost anything else. Basically nepotism is a very effective shortcut to an interview for a position, alongside an initial bias in your favor (people trust their competent coworkers), and for large high profile companies your biggest problem is likely to be getting through the initial resume filtering. Obviously this only gets you so far - I don’t want to say that 4 is /wrong/ as generally for large companies you can’t just get your friend (for instance) a job, but you do get a huge leg up on any potential competition.
CM30 8y ago
Nice list. I especially agree with this point: > 1. Contribution to open-source/having Github projects is an indispensable requirement. Not everyone is a hobbyist who treats programming like the centre of their whole life, and many great programmers see it as a job like anything else. And would like to add a related falsehood: not every programmer has a portfolio/lengthy list of work examples to show off. Many do, but keep in mind that some jobs are under NDA, some jobs involve internal systems and some jobs simply involve the sites/programs worked on never going live. In these cases, someone could work for years and have little to show for it.

45 points by shubhamjain 8y ago

Some of these are wrong. Number 2 is an example. A company with a req out specifying that it wants n years of Angular experience won't countenance you if you don't have n years of Angular experience. For unpopular tools (e.g., MUMPS, COBOL) they might be willing to onramp complete neophytes just to avoid paying the high prices the dwindling number of experts can command. But for in-demand languages and frameworks, the company can always hire, and will always prefer, someone who can "hit the ground running". If a company is flexible about experience, they will say so by not mentioning the exact tech stack used and/or by saying something like "Need 5+ years of object-oriented (C++, Java, C#, etc.) experiencr". Number 3 is spot on. You can meet all the requirements, but if you don't have the "soft skills" and are not a cultural fit, you will NOT be hired. Introverts may as well find another line of work, especially since you will in most cases be working cheek-by-jowl with your co-workers at long noisy tables, individual desks having followed individual offices into the dustbin of office-layout history. My parents are trying to get a dog. Back in the day they could go over to a friend's house and pick a puppy out of a crate for free. Today the easiest place to get a dog is at a rescue shelter -- and they charge high fees (still lower than breeders) and make you fill out long application forms. They can do this because they have way more prospective dog owners than they have dogs. The shelter is looking for an ideal "forever home" for each dog, and the list is long enough to where they probably donpt have to countenance anyone less than ideal. They also face stiff liability if they let a dog fall into substantially less than ideal hands. It's the same with tech jobs, although if adopting a dog were really like getting a tech job, the dog shelter would give you a week to build a bespoke doghouse as part of the application process, evaluate it for safety and comfort, and still give the dog to someone else leaving you with no dog to put in the doghouse you built. But the principle is the same: companies are awash in candidates and can afford to be as picky as they need to be to put together their special-snowflake software teams.

coaxial 8y ago
> It's the same with tech jobs, although if adopting a dog were really like getting a tech job, the dog shelter would give you a week to build a bespoke doghouse as part of the application process, evaluate it for safety and comfort, and still give the dog to someone else leaving you with no dog to put in the doghouse you built. I smiled
madhadron 8y ago
> Some of these are wrong. Number 2 is an example. A company with a req out specifying that it wants n years of Angular experience won't countenance you if you don't have n years of Angular experience. My experience, both hiring and being hired, is the opposite. I have found that lists of required technologies are actually mild suggestions. We're probably both right, which implies that we're moving in interestingly different bubbles. > Introverts may as well find another line of work, especially since you will in most cases be working cheek-by-jowl with your co-workers at long noisy tables Again, our experience is completely different. I have always had my own desk.
- TooBrokeToBeg 8y ago
  > My experience, both hiring and being hired, is the opposite. Same. > I have always had my own desk. Outside of your headphones on at your desk, you still need to be more social during work hours than it used to be (30 years ago). Meetings are a thing, standups are a thing. Having your own desk doesn't preclude this. What he means by "introvert" is an important question.
  - CM30 8y ago
    Not ncessarily. There are companies with private offices like the old days, even if they're not the majority any more. There are companies where the atmosphere isn't meant to be all 'social' and sales people aren't sat in the same room as the programmers. And there are tons of companies who don't have many meetings, standups, etc. Hell, there are tons who don't make their programmers go to any. Just got to look around, maybe at smaller or less 'modern' companies if you want that sort of environment.
mieseratte 8y ago
> But the principle is the same: companies are awash in candidates and can afford to be as picky as they need to be to put together their special-snowflake software teams. We're awash in candidates, alright. Vastly unqualified candidates. For the same reason we have to treat applicants with healthy skepticism, shelters must because there are far too many folks who will adopt a pet and mistreat or simply return it.
- vonmoltke 8y ago
  > We're awash in candidates, alright. Vastly unqualified candidates. Have you ever considered that your resume screening process sucks? I see a lot of "meh" candidates, but not many who are "vastly underqualified".
  - pkaye 8y ago
    How do you differentiate between "meh" candidates and those "vastly underqualified"?
    - vonmoltke 8y ago
      "Meh" candidates can eventually solve the problems given with a solution that works, albeit one that is messy and unoptimized. "Vastly underqualified" candidates can barely stitch together working programs and are incapable of solving problems that do not have an API call in the libraries they are familiar with.
  - mieseratte 8y ago
    I say candidate to mean "someone who submitted an application" of which there are many, many unqualified. By the time they hit onsite, there aren't too many.
    - vonmoltke 8y ago
      I don't think it is appropriate to make judgements like "vastly unqualified" based solely on a resume, unless you are seeing something like people with absolutely no programming experience applying for senior roles (which, BTW, is something I very rarely see myself).

fwdpropaganda 8y ago

From my experience, 11 is not a myth. I'm trying to change industry and so I have no previous relevant experience. So the only times when I've actually got interviews was because I sent out ~100 CVs. Understanding the company has never got me an interview.

nlawalker 8y ago

>> 3. Technical skills matter above everything. -- More than programming proficiency, what is valued more is the ability to communicate clearly, to work well with the team, and to understand the business goals. For sure! But before we go any further, please implement binary heap and longest common subsequence in C++ on the whiteboard.

anitil 8y ago
I haven't had the 'pleasure' of that kind of technical interview, so I can't speak to that. To the point of #3 I'm believing it more and more. I'm writing less code as I go on, but spending more time talking to people trying to tease out why people want things the way they say they want them.

olliej 8y ago

Number 4 is ambiguous - assuming you’re competent nepotism gets you way closer to getting a job than almost anything else. Basically nepotism is a very effective shortcut to an interview for a position, alongside an initial bias in your favor (people trust their competent coworkers), and for large high profile companies your biggest problem is likely to be getting through the initial resume filtering. Obviously this only gets you so far - I don’t want to say that 4 is /wrong/ as generally for large companies you can’t just get your friend (for instance) a job, but you do get a huge leg up on any potential competition.

CM30 8y ago

Nice list. I especially agree with this point: > 1. Contribution to open-source/having Github projects is an indispensable requirement. Not everyone is a hobbyist who treats programming like the centre of their whole life, and many great programmers see it as a job like anything else. And would like to add a related falsehood: not every programmer has a portfolio/lengthy list of work examples to show off. Many do, but keep in mind that some jobs are under NDA, some jobs involve internal systems and some jobs simply involve the sites/programs worked on never going live. In these cases, someone could work for years and have little to show for it.