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That's demonstrably false. Hell you can just look to startups created by new grads and dropouts to confirm your view point is inane. Today's college grads are b

That's demonstrably false. Hell you can just look to startups created by new grads and dropouts to confirm your view point is inane. Today's college grads are better equipped to do a wider breath of work than any other time in history precisely because of the efficiency gains of automation.

HelloNurse 8y ago
A minority exits college ready to run a significant startup, but the majority exits college ready to struggle finding a mediocre job. In other words, the automators and the automated away.
taude 8y ago
Sure, there's outliers. But Not all college grads are capable of operating at that level. Which is why companies have a lot of regimented hiring practices and tests to filter out all those not making the cut. I've been on the college recruiting circuit to help my company hire, and I'm often severely disappointed by a good portion of those I meet. There's occasionally the standout who really impresses me, but then I think they're never going to want to stick around at my place. With this thought, I'm sort of in agreement with the commenter who said that we need college to train people at a higher level since there's almost not time on the job to ease into it.
- wyclif 8y ago
  There's occasionally the standout who really impresses me, but then I think they're never going to want to stick around at my place This is the paradox of hiring today, and why tech hiring is broken. In fact, there's a story right now titled "Hiring Is Broken" on the HN front page, not far below the OP. So it's getting harder to recruit people who do make the cut technically and communications-wise, while at the same time it's getting harder to retain them because let's face it—so many startups don't have a compelling value proposition or profit model.
- MRD85 8y ago
  From your perspective, what is the issue with a lot of the current college graduates? I'm a college student studying computer science, and I feel like I'd be ready to start work really soon. I'm also the sort of CS student who reads Hackernews, participates in CTFs, maintains a perfect GPA, has side projects, etc.
  - flukus 8y ago
    > has side projects That's your biggest asset. The perfect GPA will help you get pass the useless HR gatekeepers, a demonstrated ability to build something will mean a lot more to the technical interviewers. Bonus points if those projects happen to use common industry things like an sql database and contains unit tests. Most graduates, if you sat them down with some fairly simple requirements and said "build this with whatever tech stack you're familiar with" would have no idea where to start.
  - 0xffff2 8y ago
    To be a good developer, you have to understand how computers work. You have to understand data structures. When you interview and you're asked to write a breadth-first search, or what the big-O complexity of accessing a hash map is, it's not because the company is going to have you writing your own custom hash maps right out of school. It's because you have to be aware of the general characteristics of the tools you're using to be able to select the right tool for the job. Most of the students I interview fail miserably at this. They can hack together a working application by copy/pasting from examples and SO posts and making small modifications, but they have no fundamental understanding at all of what the computer is actually doing with the code they write.
    - MRD85 8y ago
      I feel I'll be fine, this is the stuff I love. I'm incredibly interested in understanding how things work, to the point that I've considered changing my degree to maths/physics/compsci. With zero revision I could explain the hash map, it's big-O, how to implement, use cases, etc. I figure that once you understand something it simply makes sense. I haven't looked into it but I'm sure there is some interesting statistics on the probability of collisions, optimisation, etc.
- magduf 8y ago
  >There's occasionally the standout who really impresses me, but then I think they're never going to want to stick around at my place. Maybe companies need to stop thinking in terms of employees sticking around for a really long time, and get used to the idea of employees going from place to place when they get too bored or want to do something different. It seems insane to me, the idea of expecting an extremely intelligent, high-performing person to want to come to the same workplace day after day, for years or decades, doing mostly the same work.

HelloNurse 8y ago

A minority exits college ready to run a significant startup, but the majority exits college ready to struggle finding a mediocre job. In other words, the automators and the automated away.

taude 8y ago

Sure, there's outliers. But Not all college grads are capable of operating at that level. Which is why companies have a lot of regimented hiring practices and tests to filter out all those not making the cut. I've been on the college recruiting circuit to help my company hire, and I'm often severely disappointed by a good portion of those I meet. There's occasionally the standout who really impresses me, but then I think they're never going to want to stick around at my place. With this thought, I'm sort of in agreement with the commenter who said that we need college to train people at a higher level since there's almost not time on the job to ease into it.

wyclif 8y ago
There's occasionally the standout who really impresses me, but then I think they're never going to want to stick around at my place This is the paradox of hiring today, and why tech hiring is broken. In fact, there's a story right now titled "Hiring Is Broken" on the HN front page, not far below the OP. So it's getting harder to recruit people who do make the cut technically and communications-wise, while at the same time it's getting harder to retain them because let's face it—so many startups don't have a compelling value proposition or profit model.
MRD85 8y ago
From your perspective, what is the issue with a lot of the current college graduates? I'm a college student studying computer science, and I feel like I'd be ready to start work really soon. I'm also the sort of CS student who reads Hackernews, participates in CTFs, maintains a perfect GPA, has side projects, etc.
- flukus 8y ago
  > has side projects That's your biggest asset. The perfect GPA will help you get pass the useless HR gatekeepers, a demonstrated ability to build something will mean a lot more to the technical interviewers. Bonus points if those projects happen to use common industry things like an sql database and contains unit tests. Most graduates, if you sat them down with some fairly simple requirements and said "build this with whatever tech stack you're familiar with" would have no idea where to start.
- 0xffff2 8y ago
  To be a good developer, you have to understand how computers work. You have to understand data structures. When you interview and you're asked to write a breadth-first search, or what the big-O complexity of accessing a hash map is, it's not because the company is going to have you writing your own custom hash maps right out of school. It's because you have to be aware of the general characteristics of the tools you're using to be able to select the right tool for the job. Most of the students I interview fail miserably at this. They can hack together a working application by copy/pasting from examples and SO posts and making small modifications, but they have no fundamental understanding at all of what the computer is actually doing with the code they write.
  - MRD85 8y ago
    I feel I'll be fine, this is the stuff I love. I'm incredibly interested in understanding how things work, to the point that I've considered changing my degree to maths/physics/compsci. With zero revision I could explain the hash map, it's big-O, how to implement, use cases, etc. I figure that once you understand something it simply makes sense. I haven't looked into it but I'm sure there is some interesting statistics on the probability of collisions, optimisation, etc.
magduf 8y ago
>There's occasionally the standout who really impresses me, but then I think they're never going to want to stick around at my place. Maybe companies need to stop thinking in terms of employees sticking around for a really long time, and get used to the idea of employees going from place to place when they get too bored or want to do something different. It seems insane to me, the idea of expecting an extremely intelligent, high-performing person to want to come to the same workplace day after day, for years or decades, doing mostly the same work.