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An offer like that would seem incredibly suspicious to me. You want to pay all of this money to train me right out of school? Why not just hire someone with the

An offer like that would seem incredibly suspicious to me. You want to pay all of this money to train me right out of school? Why not just hire someone with the right experience? Maybe it's my imposter syndrome speaking but it all feels off. I'm passively looking for new jobs but I always keep my eye out for things that sound too good to be true. If I'm not paying for training or education, then someone else is footing the bill and it's important to consider why. Is this new training making me more productive or is it just to solely make the company more money because they can now claim I'm an expert? I wouldn't want to be oversold to customers as an expert on something I just learned about just as much as I wouldn't want to be placed in a junior role for something I'm really good at.

simmanian 5y ago
Plenty of more legit companies, including big tech, have training periods for new hires. It's not something to be worried about in and of itself, though it's always a good idea to do your research when your gut says something is off. I was naive and definitely in need of a job.
ghaff 5y ago
>You want to pay all of this money to train me right out of school? Almost certainly less common today. But extended training for new hires did (and I assume in some places) does happen. I think IBM used to do it for sales and once upon a time I interviewed with an oilfield services firm that started out with some fairly lengthy training on their specialized equipment.
- vincent-manis 5y ago
  Back in the late 60s/70s, when I was in university, I knew a bunch of IBMers (those were the days when your System/360-67 came with a flock of IBM staff). The standard for onboarding was that during the first 6 months, a new hire was flown here and there for courses. The goal was to make them feel valued as an IBMer, so that they'd want to stay forever.
  - ghaff 5y ago
    That sort of thing probably made more sense when it wasn't at all uncommon for people to stay with the company for a decade or decades. I know a number of people at IBM with tenures in the 25 to 30 year range.
- jll29 5y ago
  SAP has (or at least had, back in '98) a policy where the first 3 months after being hired, you'd be entering a full-time training program: during this time, you would get your full salary paid and receive a free set of training courses 9-5; people usually just checked emails before and after, so this wasn't really on top of another job. The process got you certified in SAP basis, ABAP, effective teamwork and other modules. After that training, we would maintain monthly lunches with our training group and exchange anecdotes about our respective departments. The company benefitted enormously in the sense that employees that started at the same time, but would work for different departments, already got a wide network across different functions and departments from the beginning, something that normally takes decades to build, and employees already had valuable contacts and information that they could task about with their co-workers in their own departments.
wccrawford 5y ago
I would find it suspicious as well, but consider this: People who are great at their job are hard to find and expensive. People who will eventually be great at their job are a lot, lot cheaper, though still hard to find. If you can hire someone before they realize how good they will be, you can save a lot of money and fill a position immediately. I haven't actually figured out how to find those people, though I have hired at least 2 of them... And hired a few others that looked like they might be, but weren't. (A third coder comes to mind that ended up not working out, but I think we made mistakes and they got in their own head. I think they would have been great otherwise, hence 'at least 2'.)
- datavirtue 5y ago
  Constant stream of college grads brought in as interns. Just select the hungry ones with hustle and indoctrinate them. This is a typical MO for large established corporations.
  - wccrawford 5y ago
    I work for a smaller company that typically only has 1 job opening at a time, and low turnover. I agree that big corps do what you said and hope for the best, but I don't think it's a valid strategy for a small company. Especially since letting people go is emotionally damaging, even when they are incompetent. If they have barely enough skill to do the job, my ethics wouldn't let me condone firing them.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
TehShrike 5y ago
Union Pacific does this, at least as recently as a few years ago. Software developers are hired straight out of college and go through months of training before they get shown any actual work. I don't think it's as much about expertise as "CS college graduates don't know how to make software"
von_lohengramm 5y ago
TSMC recently tried to poach me & offered paid on-site training in Taiwan before heading back to the States for the actual position. I reckon it's the modern job-hop game that killed this phenomenon outside of "lifer" companies.

simmanian 5y ago

Plenty of more legit companies, including big tech, have training periods for new hires. It's not something to be worried about in and of itself, though it's always a good idea to do your research when your gut says something is off. I was naive and definitely in need of a job.

ghaff 5y ago

>You want to pay all of this money to train me right out of school? Almost certainly less common today. But extended training for new hires did (and I assume in some places) does happen. I think IBM used to do it for sales and once upon a time I interviewed with an oilfield services firm that started out with some fairly lengthy training on their specialized equipment.

vincent-manis 5y ago
Back in the late 60s/70s, when I was in university, I knew a bunch of IBMers (those were the days when your System/360-67 came with a flock of IBM staff). The standard for onboarding was that during the first 6 months, a new hire was flown here and there for courses. The goal was to make them feel valued as an IBMer, so that they'd want to stay forever.
- ghaff 5y ago
  That sort of thing probably made more sense when it wasn't at all uncommon for people to stay with the company for a decade or decades. I know a number of people at IBM with tenures in the 25 to 30 year range.
jll29 5y ago
SAP has (or at least had, back in '98) a policy where the first 3 months after being hired, you'd be entering a full-time training program: during this time, you would get your full salary paid and receive a free set of training courses 9-5; people usually just checked emails before and after, so this wasn't really on top of another job. The process got you certified in SAP basis, ABAP, effective teamwork and other modules. After that training, we would maintain monthly lunches with our training group and exchange anecdotes about our respective departments. The company benefitted enormously in the sense that employees that started at the same time, but would work for different departments, already got a wide network across different functions and departments from the beginning, something that normally takes decades to build, and employees already had valuable contacts and information that they could task about with their co-workers in their own departments.

wccrawford 5y ago

I would find it suspicious as well, but consider this: People who are great at their job are hard to find and expensive. People who will eventually be great at their job are a lot, lot cheaper, though still hard to find. If you can hire someone before they realize how good they will be, you can save a lot of money and fill a position immediately. I haven't actually figured out how to find those people, though I have hired at least 2 of them... And hired a few others that looked like they might be, but weren't. (A third coder comes to mind that ended up not working out, but I think we made mistakes and they got in their own head. I think they would have been great otherwise, hence 'at least 2'.)

datavirtue 5y ago
Constant stream of college grads brought in as interns. Just select the hungry ones with hustle and indoctrinate them. This is a typical MO for large established corporations.
- wccrawford 5y ago
  I work for a smaller company that typically only has 1 job opening at a time, and low turnover. I agree that big corps do what you said and hope for the best, but I don't think it's a valid strategy for a small company. Especially since letting people go is emotionally damaging, even when they are incompetent. If they have barely enough skill to do the job, my ethics wouldn't let me condone firing them.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

TehShrike 5y ago

Union Pacific does this, at least as recently as a few years ago. Software developers are hired straight out of college and go through months of training before they get shown any actual work. I don't think it's as much about expertise as "CS college graduates don't know how to make software"

von_lohengramm 5y ago

TSMC recently tried to poach me & offered paid on-site training in Taiwan before heading back to the States for the actual position. I reckon it's the modern job-hop game that killed this phenomenon outside of "lifer" companies.