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I had been quite patient with our industry recruitment practices until I took a longer breake and had to deal with other problems in life. Doctors, lawyers, con

I had been quite patient with our industry recruitment practices until I took a longer breake and had to deal with other problems in life. Doctors, lawyers, contractors, plumbers, electricians, accountants, agents - you pay them even if you want them only to open their mouth in your general direction. No free labour, I'm not solving any problems for free.

treis 5y ago
That's just not true at all. Doctors in particular have ridiculous hiring processes. Trades provide free quotes and to some extent diagnoses all the time. Pretty much every lawyer will have free initial consults and almost all plaintiff attorneys work on contingency.
- durnygbur 5y ago
  YMMV. The only time in life I needed a lawyer, even to shop around I had to pay to each of them EUR 150-200 per hour for the initial consultation to introduce my case. Doctors?! I have yet to meet one who would feel obliged towards me in any way, when it comes to hiring at a hospital then perhaps it's a demanding process - no idea.
jothme 5y ago
Ok, but how do you get a job then? I hate those take home assignments as well. I work for over a decade in the industry, if they don't believe me that I can do basic stuff, it's just annoying. But I am not aware if any company who does not do that. They all just copy the hiring process of the big companies. "What works for Google must work for us too". And that's just not true. Google has thousands of applicants per day, the average shitty company can be happy if they get one or two qualified candidates. For Google, I'd gladly to a several hour assignment, but not for an average company - because it is not Google.
- lentil_soup 5y ago
  Guess it depends in the industry, I've never had to do live coding interviews when interviewing in game-dev. It's been mostly technical discussions, maybe some take home tests, once I had a debugging session. Never a leetcode type of thing.
pwdisswordfish9 5y ago
So the solution is credentialism? Because that's what you usually rely on for those professions.
- durnygbur 5y ago
  Over 10 years of relevant experience and a relevant degree. What else FFS?
  - nindalf 5y ago
    What about people without a relevant degree? Some of the best engineers I know don’t have one. And people without experience - how will they get jobs? I feel our industry already does too much of this - asking for 5 years experience with a specific technology. I’d like to push back against that. Fwiw I’m not entirely unbiased. I am a person with minimal experience and no relevant degree who got a job by preparing hard for interviews. I’m happy I wasn’t filtered out by “10 years of relevant experience and a relevant degree”.
    - commandlinefan 5y ago
      > no relevant degree Why not get the degree then? If you'd started four years ago, you'd be done by now. If you start now, you'll be done in four years (maybe a little longer since you're working full time).
      - nindalf 5y ago
        But I already taught myself most of the CS curriculum. Why would I spend years of time plus tens of thousands getting myself a piece of paper that says I know all the things I know? And not just the cost, the opportunity cost! I would have forgone the last 4 years of salary and work experience. I wouldn’t have been able to write the post this thread is about if I had been in school in that time. Thankfully, our industry doesn’t worship pieces of paper.
  - WillDaSilva 5y ago
yobbo 5y ago
They're trying to solve the problem of too many applicants, hence throwing out random obstacles. > Doctors, lawyers, contractors, plumbers, electricians, accountants, agents Also, the level of complexity/difficulty that a dev might face (but usually doesn't) is higher than in of these professions.
- fleetwoodsnack 5y ago
  >> Doctors, lawyers, contractors, plumbers, electricians, accountants, agents >Also, the level of complexity/difficulty that a dev might face (but usually doesn't) is higher than in of these professions. Fascinated to learn how you came to this conclusion.
  - mgkimsal 5y ago
    Not OP but have worked in law offices before. Looking back, I seen to remember that our lawyers all had assistants who would do things for them. Research ABC, collate data, file paperwork, etc. Lower attorneys would have a shared assistant, higher ups had dedicated. I know many attorneys do all their own stuff as well, but having that set up seemed to let the people focus when they needed to, knowing other BS would be taken care of competently and on time. I see very few devs (like, none) who get that sort of support system. At best, arguably, a good PM might help, but they also bring a l other layer with often extra steps to desk with.
    - fleetwoodsnack 5y ago
      A lawyer might argue that the greater support system you note is actually evidence-of, and a consequence-of the greater complexity of law relative to writing software.
      - mgkimsal 5y ago
        Possibly, but thinking some more, not all lawyers work in such a fashion. Internal corporate lawyers may not have as much support, as they're more of a cost center than the money maker. The lawyers at the firm I worked at all were billable a lot, and were profit centers.
mdm12 5y ago
Some companies do pay for take-home problems, DuckDuckGo being but one example.

treis 5y ago

That's just not true at all. Doctors in particular have ridiculous hiring processes. Trades provide free quotes and to some extent diagnoses all the time. Pretty much every lawyer will have free initial consults and almost all plaintiff attorneys work on contingency.

durnygbur 5y ago
YMMV. The only time in life I needed a lawyer, even to shop around I had to pay to each of them EUR 150-200 per hour for the initial consultation to introduce my case. Doctors?! I have yet to meet one who would feel obliged towards me in any way, when it comes to hiring at a hospital then perhaps it's a demanding process - no idea.

jothme 5y ago

Ok, but how do you get a job then? I hate those take home assignments as well. I work for over a decade in the industry, if they don't believe me that I can do basic stuff, it's just annoying. But I am not aware if any company who does not do that. They all just copy the hiring process of the big companies. "What works for Google must work for us too". And that's just not true. Google has thousands of applicants per day, the average shitty company can be happy if they get one or two qualified candidates. For Google, I'd gladly to a several hour assignment, but not for an average company - because it is not Google.

lentil_soup 5y ago
Guess it depends in the industry, I've never had to do live coding interviews when interviewing in game-dev. It's been mostly technical discussions, maybe some take home tests, once I had a debugging session. Never a leetcode type of thing.

pwdisswordfish9 5y ago

So the solution is credentialism? Because that's what you usually rely on for those professions.

durnygbur 5y ago
Over 10 years of relevant experience and a relevant degree. What else FFS?
- nindalf 5y ago
  What about people without a relevant degree? Some of the best engineers I know don’t have one. And people without experience - how will they get jobs? I feel our industry already does too much of this - asking for 5 years experience with a specific technology. I’d like to push back against that. Fwiw I’m not entirely unbiased. I am a person with minimal experience and no relevant degree who got a job by preparing hard for interviews. I’m happy I wasn’t filtered out by “10 years of relevant experience and a relevant degree”.
  - commandlinefan 5y ago
    > no relevant degree Why not get the degree then? If you'd started four years ago, you'd be done by now. If you start now, you'll be done in four years (maybe a little longer since you're working full time).
    - nindalf 5y ago
      But I already taught myself most of the CS curriculum. Why would I spend years of time plus tens of thousands getting myself a piece of paper that says I know all the things I know? And not just the cost, the opportunity cost! I would have forgone the last 4 years of salary and work experience. I wouldn’t have been able to write the post this thread is about if I had been in school in that time. Thankfully, our industry doesn’t worship pieces of paper.
- WillDaSilva 5y ago

yobbo 5y ago

They're trying to solve the problem of too many applicants, hence throwing out random obstacles. > Doctors, lawyers, contractors, plumbers, electricians, accountants, agents Also, the level of complexity/difficulty that a dev might face (but usually doesn't) is higher than in of these professions.

fleetwoodsnack 5y ago
>> Doctors, lawyers, contractors, plumbers, electricians, accountants, agents >Also, the level of complexity/difficulty that a dev might face (but usually doesn't) is higher than in of these professions. Fascinated to learn how you came to this conclusion.
- mgkimsal 5y ago
  Not OP but have worked in law offices before. Looking back, I seen to remember that our lawyers all had assistants who would do things for them. Research ABC, collate data, file paperwork, etc. Lower attorneys would have a shared assistant, higher ups had dedicated. I know many attorneys do all their own stuff as well, but having that set up seemed to let the people focus when they needed to, knowing other BS would be taken care of competently and on time. I see very few devs (like, none) who get that sort of support system. At best, arguably, a good PM might help, but they also bring a l other layer with often extra steps to desk with.
  - fleetwoodsnack 5y ago
    A lawyer might argue that the greater support system you note is actually evidence-of, and a consequence-of the greater complexity of law relative to writing software.
    - mgkimsal 5y ago
      Possibly, but thinking some more, not all lawyers work in such a fashion. Internal corporate lawyers may not have as much support, as they're more of a cost center than the money maker. The lawyers at the firm I worked at all were billable a lot, and were profit centers.

mdm12 5y ago

Some companies do pay for take-home problems, DuckDuckGo being but one example.