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> Most jobs are now hoops after hoops, not taking into consideration your particular profile or the contributions you can make. This is really key. I have appl

• UncleOxidant 2y ago
  > While tough, it's often a good thing for the applicant as a natural filter. If someone can't hire well, it's not a good place to work. But for people like the guy who wrote that article, eviction eventually becomes a problem. And so many companies can't hire well right now that in a market with declining openings he might not be able to wait for a company that can hire well.
  • bmitc 2y ago
    That is definitely true. And a lot of the jobs are jobs that the person would do well in, but the employers don't bother to see it. I know there are jobs that I would have done extremely well in, but the companies were just black boxes. They just sit around being unproductive while they wait for someone to check some arbitrary checkboxes. It'd be like trying to hire a farm hand but instantly reject them because they had only driven a different manufacturer of tractor. As another anecdote, I applied to a job that I had a project that was much simpler than several of the things I had done in my past jobs. It was a job I know that I could almost do blindfolded, so to speak. But they would literally not even speak to me because I was missing a certification (a useless one, not some real certification like professional engineer or architect or whatever) that they were for whatever reason requiring. I even mentioned to the recruiter that I had had the certification but let it lapse because there was no reason to keep paying for it, and that I knew several people who had the certification that knew the language and area less than me. Didn't matter.
    • namtab00 2y ago
      I was recently turned down on the first interview with an HR head. Motive: I said I can sometimes be perceived as frank in an argument, as an answer to the classic "tell me one of your shortcomings". I'm not saying it can't be a valid reason. I guess I just don't get their values. I'm convinced I would have been a pretty good match technically, but never got the chance to show it. Italy, opening had max €50k budget. I have 17 yoe and obviously it was not my first rodeo. Maybe I finally learned that sincerity and transparency is a dumbass move.
      • bmitc 2y ago
        I am also typically overly transparent and honest about my existing on the ground experience, even though I also have a lot of experience in learning new things. It doesn't always work out, as people are often scared of transparency. I often get the feeling that there's something "hiding" behind it, which is quite unexpected. The same people will view absolutely opaque people as honest and upfront. Such is the human condition.
      • sensanaty 2y ago
        I never know what to reply to those "name a bad thing about you" questions. Being honest seems like a terrible idea, but then what would an acceptable "bad thing" be to lie about? Do I say the cliche of "I work too hard" that nobody believes?
        • rogual 2y ago
          Pick a minor flaw, and immediately start expounding on what you do to mitigate it. For example, "I can't always keep all of a complex thing in my head, so I've learned to do X, Y and Z to keep up -- Z is a really cool tool, actually, have you heard of it? I've found that, in my career as a..."
          • shermantanktop 2y ago
            That’s right, answer a bullshit question with a bullshit answer. Because this is merely an exchange in a larger game. All these people complaining that they got turned down for being “transparent” actually failed a real test: given a toy situation between people that doesn’t involve code, can you figure out what to do to accomplish your goal? And if someone starts listing their top defects, the answer is “no.” Could be due to nerves, sure. But for a mid-career professional to not have known what to do to get past HR is a failure in problem-solving. Luckily it is solvable with the right mindset.
  • jacobyoder 2y ago
    The job market can remain irrational far longer than most people can stay solvent.
    • geodel 2y ago
      Or job market remains agile while people are becoming stateless (or homeless in extreme cases).
• klyrs 2y ago
  As a literal graph theorist, I cannot tell you how frustrating it is that (a) nobody seems to understand my work except (b) interviewers use it as a shibboleth to exclude people from jobs that will never need high performance graph algorithms. That, I never get called for these interviews because I don't use react angles or something, but if they did, I'd crush the interview and fall asleep at my desk once they start giving me work.
  • bmitc 2y ago
    In general, people are completely uninterested in experience that they don't understand, I've found. They don't want to even ask about it because it would showcase that they, gasp, don't know something that you do.
    • cheema33 2y ago
      > In general, people are completely uninterested in experience that they don't understand... It depends on the interviewer. I have colleagues who are risk averse. They want to stick with the tried and true. I on the other hand am a bit of risk taker. If you told me about something that I knew nothing about, and it was a legitimate way to improve things, you will have peaked my curiosity. I would immediately want to know more. Also, it helps if the hiring person is an experienced dev. In my org, managers do not participate in the hiring of developers, other than background checks and verifying references.
      • maxerickson 2y ago
        The idiom uses "piqued".
        • Aeolun 2y ago
          Damn, I read that, and thought “something is wrong with it, but at least they didn’t write ‘peeked’” thanks for reminding me of the correct one.
        • bregma 2y ago
• protomolecule 2y ago
  [flagged]
  • bmitc 2y ago
    Yea, cause everyone who is already writing C++ is really good at it and good at not writing bugs.
    • linotype 2y ago
      Even great C++ developers write shitty C++ code. It’s truly a “let’s take all the warning labels off” language.
      • shrimp_emoji 2y ago
        Nothing compared to C.
        • Jensson 2y ago
          C++ has all the footguns of C, but add in tons of implicit function calls that creates bugs for half of the things you'd think they can be used for, and because you don't see that implicit code it is really hard to debug why an implicit call was made or not made when you thought it would or wouldn't. So no, C isn't even close to the danger of C++, in C every copy, every destructor, every alloc, is explicitly declared everywhere. Explicit is much safer than implicit, unless the implicit behavior is rock solid like in garbage collected languages, or very strict languages like Rust.
          • protomolecule 2y ago
            >in C every copy, every destructor, every alloc, is explicitly declared everywhere. Explicit is much safer than implicit Unless a programmer forgets to call a 'destructor' on some code path in C's explicit error handling maze.
            • 2y ago
• rafaelmn 2y ago
  > As in, a person who has used and learned a dozen plus languages but only tacitly used C++ suddenly will be a complete invalid when trying to write in C++? I've switched at least 5 languages professionally and used probably 5 more for extended periods of time and wrote a decent chunk of C++ "back in the day". I'd say C++ is the least suitable for "learn on the job" approach out of any language I can think of (I'm lumping C in there) - soo many footguns all over the place and very little to guide you to the right path. They are at fault for even starting the conversation without making it obvious is a hard requirement.
  • bmitc 2y ago
    I generally agree with you, but I think it depends on the team. If the team is just "using" C++ but aren't good software developers, then yea, I totally agree that having a non-C++ expert join the team is going to be a rough ride for everyone. But if the team's software architecture and coding practices are solid, which probably means they use a subset of C++'s vast feature set in a very clear way, then one probably could jump in just fine. In a way, them only accepting in C++ experts probably means they're either doing something actually very complex with regards to C++ itself or their code quality is a shitstorm. > They are at fault for even starting the conversation without making it an obvious deal breaker. That is definitely my feeling. My resume is quite clear about my experience and tools.
    • atomicnumber3 2y ago
      "But if the team's software architecture and coding practices are solid, which probably means they use a subset of C++'s vast feature set in a very clear way" So... C? =P Sorry. But my point is I think there's really very very few C++ places that could say their code is described by your statement. Not helped by the fact that I think there's really very very few C++ places at this point in the first place.
      • actionfromafar 2y ago
        There still are places slowly enhancing their C codebases with C++.
• gosub100 2y ago
  Does that company hire or recruiter hire h1b? In order to get h1b approval, you have to make the case that "we interviewed x,000 people andwe just can't find any qualified applicants! ". I'm starting to suspect that the industry has learned to set salaries low and churn enough applicants in order to reduce costs. One way to churn them is to do a phone screen and find a quick way to legally get rid of them. Then once you get the type of applicant you want - that happens to work for 20% less and never complains because his foreign residency is tied to his employer - simply don't ask them the question.
  • linotype 2y ago
    This is sometimes done by asking for five years of experience in a library that has only existed for three. Don’t bother applying at companies like that if you’re not on a visa.
  • jimbokun 2y ago
    This has been going on for decades. 1. Find H1B candidate you want to hire. 2. Write job requirements matching that candidate’s experience so well it’s very unlikely for anyone else to meet those requirements. 3. Advertise position to meet legal requirements and reject any candidates not exactly matching requirements. 4. Hire H1B candidate.
    • shagie 2y ago
      Note that #3 is one of the "let's see how far we can bend that definition" things too. You will occasionally see this listed in a local newspaper classified postings ( https://imgur.com/W76Jdbn https://imgur.com/W76Jdbn is one such example).
      • mejarc 2y ago
        The worst, most bad-faith case I've seen of "advertising" an H1B job was of the job posting printed out, taped to the back of an interior office door, and covered by the recruiter's hanging overcoat.
    • 2y ago
• melbourne_mat 2y ago
  In my country, last year it was definitely a candidate's market: I had recruiters reaching out all the time and I got the first job I applied for. This month I've been applying for jobs and not getting interviews. From the conversations I've had it seems recruiters want someone who has an exact skill match for the job. They don't care what else you have done or how many years you have under your belt it's gotta be the exact list the employer wants. I'm now optimising my resume (CV) for the job. I summarise the stuff that I think recruiters / employers don't care about. The other thing I've noticed now is that when a recruiter reaches out quite often that role is not listed publicly anywhere. So your profile on the job systems - linkedin and elsewhere - better look real good or you won't get a call.
  • ToucanLoucan 2y ago
    I've helped hire three different developers where I work now, and been a part of countless interviews. I've found it much more beneficial to look for people who think like programmers than know any given language. Unless you're talking really specific, deep stuff in a given language, the syntax and whatnot are trainable. What you can't really train people to do is take a large task that we want our software to accomplish, and break that up into pieces or steps that can be built. Nor can you teach the basic pragmatic techniques that go into things like using objects and classes. We hired on someone who had barely touched Swift as he'd been out of the iOS environment for many a year, and even before that had never done a ton of app development, but he had solid fundamentals in other languages so I went to bat for him and got him hired. Not even 4 months later he's a top contributor on our team.
    • wwweston 2y ago
      Spot on. Even too many developers think that their main skill is recall of language/platform/tool specific niche arcana, and while it's true that sometimes having that will reduce friction, it's rarely what actually drives things forward. Arcana are concrete and relatively easy to test for, though, so my theory is that it's a bit like the story of looking for the keys by the lamppost because that's where the light is, even if you dropped them somewhere else.
    • 2y ago
• tcbawo 2y ago
  > And they have zero idea how to mentor and train From my experience, they have zero _interest_ in mentoring or training. For C++, there are ways other than professionally to get experience. Despite the hate it gets here, there are examples of large, solid C++ codebases to peruse and learn from. Taking the initiative to learn a language prior to a phone screen or interview goes a long way. If a C++ job is what you’re after, it might be worth investing the time to use it on a non-toy project and narrowing your search focus.
• cryptica 2y ago
  I found a job as a developer after about 10 months of applying for 100 jobs per month. It was very weird this time round. Especially weird considering that my resume is exceptional (lots of experience; corporate, startup, back end, front end, full stack, distributed systems, open source). The list of technologies that I'm competent with is long and, for most of them, I've got open source projects to prove my claims. Air tight situation. This time round, employers had all kinds of weird esoteric requirements which made no sense. For example, I applied for a job where I matched every single technology in their stack (and it was a long list), I even had proven experience in 'Web Components' which was still niche in a professional setting (most jobs are still React, Vue, etc...) Anyway, they ended up rejecting me with the explanation "The head of engineering is very particular, even though this position is Node.js/JavaScript, he likes to hire candidates who have a background in C#." There was no mention of this on the job advert! Besides, I did use C# full time for 2 months during the summer break while at university which I mentioned after she seemingly invented this requirement but she responded 'He likes candidates who started with C#.' There is no way they would find anyone who meets all of these requirements who also happen to know this completely unrelated technology. Anyway, after 1 year, out of 1000+ applications I submitted, I got about 5 phone screens with recruiters and 2 interviews with actual company insiders. The first company Founder I interviewed with seemed keen to hire me at first and kept leading me on; but they always waited for me to ask them about the next stage in the process before actually proceeding... They kept half-ass ghosting me until the last phase and then I was like "They can't be serious about hiring me" and I stopped asking about the next phase. My sister works in HR and she told me that I only needed to match about 60% of tech requirements to get a job. It didn't correspond at all with my observations of reality... Putting 2-and-2 together, it seems like they were giving all these high paying jobs to beginners and tossing experienced candidates' resumes in the trash... Probably the HR leads were not even seeing the resumes of experienced candidates coming in. It all seems kind of conspiratorial if you ask me. Another weird thing that happened (going 2 years back and which led me to being unemployed) is that the startup I was working for was getting very few job applications when I applied. They were super keen to hire me and I got a big salary, share package, everything... Then 6 months in, candidate applications started pouring in by the thousands... After sifting through thousands of applications, they managed to hire an absolute weapon; this guy was not only sharp, but he was churning out maybe 1K lines of code per day. Really impressive. I had not seen anyone code that fast before. He built features really quickly. I was doing peer reviews for the whole team, which was hard work and essential at the time, especially with code being churned out at that rate! Anyway I was laid off because the founders didn't see the value of my PR code reviews. They didn't understand how important it was to have someone looking over this superhuman code churning to keep complexity under control. Multiple times, I saved the front end from memory leaks and rogue setInterval/setTimeout which were unnecessary or not cleaned up properly (among many other issues). Sigh. I feel like this situation would have been a startup founder's dream, surely combining the massive development speed with the safety/de-risking I was adding was worth the tiny sub-% equity I was set to receive 4 months later... Sigh.
• Aeolun 2y ago
  Conversely, my company, which interviewed me by having me write ‘for’ loops in all 12 or so languages listed on my CV during the technical interview, is a pretty decent place to work. I cannot tell you how bemused I was after leaving that interview. I’d done months of degrading stupid ‘tell us some trivia about JS’ interviews, and here was someone that (apparently) just wanted to judge whether the information on my CV was true.
  • Aurornis 2y ago
    > Conversely, my company, which interviewed me by having me write ‘for’ loops in all 12 or so languages listed on my CV during the technical interview, is a pretty decent place to work. This is funny. I’ve interviewed so many candidates who think keyword stuffing their resume has no consequences, but then you get them in the interview and discover they couldn’t actually tell you much about the languages or frameworks they listed other than very high level descriptions. When I do resume reviews for people I try to push back on some of the keyword stuffing, but there’s a lot of resistance. There’s a popular idea that resumes are just for tricking the ATS and nothing more, but then these people get in front of someone who actually wants to discuss their resume and it gets ugly fast.
    • dennis_jeeves2 2y ago
      > I’ve interviewed so many candidates who think keyword stuffing They do that because HR looks for it. >frameworks they listed other than very high level descriptions. Would you remember the details of the framework you worked on 10 years back? Especially give that in the 10 years you went through another 15 frameworks?
      • vkou 2y ago
        > They do that because HR looks for it. You've described a beautiful symbiosis. Half the people in the interviewing process see keyword stuffing as pointless bullshit, and only care if you can reverse a linked list in a language of your choice. Half of them only care about keyword stuffing, and will send your resume in the shredder if you don't do it. And the third half see anyone trying to avoid the nitpicks of the second half as a person to expose as a fraud.
• giantg2 2y ago
  "If someone can't hire well, it's not a good place to work." But nobody hires well, so where can I work?
  • pentaphobe 2y ago
    hijacking this comment to apologise for missing your reply elsewhere until it was too late to respond. (Won't escalate the hijack by fully replying here, but TLDR: yeah - no policy can fully remove bias, but we lean heavily on diverse peer review to at least catch it, and we seek and adapt to feedback)
  • cchi_co 2y ago
    [dead]
• throwaway2037 2y ago
  In my experience, C++ programmers have the smallest range of programming language knowledge. Basically, their whole world is C++. They have a hammer, and everything looks like a nail. "But performance!" they declare ... when you are writing a single function to reverse a string: "Can I use Python?" In my career and domain, I have never once seen a graph algorithm used, yet 5% of posts of HN are all about them. I guess I am an idiot. Another thing about C++ interviews: Frequently, their difficultly far exceeds anything they are using in their own code base. That can be hugely embarrassing after you slog through a brutal few rounds of C++ interviews and land that offer. A few weeks later, you are rolling up your sleeves, waiting for the first Git clone to complete. Then you feast your eyes on a puddle of dog doo that they call uber-C++-2027 or whatever they claim. "Oh." Such defeat.
  • baq 2y ago
    there are two types self-proclaimed C++ wizards: - that who accepts that the language has infinite complexity and it takes a lifetime to master it, which makes it ill-suited for most real-world tasks, because there are domain-specific tools which have the same performance and are easier to use - that who accepts the language has infinite complexity and thus it can serve any purpose, so there's no point in working with anything else, just keep improving the C++ subskills relevant to the task at hand some folks of the second kind have a hard time with empathising that mastering C++ is not in fact the only way to build better software.
  • wojciii 2y ago
    I got my first job (25 years ago it so) after reading a c++ book and doing the assignments. To get this job I had to take a c++ test made by the most experienced developer there. The code I eventually wrote had none of the tested language features. These days I often work with a mix of C, C++, Python and Rust. I try to avoid c++ as people writing c++ (IMHO) are not writing code that is easy to understand. They usually write code which is efficient but hard to understand. Even when effectiveness is not a part of the requirements.
• jchonphoenix 2y ago
  "Low level python" is an amusing statement
  • mkl 2y ago
    > low-level Python implementation Python is written in C, with raw pointers everywhere, manual reference counting, etc. Python C extensions are certainly low-level too. Knowing these details is important to write good code in some domains, and if you need to get as much performance out of Python as you can.
• jojobas 2y ago
  >What it boils down to is that companies have zero idea how to hire. Yeah, certainly doesn't have anything to do with hordes of people with make-believe degrees in everything.
  • deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
• xkcd1963 2y ago
  It is funny I tried to hire people, just pasted the minimum requirements and salary - and got no response. The other day I had a tech interview and just by screen calling to update python version on OSX one of the commands was "reboot" and oh well.. the interview was over.
• zarzavat 2y ago
  It depends what dialect of C++ they are using but I believe you would need at least 3 months of hard studying to go from zero to a functioning C++ programmer. I’ve been using C++ for over a decade and I still don’t feel like I know enough about the language. It’s a bottomless pit.
• crawfishphase 2y ago
  some companies do know how to hire and how to train. its rare- not zero.
  • cchi_co 2y ago
    [dead]
• jen729w 2y ago
  As a lifetime contractor, I felt this all the time. So I spoke to the boss of one of the recruitment agencies and said, hey. Isn’t this a job I’d be good at? Recruiting? Because I actually know what the hell I’m on about? And he said, sure, and I’d hire you! But you’d be bored to death within a week because every day is exactly the same.
  • johnnyanmac 2y ago
    The older I get, the less I understand the "you'd be bored" excuse for not hiring someone. Is that boss really jumping out of bed every morning excited to talk to more candidates of varying quality and moving them into other, mostly boring, companies. And have boring meetings about what metrics to hit? Restraint and overcoming boredom is one of the basic essences of growing up. You'd think management would understand this.
    • jen729w 2y ago
      I just think he knew that I wouldn’t last.
• sph 2y ago
  > "what's your experience with C++ or advanced graph algorithms?" I once got an interview to help fix an Elixir project. They were having issues with the Websocket module of Phoenix called Phoenix.Socket. It's a 1000-line long piece of code of a much larger framework. The person that interviewed me brushed away the fact that I had worked 6+ years full time with Elixir, and had almost 20 years in this career, and just wanted to know, in three different ways, "what is your experience with Phoenix.Socket", "how many times have you used Phoenix.Socket?", "how many years would you say you'd used Phoenix.Socket for?". That literally was the only metric they used to determine how good a candidate was. Experience or knowledge doesn't matter, just how good you fill their ridiculous expectation. It'd be like focusing on your experience with "iostream" in C++. Incidentally, only a bonafide liar will somehow tick all the boxes and stupid requirements. This is the state of tech recruiting in the past 5 years. It is mind boggling.
  • swader999 2y ago
    A while back this kind of experience in an interview was a gift as in you don't want to work at that place and they just told you this clearly. But now maybe things are getting more real and you just need to eat.
  • liquidpele 2y ago
    It’s been that way for 20+ years. It happens when companies don’t let the experts do the interview or try to filter before hand using HR or other cheaper labor.
• pjmlp 2y ago
  Add to that the ageism, and it is really a bummer trying to jump into jobs, where the requirements aren't clearly specified on the CV as the very last thing we worked on, regardless of experience in previous years or open source projects proving otherwise. I have long learned that the only way to switch technology is via consultancies, and being lucky to land on those projects where the team is sold as having "experience".
• chanux 2y ago
  Spot on. I have been interviewed for X (as they do), got hired and ended up doing completely different Y in almost all of the jobs I've had. Yet, most of the job interviews I've had felt like they are looking for a very specific things and if I don't have exactly that, I am not good.
• atoav 2y ago
  Having experience from both the side of applying for jobs and running (some) job interviews I have to say that the delusions some candidates have shown have really surprised me. When I read comments online about application processes I wonder what our most delusional candidates might say about our extremely fair, one hour max interview process.. What I mean by delusional is that many candidates seem to not put in the work to research what we do, how we do it, etc. They then applied for a position that fits their own profile, not for the position we offered. Some even had a different companies name/address and the wrong date in their application letter. This combined with a display of extreme self confidence you can only wonder.. My number one tip for anyone applying is: Although it feels like interviews are about you, the way you should look at them is you solving a problem the people hiring you want to see solved. Your task is to know who they want and tell them why it is you, despite certain obvious flaws that you could anticipate them seeing, be it your age, your lack of big names in the CV, etc. But key is, that this is not a game where the higher leveled person automatically wins. That means if they are looking for someone cleaning up their rubish database and you come across as The mega database expert that only picks the toughest battles and gets bored if he can't find a bigger mountain to climb, chances are that less qualified but more stubborn, more patient person will get the job, as they are more likely to be the lasting solution. So the key questions for you should always be: "Who, exactly are they looking for?" and "Am I willing to be that person under the conditions of the job?". The first question is a research question for you before and during the interview, the latter a question you should keep in your mind throughout the whole process. This is also why to me it is kinda a red flag if a candidate has no questions, because usually they should have if they wonder if they are the right person for the job and if the job is the right one for them. Especially since that is an interview-cliché already.
  • IIsi50MHz 2y ago
    I agree with all of this except: > This is also why to me it is kinda a red flag if a candidate has no questions, because usually they should have if they wonder if they are the right person for the job and if the job is the right one for them. Especially since that is an interview-cliché already. …which seems like a non sequitur to me. I only apply if I think I'm capable of the role. If research ahead of the interview is positive, and how the interview process is handled seems good, I may not have any questions. Although, I admit I sometimes thought of some later, which I emailed if important. But possibly where I interview worst is in refusing to exaggerating or puff myself up. I've come to wonder if some of the roles I didn't get were because there weren't any lies (such as "extreme self confidence") for them reduce to a guesstimate of reality.
• swader999 2y ago
  I've found it very difficult to mentor people working remotely.
• ClumsyPilot 2y ago
  > If someone can't hire well, it's not a good place to work This is just objectively false, most companies suck at something, and in all likelihood you will never have to deal with hiring process again once you are in. It’s one of the things you care about least. The idea that a company has to be perfect for you to join is unrealistic
• cjohnson318 2y ago
  I was approached through a recruiter for a job with a 100k-150k pay range, but I didn't get to interview because I had "too much experience" and they wanted someone with 2-5 years experience in the 120-130k range. I had experience with everything on the job description, even the nice-to-haves section. Make it make sense.
  • wyclif 2y ago
    Late to this thread, but on the face of it I'd assume they didn't want to pay more than that range for a few years, if at all. Sometimes when they say "too much experience", what they really mean is that they want a senior developer or platform architect on a junior's salary.
• shadowgovt 2y ago
  In C++ in particular... Yes. A lack of recent C++ experience is a real hindrance. The spec is longer than double the King James Bible, and depending on what firm you're working with various parts of the language are either banned or best practice. These days I don't generally find that familiarity with any other language (including C++ from 10 years ago) translates well to fluency with modern C++. Of course, I solve this problem by avoiding the language like the plague, because why do I want to write code in a language that I'm going to have to work that hard to find developers to extend and maintain?