6 ms·

A brick layer isn't asked to build a wall prior to getting a job. A certificate confirming he did learn the job is enough for companies to employ them. Same goe

• appease7727 1y ago
  So you think only people wealthy enough for a college degree should be programmers?
  • zwnow 1y ago
    How did u get to this conclusion?
    • darkwater 1y ago
      You wrote > A certificate confirming he did learn the job What would that certificate be?
      • pjmlp 1y ago
        In Germany that would be a recomendation letter, pretty much valuable by most HR departments, and not showing up with one isn't really recommended, a shitty one is better than none at all.
        • zwnow 1y ago
          Yea apprenticeship certification is what I have (Germany). It's a lot different from other countries apprenticeships and shows ppl "Hey that dude worked this job for 3 years". College degree should also work as you usually gather some job experience during university. What i not meant were specific certificates like the Cisco ones. Even a letter of recommendation from a previous employer would count for me.
        • darkwater 1y ago
          Aren't those the dreaded recommendation letters where "good" means "bad", "very good" means "average" and "extraordinarily good" means "good" ?
  • ozgung 1y ago
    That's the real problem with the current process. It assumes all the candidates are just random people without any credentials. So candidates need to prove that they can code each and every time. Even a Phd degree doesn't count. Years of work experience doesn't count. And they test you with challenging competitive programming questions. Not even just normal programming. This process used to be only for Google etc, where demand is too high. It's just an elimination process. But today every company in every country blindly copies this insanity. Solving a hard dynamic programming question in 20 minutes after 2 months of studying means nothing from a real engineering perspective.
    • ryandrake 1y ago
      Exactly. There's no FizzBuzz for a doctor, because the medical degree, residency, and passing the medical board exam provide enough of a signal of basic competence.
• falcor84 1y ago
  Brick laying is a job where the progress is immediate and easy to assess. The better analogy would be of hiring a civil engineer - would you hire one to work on your project based just on a certificate?
  • ozgung 1y ago
    How do you hire a civil engineer? Do you ask them to solve a series of construction puzzles for few hours?
    • parpfish 1y ago
      the FE and PE licensing exams are essentially a one-time test of "hey, can you solve these puzzles / do you know these facts".
  • sarchertech 1y ago
    None of my civil engineer friends do white board interviews unless it was a new grad hire. They mostly go off of work experience, degree, and certifications.
  • pjmlp 1y ago
    Do they get to talk about bridges they build on their spare time?
    • sgerenser 1y ago
      Wait, you don't build bridges in your spare time? You don't even have anything on BridgeHub? Immediate reject.
    • ryandrake 1y ago
      I wonder if hospitals ask candidate doctors about the hobby surgeries they perform at home in their spare time.
      • falcor84 1y ago
• jasode 1y ago
  >A brick layer isn't asked to build a wall prior to getting a job. A certificate confirming he did learn the job is enough for companies to employ them. It depends. A welder looking for a job -- even with a certification -- will often have to demonstrate his welding skill to the jobsite supervisor before he is hired. An airline pilot -- even with a rank of "captain" with 5000+ hours -- when trying to find employment with another airline, will still have to demonstrate piloting skills with a "check ride" as part of the hiring approval process. Sometimes, experienced pilots fail the check ride for whatever reason. The common theme is that "existing credentials" is sometimes not enough.
  • sarchertech 1y ago
    In both of those cases they are actual work sample tests. A pilot is expected to demonstrate exactly what they do on the job every day. They don’t need to practice for interviews. Those kinds of demonstrations are also very for professional jobs outside of hiring new grads. And even in the trades it isn’t common.
    • jasode 1y ago
      >A pilot is expected to demonstrate exactly what they do on the job every day. They don’t need to practice for interviews. Airline pilots that were laid off and are trying to find employment with another airline do study airmanship in preparation for interviews with another airline. Especially if the pilot is not type rated for the particular airplanes the other airline flies. E.g. the experienced pilot currently is rated for Airbus A320 but the airline he's applying only flies Boeing 747. The pilot studies because he wants to stand out from other candidates so the prospective airline wants to hire him and willingly pays for ongoing 747 training. Yes, the airline interview and check rides with the flight instructor are stressful because they can still fail even though they have 1000s of hours of existing flight experience.
      • sarchertech 1y ago
        > Especially if the pilot is not type rated for the particular airplanes the other airline flies. E.g. the experienced pilot currently is rated for Airbus A320 but the airline he's applying only flies Boeing 747. That makes sense then because they are applying for a slightly different job. It would make sense for a Java programmer to spend time prepping for a Python interview as well.
• piqufoh 1y ago
  In many non-US countries once hired there are employment rights. You cannot simply "kick them out if they dont fit ur needs". Isn't it preferable and less stressful for everyone if you can find the right person without having to hire and fire others first?
  • sarchertech 1y ago
    Most countries have probationary periods before most of those rights kick in.
  • piva00 1y ago
    In many non-US countries there is also a probation period before full employment rights kick in, allowing employers to fire new hires without reason, so definitely you can "kick them out if they don't fit your needs" in many countries.
  • pjmlp 1y ago
    Depending on the European country, there is a probation period between 3 to 6 months, where any of the parties can cancel the relationship at any time, usually 1 week notice, unless it is really bad. That should be more than enough to assess if someone is fit for the job.
    • hollerith 1y ago
      How does an employer distinguish a worker who is trying hard only because he is on probation from a worker who will continue to try hard after the probation period ends?
      • quails8mydog 1y ago
        Coding tests aren't filtering for people who work hard, they're filtering for people who know how to code. Whether they will work hard on the job seems like an orthogonal question?
      • bee_rider 1y ago
        That wouldn’t be caught in a live-coding interview either, right? At some point of your society has decided it values job security, the jobs will have to become secured. It is a trade-off.
• deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
• grim_io 1y ago
  It's probably ego and delusion. Every crud generator company thinks it's special and has some secret sauce it needs to guard. I'm sure some do, but overall it's a case of monkey see (google), monkey do (like google).
  • ambicapter 1y ago
    Even crud generator companies still benefits from getting the best programmer they can, so they're going to do that.
• michaelt 1y ago
  > Just hire devs and kick them out if they dont fit ur needs. Why go through these humiliating corpo processes? People actually find being fired a greater inconvenience and humiliation than a 60 minute whiteboard interview.
  • sarchertech 1y ago
    Passing a whiteboard interview doesn’t mean you are going to be a great fit for the job. It just means you can code. If you don’t lie about being able to code, you’re no more likely to be fired than if you had passed a whiteboard interview.
    • seadan83 1y ago
      According to the data in the article, the white board does not even show ability to code.
    • wijwp 1y ago
      > Passing a whiteboard interview doesn’t mean you are going to be a great fit for the job. It just means you can code. Did anyone say to only do a whiteboard interview?
      • sarchertech 1y ago
        No they didn’t, but passing the white board interview doesn’t make you any less likely to be fired unless you lied about your ability to code. I have never seen someone get fired for things that otherwise would have showed up in a whiteboard interview (at places that didn’t do them).
• domrdy 1y ago
  I think certificates are interesting in theory, and there’s an entire industry built around them. AWS does a solid job with its certifications: if you earned one five years ago, it’s still more or less relevant. I'm not sure how certifications would work for proprietary technology. Labor laws in many places are less “flexible” than those in the US, and they don’t support what you’re proposing, for good reason. I wouldn’t quit my job or uproot my family just to convince a manager I’m worth keeping.
  • sarchertech 1y ago
    Most countries with very strict worker protections have probationary periods during which it’s much easier to fire people.
  • scarface_74 1y ago
    I’ve had 9 of the then 10 AWS certifications at one point and right now I have 7. There have always been “brain dumps” for certifications as far back as 2007 with Microsoft certs. The AWS certificates are easy to cram and pass with no real world experience. I only got mine as a guided learning path with a goal at the end. In fact, I passed the first one in 2018 without ever logging into the console and got all three (at the time) associate level certs within 6 months after opening the console at my job at a startup and the two “Pro Certs”. Even AWS Professional Services (AWS internal consulting department where the consultants work for AWS full time) doesn’t make certifications a requirement coming in. But you have to get a couple within 90 days (associate) and 6-9 months (pro cert) depending on your position. I’m no longer there.
• smokel 1y ago
  If someone is hired, they will most likely continue for a long time. They will make friends, spend time learning the domain, and a company will invest quite some hours. During the interview phase, it is easier to swap candidates.
• pelcg 1y ago
  The truth the employers won't admit is that there is just too much money in this industry for very little effort. Why do you think that famous employees get straight offers without doing anything verses many engineers still getting leetcoded and get left with no offer despite being over-qualified? Soham was able to pass most programming assessments so well, the folks at bookface were discussing to ban him from applying to their startups. You can see that another system has been created to make sure that the role is reserved for friends of the founder, ex-collegues of another team over an extremely qualified engineer out of no where.
• tayo42 1y ago
  These physical jobs have alot of process in place to assure some one can't do a bad job and if they do you can hold them accountable. There's no code to match for software like there is construction. Auditors don't know anything. Managers and abibey are often to disconnected from work to know what's good and bad.
  • sarchertech 1y ago
    Outside of new grads, Capital E Engineers don’t do whiteboard interviews. Teachers don’t teach mock classes etc…
    • gjm11 1y ago
      I don't know whether it's different in the US, but here in the UK it's pretty common for teachers to teach part or all of an actual lesson as part of the application process. Experienced teachers as well as new graduates.
      • sarchertech 1y ago
        I’ve never heard of an experienced teacher doing that in the US and I have plenty of friends who are teachers.
  • zwnow 1y ago
    Maybe its time for standards then?
• amosslade 1y ago
  Brick layers are easy to fire on day one. I’ve hired many construction workers over the years. In the construction industry, if an interview goes longer than 15 minutes you’re doing it wrong. Interview summary: Interviewer: “Can you do the work?” Interviewee: “Yes.” Interview over. When they start working, if they can’t do the work, they’re fired.
  • zwnow 1y ago
    Yea, and why doesn't this work in software in your opinion?
• bluedino 1y ago
  To work for our local utility company, they make you dig a giant hole by hand and you can't hit the line etc that's under the ground, and you have to scale some poles.
• dionian 1y ago
  Yeah well its different too because often the coding interviews are more like 'we know you're used to building with real bricks but just do it blindfolded without mortar in 100x less time for the interview, thanks'
• SpicyLemonZest 1y ago
  People who see it as humiliating are misunderstanding the dynamics. Precisely because software engineers have so much market power, it's not so simple to kick them out; a company that developed a reputation for outright firing people would have serious recruiting issues. If a manager at Google, Facebook, etc. decides that one of their reports isn't doing a good job and has got to go, the process is generally to laboriously help them realize over the next few months that they've chosen to leave and are excited to explore new opportunities.
  • nathan_douglas 1y ago
    It would seem to me that a company who fired subpar performers would have a better reputation than a company that makes record profits and then lays off a few thousand engineers a quarter, and yet...
    • SpicyLemonZest 1y ago
      Companies in this category generally give multiple months of severance pay for the same reputational reasons. Cold comfort, of course, to the specific developers who got laid off and would rather have the job. But it effectively signals to the next crop of hires that the company is genuinely committed to their compensation packages.
• josephg 1y ago
  > A certificate confirming he did learn the job is enough for companies to employ them. This is hilariously out of touch with real world hiring. If you put up a job ad, there are so many people who will apply with all the certifications you can name. And if you ask them to write code, even something quite simple, they will fail utterly and completely. I've interviewed a bit over 400 people at this point. When I was doing it as a full time job, people only talked to me after they pass a screening test - which already screens out the majority of applicants. Even then, about 3/4 of the people I've interviewed were terrible. So bad they could barely write hello world in the half hour we give them. This is on their own computer, in their favorite programming language. They did not have to talk to me during the process at all. A lot of the people who fail have graduated from decent universities. Some said they had 30 years professional experience. I'm sure some of that is due to nerves. But a lot of it is simply because programming is hard, and most people don't have the right kind of brain for it. Lots of people - probably the majority if we're honest - bluster their way through certification programs or degrees. Many of them learn the theory but struggle with the practical skills. Sometimes they gather together in low performing teams at large companies where management doesn't know any better. If you graduate from a music conservatory, you can probably play an instrument. But that isn't true of most computer science degrees. Lots of people graduate without being any good at programming. Its also a numbers thing. Good programmers don't stay on the job market for long. Great people will send 1-3 applications and be hired. Or more likely be hired through word of mouth. Bad applicants might send hundreds. As a result, most job applications are written by dedicated people who get turned down over and over again by employers. There's a reason fizzbuzz has become a cliche in our industry. If you put up a job ad, most people who send in an application won't be skilled enough to program it up.
  • zwnow 1y ago
    Fizzbuzz would be completely fine. Companies out there ask devs to solve highly niche cryptic tasks like the knapsack problem for no reason.
    • akkartik 1y ago
      Meta phone screens currently involve 2 medium/hard leetcode problems AND 20 minutes of behavioral questions. The inmates (i.e. we programmers) are running the asylum.
• tester756 1y ago
  Isnt betting fired more humiliating? like 10x more?
  • zwnow 1y ago
    Not if you went through 100 of these unnecessary interview processes solely due to small companies copying big tech where half of their dev team couldn't complete their hiring process.
  • seadan83 1y ago
    The humiliation is the least of it IMO. When interviewing, let's say you've got to leads. You get hired and tell the test to pound sand. Companies (I've found) never like that. It's a burned bridge (despite the strong hire signal of getting hired). Now, a month later - fired - it's worse than not having worked at all. Good luck reaching back out and starting over from scratch with your best options now off the table.
• blindriver 1y ago
  A brick layer that can’t do her job properly will be fired instantly. If we could fire bad hires instantly, tech hiring could be a lot easier.
  • zwnow 1y ago
    You can. Lots of European countries have a 6 month trial period in which you can just lay off without providing a reason for it. Im sure in the US its even more strict.
    • const_cast 1y ago
      The US is about the same, 3 months is typical. However it's still rare and companies rarely terminate that fast. They require lots of documentation, even in probationary period. Why? Liability. You can fire someone in the probationary period, but it's not free. You can't fire them for being black or being disabled. That's still illegal. So, to protect yourself, companies get documentation.
• munificent 1y ago
  > Just hire devs and kick them out if they dont fit ur needs. A developer is likely quitting another job they are heavily invested in, possibly moving across the country, and taking a risk when changing health insurance. If you ask them to do all of that and then immediately turn around and fire them because you didn't really hire them, you just did so probationally without telling them, then you are running an absolutely toxic business. Word will get out and no decent candidate will even consider working for you.