Comment by dowager_dan99
2 days ago
You need to run through hundreds of candidates to find someone marginally qualified. I am not exaggerating.
2 days ago
You need to run through hundreds of candidates to find someone marginally qualified. I am not exaggerating.
Do we have different definitions of "marginally qualified"? Idk, I feel I'm a decent engineer - I can certainly do whatever leetcode medium they throw at me, as much as this counts of anything - and can actually code, but I still get maybe 1 callback per 50 applications.
Does "marginally qualified" mean "Ivy League Competitive Programmer PhD" or something?
> Do we have different definitions of "marginally qualified"?
Not every candidate is an interview. I recently hired. I got 90 applications and from these, 80% were an instant "No". They didn't match the job description or had no permit to work in my country. I invited the rest. Simple interview, pair-program a dead simple App with a prebuilt skeleton with me with any framework of choice. Make one GET request, render it and realize one needed optimization which needs to be implemented. 90% (I'm not joking) of candidates failed the first task. In half an hour, they couldn't send a GET request and translate that into JSON. All were allowed to google, open any documentation they liked. Of all 18 who failed, 16 asked me if they could use an LLM for this task, which I denied.
Who are you interviewing? Do these people who can't do this have any experience at all?
The GP is still passing through hundreds of people, dozens of them capable, until he reaches somebody that convinces him of their competence. You were passed down because you weren't convincing enough.
Or maybe he is getting resumes from a channel that has been victim of machine-gun filling, and there indeed thousands of incompetent people posting resumes into every channel and just half a dozen real applicants.
TBF, I have no idea how to fix either one of those problems. Hiring is just completely broken.
I have only a resume to convince them. I have job experience at major companies, with examples of what I've built when there, personal projects I've made, a github link, a great GPA from a good school.
And I know similar Junior-mid people in the same boat. We can all do Fizzbuzz, we've all built things, and somehow we're not getting interviews, but people that can't do Fizzbuzz are.
Do thousands of incompetents also machine-gun apply to, say, mechanical engineering, accounting, marketing, HR, or finance gigs? Is it just tech?
Something isn't adding up.
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Big companies and small need to agree on some standards and create qualifying exams that they will actually accept as proof of competence. Degrees somehow don't prove anything, experience doesn't, blah blah blah. It's exhausting to have to prove to interviewers that I'm not mentally disabled at every turn and it's a waste of time for everyone.
Create certifications that actually count for something and aren't just a blip on a resume that may tick a box, but will actually move you past technical trivia questions. I know some people have a deep repulsion to this and I think it would be fine to have a technical interview gauntlet for those that choose not to engage with any type of certification and a simplified interview format for those that have passed the prerequisite tests.
I don't care how long, rigorous, or ridiculous the tests are. Just agree on some effing standard.
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