Comment by joe_mamba

12 hours ago

>external "certified code reviewers"

That's another big issue with Germany, is they obsess over certifications when hiring, as if they're some confidence of high quality hiring bar, when a lot of those certifications and degrees in the IT industry are just scams.

I think it's caused by the fact that firing a bad hire is super difficult past the probation period, and since HR/recruiters are clueless on screening what makes a good SW dev, so they just go with filtering for credentials to cover their asses, in case of a bad hire they can say they followed the process and screened for the ones with credentials.

That plus the german system of "Zeugnisse", which if you squint you will see that is totally against GDPR and even constitution: whereby you get marked (for life) by your employer with a document that has the same validity as any other public document, they "document" your performance (according to you current boss, anyway, in case you do not have a good relation you don't get a good certificate) in a language which is absolutely in code and not meant to be read by you.

A bad "Zeugniss" could leave you out of the work market for years, and all is needed for that is a boss that does not like you. Moreover, you can only understand that the document implies you are not good by decoding it with special tools in internet.

  • I hate that shit too, but the zeugniss situation is in practice not that draconical these days AFAIK I can't remember the last time anyone wanted to read what previous employers said about me,at least in software/hardware industry. Maybe it's different in more credentialed professions like medicine or civil engineering.

    They just want to check that you actually worked where you said you worked in your resume, and today you have other official governmental digital records you can pull to prove that.

    • Well. I‘m searching now, and they are asking for it pretty much everywhere. I‘m lucky I had good relation with my boss.

      What are the other documents you can get?