As a programmer, I had always considered myself to be skilled, but the current hiring practices in the industry have made it difficult for me to be confident in my abilities.
The worst part for me about this is: I know from 12 years of work now that I am good at what I do, and that I have a few skills that are useful in getting products to market and making sure we catch issues in design and implementation early. But the hiring system makes it nearly impossible to get a job with a company, as all they’re interested in is puzzle solving ability and memorization. Not problem solving, problem analysis or solution planning. Nevermind actual soft skills for project work.
Companies have also become so adverse - and I would even characterize it as hostile - to investing any effort into employees that they want to have any new hire to “hit the ground running”.
Ergo, they interview over and over again, using wildly diverse testing methods and querying for every possible needed skill, and getting tied up in analysis paralysis in their attempt to find the “perfect candidate”.
With the very predictable result of all the good candidates withdrawing for other opportunities - because the smart companies don’t conduct torture via incessant interviews, they jump to provide offers once basic thresholds have been met - leaving only the mediocre and substandard applicants.
This is why you hear certain companies lament the low quality of applicants, or descend clear down to “bUt No-OnE wAnTs To WoRk!!1!” when their toxic interview methods chase everyone away.
It’s so weird. The company I was working at earlier this year went bankrupt so I had to find a new job. I did a lot of interviews and ultimately the one that made an offer and I accepted was the one that had one interview. They took a look at my previous experience, did one test exercise to verify my expertise and then made an offer that I accepted. But for that one offwr I had a lot of interviews at other places where it came down to me missing “it” whatever “it” was. It all felt pretty demoralizing and I ended up spending more time maintaining a healthy mindset, to not become like the author, than I did searching for a job.
My favorite hiring was a company that had me do a recruiter interview after a recruiter had already recommended me (why?). Then I got a poorly worded practice exercise that they refused to elaborate. After that I had a team interview and after it a HR interview (yes, in that order). I would’ve had two more interviews with the head of the dept and one more with some suit. All that for a position that wage-wise was just above entry level and well below my paygrade. I pretty much grilled them on the last meeting for having such a long and stupid hiring process because out of all their hiring processes no other process had wasted my time as much as this.
There are plenty of good jobs out there, but they often don’t advertise. They don’t have to. Word of mouth gets them all the candidtes they need and partnerships woth decent recruiters and schools gets them all their other employee needs. If you’re looking for a good job, I can recommend looking up a good recruiter in your area. Not a corprate recruiter, but a personal recruiter. One who finds you a job that fits your needs.
Are you serious? That sounds exactly like the punishment-reward system of the education system around the world.
Got laid off last summer. I haven’t started looking until recently, and I’ve only had one technical interview so far. I went through it, and going by the feedback of the interviewer, I solved the problem. He told me I was done, so I stopped working on it.
The next day, I got a reply back from the company saying my skills weren’t “senior enough”. I guess they were looking for someone who could either solve the problem faster, or more confidently.
Interviews are a crapshoot, and feedback from them is usually valueless. Good luck to you in your future interviews
My company has on multiple occasions brought in applicants to interview who aren’t qualified for any positions we’re actively looking to fill. I’m not 100% sure why that is, but it’s led to us rejecting candidates who everyone otherwise felt pretty positive about.
Yeah…We do it beacuse we’re cheapskate bastards, trying to get more than we’re willing to pay for.
Source: I worked for a cheapskate bastard, at one point.
@Aboel3z@programming.dev do you plan on ever interacting with the community or do you post your links to drive Medium engagement?
