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Comment by abhishek0318 | Hacker News Reader

These people are mainly relatively unskilled. These companies are notorious for hiring entire batches of graduating students.

Situation in top tier colleges is lot better. This can be seen from increase in placements in IITs this year.

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Mainly relatively unskilled is an understatement. I have a bit of contact with DXC (based in bulgaria, iirc) through a customer. We usually get someone with 'expert X' or 'senior Y' as a job title who lack the most basic skills in debugging and problem solving. It mostly ends in them 'taking a break' (during the call) and in the end we have to do their job.

I don't take an issue with doing their job, but I'm still baffled how DXC can function like that.

> These people are mainly relatively unskilled. These companies are notorious for hiring entire batches of graduating students.

I guess the best interview should also add a touch-type test and the candidate should require at least 30wpm or so (if typing is very much required for the work).

When I was at college I have only seen less than 5 such students from the 250 total.

That's my secret tell to see if someone is a good, experienced developer or not.

I've never met a good, experienced developer who was a slow typist.

> I've never met a good, experienced developer who was a slow typist.

You will.

There is a reason "fast typist" was not a required skill in any software jobs I've ever applied for, and I doubt developer strength has any correlation with typing speed.

It's not that fast typist is an indicator of a good developer, but a slow typist is an indicator of someone who hasn't spent a whole lot of time in front of a keyboard.

Or they have some motor disabilities in their arm/hand, which you should check for before making a judgement. Some people have carpal tunnel, some people have tremors, some people might have other condition they might not have even know themselves or would like to talk about openly.

Or if they don't have any fingers.

Depends what you mean by fast. Anecdotally, I learned to use a computer well before anyone thought to teach me to type. I still type "incorrectly" (basically use only a few fingers, with my hands moving more than they should). So I am definitely slower than someone who is trained to type correctly.

But, I would like to think that I am both good and experienced. I picked up my bad typing habits while learning to program, after all.

I taught myself how to type too just by doing it as a kid. My home key position is much more natural (hands slanted) and that probably saved me from carpel tunnel all these years.

By fast, I mean not two finger typing and can probably touch type. You know a slow typist when you see it. It's like being behind a slow person on the highway, it's excruciating.

>>Situation in top tier colleges is lot better.

Situation there is even more worse. Most of them are job hoppers who hop job after job.

Most people from IITs I know don't even a single full project on their resume.

>This can be seen from increase in placements in IITs this year.

That's probably because they are pushed by their families, "go and study IT, this is the best paid job at the moment". That doesn't mean that the value, skills, abilities of the new graduates will increase, I tend to believe the opposite.

What do you mean by pushed by their families? You don't seem to have a good understanding of educational institutions in India. IIT entrance exams are one of the toughest exams out there. Please read this page - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joint_Entrance_Examination_–_A...

So even if families pressure their kids, they will not be able to get an admission in these institutes unless they demonstrate required skills.

Here are past exam papers - https://www.jeeadv.ac.in/Archives-Past-Que-papers.html

For value, skill, and ability, please google the research done by the students at these universities and the firms that hire these students.

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