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Comment by ryandrake | Hacker News Reader

It's such a weird hiring market. 1. There are a lot of imposters out there applying for programming jobs who can't program, and 2. There are a lot of very talented programmers out there who are being rejected by overly picky companies. Both can be true, and I'd argue that both are true. I don't know what the solution is. Current interviewing methods don't seem to be solving the problem.

I'd suggest a widely-accepted professional certification could help a lot, like doctors and lawyers have with the medical board exam or the bar exam. Easier said than done, but what we have today, where the candidate pool is overflowing with impostors with great resumes is not working.

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That might solve half of the problem. But then we need certifications for employers - something that says, "Yes, I have a real job opening; I'm not just wasting your time." It needs to have real penalties if an employer violates it, too.

I'm not sure this is working, since employers not only search for general software developers but maybe also developers with domain-specific knowledge. It would be very time consuming develop a certification for every domain.

Hey, I said it was needed. I never said it would work, or that it was workable. But if you're going to certify workers, so that they don't waste the employer's time with interviews that are going nowhere, well, we need something to do the same in the other direction...

> I'd suggest a widely-accepted professional certification could help a lot, like doctors and lawyers have with the medical board exam or the bar exam.

"i passed the bar exam!" and nothing else doesn't get you a legal job you want.

and your medical boards, if i recall correctly, just mean you're qualified to go be a slave, er, uh, resident, some place for a few years.

On the other hand, passing actuarial exams does get you in on the ground floor of that career.

certifications are plentiful in the infosec sector. They absolutely do not solve the hiring problem.

Maybe because they are plentiful? I'm not familiar with infosec but if the bar for getting certified is "I can take a class and pay $XX to get this certificate" then of course they're worthless.

I agree, but in theory that can mean that we haven't found good certifications yet.

There are very few certifications that are worth the paper they are printed on.

Find me good certifications that are actually meaningful and relevant to my career, and I’ll do the study work and get them.

I have yet to find any.

And don't forget people being asked to do coding exercises for non-development jobs :|

(I've had that happen several places)

One problem with viewing the certification thing as a solution is people can then question - how do you know if you got the person who graduated at the top of their class versus someone who barely graduated? How are lawyers/doctors vetted beyond their certifications?

Make the bar for passing high enough such that even a person who scores the lowest passing score has demonstrated that he/she can at least code. A standard exam doesn't solve all problems with hiring, but it could at least help solve the very first "can this person even code at all?" screen that weeds out the total phonies.

Oftentimes this is the "CS degree from a good school" stick. But we don't have an easy way to check those claims, nor to evaluate what constitutes a 'good school'.

Id say recertification is an option as time passes. It keeps people up to date and on their toes.

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