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Comment by 015UUZn8aEvW | Hacker News Reader

Someone I know well, who owns an engineering company, used to be a big proponent of this but has soured on it.

It absolutely is possible for people to learn complex technical skills (like mechanical or software engineering) in a professional setting. The problem is that the trainees are mostly dead weight for an extended period of time. The employers who hire them need confidence that the trainees will remain with them for long enough to provide a payoff for the initial investment. If the trainees can just leave whenever they feel like it (my friend's experience), the whole thing is a waste of time and money.

I'd be interested to know how this is handled in countries where apprenticeships are more common. There must be some combination of legal and cultural restraints on trainees bailing after the employers have invested in them.

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It always seems to me like the people who talk the loudest about 'dead weight' have a lot of employees who can't or won't detail how things work and are meant to work.

Seeing my code and processes through the lens of a beginner helps me improve my code and documentation. Seeing their code through the lens of a beginner helps some other people fluff their egos.

You don't really notice the difference until you get a chance to grow your company fairly rapidly, and even then some bosses misinterpret the people who hoard knowledge as their most trusted lieutenants instead of the boat anchor dragging them down.

See also teams who "can't find good people". Either your bosses aren't offering enough money, or you have shut the door behind you and you're trying to find people who made it through that door somewhere else. You should be mostly looking for people who can learn, instead of people who already have.

The usual approach is some sort of deferred compensation scheme where the employer promises the trainee a bonus payment if they successfully complete training and then stay on for a couple years afterwards.

This is mass scale means massive taking of advantage of young people for whom being taken advantage off is the only way to industry.

How? Backloaded compensation is pretty common in many industries that in the . The employee gets training and experience, the employer has the security of knowing their investment will have some return. It's a win-win.

The moment you have sociopathic boss, you are still locked in that workplace. In fact, normal people willing to take maximum advantage of student are at advantage due to inability to negotiate or leave - whether through hours worked or the kind of work you do. These people would be great for tasks that need to be done, teach a little and professionals don't want to do them due to them being dead end.

As of now, your ultimate possibility is to leave and bad workplaces have large turnover. Good workplaces have small turnover.

It's very beneficial for a nation to have a skilled workforce and so funding from the top via something like this, is the general idea: https://www.dol.gov/featured/apprenticeship/grants

That is to say, the nation benefits, the government offsets much of the burden from the master, and the industry can still be competitive to attract (or retain, in the case of the master) the trained talent.

If the company doing the training pays their trained employees a competitive wage and promotes a positive company culture than they really shouldn't be too worried about losing employees once the apprenticeship is finished. IMO people job hop mostly because of poor leadership (ie poor direct management or poor company culture) or because their current company wages fail to keep pace with industry standards.

From my knothole it seems like people generally leave when they have learned all they can. They'll leave anyway, but I believe I've had better luck holding onto teammates longer when they got to continue padding their resume.

The safer you feel about your employability, the less anxious you are to test it.

If they're paying a competitive wage then they're losing out compared to companies that just pay competitively and don't have the cost of training up apprentices.

> If the trainees can just leave whenever they feel like it (my friend's experience), the whole thing is a waste of time and money.

OK, but if you think about it optimistically, it ALSO means that you're able to hire folks that have trained at and left other places.

Yes, but only if it's a common practice. Doesn't work if you're an early adopter.

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