How long will it take for the Job Market to bounce back?
(probably just frustrated;)
1) experienced = I want someone who won't need training.
2) n years experience = I want someone who is about 20 + n years old, to fit the team culture, but we aren't allowed to advertise age restrictions
3) n years at experience at a F100 company = we are speaking to someone from a pool of about 20 people from our immediate competitors but we cannot name them
Maybe some other commenters will add more suggestions.
To get past 1, take a short specific on-prem vocational training course with a high level of practical hands-on material. While it seems like "education" a lot of hirers will treat it as "experience" .
Also, "experience" doesn't say what you gained from it, so be prepared to talk about specific take-aways. Your experience will be different than others. When interviewing I always ask that question. Good luck.
If you are st school, or college, and you want a leg up the hiring ladder, -get some experience along the way-.
It might be as small as building some Web sites for local small business, it might be a bit of custom software for yourself, it might be doing tech at the local charity. Or participating (meaningfuly)in an Open Source thing.
It doesn't really matter what it is or what language it is, or whether you sold it or not. What matters is you took the first step yourself. Showed some initiative. Saw something through. Got something done.
Personally I was at Uni, responded to an ad posted on a CS noticeboard (from the medical faculty.) Wrote them a bit of custom software. On their advice marketed to other universities. (Using Smail Mail, think early 90s). Made some international sales.
Apart from the signalling, it acts as a memorable topic to talk about in the job interview. You can display some passion, talk about what worked, what failed, the tech, the domain and so on.
Experience someone gives you I great. Experience you go out, capture, wrestle to the ground, and conquer yourself, is priceless.
-especially- I you are able to look back and identify everything you did wrong and would do better next time.
But that's not the key point. The issue isn't "I can't do LLM because I don't have a super-gpu-cluster." The issue is "I stepped out of doing just enough work to pass, and found areas I can play in, while staying inside my budget constraints."
As students we all have budget constraints. I built my (my actual own) computer using parts discarded by companies. My first hard drive lived in a cigar box. Of course it was an xt when 286s were already mainstream - but I put it together.
It taught me not to focus on what I couldn't buy. But to learn whatever I could with the resources I could lay hands on. And there's lots you can do today with bottom of the barrel hardware.
There's a bottomless pile if excuses out there. And no shortage of candidates telling me them. The guy who looks past the excuses, and finds a way regardless, that's "experience" I'm looking for.
For those who don't realize, Angular 12 was released in mid-2021, less than three years ago. Even if the company meant Angular2+, that was still only released in 2016, less than eight years ago. I asked if they meant AngularJS (originally from 2010), but no, their requirement was 10 years with "new" Angular. I informed them they would be looking for at least two more years, but good luck anyways :)
I've seen the same type of request for React as well, with one company somewhat ridiculously asking for 15+ years of React experience (it's less than eleven years old).
I think the quality of technical recruiters has taken a hit in the last half-decade or so.
Windows 14? iOS 18.0 ?
Great warning sign that the HR department do not talk to engineering.
Or that HR is an AI script.
Or that they're posting a "fake job" (often advertised to meet legal requirements) and the position is already filled internally.
In all cases you do not want to apply.
In my experience those are not the kind of requirements I deal with. I have to deal with:
- Senior software engineer position requiring: knowledge of X programming language + Y framework + sql + git + linux + DDD + TDD + BDD + OS + networking... until here everything OK. But on top of that companies also ask: monitoring and observability (because of the stupid "you build it you run it"), docker, k8s, kafka/sqs/sns/rabbitmq, microservices, aws/gcp/azure, event sourcing/event driven archs, and a long etc.
I mean, what the actual fuck.
Either way, you may as well just apply. In the first case you won't get an interview, in the second things may get more normal once you talk to the tech people.
I’d be totally on board with job ads saying “the team’s tech stack includes A-Z. No one is expected to be an expert in all of these but if you have experience with some of them or equivalent tech, we could be a good fit for each other.
Depending on circumstances, the ad could go on to say stuff like “we’d love to boost our capabilities in these particular skills” to call out anything that’s an area they want to focus on improving with the new hire, if there is one.
Huge fan of this model. And fwiw, aside from not being strong with aws but still familiar, I tick all the qualifications you listed and I would expect most of that list to be valid for someone to claim to be a senior. That person should have some experience in nearly all of that. Specific frameworks should allow for more wiggle room if you are familiar with the given language.
The bigger problem is "senior" developers with 4 years experience who don't know half of that and are mostly familiar with crud apps.
Also, you might get the job if you don't match the requirements 100%. There are so many permutations of backend technologies nowadays that pretty much no one has familiarity with exactly the one they're looking for, so they have to compromise.
Recruiters without domain knowledge about the area they are hiring for is very common. I'd say it's like that for 95% of all recruiters I've worked with in the last two decades.
There are those who specialize in some niche area and when you find them, it's awesome. But most are just hiring for any position that appears in the org chart or is requested by clients. Add to that being overloaded and the screening becomes really shallow (this, ATS systems and whatnot).
The rest are usually added by various levels of management that feel they need to 'contribute' something.
However, it makes it a PITA to get past all the databases/HR/etc. to actually get to someone that knows the 'real' requirements
Other times I think someone left so they post the skills that the previous guy had.
As others have mentioned, it can also be tailoring a position for a specific candidate just so they have a reason to hire the person they already selected.
This is the source of a lot of misunderstandings in the eng recruitment space. There's no "chances" - you can either do the job or you can't. Your CV, in most cases, will paint the picture, and if not, the technical interview will. For certain positions, not having the experience means not being able to do the job - there are certain skills that can only be acquired with time.
An applicant not wanting to turn on their video is a HUGE red flag, especially these days with all the scams going around.
a webcam is not exactly gonna break the bank, but I hate polluting my home machines with crap.
So I guess its not really a red flag to me, more of a nuisance
I think that if I'm considering any kind of business arrangement with someone, asking to see their face is a extremely minimal ask.
If the job is super important, then the recruiter should manage to arrange a face-to-face interview with the candidate. To me video calls are a huge sign of immaturity.
Bear in mind that there are always plenty of candidates for any post. Any possible (legal) way of filtering that down to 3 is great.
Being able to say "wouldn't/ couldn't turn on video in meeting" is a great score for the person detailed with reducing the list.
(Sure, maybe today your webcam is broken or maybe you don't like the idea of a webcam being permanently attached, but making this your point of difference will seldom move you up the selection list.)
Appearance is an important factor when dealing with customers. I consider it an important measure in an interview as well. I'm not prejudiced against any specific appearance but show me some effort, to match the respect you should be showing, in applying for the job.
Equally personality is important. You'd be working with other folk, for other folk, interacting with customers mangers, subordinates, peers and so on. Frankly if you're a dick you won't be a good fit with us.
On the other hand there are companies that love hiring trouble makers and misfits, so by all means you do you, and more power to you.
If you are good and don’t want to be interviewed then be a freelancer, it might be a better fit if you can somehow prove you are good without interviewing.
I wouldn’t hire someone who refused to do basic stuff in an interview