I empathize with your frustration and how it looks from the side of a candidate/developer, and frankly you and I share many of the exact same views. It wasn't long ago that I was in the same position. That being said, I've been fruitlessly stuck in _hiring hell_ (seeking like 10 to 25 devs) for too long, and would love to vent _my_ frustrations by addressing each of these directly.
> Companies rely too heavily on automated filtering
We use minimal to no "automated filtering"--certainly no AI that I'm aware of. Instead, we just focus on pipelines that we perceive as having generally higher quality candidates (e.g. angel.co, Hired.com) and review them all by hand.
As a result, we move more slowly and have a smaller pool. Sadly, this hasn't been working because apparently the candidates are only of marginally higher quality or there's not enough in particular roles. Probably the only way we could ever hope to expand to broader talent pools is by using AI, because we simply do not have the manpower to keep up with the _mountains_ of application.
> The credentialism barrier
> Expecting to find a developer who has 10 years of experience in a specific tool is insane. If you’re trying to find a rust developer and you will only accept them if they have been exclusively coding in rust since its conception you won’t find it. What you’ll get is a receding, inbred hiring pool.
I agree with this (frankly, only big old businesses with McKinsey managers still do this BS). In most scenarios ~2+ yrs is plenty. Sadly, even with this flexibility on my end, we're still in a huge shortage.
> I can get cooking with a programming language I’ve never seen in my life in a matter of days because most programming languages are either very similar to each other or they’re similar to some paradigm most of us already know like functional programming.
> Developers are creative. They try new things. They’re not going to be droning in one language forever.
If you think these are normal, average traits, you have a misunderstanding of the value of your talents. _Most_ developer applicants I see cannot do these things.
> Most developers I know will comfortably do coding challenges in a variety of languages. They do actual work in a variety of languages too.
"Most developers you know" are very far removed from "most developers in general". The developers you know were already hired through a grueling hellfire walk of filtering _countless crowds of candidates_ who struggle to spit out a basic print statement in Python while someone yells from the other room asking if they need help with the interview.
> The credentialism barrier pt. 2/3/4
You won't hear me argue with any of this. Any company that practices this has flawed leadership and hiring practices. Again, we are actually very proactive in avoiding these toxic practices, but sadly still have a shortage problem.
> Education is inaccessible
I can't really speak to this problem. Am I understanding this correctly? If you're turning down jobs because there is no education stipend, that just sounds like a personal decision I've never even heard of before. My engineering career has steadily advanced from junior to upper management, and this thought never once crossed my mind.
> Low Pay and Bad benefits
We offer normal market rates and solid benefits. Do we compete with Google or Facebook? No, but who can? At least we're fully remote, so the compensation is going to be insanely higher than average for some people, and perhaps average-ish for people living in, say, Manhattan.
Anyhow, all this is to say that I hear your frustrations; they strike very close to home for me. I work tirelessly to uphold high standards in my hiring and interviewing practices. But the reality still stands that _there is a shortage_. Next time you find encounter a company with hiring practices you hate, pause for a moment and consider that maybe they're just completely burned out from an endlessly fruitless search just like you are.
(I wrote all this with "anti-procrastination mode" enabled so won't be able to edit it to correct any potential mistakes for a couple hours.)
> Companies rely too heavily on automated filtering
We use minimal to no "automated filtering"--certainly no AI that I'm aware of. Instead, we just focus on pipelines that we perceive as having generally higher quality candidates (e.g. angel.co, Hired.com) and review them all by hand.
As a result, we move more slowly and have a smaller pool. Sadly, this hasn't been working because apparently the candidates are only of marginally higher quality or there's not enough in particular roles. Probably the only way we could ever hope to expand to broader talent pools is by using AI, because we simply do not have the manpower to keep up with the _mountains_ of application.
> The credentialism barrier > Expecting to find a developer who has 10 years of experience in a specific tool is insane. If you’re trying to find a rust developer and you will only accept them if they have been exclusively coding in rust since its conception you won’t find it. What you’ll get is a receding, inbred hiring pool.
I agree with this (frankly, only big old businesses with McKinsey managers still do this BS). In most scenarios ~2+ yrs is plenty. Sadly, even with this flexibility on my end, we're still in a huge shortage.
> I can get cooking with a programming language I’ve never seen in my life in a matter of days because most programming languages are either very similar to each other or they’re similar to some paradigm most of us already know like functional programming. > Developers are creative. They try new things. They’re not going to be droning in one language forever. If you think these are normal, average traits, you have a misunderstanding of the value of your talents. _Most_ developer applicants I see cannot do these things.
> Most developers I know will comfortably do coding challenges in a variety of languages. They do actual work in a variety of languages too.
"Most developers you know" are very far removed from "most developers in general". The developers you know were already hired through a grueling hellfire walk of filtering _countless crowds of candidates_ who struggle to spit out a basic print statement in Python while someone yells from the other room asking if they need help with the interview.
> The credentialism barrier pt. 2/3/4
You won't hear me argue with any of this. Any company that practices this has flawed leadership and hiring practices. Again, we are actually very proactive in avoiding these toxic practices, but sadly still have a shortage problem.
> Education is inaccessible
I can't really speak to this problem. Am I understanding this correctly? If you're turning down jobs because there is no education stipend, that just sounds like a personal decision I've never even heard of before. My engineering career has steadily advanced from junior to upper management, and this thought never once crossed my mind.
> Low Pay and Bad benefits
We offer normal market rates and solid benefits. Do we compete with Google or Facebook? No, but who can? At least we're fully remote, so the compensation is going to be insanely higher than average for some people, and perhaps average-ish for people living in, say, Manhattan.
Anyhow, all this is to say that I hear your frustrations; they strike very close to home for me. I work tirelessly to uphold high standards in my hiring and interviewing practices. But the reality still stands that _there is a shortage_. Next time you find encounter a company with hiring practices you hate, pause for a moment and consider that maybe they're just completely burned out from an endlessly fruitless search just like you are.
(I wrote all this with "anti-procrastination mode" enabled so won't be able to edit it to correct any potential mistakes for a couple hours.)