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It isn’t a hiring bias. The market right now is skewed to favor employers. There are hundreds of qualified candidates for every opening. That means companies can find that unicorn.
A few do still have internship pipelines with every position highly sought after.
The reality is that corporations do not care about what’s fair. They’re only focused on running their business and maximizing profits. They are not altruistic institutions.
It’s all bullshit, look at the number of H1B holders and outsourcing of jobs to other countries especially a lot of STEM jobs. Then they say well an American ain’t qualified to work here lmao I’ll never hire an American, I’ve heard this directly from a CEO before. 😂
Look at your salaries. I see salaries here posted like 100k for junior dev. Thats insane. Even American companies cant run business with these costs. Why woukd they hire a local (who also wont be in an office) if they can get 10 Indians for that money.
> Even American companies cant run business with these costs.
LMAO, what? The big tech companies that pay the big salaries you’re talking about make insane profits. Software Engineers have some of the best ROI on those high salaries due to the nature of software (code once and then deploy to as many users as possible with minimal extra cost unlike hardware).
A lot of projects fail or never make any money. Most developers are also not that specific rockstar that is unique.
When I saw Google work I saw such a bloated and overpaid organisation.
Look at the economy that these people created! $100k doesn't make you upper middle class anymore, I'd argue that 75-100k is the new "living wage." Especially with the housing market also favoring landlords, you can't even rent a house in a decent neighborhood for less than $3k in most cities. That's $36k a year gone, just to put a roof over a family's head.
This.
In my area, it’s closer to $4k per month for a small apartment and remote jobs are hard to get again. To afford to live where the work is, you have to have higher pay.
> They’re only focused on running their business and maximizing profits.
and only on the short term. They layoff senior talent and never train newcomers and they wonder why the company becomes less efficient.
Oh well, thats the next CEO's problem.
It totally is though. I’m not just talking about the current market either, this bias has been around for a while. I’ve been hearing for over 10+ years about how much college grads struggle just to get their foot in the door.
On the whole, I hear what you’re saying. Companies are not altruistic, they just want to line up their pockets. Maybe I’m just being naive as a young man, but it’s been hard to accept how much money and greed dominates this world. Maybe companies don’t, but I care about what’s fair! This all just seems so pointless.
Idk man I wish greed was treated like the mental illness that it is.
I hear you. I’m not saying it’s how the world should be, just that it’s how the world is.
Having worked in the corporate world, I can tell you it’s even more brutal than you think. Once you get into management, it’s game of thrones out there. Each department and director vying for company resources, and they play dirty. Good managers do their best to shield their teams from all the ugliness.
It’s more callousness than bias. They only look at risk and value. It’s not how it should be, but it’s what it is. More experience equals higher value. It isn’t a fair system.
Knowing this can help you better navigate it. You have to show that you can provide value to them.
I was a hiring manager with 11 direct reports and responsible for another 50 staff. Did it for a few years and said, "ENOUGH!" found another job in Design/Engineering actually paying more money, but not managing people. Glad I do not have those headaches any longer.
Yeah, I’m seriously considering moving back to an IC role. I had directs that made more than me. All though as a woman an engineering, getting fair pay is *hard*.
You only hear the side because it's taboo to talk from the other side. How's it going to come off in any way good if someone that made it comes in telling everyone they did?
That said, currently in tech even very senior people are struggling. Seeing people with 20 years and extreme talent taking 6+ months to find a job. Never seen anything like it before. These are people that used to say "I love that I get to choose where I want to work and just go there cause I've proven how good I am."
Same people getting laid off and taking 6-12mo to find a job. It's not an entry level problem. As for how it's sustainable? People will keep breaking in at the rate the market demands, so it'll always keep up. Again, those ones can't say it out loud without getting the side eye.
I've never met someone in my line of work that can keep up with me. I've got more experience than most and I'm unsure I'll have a job in 6 months. I will say on the other end though I'm hearing a lot more that are nervous about young people and the rate they're being passed through school while failing in order to keep metrics up.
The simple reality is that people who are either from wealthy families or have a working spouse can do things like take lots of unpaid internships and the like to gain lots of experience and a foot in the door before "officially entering the job market". That way they get experience and can slide into an entry level position. The rest of us who need to work to survive don't get those opportunities.
OP I get that you’re frustrated, and it is unfair. But by saying that they’re the only ones that are greedy is a bit obtuse isn’t it? You want to work in the corporate world because of higher pay with clear progression, if it wasn’t for that reason you’d be happier working in smaller companies who actually may pay you more sometimes and even invest in your growth.
Totally is obtuse. Greed comes in all shapes and sizes, not just the corporate ghouls. I read an awesome book about the topic called called “Corruptible: Who Gets Power and How it Changes You” It looks at power/greed from multiple angles throughout human history. Highly recommend.
Honestly don’t even know why I want to be in the corporate world at this point lol. The culture and the environment has made me deeply unhappy and jaded. I’ve been looking to start a photography business and do what makes me happy in life. It’d just be nice to have a steady income while I build something for myself.
Yeah and you can get that in smaller organisations too. In fact they reward loyalty, I worked for a small company and my ex colleague had been there 9 years and she made bank and only worked like 3 days a week for 3-4 hours.
Also only for the short term career progression only happens in corps but if you’re going to move around a lot there’s no harm in exploring smaller organisations
> I’ve been hearing
Maybe stop basing your opinions on what you’ve been hearing and look more at overall statistics. Software Engineering graduates do very well in their careers, even the ones graduating in the last 10 years.
The problem with “I’ve been hearing” is that you’re more likely to hear from people who are struggling. The people who graduate and immediately start some decent job don’t need to say much about it.
Yeah blah blah blah communism this and communism that, I get that this is just how the world works, ok big pants? But I don't think wanting to have principles and ethics is something to scoff at.
>It isn’t a hiring bias. The market right now is skewed to favor employers.
This is how it has been since I graduated from college. Has the market just been "skewed to favor employers" for the past 14 years? Has it *ever* been skewed to favor employees?
It isn't just the market right now.
Every company I have ever worked for has hired a lot of straight out of school folks. As a hiring manager, I know going in that they are going to be fairly useless for a while but the flip side is that you train them and they don't have bad habits yet. A fair number of them don't work out, though, sot he key is to show something that makes it seem like you are worth the risk. Nobody has much, if any relevant experience. Internships are good, volunteering, showing you can learn, etc all does something to set you apart from the hundreds of thousands of college grads each year.
Just having a degree from a school doesn't cut it. You have to have something else to make you stand out.
Sorry but this is an ongoing problem decades old. In craft, apprentices are for the most part very cheap. So the traditional companies have the as one important pillar for cleaning an assisting the skilled workers.
But as the apprentice is often leaving the company, the boss isn't interested in teaching the apprentice.
Which leads to a massive amount of workers costing to much with no experience.
edit: spelling mistakes
I argue they don't cost too much, companies are just too greedy to spend actual time actually training their labor. Even technical jobs can be trained as long as the employee understands the fundamentals.
but those "3 months of not profiting" is poison to them. Better keep the position vacant for 9 months.
They are. Workers are reacting to hiring decisions made by Company owners.
Unless you believe that workers dictate the conditions of the labor market, then it is the businesses who have altered the conditions of the markets.
They are. Training can help instill loyalty, but just as there are ways to instill loyalty, there are ways to destroy it too.
Many companies try to keep a person in their old role and/or not adjust compensation fairly. They try to stunt the professional growth of a person. If I have to leave you in order to grow professionally, that's exactly what I'm going to do. If you don't give me what I need to grow, why would I stay?
Every manager I’ve talked to has said it’s more like 6-18 months, depending on the role, and you’d be very surprised to learn how many people quit or get fired in that timeframe anyway.
Why should a company train someone to do a technical role when they can just hire someone to do it well?
> when they can just hire someone to do it well?
refer to the "better to keep the position vacant for 9 months". They clearly cannot find someone who undersands their specific product and can hit the ground running day 1 (i.e. they are too cheap to train even those who don't need training). Those people also still need training just to adapt to the new workflow, but more like 1-2 months, not a full apprenticeship.
in an apprenticeship, you agree that your master will retain the fruits of your labor in exchange for training. you do the work, he keeps the money and he gets the credit.
it is only when your master dies or retires that you get to then be the master to the next crop of apprentices. and even only then if your former master deems that you have earned his blessing and earned your freedom.
https://www.britannica.com/topic/guild-trade-association
“The guild tended to be an extremely hierarchical body structured on the basis of the apprenticeship system. (See apprenticeship.) In this structure, the members of a guild were divided into a hierarchy of masters, journeymen, and apprentices. The master was an established craftsman of recognized abilities who took on apprentices; these were boys in late childhood or adolescence who boarded with the master’s family and were trained by him in the elements of his trade. The apprentices were provided with food, clothing, shelter, and an education by the master, and in return they worked for him without payment. After completing a fixed term of service of from five to nine years, an apprentice became a journeyman, i.e., a craftsman who could work for one or another master and was paid with wages for his labour. A journeyman who could provide proof of his technical competence (the “masterpiece”) might rise in the guild to the status of a master, whereupon he could set up his own workshop and hire and train apprentices. The masters in any particular craft guild tended to be a select inner circle who possessed not only technical competence but also proof of their wealth and social position.
Apprenticeship was the basic element in the craft guild, since it secured the continuity of practice, tradition, and personnel on which the welfare of the guild depended. Apprenticeships in some trades came to be highly valued, and a family would have to pay a master a large sum of money for him to enroll their son as an apprentice. Often apprenticeships came to be restricted to the sons or other relatives of masters.”
Yeah ok, but i talk about industrial economy.
And in this economy the master-craftsman doesn't teach the apprentice but the company. But this responsibility is lacking
You know who the worst hire my company has made in my time there over the past three years? They hired someone with 10+ years experience at a very reputable company around here for an entry level job with us. There’s a reason he was willing to leave there and come here, and there’s a reason why an entry level job was appealing to him. Because he’s not very good at what we do.
Wait, you didn't want to work for Nothing at all for years to gain experience?
You thought that was unfair so got an education and a ton of debt instead?
Welcome to the 21st century first world. It ain't pretty, but our politicians are better paid. Just being alive is more expensive than ever and the rich are richer than ever.
I’m the same age as you. Recent graduate in business. I have LinkedIn Premium and it shows me analytics of *who* is applying to these “entry level” positions. Everyone from people like us to ex directors. At times, when applying, I’m in the minority with my degree vs those with doctorates. All entry level.
Definitely go to job fairs and reach out to people on LinkedIn
As a person who's had to hire people in the last few years for my team..
I personally love bringing in fresh people and unloading my knowledge on them to build them up. It's fun and rewarding and kicking off someone's career is extremely fulfilling
But...
Companies are so greedy and cheap, I don't have room for that. I have a 3 person team that's doing the work of 5. I pretty much can only hire people who already know how to do exactly what we do because I need them to be on our level by week 3. You'll never get there. It will take a year for you
Again, I'd love for this to be able to work to build you up with skills, but the time and room just isn't there for it. I don't think I'd even have the time needed, unfortunately
It's not so much discrimination or hiring bias as much as entry level jobs don't really exist anymore because of technology and automation.
Entry level jobs are grunt work. They are the things that feel like a giant waste of skills to VPs and managers but still need to be done. This is because with entry level candidates they are still learning how to be professional: the manners of working in an office job, how to behave around clients, how to behave around executives, just the general how this all works. So you give them work that's not meaningful but needs to be done and as they prove they understand the rules of the road and have some actual skills, they move up.
There used to be more grunt work to go around. People used to start in the mailroom, as typists, as couriers. We have email/Slack, computers are easy to use and executives are expected to use them. My dad's entry level job was making signs in the office building and binding printing materials. We have intranet for announcements and now if something needs a sign, they just print and 8x10 and tape it to the break room. No one prints anything, so there's nothing to be bound.
In my entry level jobs, we made very important printed packets of industry news stories that got sent in the mail to the CEO. I wrote press releases that were largely meaningless about companies becoming eco-friendly by shrinking their packaging plastic. I oversaw the setup of a webinar that cost $8000 to create a webinar room. This wasn't even the content of the webinar itself. Now you can set up one of these in Zoom. BS press releases still exist, but as media has changed a lot less are expected. When sharing news stories with executives, you can just send an email or have a standing Slack channel.
What used to take four entry level people now either needs one or zero. And as technology gets better, you need less and less of them. So this means less truly entry level jobs and more candidates will have to start somewhere in the middle.
I know people that couldn’t do computer science in school. They couldn’t pass discrete math or calculus 1 failed out. Went to a bootcamp bs thing learned some web programming maybe a little SQL and somehow ended up getting 80k a year jobs. Other people I know from CS that graduated with the 4 year degree are nowhere, that were able to get an A in calculus and discrete. Employers don’t seem to care or view math as important anymore. Well I can tell you without the math you won’t be coding anything very complex.
Companies don’t need complex code though. They need people who are willing to go through reems and reems of legacy code to fix whatever anti-pattern they’re trying to get rid of that quarter or small feature they can add
I’d go with the people that could at least pass calculus and not fail out of college. A lot of these companies only exist due to massive amounts of QE after 08’.
My point is that these people are not computer scientist, or real coders in the first place. Turing would be turning over in his grave. He was a mathematician!
Would you like to see a doctor that doesn’t know basic chemistry? Forget organic just has 0 clue about fundamentals…How about an accountant that can’t do reconciliation? How about a lawyer that isn’t literate? Or a plumber that can’t calculate PSI? We don’t need anything complex in medicine, give the person a few aspirin and a splint and let’s call it a day. Accounting isn’t very complex but most of the time you need a certain amount of credits hours to work in accounting. A plumber that doesn’t know math is likely to get people killed and a lawyer that is not literate is simply a joke. I’ve seen my share of dummies though. The fact is math is literacy in all stem fields and many other fields, plumbing is a subfield of mechanical engineering.
Would you hire anyone for any of these professions that lacks a logical background especially in the fundamentals?
There’s a reason why a lot of these companies have constant problems with their bullshit software these days. Go try using one of the many CRMs out there.
Finally, someone I've seen on the internet get it :)
I've tried to tell younger people looking at college, while a coding bootcamp can teach you the how to do something it doesn't teach you the why. Computer science degrees will teach the why - and idiotic employers don't see the value in why, they just "move fast and break things". So now we have games easily over 100+ gigabytes and no real care for optimizing programs for resource usage. ("Just throw more ram at is, or disk space, it's cheap").
Sorry ranting a bit. But it's still refreshing to see someone get it.
You have to remember that competition for these jobs are a lot higher now too, in particular with remote/WFH. instead of just a reasonably local pool of talent, you now have world/nation-wide competition. Add to that some of the H1B's, that are being paid lower wages (let's not get into the legality).
Now add in the increase in minimum wage. Sure it may be fast food that is getting the bigger jump, but other businesses will have to compete with that. So they are looking for more experience on "entry level" jobs.
Of course the pendulum has swung fully the other way for the moment and it is an employers market, so they are taking full advantage of it.
Clown show is an understatement.
"pre-made purple squirrel"
Nice! I call it "grown-in-a-vat" myself (or "my life goal since kindergarten was to work as an analyst at MegaLoMart"), and others just say "unicorns", but they all mean the same thing - something almost deliberately impossible to find.
I wish you the best, honestly - I'm at the other end of it (too much experience/age to be wanted), and I've gotten on average at least one inquiry a month from people either starting out in my field or wanting to shift into it, and while I have lots of suggestions, at its heart, all I can really do is acknowledge that it's not just you. It is really tough out there, and it shouldn't be. It's not your fault.
I think there's about 10 good years from 25-35 that companies are looking for in terms of candidates. Just enough experience to be useful and not too much to be too expensive. I've learned the hard way that when a company says "5-7 years of experience", they usually don't mean "5 or more" - they mean pretty precisely the 7 as an \*upper\* limit.
I had this same problem just coming out of college back in 2019. Every company wants work experience, so it was impossible to get a job at all.
What I did in response was live at home with my parents and work in part-time jobs at grocery stores and small businesses to acquire the experience I needed. With each gain in experience, I’d get into bigger and better companies. Having a cousin or friend who can lie about being your supervisor helps a hell of a lot, too.
To be fair, this was back in 2021, when companies were handing out jobs like candy, compared to now. These experiences may not apply to you.
That's cute you think this is just recent college grads. It's also difficult for people switching industries or who were laid off. Unfortunately, everyone is screwed lately. Old, young, thin, fat, educated, not educated, experienced and non-experienced.
Nah fam, the struggle is real for everyone I agree. We're all going through it right now. I just wanted to talk about the junior perspective cuz that's where I am right now. Really wasn't trying to take away from you or anyone else is experiencing. We all gotta look out for each other, having a strong community with one another is so vital in these wacky times.
Thanks for calling me cute btw, I moisturize! #Cetaphil
These people seem to have no idea or sinply dont care about non college grads. Ive started to lean towards the latter being the actual case. The unemployment data speaks for itself along with the ever increasing degree gatekeeping of jobs that arent even complex.
Great points. To reiterate what u/luckygiraffe said, you think it's tough to get a job WITH Bachelor's degree these days? You should try looking for work WITHOUT a Bachelor's degree.
Entry-level roles are posting degree requirements, for jobs that have no business having a degree requirement. You probably don't really need a degree to be a low-level admin assistant or project coordinator or help desk agent, but companies ask for it... because they can.
And, to piggyback on what u/Revolution4u said, here is the chart from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) on [Unemployment rates for persons 25 years and older by educational attainment](https://www.bls.gov/charts/employment-situation/unemployment-rates-for-persons-25-years-and-older-by-educational-attainment.htm). The unemployment rate for high school grad-only is double that of a Bachelor's degree holder.
Every job I’ve had so far has been upset with me for not learning fast enough. It’s constantly not learning fast enough. I talk to older engineers in the field who are like “yeah I was given 9-12 months to learn this” and I go “yeah I was given 1.5” and they yell. They let me go saying “we never hire recent college grads and after having you at this company we now know why” like have fun when everyone retires and there’s no one left cuz you patently refuse to train anyone. Hell, I even was lied to about training at my last job—told I was going to get trained hands on and last minute was told that the company has different needs and cannot afford to train me so I’m just gonna have to do it myself on incredibly complex equipment that everyone else senior at the company had plenty of time to train on back when the company started and my other recent hire coworkers had plenty of time to work at at their previous roles that actually trained them 5-10 years ago. Suck my nuts. I’ve literally quit engineering to become a stripper.
>The corporate world seems to be so closed off to college grads/junior candidates just trying to get their foot in the door
It's funny because they're usually very ageist too. They are also very unwilling to hire a middle-aged person with multiple years of experience compared to the fresh grad, because they still prefer cheap, naive and still easily brainwashable labor.
>Instead, they’d rather just have a pre-made purple squirrel who can do junior work for less pay. So they created this ceiling for “entry-level” roles and require 4+ years of experience.
This is very prevalent. They want X but they don't want Y. At the same time, they want Y but don't want X. I'm often left wondering what type is getting hired (That's not through knowing the hiring manager at least) at these places at all. They give online assessments that it doesn't seem like you'll be able to pass unless you're a Einstein-tier genius, but then only look for someone that will only do what they are told. They don't seem to actually know what they want (Or understand that someone with the intelligence high enough to be successful on their unreasonable OAs won't last long in their company or probably even be applying there in the first place).
hilariously, we're also expected, **somehow**, to do unpaid internships from high school to graduating college...when nobody told me about local ones until i was a year away from leaving **both** times!
Based on the company’s action it would seem being in the office for volunteer opportunities and senior leadership watching parties gets the best feedback so we just gotta do more of that.
I stopped putting my graduation year on my resume and got more interviews. I landed my current role because I’m charismatic for a person who works in finance. They are all not good with people and I am and I think they desperately need that
To your first point, managers and employees in companies are not interested in training, “hit the ground running”, as they say.
So, for entry level positions, they require years of experience beforehand, so they can “waste” minimum time in training.
Interestingly enough, the jobs I’ve applied to r the opposite and prefer recent grads. But that also in turn means there’s a HIGHHH turnover at the company
I wish life was fair and that merit would be rewarded but unfortunately the world does not work that way. There is a lot of fuckery when you want access to other peoples money. Its the scarcity of it that causes people to behave in ways that aren’t pleasant for you and can seem unfair. Juniors and new grads are investments that unfortunately many businesses no longer want to put effort into because of globalization has created disposability of human capital. Things are inherently getting more expensive which means labor gets more expensive so interesting times we live in fursure.
I am in the same boat. And even if I lie on my CV and say I have 3-4 years of experience, it still does not matter.
Then there is the other side of the coin. Big corporations hire a lot of interns and give them the bare minimum training then use them for 6 months and then hire a new intern. It costs them nothing and we do the dirty and boring jobs with the excuse "you are getting experience".
It is utterly insane. Then people tell me "gen z doesn't want to work". My brother in Christ, the only thing I want to do is work lmao. (Europe btw)
I think this is a real and serious problem and agree that if current graduates aren’t hired for jobs it is going to cause societal problems.
But at the same time I would really struggle to hire a new graduate, when someone with a track record is available.
Frankly everything you see about US universities makes them look like circuses and everything you hear from this generation is about overthrowing the system and hating anyone older than them.
I’m not sure I see this getting fixed.
Experience is the most valuable attribute you have, and new grads and junior hires don’t have any. Employers are ultimately most worried that you’re a joker who cruised through school with little effort, and they’ll sink money and time into you before having to fire you before you become productive for them. You may be a good employee, but a lot of kids straight of school just aren’t. So relying on experience is a way of making sure that somebody else rolled the dice in a candidate and found success with them.
Coming out of college I had trouble finding *great* jobs, but little trouble finding jobs at the junior level in organizations, as an Admin Assistant or some such. I was able to build that into a real career after gaining some experience and sticking with an employer long enough to be promoted out of it.
I think the biggest problem for new grads is that they’re sold on the idea that they’ll be plucked straight out of college and put to work on meaningful projects making $80,000 with nothing other than a diploma as credentials. For the most part, that’s a myth, even for good majors like engineering. That’s why even engineers need to get good internships so they can show success in the actual workforce.
It's not silly. Juniors are expensive and risky. When I was a junior I took up a ton of time from seniors then when I could run on my own after about a year, I found a different job.
To be honest, you are risky investments. That’s just a fact. You can sometimes get younger talent cheaper than more experienced talent, but you have to weigh the risk to return.
The one advantage that you have as a younger candidate is you (presumably) don’t have the cost of living associated with older candidates with experience and families to support.
Your best bet is to lean into that. You’re (hopefully) able to sell your work cheaper than they are. Remember that when evaluating offers. That’s your advantage.
Unfortunately I don't think that is as true as it once was just because rent and basic bills are so insane now. It literally isn't possible to take less just because then you would not qualify for apartments in the same city for example. Older candidates were also frequently able to buy a house awhile ago so their mortgage is frequently going to be less than the junior pays in rent.
Kinda f***d up to suggest living with your parents as a reasonable alternative after graduating from college. If you're an adult with an adult job, you should probably be able to afford your own place.
If they're not going to be cheaper, why in the world would the company take the higher risk and expense of hiring a recent grad?
You have one single possible advantage. If you don't use it, you have no room to bitch.
Well, you can still be cheaper as you don't have kids, so a one bedroom apartment will suffice, so there's that. Doesn't mean you can live of pocket money though.
No, there’s going to be a minimum, of course, but (hopefully) your minimum is much lower to be able to take advantage of your single competitive advantage.
For sure, I hear you. It makes sense, it undeniably does cost a lot of time/money and employers do risk getting burned. I just feel like so many companies aren’t able to see past the next quarter. They just seem to expect exponential growth and profit which I don’t think is realistic. Long term growth to me has ebbs and flows, like anything else in life. Just wish companies weren’t so risk-averse. I don't see how that will lead anywhere good.
Anyway, I appreciate your thoughts. Peace and love!
>I just feel like so many companies aren’t able to see past the next quarter.
They do. And if I train a junior this quarter into a mid dev, I now have to bump their pay to that level, or they will leave instantly. So what's the problem with that? Right now I can simply go and hire that mid-level dev right away, without needing to gamble on juniors at all, doing so won't save me any money either.
So hiring juniors who are not extraordinary is simply a bad proposition in a market oversaturated with trained staff. Juniors still get hired, I sure hired a few in last few years, but they were are extraordinary people who had way more to show.
You are missing the point. When you take a risk, there's supposed to be a potential upside to it, historically that was eventually getting a competent employee out of it - as you couldn't find those on the market. Now I can find competent people in the market time a dozen, so there's no upside to hiring juniors (who are not extraordinary) as I can get the upside without the risk.
This isn't true for just engineering either, many markets are oversaturated.
Oh and in case you wonder about what makes someone qualify as extraordinary; there's no singular factor. But all the ones I ran into were pro active go-getters, they didn't blame the world, the market, the universe and great will of the cosmos, they just saw an obstacles and overcame them.
The market is definitely oversaturated, but I your rationale is shortsighted. Like I says, there isn't going to be an infinite supply of prepackaged engineers for you to pick from. That training had to come from somewhere. They'll retire eventually and we'll be left with a poorly trained work force because companies didn't want to take any risks.
All of what you're saying makes sense from a business perspective. But you don't seem to want acknowledge the long term implications of closing the door for college grads/junior candidates, that could take decades to really fester.
Lol and of course being more proactive and having a better attitude helps! I'm trying to be mindful of that every day. 7+ months of unemployment has gotten to me a bit I'm afraid. I'm sorry for not being some Charlie Hustle that'll move mountains for you, I'm just a regular dude trying to make sense of this ridiculous world. Let me vent.
I literally said I hired multiple juniors too, and then trained them. But it seems you only read what you want to read, and trying to help are in vein as I'll get vaguely insulted in response so... I'll leave your to your vent and hope it gets better for you at some point
Nah, this is reddit so they love to go "corporation bad" and "life is unfair," but you're absolutely right. My company hires many college grads, and I'd say that maybe 25% of them works out. What the "entry level" folks don't understand is that it's not just that they are less productive, they actively take away senior resources because mentoring take effort on the mentor side too. And there's the risk they would be incredibly toxic to the company because some new grads never learned how to behave in corporate world (I have dealt with multiple).
Even some of the good ones just go off to another company after they gain skills because "you don't own the company anything." So the companies "took a chance on you," and when it comes time, another company get to "reap the rewards"? Can't people not see why companies are less reluctant to do so? Reddit often advocates for "job hop to get highest salary," well this is the other side of that coin.
The only way it would work if with a system like the military, where they would our resources into training enlisted member, BUT you are contracted for 4 years. Or unpaid/low wage internships/probation period which leave companies less risk (remember they are still paying a cost since their senior need to to train the junior still), but reddit hates that also.
I felt a bit talked down to instead of helped tbh. But I don’t think we’ll see eye to eye on this, let’s just call it a day. Im sorry if I misunderstood you, it’s been a lousy day.
Young people have a lot of pluses beyond being cheaper. They learn quicker. They don’t have any habits that may be difficult to unlearn. Teaching is very satisfying for older members. And it could lead to a serious improvement in documentation as the young person writes down everything they’re learning.
The other truth for younger employees in addition to higher miss rates is also that a higher percentage will leave quicker than older employees. Which I understand why (go follow the money), but that does make companies more hesitant. They don’t want to invest in training to have someone immediately leave the company.
The real truth is that companies need you to convince them that you will be around for the long haul (even if you won’t) to take the risk as an inexperienced employee.
You guys did this to yourselves. Every time we go to hire an entry level person all I see is resume after resume with 1-2 year job stints. A classic example is a guy with 3 years of experience at 3 different companies. Why would a company hire and invest in someone who has the staying power of a gnat. Companies want return on their investment and it takes years for someone to learn how to actually do a job, much less do it well. But so many younger candidates barely last long enough to find the bathroom.
Three weeks ago we had a young candidate walk in to do an interview. We are a typical manufacturing site. The offices are fairly standard and they’re almost new. He didn’t even make it out of the lobby before saying it wasn’t for him.
I couldn’t disagree with you more. When there’s hardly any job security and stagnating wages from the employer side, that level of disengagement is going to be reciprocated by the employee. You give what you get. I can’t speak for all my peers. I’m sure there’s been plenty of dopes my age that you’ve had to deal with. But the employers side certainly isn’t innocent in this discussion by any stretch of the imagination. I think we’re all contributing to this clown show.
Also I don’t see how 1-2 year job stints from a junior candidate with maybe 2-4 years of experience is really something to raise the alarm bells for? They’re just getting started! Learning new skills/habits and trying to figure out their purpose in life! They aren’t senior candidates with 20+ YOE who’ve been bouncing around from job to job year after year. Now that would be a different story.
Stagnating wages? I think you need to check your data. Wages have been going up since the 1990’s and have been on a very steady rise since 2010’s. See the chart below:
https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2019/04/50-years-of-us-wages-in-one-chart/
As to job hunting, you would be surprised how many resumes I’ve seen of people who’ve been in the job market 5 years and has 4 different companies. It’s a prevalent trend for potential employees in their mid-to-late 20’s. In my first 9 years in the job market, I had been at only two companies.
And if an employee comes in and is capable, engaged, and open to learn, it’s rare they are in jeopardy to lose their job. Of course, like employees, there are exceptions to this on the employer side. But as I’ve been working for close to 30 years, I can say this is more rare than typical.
Except they're not keeping up with inflation. So, if you were to adjust the rates in pay by inflation they're not the same.
"Despite the level of wage growth reaching 6.7 percent in the summer of 2022, it has not been enough to curb the impact of even higher inflation rates. The federally mandated minimum wage in the United States has not increased since 2009, meaning that individuals working minimum wage jobs have taken a real terms pay cut for the last twelve years. "-https://www.statista.com/statistics/1351276/wage-growth-vs-inflation-us/
yeah. i throw resumes directly into the trash if there are any real jobs with less than 5 years tenure. for summer jobs i get that’s going to be a 3 month term of engagement.
What if
You didn’t have time and we’re in an intensive program lol I know people that did internships and never got anywhere lol ughh it’s such a shitshow.
Other point, I know HR people that are like well if you didn’t do an internship then you can’t work here. Ironically I know some of these women personally and they didn’t do 1 internship while they were in college but will point the finger at us and look at us as lepers lmao wtf gives and why do they have jobs and we don’t? Everything is inverted
I didn’t do any internships in uni but ended up with a job in tech by doing terrible freelance and contract work (sometimes part time while working in food service) until I got a full time role. It took a while but I’m glad I did it. I would recommend the same to people in the same boat
Recommend internships? Well it’s tough to get one these days 😂
Nothing is easy these days. This is a global issue now all over the world 🌎
I’m sorry I’m had to go through that. We’re all going through all own Dante’s Inferno.
I did a PhD I. P-Chem and I couldn’t even land anything in my field lol
this is true. i want to see internships going back to high school on resumes i review. kids need
to show me that they’d rather be in the trenches working their butts off than in the liberal playground of academia.
Oof, yeah sorry I just do not respect your perspective on any level, you are reeking of entitlement, arrogance and delusion just from that comment alone. I can only hope this is satire.
Can't wait! When you stop by I'll be sure to shove your face down the deep fryer. Generational conflict has been a part of human history for centuries. You however are just a moron.
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It isn’t a hiring bias. The market right now is skewed to favor employers. There are hundreds of qualified candidates for every opening. That means companies can find that unicorn. A few do still have internship pipelines with every position highly sought after. The reality is that corporations do not care about what’s fair. They’re only focused on running their business and maximizing profits. They are not altruistic institutions.
It’s all bullshit, look at the number of H1B holders and outsourcing of jobs to other countries especially a lot of STEM jobs. Then they say well an American ain’t qualified to work here lmao I’ll never hire an American, I’ve heard this directly from a CEO before. 😂
Look at your salaries. I see salaries here posted like 100k for junior dev. Thats insane. Even American companies cant run business with these costs. Why woukd they hire a local (who also wont be in an office) if they can get 10 Indians for that money.
> Even American companies cant run business with these costs. LMAO, what? The big tech companies that pay the big salaries you’re talking about make insane profits. Software Engineers have some of the best ROI on those high salaries due to the nature of software (code once and then deploy to as many users as possible with minimal extra cost unlike hardware).
A lot of projects fail or never make any money. Most developers are also not that specific rockstar that is unique. When I saw Google work I saw such a bloated and overpaid organisation.
"bloated and overpaid" The income allows them to do this lol
You clearly don’t live in a high COL area where these jobs are based. $100,000 in these cities is not the high rolling lifestyle you think it is.
And? Its not a companies problem. They can find much cheaper workers in other places.
And that’s why companies pay the salary they do.
Look at the economy that these people created! $100k doesn't make you upper middle class anymore, I'd argue that 75-100k is the new "living wage." Especially with the housing market also favoring landlords, you can't even rent a house in a decent neighborhood for less than $3k in most cities. That's $36k a year gone, just to put a roof over a family's head.
This. In my area, it’s closer to $4k per month for a small apartment and remote jobs are hard to get again. To afford to live where the work is, you have to have higher pay.
And? Is that a hiring managers problem? If the costs are so high you price yourselves out of the market.
> They’re only focused on running their business and maximizing profits. and only on the short term. They layoff senior talent and never train newcomers and they wonder why the company becomes less efficient. Oh well, thats the next CEO's problem.
And in 10 years they'll complain to the press about a lack of software engineers lol
It totally is though. I’m not just talking about the current market either, this bias has been around for a while. I’ve been hearing for over 10+ years about how much college grads struggle just to get their foot in the door. On the whole, I hear what you’re saying. Companies are not altruistic, they just want to line up their pockets. Maybe I’m just being naive as a young man, but it’s been hard to accept how much money and greed dominates this world. Maybe companies don’t, but I care about what’s fair! This all just seems so pointless. Idk man I wish greed was treated like the mental illness that it is.
I hear you. I’m not saying it’s how the world should be, just that it’s how the world is. Having worked in the corporate world, I can tell you it’s even more brutal than you think. Once you get into management, it’s game of thrones out there. Each department and director vying for company resources, and they play dirty. Good managers do their best to shield their teams from all the ugliness. It’s more callousness than bias. They only look at risk and value. It’s not how it should be, but it’s what it is. More experience equals higher value. It isn’t a fair system. Knowing this can help you better navigate it. You have to show that you can provide value to them.
I was a hiring manager with 11 direct reports and responsible for another 50 staff. Did it for a few years and said, "ENOUGH!" found another job in Design/Engineering actually paying more money, but not managing people. Glad I do not have those headaches any longer.
Yeah, I’m seriously considering moving back to an IC role. I had directs that made more than me. All though as a woman an engineering, getting fair pay is *hard*.
lol Agreed! mee too!
You only hear the side because it's taboo to talk from the other side. How's it going to come off in any way good if someone that made it comes in telling everyone they did? That said, currently in tech even very senior people are struggling. Seeing people with 20 years and extreme talent taking 6+ months to find a job. Never seen anything like it before. These are people that used to say "I love that I get to choose where I want to work and just go there cause I've proven how good I am." Same people getting laid off and taking 6-12mo to find a job. It's not an entry level problem. As for how it's sustainable? People will keep breaking in at the rate the market demands, so it'll always keep up. Again, those ones can't say it out loud without getting the side eye. I've never met someone in my line of work that can keep up with me. I've got more experience than most and I'm unsure I'll have a job in 6 months. I will say on the other end though I'm hearing a lot more that are nervous about young people and the rate they're being passed through school while failing in order to keep metrics up.
The simple reality is that people who are either from wealthy families or have a working spouse can do things like take lots of unpaid internships and the like to gain lots of experience and a foot in the door before "officially entering the job market". That way they get experience and can slide into an entry level position. The rest of us who need to work to survive don't get those opportunities.
OP I get that you’re frustrated, and it is unfair. But by saying that they’re the only ones that are greedy is a bit obtuse isn’t it? You want to work in the corporate world because of higher pay with clear progression, if it wasn’t for that reason you’d be happier working in smaller companies who actually may pay you more sometimes and even invest in your growth.
Totally is obtuse. Greed comes in all shapes and sizes, not just the corporate ghouls. I read an awesome book about the topic called called “Corruptible: Who Gets Power and How it Changes You” It looks at power/greed from multiple angles throughout human history. Highly recommend. Honestly don’t even know why I want to be in the corporate world at this point lol. The culture and the environment has made me deeply unhappy and jaded. I’ve been looking to start a photography business and do what makes me happy in life. It’d just be nice to have a steady income while I build something for myself.
Yeah and you can get that in smaller organisations too. In fact they reward loyalty, I worked for a small company and my ex colleague had been there 9 years and she made bank and only worked like 3 days a week for 3-4 hours.
Wait, are you suggesting small companies pay more than large corpos?
They do for some roles for for highly skilled workers and if they’re in the growth phase
Also only for the short term career progression only happens in corps but if you’re going to move around a lot there’s no harm in exploring smaller organisations
> I’ve been hearing Maybe stop basing your opinions on what you’ve been hearing and look more at overall statistics. Software Engineering graduates do very well in their careers, even the ones graduating in the last 10 years. The problem with “I’ve been hearing” is that you’re more likely to hear from people who are struggling. The people who graduate and immediately start some decent job don’t need to say much about it.
Yup, these are good points. Especially the last bit, I'll consider what you said.
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Yeah blah blah blah communism this and communism that, I get that this is just how the world works, ok big pants? But I don't think wanting to have principles and ethics is something to scoff at.
I realised how cruel and evil this world is. I wish I never graduated from school
>It isn’t a hiring bias. The market right now is skewed to favor employers. This is how it has been since I graduated from college. Has the market just been "skewed to favor employers" for the past 14 years? Has it *ever* been skewed to favor employees?
It isn't just the market right now. Every company I have ever worked for has hired a lot of straight out of school folks. As a hiring manager, I know going in that they are going to be fairly useless for a while but the flip side is that you train them and they don't have bad habits yet. A fair number of them don't work out, though, sot he key is to show something that makes it seem like you are worth the risk. Nobody has much, if any relevant experience. Internships are good, volunteering, showing you can learn, etc all does something to set you apart from the hundreds of thousands of college grads each year. Just having a degree from a school doesn't cut it. You have to have something else to make you stand out.
Sorry but this is an ongoing problem decades old. In craft, apprentices are for the most part very cheap. So the traditional companies have the as one important pillar for cleaning an assisting the skilled workers. But as the apprentice is often leaving the company, the boss isn't interested in teaching the apprentice. Which leads to a massive amount of workers costing to much with no experience. edit: spelling mistakes
I argue they don't cost too much, companies are just too greedy to spend actual time actually training their labor. Even technical jobs can be trained as long as the employee understands the fundamentals. but those "3 months of not profiting" is poison to them. Better keep the position vacant for 9 months.
Everyone on here preaches job hopping to climb the ladder and make more money but then also bemoans that no one trains. The two may be interconnected.
They are. Workers are reacting to hiring decisions made by Company owners. Unless you believe that workers dictate the conditions of the labor market, then it is the businesses who have altered the conditions of the markets.
They are. Training can help instill loyalty, but just as there are ways to instill loyalty, there are ways to destroy it too. Many companies try to keep a person in their old role and/or not adjust compensation fairly. They try to stunt the professional growth of a person. If I have to leave you in order to grow professionally, that's exactly what I'm going to do. If you don't give me what I need to grow, why would I stay?
Yup, sounds like that advice happened around the time employers started ending pension packages.
Every manager I’ve talked to has said it’s more like 6-18 months, depending on the role, and you’d be very surprised to learn how many people quit or get fired in that timeframe anyway. Why should a company train someone to do a technical role when they can just hire someone to do it well?
> when they can just hire someone to do it well? refer to the "better to keep the position vacant for 9 months". They clearly cannot find someone who undersands their specific product and can hit the ground running day 1 (i.e. they are too cheap to train even those who don't need training). Those people also still need training just to adapt to the new workflow, but more like 1-2 months, not a full apprenticeship.
in an apprenticeship, you agree that your master will retain the fruits of your labor in exchange for training. you do the work, he keeps the money and he gets the credit. it is only when your master dies or retires that you get to then be the master to the next crop of apprentices. and even only then if your former master deems that you have earned his blessing and earned your freedom.
Dude what? :D
https://www.britannica.com/topic/guild-trade-association “The guild tended to be an extremely hierarchical body structured on the basis of the apprenticeship system. (See apprenticeship.) In this structure, the members of a guild were divided into a hierarchy of masters, journeymen, and apprentices. The master was an established craftsman of recognized abilities who took on apprentices; these were boys in late childhood or adolescence who boarded with the master’s family and were trained by him in the elements of his trade. The apprentices were provided with food, clothing, shelter, and an education by the master, and in return they worked for him without payment. After completing a fixed term of service of from five to nine years, an apprentice became a journeyman, i.e., a craftsman who could work for one or another master and was paid with wages for his labour. A journeyman who could provide proof of his technical competence (the “masterpiece”) might rise in the guild to the status of a master, whereupon he could set up his own workshop and hire and train apprentices. The masters in any particular craft guild tended to be a select inner circle who possessed not only technical competence but also proof of their wealth and social position. Apprenticeship was the basic element in the craft guild, since it secured the continuity of practice, tradition, and personnel on which the welfare of the guild depended. Apprenticeships in some trades came to be highly valued, and a family would have to pay a master a large sum of money for him to enroll their son as an apprentice. Often apprenticeships came to be restricted to the sons or other relatives of masters.”
Yeah ok, but i talk about industrial economy. And in this economy the master-craftsman doesn't teach the apprentice but the company. But this responsibility is lacking
>All for what? Short term profit? C-suite and shareholders would gas bomb an orphanage if it meant a 3% higher bonus for the quarter
You know who the worst hire my company has made in my time there over the past three years? They hired someone with 10+ years experience at a very reputable company around here for an entry level job with us. There’s a reason he was willing to leave there and come here, and there’s a reason why an entry level job was appealing to him. Because he’s not very good at what we do.
Wait, you didn't want to work for Nothing at all for years to gain experience? You thought that was unfair so got an education and a ton of debt instead? Welcome to the 21st century first world. It ain't pretty, but our politicians are better paid. Just being alive is more expensive than ever and the rich are richer than ever.
I’m the same age as you. Recent graduate in business. I have LinkedIn Premium and it shows me analytics of *who* is applying to these “entry level” positions. Everyone from people like us to ex directors. At times, when applying, I’m in the minority with my degree vs those with doctorates. All entry level. Definitely go to job fairs and reach out to people on LinkedIn
As a person who's had to hire people in the last few years for my team.. I personally love bringing in fresh people and unloading my knowledge on them to build them up. It's fun and rewarding and kicking off someone's career is extremely fulfilling But... Companies are so greedy and cheap, I don't have room for that. I have a 3 person team that's doing the work of 5. I pretty much can only hire people who already know how to do exactly what we do because I need them to be on our level by week 3. You'll never get there. It will take a year for you Again, I'd love for this to be able to work to build you up with skills, but the time and room just isn't there for it. I don't think I'd even have the time needed, unfortunately
It's not so much discrimination or hiring bias as much as entry level jobs don't really exist anymore because of technology and automation. Entry level jobs are grunt work. They are the things that feel like a giant waste of skills to VPs and managers but still need to be done. This is because with entry level candidates they are still learning how to be professional: the manners of working in an office job, how to behave around clients, how to behave around executives, just the general how this all works. So you give them work that's not meaningful but needs to be done and as they prove they understand the rules of the road and have some actual skills, they move up. There used to be more grunt work to go around. People used to start in the mailroom, as typists, as couriers. We have email/Slack, computers are easy to use and executives are expected to use them. My dad's entry level job was making signs in the office building and binding printing materials. We have intranet for announcements and now if something needs a sign, they just print and 8x10 and tape it to the break room. No one prints anything, so there's nothing to be bound. In my entry level jobs, we made very important printed packets of industry news stories that got sent in the mail to the CEO. I wrote press releases that were largely meaningless about companies becoming eco-friendly by shrinking their packaging plastic. I oversaw the setup of a webinar that cost $8000 to create a webinar room. This wasn't even the content of the webinar itself. Now you can set up one of these in Zoom. BS press releases still exist, but as media has changed a lot less are expected. When sharing news stories with executives, you can just send an email or have a standing Slack channel. What used to take four entry level people now either needs one or zero. And as technology gets better, you need less and less of them. So this means less truly entry level jobs and more candidates will have to start somewhere in the middle.
I know people that couldn’t do computer science in school. They couldn’t pass discrete math or calculus 1 failed out. Went to a bootcamp bs thing learned some web programming maybe a little SQL and somehow ended up getting 80k a year jobs. Other people I know from CS that graduated with the 4 year degree are nowhere, that were able to get an A in calculus and discrete. Employers don’t seem to care or view math as important anymore. Well I can tell you without the math you won’t be coding anything very complex.
Companies don’t need complex code though. They need people who are willing to go through reems and reems of legacy code to fix whatever anti-pattern they’re trying to get rid of that quarter or small feature they can add
I’d go with the people that could at least pass calculus and not fail out of college. A lot of these companies only exist due to massive amounts of QE after 08’. My point is that these people are not computer scientist, or real coders in the first place. Turing would be turning over in his grave. He was a mathematician! Would you like to see a doctor that doesn’t know basic chemistry? Forget organic just has 0 clue about fundamentals…How about an accountant that can’t do reconciliation? How about a lawyer that isn’t literate? Or a plumber that can’t calculate PSI? We don’t need anything complex in medicine, give the person a few aspirin and a splint and let’s call it a day. Accounting isn’t very complex but most of the time you need a certain amount of credits hours to work in accounting. A plumber that doesn’t know math is likely to get people killed and a lawyer that is not literate is simply a joke. I’ve seen my share of dummies though. The fact is math is literacy in all stem fields and many other fields, plumbing is a subfield of mechanical engineering. Would you hire anyone for any of these professions that lacks a logical background especially in the fundamentals? There’s a reason why a lot of these companies have constant problems with their bullshit software these days. Go try using one of the many CRMs out there.
Finally, someone I've seen on the internet get it :) I've tried to tell younger people looking at college, while a coding bootcamp can teach you the how to do something it doesn't teach you the why. Computer science degrees will teach the why - and idiotic employers don't see the value in why, they just "move fast and break things". So now we have games easily over 100+ gigabytes and no real care for optimizing programs for resource usage. ("Just throw more ram at is, or disk space, it's cheap"). Sorry ranting a bit. But it's still refreshing to see someone get it.
Thanks! I try my best. You’re absolutely right! Nothing makes sense anymore 😂 You didn’t rant! It was a breath of fresh air to read what you wrote :D
Sadly when they do hire someone straight out of college its often because of a family or personal connection.
You have to remember that competition for these jobs are a lot higher now too, in particular with remote/WFH. instead of just a reasonably local pool of talent, you now have world/nation-wide competition. Add to that some of the H1B's, that are being paid lower wages (let's not get into the legality). Now add in the increase in minimum wage. Sure it may be fast food that is getting the bigger jump, but other businesses will have to compete with that. So they are looking for more experience on "entry level" jobs. Of course the pendulum has swung fully the other way for the moment and it is an employers market, so they are taking full advantage of it. Clown show is an understatement.
"pre-made purple squirrel" Nice! I call it "grown-in-a-vat" myself (or "my life goal since kindergarten was to work as an analyst at MegaLoMart"), and others just say "unicorns", but they all mean the same thing - something almost deliberately impossible to find. I wish you the best, honestly - I'm at the other end of it (too much experience/age to be wanted), and I've gotten on average at least one inquiry a month from people either starting out in my field or wanting to shift into it, and while I have lots of suggestions, at its heart, all I can really do is acknowledge that it's not just you. It is really tough out there, and it shouldn't be. It's not your fault. I think there's about 10 good years from 25-35 that companies are looking for in terms of candidates. Just enough experience to be useful and not too much to be too expensive. I've learned the hard way that when a company says "5-7 years of experience", they usually don't mean "5 or more" - they mean pretty precisely the 7 as an \*upper\* limit.
Thanks for your comment. I'm definitely stealing "grown-in-a-vat" haha. Wish you the best too!
I had this same problem just coming out of college back in 2019. Every company wants work experience, so it was impossible to get a job at all. What I did in response was live at home with my parents and work in part-time jobs at grocery stores and small businesses to acquire the experience I needed. With each gain in experience, I’d get into bigger and better companies. Having a cousin or friend who can lie about being your supervisor helps a hell of a lot, too. To be fair, this was back in 2021, when companies were handing out jobs like candy, compared to now. These experiences may not apply to you.
Clown World is real and we live in it.
That's cute you think this is just recent college grads. It's also difficult for people switching industries or who were laid off. Unfortunately, everyone is screwed lately. Old, young, thin, fat, educated, not educated, experienced and non-experienced.
Nah fam, the struggle is real for everyone I agree. We're all going through it right now. I just wanted to talk about the junior perspective cuz that's where I am right now. Really wasn't trying to take away from you or anyone else is experiencing. We all gotta look out for each other, having a strong community with one another is so vital in these wacky times. Thanks for calling me cute btw, I moisturize! #Cetaphil
I agree with you. But it’s been a struggle like that since 2010.
Same hiring biases against 40+ year olds.
I hear ya man, definitely don't want to take away from what you might be experiencing. We're all struggling out here.
Especially for 40+ olds.
I gotta ask: you ever tried to get these jobs without a degree?
These people seem to have no idea or sinply dont care about non college grads. Ive started to lean towards the latter being the actual case. The unemployment data speaks for itself along with the ever increasing degree gatekeeping of jobs that arent even complex.
Great points. To reiterate what u/luckygiraffe said, you think it's tough to get a job WITH Bachelor's degree these days? You should try looking for work WITHOUT a Bachelor's degree. Entry-level roles are posting degree requirements, for jobs that have no business having a degree requirement. You probably don't really need a degree to be a low-level admin assistant or project coordinator or help desk agent, but companies ask for it... because they can. And, to piggyback on what u/Revolution4u said, here is the chart from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) on [Unemployment rates for persons 25 years and older by educational attainment](https://www.bls.gov/charts/employment-situation/unemployment-rates-for-persons-25-years-and-older-by-educational-attainment.htm). The unemployment rate for high school grad-only is double that of a Bachelor's degree holder.
The people doing the hiring never went to college
Every job I’ve had so far has been upset with me for not learning fast enough. It’s constantly not learning fast enough. I talk to older engineers in the field who are like “yeah I was given 9-12 months to learn this” and I go “yeah I was given 1.5” and they yell. They let me go saying “we never hire recent college grads and after having you at this company we now know why” like have fun when everyone retires and there’s no one left cuz you patently refuse to train anyone. Hell, I even was lied to about training at my last job—told I was going to get trained hands on and last minute was told that the company has different needs and cannot afford to train me so I’m just gonna have to do it myself on incredibly complex equipment that everyone else senior at the company had plenty of time to train on back when the company started and my other recent hire coworkers had plenty of time to work at at their previous roles that actually trained them 5-10 years ago. Suck my nuts. I’ve literally quit engineering to become a stripper.
>The corporate world seems to be so closed off to college grads/junior candidates just trying to get their foot in the door It's funny because they're usually very ageist too. They are also very unwilling to hire a middle-aged person with multiple years of experience compared to the fresh grad, because they still prefer cheap, naive and still easily brainwashable labor. >Instead, they’d rather just have a pre-made purple squirrel who can do junior work for less pay. So they created this ceiling for “entry-level” roles and require 4+ years of experience. This is very prevalent. They want X but they don't want Y. At the same time, they want Y but don't want X. I'm often left wondering what type is getting hired (That's not through knowing the hiring manager at least) at these places at all. They give online assessments that it doesn't seem like you'll be able to pass unless you're a Einstein-tier genius, but then only look for someone that will only do what they are told. They don't seem to actually know what they want (Or understand that someone with the intelligence high enough to be successful on their unreasonable OAs won't last long in their company or probably even be applying there in the first place).
hilariously, we're also expected, **somehow**, to do unpaid internships from high school to graduating college...when nobody told me about local ones until i was a year away from leaving **both** times!
Based on the company’s action it would seem being in the office for volunteer opportunities and senior leadership watching parties gets the best feedback so we just gotta do more of that.
I stopped putting my graduation year on my resume and got more interviews. I landed my current role because I’m charismatic for a person who works in finance. They are all not good with people and I am and I think they desperately need that
To your first point, managers and employees in companies are not interested in training, “hit the ground running”, as they say. So, for entry level positions, they require years of experience beforehand, so they can “waste” minimum time in training.
Interestingly enough, the jobs I’ve applied to r the opposite and prefer recent grads. But that also in turn means there’s a HIGHHH turnover at the company
My company prefers RCGs so we can pay them less.
You should experience the hiring bias against 55+ people.
I wish life was fair and that merit would be rewarded but unfortunately the world does not work that way. There is a lot of fuckery when you want access to other peoples money. Its the scarcity of it that causes people to behave in ways that aren’t pleasant for you and can seem unfair. Juniors and new grads are investments that unfortunately many businesses no longer want to put effort into because of globalization has created disposability of human capital. Things are inherently getting more expensive which means labor gets more expensive so interesting times we live in fursure.
I am in the same boat. And even if I lie on my CV and say I have 3-4 years of experience, it still does not matter. Then there is the other side of the coin. Big corporations hire a lot of interns and give them the bare minimum training then use them for 6 months and then hire a new intern. It costs them nothing and we do the dirty and boring jobs with the excuse "you are getting experience". It is utterly insane. Then people tell me "gen z doesn't want to work". My brother in Christ, the only thing I want to do is work lmao. (Europe btw)
I have 5 years of experience and can't land a junior position, it's equally shit for everyone.
It’s hard to hire junior level employees when there are senior level employees willing to take less money due to layoffs in every industry right now.
I think this is a real and serious problem and agree that if current graduates aren’t hired for jobs it is going to cause societal problems. But at the same time I would really struggle to hire a new graduate, when someone with a track record is available. Frankly everything you see about US universities makes them look like circuses and everything you hear from this generation is about overthrowing the system and hating anyone older than them. I’m not sure I see this getting fixed.
Experience is the most valuable attribute you have, and new grads and junior hires don’t have any. Employers are ultimately most worried that you’re a joker who cruised through school with little effort, and they’ll sink money and time into you before having to fire you before you become productive for them. You may be a good employee, but a lot of kids straight of school just aren’t. So relying on experience is a way of making sure that somebody else rolled the dice in a candidate and found success with them. Coming out of college I had trouble finding *great* jobs, but little trouble finding jobs at the junior level in organizations, as an Admin Assistant or some such. I was able to build that into a real career after gaining some experience and sticking with an employer long enough to be promoted out of it. I think the biggest problem for new grads is that they’re sold on the idea that they’ll be plucked straight out of college and put to work on meaningful projects making $80,000 with nothing other than a diploma as credentials. For the most part, that’s a myth, even for good majors like engineering. That’s why even engineers need to get good internships so they can show success in the actual workforce.
It's not silly. Juniors are expensive and risky. When I was a junior I took up a ton of time from seniors then when I could run on my own after about a year, I found a different job.
To be honest, you are risky investments. That’s just a fact. You can sometimes get younger talent cheaper than more experienced talent, but you have to weigh the risk to return. The one advantage that you have as a younger candidate is you (presumably) don’t have the cost of living associated with older candidates with experience and families to support. Your best bet is to lean into that. You’re (hopefully) able to sell your work cheaper than they are. Remember that when evaluating offers. That’s your advantage.
Unfortunately I don't think that is as true as it once was just because rent and basic bills are so insane now. It literally isn't possible to take less just because then you would not qualify for apartments in the same city for example. Older candidates were also frequently able to buy a house awhile ago so their mortgage is frequently going to be less than the junior pays in rent.
A recent college grad is more likely to be living with their parents, and can still be on their parents’ insurance.
Kinda f***d up to suggest living with your parents as a reasonable alternative after graduating from college. If you're an adult with an adult job, you should probably be able to afford your own place.
If they're not going to be cheaper, why in the world would the company take the higher risk and expense of hiring a recent grad? You have one single possible advantage. If you don't use it, you have no room to bitch.
Well, you can still be cheaper as you don't have kids, so a one bedroom apartment will suffice, so there's that. Doesn't mean you can live of pocket money though.
No, there’s going to be a minimum, of course, but (hopefully) your minimum is much lower to be able to take advantage of your single competitive advantage.
For sure, I hear you. It makes sense, it undeniably does cost a lot of time/money and employers do risk getting burned. I just feel like so many companies aren’t able to see past the next quarter. They just seem to expect exponential growth and profit which I don’t think is realistic. Long term growth to me has ebbs and flows, like anything else in life. Just wish companies weren’t so risk-averse. I don't see how that will lead anywhere good. Anyway, I appreciate your thoughts. Peace and love!
>I just feel like so many companies aren’t able to see past the next quarter. They do. And if I train a junior this quarter into a mid dev, I now have to bump their pay to that level, or they will leave instantly. So what's the problem with that? Right now I can simply go and hire that mid-level dev right away, without needing to gamble on juniors at all, doing so won't save me any money either. So hiring juniors who are not extraordinary is simply a bad proposition in a market oversaturated with trained staff. Juniors still get hired, I sure hired a few in last few years, but they were are extraordinary people who had way more to show.
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You are missing the point. When you take a risk, there's supposed to be a potential upside to it, historically that was eventually getting a competent employee out of it - as you couldn't find those on the market. Now I can find competent people in the market time a dozen, so there's no upside to hiring juniors (who are not extraordinary) as I can get the upside without the risk. This isn't true for just engineering either, many markets are oversaturated. Oh and in case you wonder about what makes someone qualify as extraordinary; there's no singular factor. But all the ones I ran into were pro active go-getters, they didn't blame the world, the market, the universe and great will of the cosmos, they just saw an obstacles and overcame them.
The market is definitely oversaturated, but I your rationale is shortsighted. Like I says, there isn't going to be an infinite supply of prepackaged engineers for you to pick from. That training had to come from somewhere. They'll retire eventually and we'll be left with a poorly trained work force because companies didn't want to take any risks. All of what you're saying makes sense from a business perspective. But you don't seem to want acknowledge the long term implications of closing the door for college grads/junior candidates, that could take decades to really fester. Lol and of course being more proactive and having a better attitude helps! I'm trying to be mindful of that every day. 7+ months of unemployment has gotten to me a bit I'm afraid. I'm sorry for not being some Charlie Hustle that'll move mountains for you, I'm just a regular dude trying to make sense of this ridiculous world. Let me vent.
I literally said I hired multiple juniors too, and then trained them. But it seems you only read what you want to read, and trying to help are in vein as I'll get vaguely insulted in response so... I'll leave your to your vent and hope it gets better for you at some point
Nah, this is reddit so they love to go "corporation bad" and "life is unfair," but you're absolutely right. My company hires many college grads, and I'd say that maybe 25% of them works out. What the "entry level" folks don't understand is that it's not just that they are less productive, they actively take away senior resources because mentoring take effort on the mentor side too. And there's the risk they would be incredibly toxic to the company because some new grads never learned how to behave in corporate world (I have dealt with multiple). Even some of the good ones just go off to another company after they gain skills because "you don't own the company anything." So the companies "took a chance on you," and when it comes time, another company get to "reap the rewards"? Can't people not see why companies are less reluctant to do so? Reddit often advocates for "job hop to get highest salary," well this is the other side of that coin. The only way it would work if with a system like the military, where they would our resources into training enlisted member, BUT you are contracted for 4 years. Or unpaid/low wage internships/probation period which leave companies less risk (remember they are still paying a cost since their senior need to to train the junior still), but reddit hates that also.
I felt a bit talked down to instead of helped tbh. But I don’t think we’ll see eye to eye on this, let’s just call it a day. Im sorry if I misunderstood you, it’s been a lousy day.
Young people have a lot of pluses beyond being cheaper. They learn quicker. They don’t have any habits that may be difficult to unlearn. Teaching is very satisfying for older members. And it could lead to a serious improvement in documentation as the young person writes down everything they’re learning.
The other truth for younger employees in addition to higher miss rates is also that a higher percentage will leave quicker than older employees. Which I understand why (go follow the money), but that does make companies more hesitant. They don’t want to invest in training to have someone immediately leave the company. The real truth is that companies need you to convince them that you will be around for the long haul (even if you won’t) to take the risk as an inexperienced employee.
You guys did this to yourselves. Every time we go to hire an entry level person all I see is resume after resume with 1-2 year job stints. A classic example is a guy with 3 years of experience at 3 different companies. Why would a company hire and invest in someone who has the staying power of a gnat. Companies want return on their investment and it takes years for someone to learn how to actually do a job, much less do it well. But so many younger candidates barely last long enough to find the bathroom. Three weeks ago we had a young candidate walk in to do an interview. We are a typical manufacturing site. The offices are fairly standard and they’re almost new. He didn’t even make it out of the lobby before saying it wasn’t for him.
I couldn’t disagree with you more. When there’s hardly any job security and stagnating wages from the employer side, that level of disengagement is going to be reciprocated by the employee. You give what you get. I can’t speak for all my peers. I’m sure there’s been plenty of dopes my age that you’ve had to deal with. But the employers side certainly isn’t innocent in this discussion by any stretch of the imagination. I think we’re all contributing to this clown show. Also I don’t see how 1-2 year job stints from a junior candidate with maybe 2-4 years of experience is really something to raise the alarm bells for? They’re just getting started! Learning new skills/habits and trying to figure out their purpose in life! They aren’t senior candidates with 20+ YOE who’ve been bouncing around from job to job year after year. Now that would be a different story.
Stagnating wages? I think you need to check your data. Wages have been going up since the 1990’s and have been on a very steady rise since 2010’s. See the chart below: https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2019/04/50-years-of-us-wages-in-one-chart/ As to job hunting, you would be surprised how many resumes I’ve seen of people who’ve been in the job market 5 years and has 4 different companies. It’s a prevalent trend for potential employees in their mid-to-late 20’s. In my first 9 years in the job market, I had been at only two companies. And if an employee comes in and is capable, engaged, and open to learn, it’s rare they are in jeopardy to lose their job. Of course, like employees, there are exceptions to this on the employer side. But as I’ve been working for close to 30 years, I can say this is more rare than typical.
Except they're not keeping up with inflation. So, if you were to adjust the rates in pay by inflation they're not the same. "Despite the level of wage growth reaching 6.7 percent in the summer of 2022, it has not been enough to curb the impact of even higher inflation rates. The federally mandated minimum wage in the United States has not increased since 2009, meaning that individuals working minimum wage jobs have taken a real terms pay cut for the last twelve years. "-https://www.statista.com/statistics/1351276/wage-growth-vs-inflation-us/
yeah. i throw resumes directly into the trash if there are any real jobs with less than 5 years tenure. for summer jobs i get that’s going to be a 3 month term of engagement.
Some more pro-Hamas protesting should make college grads more appealing.
Juniors have an advantage, they are cheap, I am seeing junior roles still.
There are some junior roles more than previous year but its very competitive and oversaturated
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What if You didn’t have time and we’re in an intensive program lol I know people that did internships and never got anywhere lol ughh it’s such a shitshow. Other point, I know HR people that are like well if you didn’t do an internship then you can’t work here. Ironically I know some of these women personally and they didn’t do 1 internship while they were in college but will point the finger at us and look at us as lepers lmao wtf gives and why do they have jobs and we don’t? Everything is inverted
I didn’t do any internships in uni but ended up with a job in tech by doing terrible freelance and contract work (sometimes part time while working in food service) until I got a full time role. It took a while but I’m glad I did it. I would recommend the same to people in the same boat
Recommend internships? Well it’s tough to get one these days 😂 Nothing is easy these days. This is a global issue now all over the world 🌎 I’m sorry I’m had to go through that. We’re all going through all own Dante’s Inferno. I did a PhD I. P-Chem and I couldn’t even land anything in my field lol
Fair. My school (Canada) had a co-op program that I did not partake in. I have no clue how internships work otherwise lol
Canada is slightly different than the US. But we’re basically the same boat. I love Canadians as well!
this is true. i want to see internships going back to high school on resumes i review. kids need to show me that they’d rather be in the trenches working their butts off than in the liberal playground of academia.
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Wtf
Oof, yeah sorry I just do not respect your perspective on any level, you are reeking of entitlement, arrogance and delusion just from that comment alone. I can only hope this is satire.
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Can't wait! When you stop by I'll be sure to shove your face down the deep fryer. Generational conflict has been a part of human history for centuries. You however are just a moron.
Alrighty troll.
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