Following discussions around programmer recruitment, I often come across people who talk about simple criteria they have for who could even get an ...
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I giggled with the PhD a bit. I don't have one I gave up after two years... They gave me a MPhil Based on the impact my work had.
Anyway funny thing is that 3 years ago (I am 41 btw) I went to an interview with nearly 12 years of experience in the industry and a few years in academia (like 2ish) ..and they told me that my CV feels too academic and they don't like academic mindset.
I was like wtf? Happens
'feels too academic' === 'we risk to have some thinking mind rather than a code monkey'
Geez, that sucks. Hope you found somewhere better. Developer interviewing can be so random.
I would be really surprised if I didn't. To be fair most companies don't care about that ..that much, it's just another qualification it's not something that necessarily defines you
You can be passionate about coding without doing it 24/7. I love coding, but when I'm home I relax. I have to, else I'm not at my best the next day.
I'm also in my mid-40s and learned Basic on a C64, then taught myself machine language on the C64. Fast forward roughly 30 years, with a great career in infrastructure, networking and unix systems, (ironically very little development work)... it's safe to say a position really needs to be very special and interesting for me to want to leave.
If someone doesn't find it cool that I was doing machine language (albeit on an 8bit machine) when I was a teen, I'm not sure I want to work for them.
Same .. but you lucky devil had a C64 ? With a sprite chip ? I only had a Plus-4. No cool graphics for me :)
Assembler was great on that machine though. So simple and satisfying.
Quote of the day!
I can relate to a lot of your experience.
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I'm also a foul-mouth person who laughs too loud for any open space to be bearable.
I guess the backlash comes from the prejudice against non-academic backgrounds that has been prevailing these past few years. In France, a lot of recruiters still look for prestigious schools on a resume. EIther of these prejudices is just stupid, imo. 😄
Thanks for this post @vorahsa , it was refreshing to read!
Interesting take on the mental quickness versus simplifying. I find myself on the latter half of that equation, and often wonder if I'm oversimplifying due to mental limitations, or if it is indeed preferable e.g. for maintainability.
BTW your last paragraph is sadly very much on point! :)
// , Looks like the (perhaps deserved) backlash against the school system has taken a bit of an impractical turn.
But trust me, the number of places that spurn academic credentials is still dwarfed by the number that require them.
Eh, the question strikes the other way around - would you want to work for people who hire based on those particular ticks on a sheet (I can't bring myself to call them criteria, no)?
Funnily enough, around TMSR where I am, pretty much all of the above are waved as totally irrelevant at best. Why not come and have a look and a chat?
This is very similar to my situation, except I don't have a PhD, nor am I a developer right now.
almost fitting in your desc. except I've passion for coding and my longest time in a "company" was a 7-year period as a researcher at uni.
still all this unhireable attitude is IMHO driven by paranoid and outsource-oriented front-end market.
In my main field (automation) a 10 years old coder is difficult to hire because it costs a lot, no other reason. And I've got my main customer as a freelancer because of my PhD (machine vision stuff).
nice writeup!
Wow! What a slap on the face of so many HR people. Well put Jaakko.
How old are most the people at your office?
You may find this very relevant: yegor256.com/2014/10/29/how-much-d...
The whiteboard is where it's at. Couple that with memorising 200+ common algorithms that you'll never actually have to use let alone write yourself. Buzz Fizz: You got the job!