Back in the late 90s, I struggled to get my first job that actually used my studied skills. Yes, I had a job - delivering pizza - but I was desperately trying to get a job _coding_, and in-between virtue-signallers only hiring people of a specific race and the vast majority of companies expecting years of experience, it took quite a while and I really only found a position because the place I studied at gets actively involved in the process.
Yes, the trend of trying to replace entry-level jobs with AI doesn't help, but this isn't a new problem. Few businesses have the foresight to train up employees, and a lot are understandably disillusioned by entry-level churn, where you train people, and the moment they have skills, they skip off to another company, usually for more money - when losing that person costs the company more than if they'd just pay them a market-related salary.
AI isn't helping, but it's far from a new problem - it's just exacerbated by the corporate greed chasing ever more profit, where the easiest way to see a short-term financial gain is to cut salaries.
Probably a lot tougher for non white and non male.
If ever there was a softer time to get hired as a developer, I have yet to hear of it.
The delusions would be funny if there weren’t so many people like the GP currently blowing up the lodestones of civilization because of them.
- you underperform while onboarding and rapidly learning to cover whatever skill gaps you discover
- you slowly go from doing OK to being overqualified, but it doesn't get reflected in compensation or title enough and your employer has little incentive to help you reach the next stage, because you are currently overperforming compared to your pay
- you are so much past your paygrade you quit and go to a company that will pay you what you will be worth after onboarding and learning to cover skill gaps
With everything that companies provided to earn long term employee loyalty being sacrificed to stock price employee growth through multiple roles in the same company has become more of an exception.
Entry level candidates must get some midlevel skills & experience to become hireable.
The education system is inadequate right now, so this means building a portfolio.
Fortunately there’s an infinitely patient teacher you can lean on: AI! Plus an insanely good resource in the form of youtube.
It’s never been a better time to be a self-starter.
And it’s never been a worse time to be hat-in-hand, out there begging for a job.
al_borland•4mo ago
After hearing the same line, fairly consistently, for nearly 25 years, I’m having a hard time taking it seriously.
davydm•4mo ago
there are a lot of factors involved, and AI is likely facilitating some of the bad behavior, but the problem seems to always come back to greed and corporate profit /2c
spwa4•4mo ago
Then, due to working full-time, it took me 7 years to finish my Uni degree and I managed to screw up my entry form in the final year. Meaning I got my master's degree in Aug 2008.
Both ended well. Hell in 2000 I wasn't even aware what was happening, though after a few months I figured out some of my colleagues were making 4x what I was making. But it was enough and I still climbed up.
I'm working on a doctorate now. Though one fact seems inevitable: if I ever finish it, the AIpocalypse will happen right exactly that month.
netdevphoenix•4mo ago
spwa4•4mo ago
aatd86•4mo ago
gdulli•4mo ago
roxolotl•4mo ago
0: https://www.newyorkfed.org/research/college-labor-market#--:...
squishington•4mo ago
unmole•4mo ago
Anecdotes from people who didn't experience any other hiring market?
squishington•4mo ago
y0eswddl•4mo ago
they absolutely manipulate the numbers and choose a formula that doesn't accurately represent most people's feelings about the market. I always trust a lot of anecdata over the "official" numbers - word of mouth almost always indicates a problem before the official numbers do.
squishington•4mo ago
gruez•4mo ago
Examples of this?
DerArzt•4mo ago
gruez•4mo ago
y0eswddl•4mo ago
and they don't count ppl who stopped looking for work for whatever reason nor do they count underemployed ppl who are working, but still don't earn enough to live.
starky•4mo ago
In aggregate yes, but in an individual sense I'd be very careful. There are a lot of people out there that are just bad at presenting themselves in a way to get hired. While the people that are good at it are likely getting hired pretty quickly and aren't thinking much about it. This can make it hard to get a good sense of how difficult it is to get hired. Additionally, the current general mood about the economy frequently gets ascribed to someone's current experiences.
Not saying today isn't super difficult though. I think the video has quite a few good points, especially around the risk of not hiring junior employees. Its thankless to do that though, as a business you spend a lot of time and money training up someone to be good at their job, and most of them will leave to another job after a few years, and you are hoping someone else has done the same for you to hire someone at a mid level to replace them to keep the team in balance.
suddenlybananas•4mo ago
ceedan•4mo ago
Bolwin•4mo ago