If other jobs had the same hiring process as programming roles:"For this sous chef role, we will only accept applicants familiar with modern cooking methods such as microwave ovens and freeze-dried Maggi powders".

"In order to make it to the first interview, you will need to perform a take-home assignment. You will perform an emergency underwater TIG weld on an oil platform within the next week on a 15 minute timer. We expect you to provide your own equipment, material and your own oil platform".

At MeatCo, we expect everyone to be familiar with the full product chain, so the take-home assignment for the sausage maker role is split into the following parts and make sure to fully document it:

1. Provide assistance to cow while birthing a calf

2. Grow sufficient hay and grain to raise the calf for two years

3. Raise the calf into a fully grown, 2-year old bull

4. Put the bull down with an air gun

5. Hang the bull from ceiling, slaughter and bleed it fully

[...]

@alda As a nuclear engineer, I have never been asked to show my portfolio of reactor designs I maintain in my free time, I have never been asked to derive the six-factor formula, the quantization of angular momentum, Brehmsstrahlung, or to whiteboard gas centrifuge isotopic separation, water hammer, hydrogen detonation, or cross-section resonance integrals.

There's something deeply wrong with an industry that presumes you're a fraud unless repeatedly and performatively demonstrated otherwise and treats the hiring process as a demented form of 80s-era fraternity hazing.

@alda@topspicy.social @arclight@oldbytes.space big difference is that nuclear engineering is regulated and has mandatory ceritications and licenses, which show you have the skills required. While certifications exist in the software world, they're not the same unfortunately...

That being said, take home assignments and all that are terrible metrics in interviews.

@projectmoon @alda I have no certifications or licenses beyond that of a college degree. People self-select into these sorts of high integrity regulated careers - frauds get found out really fast due to the work process, it's a small industry, and unless you're a high-up exec there's not enough money here to make it worth the effort. Tech-wise it's no more or less demanding than software but the work is substantially more consequential. Why go through all that abuse just to spend your days gluing together frameworks to build yet another pointless and disposable website?

@arclight@oldbytes.space @alda@topspicy.social I don't disagree, really. I went through this at the beginning of 2024. Some companies have insane requirements. I know my skill levels. The places I got hired by didn't have take-home tests. They did have discussions about personal projects, though. And in one I showed off some code I had already written. I think that's far enough, as it gives the interviewer insight into what motivates you and how you approach things. Short of some kind of regulatory framework and nationally-administered software engineering licenses, I don't really see an alternative. Part of finding an employee is making sure they can do what you're hiring them for. Take-home tests or live coding exercises are a stupid way to do it. Discussion of a relevant business problem with maybe light pseudo-code, yes perhaps.

I don't know. I really can't think of a better way...

@projectmoon @alda @arclight I've ended up using take-home exercises because quite a lot of candidates didn't have a public portfolio to discuss. Where a portfolio or project exists, I love to discuss it, but early career people, people who work for companies that make it hard to open source even your personal passion projects, or people who don't have free time to write software outside their jobs, all these people tend to lack a suitable project to discuss. This makes the hiring process suck for everyone involved

@vla22 @projectmoon @alda @arclight

But again --- do we demand "earlier work" to be shown in other professions? A "personal portfolio" is nice for an artist.

But for a lawyer? For an engineer? For a software developer?

@glitzersachen @vla22 @projectmoon @arclight It's called "a resume".

It's what you use for applying for job anywhere and everywhere.

If you think someone is lying on their resume, then call their previous employers and clients (with prior permission of course).

@alda @vla22 @projectmoon @arclight

Yes, but we don't demand "work samples", right? Show me the code? Show me the drawings for this big engineering project? Show me your case files, Mr Lawyer, we want to go thorugh them in detail, to se if you are a careful worker?

@glitzersachen @vla22 @projectmoon @arclight Then there's the question of:

If I don't respect my past NDAs and general professional confidentiality, then how the fuck are you going to trust me?

@alda @vla22 @projectmoon @arclight

Yes, exactly. Even unwritten rules of confidentiality: Do they really want me to talk freely about my former (or just still) employers? What would that say about me as employee? [1]

Of course, f you speak in abstract terms, e.g. how things should be organized in software development and the possibilities you see, without referencing specific case --- you are accused that it's all "only theory".

[1] Maybe it's really all some kind of personality test and if you say "sorry, cannot talk about all this, it's confidential" you got the job. Though, admittedly, it doesn't/didn't work for me.

@glitzersachen @vla22 @projectmoon @arclight This is also why setting up fake job interviews is such a common tactic in corporate espionage and extortion — and why my ex-CEO is being sued for exactly that.