
Entry Level Positions – 3 Years Experience - thindjinn
https://medium.com/@m_rlons/entry-level-position-3-years-experience-75fa785188cd#.pkyzdzocy
======
bsg75
Entry level requiring 3 years experience is code for Experienced but willing
to take an entry level salary. Full stack on half comp.

~~~
bane
I remember when the last tech bubble popped, in my area there were literally
no entry level development positions -- 3-5 years minimum experience required
or no call back. This percolated up the experience tree to the top. You'd see
job postings asking for more years experience with a certain technology than
that technology had even existed.

I actually ended up changing careers into something else it was so bad and
finally in the last few years moving back in to pure tech work.

From the hiring side, I understand why the plethora of job descriptions:
companies are usually forming job openings where they're having current pain.
They take the skillset of the team they have, look at what's missing, shove a
title on top of those things and post it out in the world. Quite often they
don't really know what they want so all kinds of craziness ends up in the
posting.

~~~
bsg75
> Quite often they don't really know what they want so all kinds of craziness
> ends up in the posting.

That sounds like one of the answers to the question: "How do I know if the
company I am applying to is a good fit?"

------
vinceguidry
People need to stop reading 3 years of professional experience as 3 years of
technical experience. So long as you've been in the work world for 3 years
already, doing contracts or whatever, then you have 3 years of experience. You
can have 3 years at McDonalds.

Also, a college grad should not shy away from applying to such positions. If a
job appeals to you, you should apply and let them tell you you don't qualify.

Mostly that clause is added to weed away wannabes.

~~~
kafkaesq
_You can have 3 years at McDonalds._

No, that's clearly not what it means.

"3+ years experience" _always_ means "3+ years of relevant experience."

 _Mostly that clause is added to weed away wannabes._

No. It's specifically there to weed out anyone with 2.99726 years experience
of, also. In other words, it's just nonsense filler.

In more direct terms, what it's really trying to say is:

"Shit, the bossman wants me to crank out 10 position reqs before the 4p
meeting. But I'm so hungry I can't think straight, and all the good bagels in
the kitchen have been taken... What am I gonna say... I know, lemme just
mouse-grab from this other startup's jobsite over here..."

~~~
vinceguidry
This attitude is counter-productive and will lead to only being able to get
jobs precisely like the ones you describe, where you're over-worked and
underpaid.

Work is what you make of it. If you want to hate work, that thing you have to
spend 40+ hours of your week doing, then nobody is going to stop you.

One can make work into something that adds to your life instead of takes away
from it. If you can figure out how to do this then you'll find that everything
about your life changes utterly for the better.

------
cryoshon
Others have said this, but what they mean is that the pay will be poor
regardless of the qualifications requested.

The point is that employers are now very comfortable with paying experienced
people poorly; this works well to serve their interests as it keeps wages
depressed, saving costs. The trick is getting the job-seekers to be
comfortable with being undervalued-- and so, job seekers are told implicitly
that they are not valuable (they don't have enough experience to get an entry
level job or that the experience they already have doesn't take them above
entry level), in the hopes that they start to believe the putdowns and settle
for a weak opportunity. This malice hurts everyone except employers; recent
grads are "too inexperienced" to get their first job, and people who are just
finishing up their first or even second job are most likely forced to take
another job at the same level before they can move up.

I have applied to these mid-level (yet advertised as entry level) jobs and was
eminently qualified for a few, resulting in interviews. The cherry on top is
that the interviewers tried to imply that I was unqualified. To reiterate, the
employers attempted to minimize the experience I had even though it was enough
to get the interview. I am sure that this regrettable behavior was posturing
designed to somehow result in lower wages paid out. This has happened to me
multiple times!

The career ladder is being pulled up behind the people who made it to the
middle level first. Of course, this is just another damned instance of eating
the young to feed the old.

------
jmstickney
This is so relevant to me. Mainly the years of experience part.

I've always been a technical minded person who dabbles in coding for side
projects. I've come to a point in my career where I want my side work, coding
(web to be specific), to actually be my professional career.

I'm willing to take a significant pay cut to do so and I've been searching
Indeed, LinkedIn, and Angel for weeks now.

For the record I am in Boston. Not only are junior postings so rare, but when
I do find them, they are as this article describes: "2-3 years+ professional
experience and proficient in at least one of the following".

I get Boston is wildly competitive now, so do I accept this as the
junior/entry expectations? So I'll never be qualified unless I go to a
bootcamp? Do I just grind and start my own business or large portfolio on the
side?

Or is there agreement that these junior requirements are too aggressive in
this space?

~~~
irremediable
Well first, have you actually applied to any of the places that asked for that
experience? A lot of places will settle for far less than their advert asks.
Second, have you emphasised your side-projects sufficiently? If you sell them
properly, those count as professional experience.

~~~
lostcolony
I can echo this. Speaking as someone who has sat on the hiring side a fair
bit, years of experience is almost always a guideline and/or set based on HR
requirements if it's a large company ("Oh, you are looking to hire an X? That
requires Y years of experience").

The job description is to fill a role. It's loosely what the hiring manager's
understanding of what it will take to fill that role would require. A
compelling case for why you have what it takes to fill the role, regardless of
what the hiring manager thought it would take, will still be considered. A
curious mind, someone self motivated and learning about technology on their
own, and showing that they've done things with it, who establishes a good
rapport when interviewing, is -more- desirable, to me at least, than someone
who just checks off the qualifications, at least for entry level.

My team actually recently hired someone who doesn't have a CS degree, and who
never did any development, but who had done solutions contracting, configuring
and patching together off the shelf solutions to meet customer needs. That is,
has a track record of figuring out and solving problems, with technology, with
minimal code (scripts to tie things together, that sort of thing). It was just
above entry level, and with the expectation that some training and mentoring
would need to happen, but everyone on the team felt this person would be a
positive

------
kafkaesq
_Then the bomb dropped. Every entry level position I looked at required 3+
years of experience;_

It's amazing how many job ads contain statements in plain, black-and-white
English that make no sense whatsoever, either in the real world or just in
terms of logical self-consistency. Another one of my favorites is:

 _Minimum of 3-5 years ..._

Why not just say "Minimum of 3 years"? Does the person who wrote this really
not understand that they're saying?

One has to wonder.

------
99waysToDie
There are 2 subplots this article has yet to unfold, which will only be
revealed on the other side of the hiring process, after landing a seemingly
desirable job.

    
    
      1. HR's fortifications, subversive booby traps and 
         no-mans-land designed to repel applications by 
         way of sinister salary negotiations, that leave
         behind a simmering animosity even after getting 
         hired. 
    
      2. On the other side of the wall, all of your co-
         workers turn out to be fantastically retarded, 
         including your own boss and boss' bosses, largely 
         due to HR's low-ball tactics, leaving you with 
         the startling realization that the job description
         and hiring interrogation (ahem! interview) was 
         all smoke and mirrors.
    

See also:

[http://www.ribbonfarm.com/2009/10/07/the-gervais-
principle-o...](http://www.ribbonfarm.com/2009/10/07/the-gervais-principle-or-
the-office-according-to-the-office/)

~~~
PhoenixWright
This is so on point. After graduating college I found myself in the "loser"
layer surrounded by the "clueless." The org was so big I didn't even get to
see the "sociopaths" at the top. 2 years of putting in the "bare minimum" I
quit only to find the same structure in my new job. I'm now planning my second
exit this time hoping to find a lower paying but cushier job were I can serve
my 8 hour daily sentence without having to talk to anyone and in a real office
probably browsing HN all day (I already have a couple of apps out there).

I've also been working on FIRE, entrepreneurship and hobbies that could
provide income. But the most important thing and what I wish I knew when I was
starting my adult life is that obtaining true happiness from a career is
bullshit. I now enjoy spending my time with family and on my own interests. I
just wish I had more of that time.

------
ehnto
I recently saw a position open that required 5 years Laravel experience.

It hasn't even been available for 5 years.

~~~
mooreds
Haha. Comical.

On the other hand, it's nice of them to provide evidence of their unrealistic
expectations right in the ad. Now you know not to waste any time with them!

------
mooreds
I am a big fan of finding work through referrals, though that obviously
doesn't work for the initial position.

An alternative I'd consider is the pain letter and addressing hiring managers
directly, as outlined here: [http://www.humanworkplace.com/whats-pain-
letter/](http://www.humanworkplace.com/whats-pain-letter/)

I know when I was hiring junior folks (for a small company), I would have been
blown away by the larger perspective a pain letter indicates.

~~~
lloyd-christmas
Referrals DO work for the initial position. I'm a developer and spend my
entire day staring at a screen. When I was on the job hunt, I barely sat in
front of my screen. Referrals come from meeting people, whether or not it's
from prior work or just a good random conversation.

------
gabesullice
I've always read requirements for tech jobs to be a laundry list of things
that are "nice to haves". Read "requirements" as "skills we're interested in,"
even if they have an explicit section for bonus talents.

This is especially true for junior and/or entry level roles. Every place I've
seen just has an eternally published "opening" on theirs careers section. They
keep it there so that when they finally decide that they're ready to hire,
they'll have a ready-made pool to of résumés from which to draw.

If you're not experienced enough, you'll be able to tell from a specific, well
written job description. If it's full of buzz words and meaningless fluff,
they're not looking for someone specific and you should apply.

------
brudgers
I think the commonality of "three years experience" is probably more a
function of the author searching for jobs in the design side of industry. The
fact that portfolio requirements come as a shock and are seen as a burden
suggests unfamiliarity with design culture. Filtering people based on their
commitment or non-commitment to aesthetics is legitimate here...and design
aesthetics aren't about resolution.

Anyway, the portfolio requirement is meant to balance the experience
requirement.

------
kazinator
Man, some of you kids should have been around in the late 1990's bubble.

"Wow, you can spell 'internet' without sticking an A in there? Here is a job!"

Didn't go so well for those people when it burst.

But that's nothing to say of the surrounding jobs. I was in this company that
blew up to something like a 3:1 ratio of sales/marketing to developers. Eek!

Company parties had live bands and free booze, with unlimited repeats (no two-
drink-vouchers bullshit).

~~~
pikzen
>"Wow, you can spell 'internet' without sticking an A in there? Here is a
job!"

We went on to "Wow, you can write javascript without having any formal CS
education or any regards concerning optimization? Here is a job!". Not sure
it's better.

~~~
hueving
I guess you've never built a product for a business then? Someone who can
write Javascript and deliver features that work (even if inefficient) is
actually providing significant value to the company. Customers pay for
features, not formal CS education.

~~~
pikzen
Apply analogy to any construction work. I can build a house with terrible
foundations. It may work right now, but sooner or later you're going to need
to change it before it collapses. And the price of doing so is much, much
greater than properly building it at first.

Same thing happens with software. Yeah, it works now, but the cost of the
10-dev team required to maintain it after is going to end up being a greater
cost than properly writing software (if there is such as thing.)

~~~
hueving
Except cs degrees don't teach you anything about properly writing software.
I've encountered plenty of graduates from top CS curriculums that couldn't
code their way out of a paper bag. Understanding finite automata and formal
methods does jack shit to help you write maintainable code. So your example of
a 10-dev team maintaining code would apply more to a fresh CS grad's work than
someone that has any experience writing software.

------
steven2012
Pure UX Designers are s dying breed. I know a bunch of designers and they
confirm this. You need to know how to code on top of UX design. Finding pure
UX design jobs are hard and in 5 years it might be extinct. It's just the
nature of the industry unfortunately n

~~~
ryanSrich
As a designer myself I can promise you that any UX designer employed at a
respectable company already knows how to code.

The change that I see coming soon is that designers will be required to
program. I don't think we'll see Front-end Developers and Designers (be it
visual, UX or Product) as separate job roles for much longer.

I certainly don't think this is a good thing. I'm constantly reminded of how
tedious and time consuming Front-end development. I'd much rather spend my
days designing experiences, but I don't see that as a possibility in the
future.

------
CryoLogic
Seattle seems to be one of the worst markets for this. We have a huge number
of job openings in tech, but very few entry level openings.

------
Etheryte
"Oh no, different companies have different requirements for a position that
has the same name!"

------
lloyd-christmas
"3+ years" is a filter for people who give up or have self-doubt. We put that
on our job postings because it filters out people who don't think they are
qualified. People with 1 year experience applying to a 3+ year position DO get
their resumes glanced at (the reason I say 1 is because we rarely hire a
straight up college grad, because we want someone who has a month of working
in an office that understands the difference between the college sensitivity
bubble and real life)

A tough realization for the entry-level people: You're not special and your
"skills" are meaningless. Entry-level hiring is a crapshoot. You just hope you
get someone that is capable of learning so you don't waste 3 months of
training and then have to go back to hiring the next useless entry-level
person.

My words of advice: If you're reading a job posting, you're not going to get
the job. People get jobs by meeting other human beings. If you want to deal
with jobs online, throw a bunch of random buzzwords on your linkedIn profile
and wait for the recruiter swarm to come vett your bullshit.

~~~
logicfiction
I'm sure this toxic hiring strategy serves your company's interests well, but
is terrible for the industry. Let's all adopt this approach and in a few years
there won't be anyone taking someone from 0 experience to 1-3 years.

~~~
lloyd-christmas
Training someone for a job is expensive. Training two people for one job is
even more expensive. Dragging me away from programming to review
resumes/interview people that don't even think themselves qualified is that
much more expensive. I'm happy to train someone. I've actually really enjoyed
it over the years. What I don't like is having to train two people for the
same position. THAT'S a toxic hiring strategy.

~~~
pekk
The first rule of getting hired is never to show any sign of humility or
weakness.

Pity that once you are actually in the job, it's not very helpful to have a
bunch of egomaniacal Dunning-Kruger cases running around.

~~~
eropple
_> The first rule of getting hired is never to show any sign of humility or
weakness._

I don't think this is true at all. I'm very comfortable saying "I have no
idea" in an interview setting (though I think it's generally understood that
I'll go find out), I'm generally up-front with weaknesses in that, hey, there
are things that I just don't work well with. There are a bajillion jobs out
there, and it doesn't make any sense to push a bad fit.

~~~
mikeash
It depends entirely on the company. The first rule of getting hired _at a
company run by sociopaths or brogrammers_ is never to show any sign of
humility or weakness. Some people seem to think that's the only kind of
company there is, so that bit is sometimes accidentally left out.

