
Ask HN: Are companies ever willing to hire non-“top-talent”? - gravy
Maybe it&#x27;s impostor syndrome or something but I&#x27;m just curious: do companies ever look at &quot;promise&quot; or &quot;loyalty&quot; when considering a candidate for a job? I wouldn&#x27;t consider myself top-tier, but I&#x27;m definitely more productive and a much better programmer with busy work and clear tasking...but that comes after the interview. How do I market my &quot;willingness to learn&quot; more to companies who apparently love that in their candidates?
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troydavis
Almost all companies hire “non-top talent” now, but usually without admitting
it to themselves. Any company with geographic limitations, and any company not
willing to pay absolutely top dollar plus equity, is probably not hiring the
absolute best. Probably rightly, they’re seeking the best value - that is,
maximal results for the work environment and compensation they can offer.

So:

1\. Don’t stress over not being the best.

2\. Focus on demonstrating (through actions much more than words) the things
that you’d like a prospective employer to realize. If that’s a willingness to
learn, spend a month or two of weekends learning 3 or 4 new technologies and
demonstrating that knowledge with a blog post or small app that solves a
problem you found.

At that point, your explanation to prospective employers is (a) you were
interested in things so you learned the basics about them, and (b) some
examples of you synthesizing that knowledge (maybe even attached to your
resume).

Best case, following your interests means that you’re applying to companies
using the technologies/concepts/libraries you tinkered with.

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greenyoda
Most jobs in our industry (or any other) do not require "top talent". If a
company needs to implement a CRUD app, they're not going to be able to attract
(or afford) someone who is capable of designing the next-generation web
browser or inventing new AI algorithms. So there's lots of room for people
with average skills who can cooperate with their co-workers to get the day-to-
day work done.

Even in legendary companies like Google, most of the software development work
that goes on is pretty mundane, e.g., writing some tiny piece of a huge system
that's being worked on by dozens of other developers.

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gregjor
It should be obvious that it's not possible for every programmer to be in the
5% or 10%. And it's not possible that every company boasting they hire only
the top can actually do that. It's just simple math. And there are no
objective measures or tests for "top" or "best." Productivity is highly
situational.

