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I’m an electrical engineer who does circuit design. I’ve interviewed many electrical engineers over the years and the situation of applicants having “years” of

I’m an electrical engineer who does circuit design. I’ve interviewed many electrical engineers over the years and the situation of applicants having “years” of experience while simultaneously not knowing how to design a single circuit is real. In our field it’s usually because although the person’s title is engineer, in practice, they don’t do any engineering. There’s just a ton of peripheral work (basically paperwork related to operations and compliance), which is very important, but is not design. My guess is computer science has a similar issue. Lots of people with programming in thier job title but they don’t actually program. And based on ltbarcly3’s empirical measurement, “lots” is above 10%. ;)

ltbarcly3 2y ago
10% of applicants that make it to a phone screen. I estimate that the number is much lower than 10% overall because incompetent people with good looking resumes tend to do a lot more interviews than good candidates.
- johnnyanmac 2y ago
  Sounds like the resume screening is either non-existent or insufficient then.
  - ltbarcly3 2y ago
    Nope, they have solid resumes. Top companies and relevant experience on paper. They claim skills with the right tools. They are just idiots.
    - johnnyanmac 2y ago
      "claim" kills? Isn't part of the HR screening about some litmus test to make sure they aren't very obviously lying? And yes, this is part of why the obsession with FAANG on resume is very overrated. Very few companies require the skillsete FAANG needs. Some of thst FAANG culture is orthogonal to what medium/small sized companies require.
      - ltbarcly3 2y ago
        I don't think you read the thread. They did have those jobs, and presumably they were on teams that did vaguely what is on their resume. No HR doesn't investigate candidates or do background checks before you interview them, that would be very expensive and silly. I feel like you kind of vaguely are aware of these topics but have never actually had a job or something because you seem completely unfamiliar with the basics of how hiring is done in the industry. Are you from Eastern Europe maybe?
        johnnyanmac 2y ago
        Quite the opposite (and sadly, still. American). I'm just so frustrated how I'm 10 years into this career and the interview process feels more random than ever. I can apply to 100 job and interview for 10 that all fall through. Then I can just go to a bar and trip into an opportunity I wasn't fully expecting. What does that say about the interview process? >No HR doesn't investigate candidates or do background checks before you interview An HR screen isn't a background check. It's "can you talk about your roles and provlems solved like you actually did it. A good HR screen should make sure they aren't blatantly lying >that would be very expensive and silly. Let's both not pretend the interview proces is in any way optimized for any metric. You have often non-tech roles create a description for a tech role (leading to famous blunders like "have and jave script is the same") . You have an increasing amount of rounds of interviews to go through for a job that may not exist or may already be reserved. And more and more of the parts are being outsourced, leading to power quality candidates. All that before throwing a reckless reliance of AI on everything. The most optimal hiring is to focus on high quality hires brought in as fast as possible. Or not to hire if you don't need to hire. But we're not really running on sensible business practices these days.
        jjav 2y ago
        > An HR screen isn't a background check. It's "can you talk about your roles and provlems solved like you actually did it. A good HR screen should make sure they aren't blatantly lying Correct. While not perfect, if you have good HR hiring team they will do a decent job at feeling out the people before they get to you. > I can apply to 100 job and interview for 10 that all fall through. Part of the difficulty is that (despite any myths around engineering shortage) there are so many qualified people for every role that it is overwhelming. I just opened a new job req last week, I have over 1100 resumes in the queue already. And this is a pretty specialized technical role in a specialized department, not a generic "javascript software engineer" role, either. Obviously I can't read all of them, which makes me sad because someone took the time to send their resume and I feel like I should give them the respect of reading it, but there are simply not enough hours in a week. While HR does the screening, I also go and do a random sampling of the resumes and everyone who has applied seems at least moderately qualified. But of course I can only talk to about 1% of them at best.
WalterBright 2y ago
If they carry a wallet card that has on it: V = I * R I = V / R R = V / I they are not real EEs. And yeah, I've been trashed multiple times for this opinion, but I'm not backing down!

ltbarcly3 2y ago

10% of applicants that make it to a phone screen. I estimate that the number is much lower than 10% overall because incompetent people with good looking resumes tend to do a lot more interviews than good candidates.

johnnyanmac 2y ago
Sounds like the resume screening is either non-existent or insufficient then.
- ltbarcly3 2y ago
  Nope, they have solid resumes. Top companies and relevant experience on paper. They claim skills with the right tools. They are just idiots.
  - johnnyanmac 2y ago
    "claim" kills? Isn't part of the HR screening about some litmus test to make sure they aren't very obviously lying? And yes, this is part of why the obsession with FAANG on resume is very overrated. Very few companies require the skillsete FAANG needs. Some of thst FAANG culture is orthogonal to what medium/small sized companies require.
    - ltbarcly3 2y ago
      I don't think you read the thread. They did have those jobs, and presumably they were on teams that did vaguely what is on their resume. No HR doesn't investigate candidates or do background checks before you interview them, that would be very expensive and silly. I feel like you kind of vaguely are aware of these topics but have never actually had a job or something because you seem completely unfamiliar with the basics of how hiring is done in the industry. Are you from Eastern Europe maybe?
      - johnnyanmac 2y ago
        Quite the opposite (and sadly, still. American). I'm just so frustrated how I'm 10 years into this career and the interview process feels more random than ever. I can apply to 100 job and interview for 10 that all fall through. Then I can just go to a bar and trip into an opportunity I wasn't fully expecting. What does that say about the interview process? >No HR doesn't investigate candidates or do background checks before you interview An HR screen isn't a background check. It's "can you talk about your roles and provlems solved like you actually did it. A good HR screen should make sure they aren't blatantly lying >that would be very expensive and silly. Let's both not pretend the interview proces is in any way optimized for any metric. You have often non-tech roles create a description for a tech role (leading to famous blunders like "have and jave script is the same") . You have an increasing amount of rounds of interviews to go through for a job that may not exist or may already be reserved. And more and more of the parts are being outsourced, leading to power quality candidates. All that before throwing a reckless reliance of AI on everything. The most optimal hiring is to focus on high quality hires brought in as fast as possible. Or not to hire if you don't need to hire. But we're not really running on sensible business practices these days.
        jjav 2y ago
        > An HR screen isn't a background check. It's "can you talk about your roles and provlems solved like you actually did it. A good HR screen should make sure they aren't blatantly lying Correct. While not perfect, if you have good HR hiring team they will do a decent job at feeling out the people before they get to you. > I can apply to 100 job and interview for 10 that all fall through. Part of the difficulty is that (despite any myths around engineering shortage) there are so many qualified people for every role that it is overwhelming. I just opened a new job req last week, I have over 1100 resumes in the queue already. And this is a pretty specialized technical role in a specialized department, not a generic "javascript software engineer" role, either. Obviously I can't read all of them, which makes me sad because someone took the time to send their resume and I feel like I should give them the respect of reading it, but there are simply not enough hours in a week. While HR does the screening, I also go and do a random sampling of the resumes and everyone who has applied seems at least moderately qualified. But of course I can only talk to about 1% of them at best.

WalterBright 2y ago

If they carry a wallet card that has on it: V = I * R I = V / R R = V / I they are not real EEs. And yeah, I've been trashed multiple times for this opinion, but I'm not backing down!