Why Companies Won't Hire Entry Level Software Engineers 

Yes, it is a great way to exclude all applicants. Might have been a fake Green Card job ad. Or, more likely, idiot manager or recruiter.

@@jakeleone8944 More likely an HR person with overblown expectations.

@@shijai Sometimes it's the boss telling an HR person what is desired in general, but not specifically and the HR person doesn't know jack, so some arbitrary numbers are chosen and nothing is proofread before being sent to the public.

😂

plot twist : they were looking for a time traveler

Bruh 😂

Didn't they ask you about the prior experience you added to your resume?

@@vl3244 If it really was an "absurd amount of experience" for an entry level job, I am very sure that the interviewers themselves don't know the technologies in the job posting, so they probably won't ask in detail. You can just lie. And if they really do want that amount of experience, the company is not worth working for, anyway.

Do they know that you are lying? Or they intentionally add so much requirements?

@@histoking6632 This is a good question. I tried for years and ended up working as a volunteer in side projects of my University to get some real experience. One of the guys I met got a job, and after I asked him how he managed to get it, He said something like "It's not exactly lying...". AFAIK They went as far as read the main page of a framework and go ahead to put in their CV. I was assigned as designer in the project we were working at and ended up doing literally >90% of the programming. Don't get me wrong, after all they were very likeable people. But if everyone is lying, how are the ones who telling the truth supposed to land any job? Of course I will always be underqualified. They can just put just anything there.

So true!

same for technicians. Nobody wants to train them but everybody wants to reap the benefits of those who have trained them.

​@@TheWanderingNekobecause companies know that entry level employees will start seeking employment somewhere else after 3-5 years, and no company wants to be the first stepping stone.

@@sepg5084 ...because companies will underpay them and jettison them the moment it's convenient. This is the consequence of their own managerial incompetence. You want people to stay? Incentivize good work and company loyalty with something besides a fucking Applebee's gift card. I can't stand how people think describing company thinking in technocratic or procedural language makes their governing philosophy any less stupid. Skilled professions didn't just come into existence; there has to be a way for people to enter the field and grow. Otherwise you get an industry that cannot adapt and collapses under its own weight.

That's why you need to use the strategy of becoming a fictional protagonist who briefly walks around wide-eyed and confused, until a wise & experienced character immediately takes you under their wing as a mentee

Ahah for real I’m gonna add this to my resume so I can get hired

Accounting is probably the most stable job and had a lot of openings.

You left out 1000 orbits around Earth on the ISS as an astronaut!

@@emilyau8023 Almost by the looks of it the most boring and mentally taxing

Your profile picture matches your comment perfectly lol. In all seriousness, though, that guy sounds like an absolute moron. I'm sorry you had to deal with that crap and I hope it worked out well for you afterward.

Your profile picture matches your comment perfectly lol. In all seriousness, though, that guy sounds like an absolute moron. I'm sorry you had to deal with that crap and I hope it worked out well for you afterward.

I was a junior and made redundant last month also lol

you've been a junior dev for 3 years?

This might be the worst part. They're not a majority but a damn lot of people in this field are condescending gatekeeping pricks, and they're vocal enough to be hard to compensate by the literal majority of engineers who are descent human beings.

The best way is through networking. If you had a friend already working as a programmer, you'd be surprised how easy it would be to get a foot in the door. Compared to going through the formal hiring process.

It took me 3 years from start to finish. I'm also self taught, the grind to find a job was INSANE. The best strategy I did was also to lie on my resume about my experience

Same here, my company went bankrupt and 6 months later it all feels like it was for nothing. I’m about to go live out of my car for a while to avoid going nuts. V soul crush

Yeah this is where I'm at. Eventually leaving the states permanently as my wife and the rest of my life are elsewhere, but it's HELLA annoying. I'm hoping to find work at a less known company that doesn't mind me needing to be quite asynchronous and 6000mi away. It's frankly just to pay for my degree. I'm pretty up front about that.

@@RojoGattoyou are so freaking lucky you didn't get caught. Don't do that shit.

I agree!

Corporations will not ever allow that law to pass.

You dont need any law. Firstly, people dont need to pay for programmers so much as 10 or 20 years ago. Simply because they invest money into different resources while having enough knowledge about computers and programming doing their stuff on their own, included programming and web-development. That what you say looks like a socialistic approach which is unapplicable to computer-science. Not rarely can 10 years old child beat many 40 years old senior developers when it comes to programming or computer-development. You just need to understand that there are also thousands of different jobs in our society and those people produce some value which can lately serve for investments into your sector. Computer and AI was supposed to help us not doing too much work by ourselves so that we can be more productive while doing other important jobs. My education system in my country taught me how to be flexible with computer jobs while manually working and unless you dont find me a helpful product making my manual job easier, I am not willing to pay you for anything. Why? Because I can do my own web-development and when it comes to design-logo or should I be a photographer or needed photoshop, everything is so easy that you simply do not need a paid position - "webdeveloper" or "designer-all" in your company, because AI programs do it for, for example, 20 EUR/Dollars for you (like AdobeAIillustrator, ChatGPT, etc...). You simply ask and with its help, you do it in a short period of the time without extra spending time of thinking like in 2000 or 2010. What took you 1 week in 2010, takes you 2 days on computer in 2023 and its mostly valid for finishing jobs. In 2010 you spend 80 % of the time just of writing a code. Nowadays, in 2023, writing a code takes you 20 % of your needed job while spending 80 % of time on finishing jobs. When it comes to time, then in 2010 you wrote a code in 5 days and spent 2 days on finishing the program. In 2023 you spend 1 day on writing a code and 2 days on corrections/finishing. Am I going to prefer hiring you for 1000 EUR/Dollars for 1 week or am I going to pay 20 EUR/month for AI programm spending my own 3 days with it? The same example happened to me also with accounting. Why should I pay to any accountant 500 EUR/Dollars/monthly, if all I need is an AI software filling my taxes within 5 minutes after filling it with my required database? Today I can do my own taxes in 1 day, compared to 10 years ago, I still had to use calculator and it took me 5 days and I lost my haircolor and nerves.

that is not my problem. I know how to combine coding and AI. So that you complain it does not fit you, does not mean, it doesnt fit me or other coders@@hamsandwich5200

sadly corporations will always find a way around these laws :(

yup, and if u can endure next year or two or until job market swings the other way, then u will be one of the few juniors who didnt quit with amazing projects and maybe experience here and there.

Not necesarly. If the increase in productivity given by AI rises high enough, the industry can grow with less and less programmers. Sad but a very real possiblity. Have a plan B guys, don't get tunnel vision!

Exactly

Me thinks that about when current senior developers retire, most junior-level programming jobs will be done by A.I. So, no need to hire juniors.

OR the companies will end their activities due to the high cost of labor in which case getting a job will get extra harder. A recession is coming after all.

Not just job search. Even more University programs look for an absurd resume of credentials on top of a 95+ average for acceptance. The new generations are ****ed! But on the flip side, the new generations have an unlimited pool of online resources to learn from that the older generations never had. The resources are there, you just have to work harder to make it now unfortunately.

@@invictuz4803 Oh, I've been there. So many required certifications that aren't even linked to the job itself.

It's everything. Everything these days for some reason is requiring "top level" talent. Classic supply and demand. But I don't think that's the entire story. I also think the internet and social media is to blame here for the ever-increasing escalation of requirements for a job that is literally filling out spreadsheets. Like what? I have no joke encountered more than a couple of those and was flabbergasted. Like they are looking for easily 6 figure data scientists from that job listing that ends up being a low level clerical office job in reality. The real pro tip is to do whatever the hell you need to get your foot in the door for an interview. It's mostly "luck". I've seen no rhyme or reason behind why I've ever gotten hired besides "they were desperate". Aka, luck. Pump those application numbers up and track them, look for patterns. Cater to said patterns. Rinse and repeat. There is a job out there for you. Just might not be one you want.

​@@invictuz4803, i'm in favor of removing resources off the internet if that's the good thing we have, it's great to have stuff to learn whenever you want, however who tf wants to learn everyday for decades even after leaving school, only to finally land yourself a job in your 40's after you finished 200 courses and learned who knows how many other stuff.... besides, with the amount of misinformation nowadays it's hardly a bonus to have such resources if you have to compare it to 50 other similar info to get a sure verdict that it's correct.

In a recession even experienced candidates have trouble getting any job. No one is hiring and everyone is looking to cut costs.

terminal? What do you mean? Are you talking about cmd? What will that do?

@@user-mj7kk8tu1e If you don't know what that is or would do you're definitely not ready for a software job. What he meant by terminal is essentially cmd, terminal is what the CLI is called on Linux. But of course on Windows you'd use cmd or powershell. You'd use the CLI to demonstrate your skills/knowledge to the interviewer. Of course if all you need for an entry level job are the basics like that (and it is) every job post is fake and college is a scam. I've gotten rejected for jobs that any average highschooler who knows a bit of python can do in their sleep and yet I have an associates in computer science working on a bachelors in computer engineering and have been studying embedded systems software on my own for 3 years before I started college. But none of that counts as "experience."

@@user-mj7kk8tu1e He means terminal in the sense of a terminal being connected to a mainframe. Which basically means getting on a computer (thats not a server) and doing a practical coding interview to show your experience.

​@@user-mj7kk8tu1eHe means a terminal in Fallout New Vegas

I'D rather just do them with paper and pen xD@@derichuynh9839

what did your software credentials look like? were they marketable and competitive?

@@techjourney2754 Maybe? It was 3 months building an Angular frontend for Spectrum. But I didn't look for another job. Actually I spent 2 years writing in JavaScript for 3 hours a day. I wanted to understand why I failed. Ultimately I didn't understand the DOM which is another story.

@@techjourney2754 oh I just realized what you meant. No, I didn't have much experience at all! Outside of writing functions in college. It was only after Spectrum and the 2 years of JavaScript and Android programming that I learned what it means to write a nontrivial application. Or why every application worth anything is probably fullstack. Or why the frontend/ backend division is meaningless. You need to know it all!

I have my Master's degree in Computer Science with a focus in Computer Network and System Administration. The only reason I decided to get the Master's degree is because I could not find any jobs with my Bachelor's degree and no experience. I am now working for my University as a network administration maintaining the entire campus's wireless network.

"no mentor" sounds about right. There is a huge lack of mentorship skill in the tech workforce in general. Workers don't have time, don't have patience, never practiced mentorship, and there really isn't a reward for doing it. This didn't click for me until I actually got my first mentor, at the 5 year mark! I hope if you reenter the field, you hold your head up high.

Fun fact, Google doesn't have "entry level" it starts as SDE2

Most companies can’t keep up with compensation packages from FAANG. You can’t expect a manufacturing company to increase their SWE comp by that much in a matter of 1-3 years. That’s why the best of them leave and join FAANG or FAANG-like companies, and That’s why only the FAANG companies can afford to train entry-level hires.

This dynamic is definitely because of this. If my employer pays well than one of the biggest reason why I would leave suddenly disappears. I think most people would stay at a company for quite a few years if their salary would keep up with the market. Switching jobs every year is not fun.

They're always whining about this but have no problem paying twice as much for the constant turnover and hiring management.

​@@Distress.Couldn't agree more. 😂

5:58 he said pretty much exactly that. I'm sure he mentioned it a couple of other times in the video but cba watching the whole thing again.

This is key. Keeping employees is as simple as paying the market rate for an employee at that level. If the employee is under performing, then offer less. if they leave, it's fine. they aren't worth keeping at their asking rate. but that one diamond you started polishing? Keep em by making them happy. They will just get more valuable as time goes on.

This indicates something in your resume/application is causing you to be rejected by the automated system before it reaches any real eyes.

@@KP-sg9fm I thought so too! But in the few job offers I've gotten throughout my life the recruiters have always told me I have such a "strong resume"

@@Brenda-ny1gw it's not uncommon for the automated checks to be written by an entirely different team (or even an entirely different company) so there's no guarantee that it's aligned to the same values as the actual recruiters. What's most likely happening is that there's a small 'derogatory' detail (or multiple) that's being picked up by the algorithms or AIs doing the pre-check, causing them to boot your application. It might be something inconsequential, which would explain why the human recruiters don't have any issues with your resume (when it's actually able to reach their eyes)

what college did you attend? this 100% matters

@@techjourney2754 a public college in Southern Florida 😭😭😭😭

This!!! Agree completely. Also many entry levels devs just don’t have the skill for the job at their current level. They need more practice and experience. Working in an internship or a group daily for a year or two would prep them for a real developer job more.

Then why don't you hire them for a year or two on a fixed-term contract before a permanent contract? @@_Mamimi

you summed it up perfectly

@@_Mamimiinternships are limited to only college students. If you’re not in college, good luck.

The barrier of entry for software engineering jobs is the reason why many gen Z people have to live with their parents. No one has the time to work full time in a supermarket and build one’s coding portfolio

We've needed a union for years. It's overdue.

​@@lowwastehighmelaninHow would it be different to a bootcamp?

@@keifer7813 The union would theoretically be interested in the well being of its member while a bootcamp is just a jobs training program.

@@Distress. Yeah but don't unions tatget those already in the industry and not those trying to break into it?

@@keifer7813 fair point.

Yep, biggest outsourcing is actually happening from USA to Mexico / Canada. Especially Canada.. same language and timezones, but half the cost.

I feel sorry for anyone who falls for those lies

Full-stack developer roles are trash.. You work two people jobs.. Why not learn one thing really good? I have been working more than 2 years as python backend developer. There is still so much to learn for me.

@@dasshrs Being able to work across both frontend and backend makes you more attractive to employers. Plus, if you only work on one side, then that limits the jobs that you can apply for. Cant apply for frontend jobs if I only know backend, and vice versa.

Bootcamps came up in the response to the need. And ageism is illegal.

​@@Threshkyeah being a slave does make you more attractive for sure

So why are senior engineer jobs much easier to get if they are also outsourced ?

@@keifer7813 Usual setup are companies will have some in-house engineers to work with the outsourced teams, in Japanese companies they call these Bridge Software Engineers, these are the ones who will act as managers and relay progress to clients or will serve as frontman for each or several outsourced teams. Some are part of the original team who designed, proposed, prototyped or created the base system or app. Guess what position they usually are? Senior engineers, technical leads and above, thus creating some demand for higher software engineer positions. Idea is to pass maintenance operations, enhancements, polishing, testing, majority of grunt work, and etc.. to outsourced teams which are typical assignnents of local junior engineers previously. While the impact of outsourcing engineers are not as noticeable in higher positions such as seniors and dev leads, it certainly still got hit just not as hard as juniors.

correct! in south america thats the cost too. For a junior you start with $700.

@@keifer7813because a senior dev needs to spend more time discussing requirements and business logic with stakeholders, and outsourcing hinders this due to language/culture/timezone barriers

One thing to keep in mind is that these salaries, while being cheap compared to US standards, are actually very lucrative for those working in these countries. I've got two years of employed experience in a eastern European country and I make about 4 times less than my US colleagues of the same calibre on average. However I also make about 3 times my country's average wage so I live fairly comfortably. That's the reality of a globalised economy, you start competing with the whole world, not just your compatriots.

They use this tactic to hire H1Bs visa workers to save money. Experienced workers from developing countries are willing to take a pay cut to get their foot in the door on a U.S. company. The American corporations love to exploit that.

Personally, I think HR shouldn't be the one listing the requirements when recruiting for technical roles of any kind. Someone who actually knows what they're talking about should either handle the recruitment personally or if they don't have time for that, they should, at least, be the one to greenlight the list of requirements for recruitment posts.

ABSOLUTELY. The difference when you get to a interview is absurd... Just straight up lie on your resume till you get to the interview and actually THEN have a productive discussion with the senior dev who's actually going to test you

To sponsor an H-1B visa, companies have to show they can't find anyone located here in the US that meets their needs and so have to sponsor an immigrant. Companies get around this by posting a job with ridiculous requirements, just so they can go to the government and say "we need an immigrant." So, a good first step would be for the US government to start doubling down on these schemes. They could make companies prove, for example, that they really do need someone who meets all the job requirements.

@@moonman239If you are talking about Green Card certification, yes (theoretically) they are required to prove there is no one locally, who applies, that is better (or equal) to the person seeking the Green Card. But that is just a theory. In reality, the regulations were written by immigration lawyers to create loopholes in that process that effectively make it a rubber stamp process. Elaine Chao (an immigration lawyer) authored these regulations in 2005. You have to advertise the job, but you can advertise in 2 Sunday print editions. You don't have to accept local resume by email, instead you can require that locals mail a stamped letter to a lawyer's office. Facebook, DOJ vs Facebook (2020), is indicted on 2600+ counts of discrimination against better qualified local engineers, for following exactly these tactics. Facebook refused the Free offer of the San Francisco Chronicle, to place the same print job ads on the Chronicle jobs website. Facebook admitted to Federal Investigators, that for every job they do place on an internet job's board (their own or the Chroncle's) they get hundreds of resumes. Facebook said, routinely, 30+ are highly qualified for the position. And are in fact better qualified than foreign workers at Facebook applying for Green Card certification in identical jobs. Facebook never forwards the resumes of the 30+ better qualified engineers to the hiring managers involved in the Green Card certification (because that would immediately invalidate the Green Card application). Apple was caught doing the same thing in 2023. But Apple knew this was wrong, they didn't stop just because Facebook go caught in 2020. This entire tactic is outlined, by a lawyer's group, which you can see on RU-vid, just search for "Fake Perm ads" on RU-vid. We can thank Elaine Chao for this whole rotten situation.

@@moonman239bingo

@@jakeleone8944 WHAT is is that makes all these immigrant STEM workers so attractive to companies despite them costing more (higher salaries), taking more time to hire (visa processing) and the gambling nature of it all (1/3 actually win the H1B lottery to hire a foreign worker)? I would have thought they were more qualified but as you attest, Facebook has routinely forgone better qualified local talent in favor of getting foreigners instead? Do they have better work ethic? Are they less likely to complain about abuse? Why?

yeah but that senior job is getting paid what juniors get. Europe is a joke been here 4 years.

a colleague of mine left for a US company, working from the EU of course. 100% jump in salary. @@anonanon6947

​@@anonanon6947You get less money in total sum, but when it comes to living standards you get a failry great deal as a software dev, especially a senior one in Europe.

@@anonanon6947 Comparing salaries from Europe with the States makes no sense considering the economies being different as well. 100k in the US might be enough or not depending in which state you are but 100k in Europe means you're very comfortable financially.

I'm in healthcare analytics. I'm in the bay area so that though always looms in my head. I think I'll be ready to interview by the time the next IT job boom happens. Although I'm scared that if I get the job it won't be as great as I hoped. The grass is always greener on the other side of the fence...

@@bradleyfrueh2761the next “it boom” might never happen, at least not in this capacity as it was in 2020/2021

@@bradleyfrueh2761 No boom will ever happen. And if it does, it'll be in India or some other cheap country and will make them work remotely :)

the moment the company ignore the role of project managers and sales people and want the seniors to the all, its over.... Like 100% everyone will burn out and the juniors can never deliver in the quality the senior wants

Well why would they hire a quitter when there are tons of people that graduated university applying for the same job?

@@M1ch43l33 Not a valid argument when people who have finished their degrees are struggling just the same. I wish I was a "quitter" because then I could at least blame myself, but I didn't finish my degree due to factors completely outside of my control.

@@chadyways8750He has a point, companies already aren't hiring university graduates, so why would they hire you over them? Not saying you're any worse than they are, but they're already not looking at people who completed their education so they're much less likely to look at you.

@@user-jz9dd5sj1w the irony here is that I got hired two months after this comment and moreover, two months of working there, they are already telling me that I'm being considered for a "project architect" position. I am not trying to ego here whatsoever, I know I got extremely lucky with even landing this job in the first place, this more shows how fucked the industry has become over the last few years than anything else :(

There are ways. You create personal hobby projects (from which you don't earn any money), then with those as your portfolio, you get a low-paying crappy programming job, and using that "experience", move to a better company in a year or two.

Don't worry, help desk or tech support is not as tough to get into than software

Do as much intership as you can, it will help a lot in getting your first job

too many underqualified people is the problem, including you & I

Yeah, a lot of our miseries, like high housing cost, stem from the fact that there are too many people. Governments and conservatives keep talking about low birthrates, but the world's population has already passed 8 billions. It was 6 billion or something when I was a kid. I am not saying that we have to kill existing people, but we don't have to try to artificially increase birthrates.

​@stanleychukwu no, that is wrong in some many levels, I would have to write several paragraphs to counter your statement. The original post is correct in his/her assessment, there is an oversupply of bachelor degree level STEM majors, and not enough jobs to absorb these newly minted graduates into the economy. Why? Company have short-term view on everything, in essence short-gains for long-term losses; in example, a company can gain additional 100 million dollars in profit the present year, at the risk of losing some amount of revenue in the future. Why? Fot a company to be efficient and productive it requires a certain amount of workers, let call this a optimal value, if we shift rightwards marginal return is still positive but is shrinking to zero. The point where marginal return equal zero is the critical value, in this case the maximum number of worker a company can hire without attaining negative marginal return. Now to the point, short-terms don't like the critical value, it is too expensive, so they focus upon the optimal value, which is cheaper. They hire around the ideal of pursing said optimal level of productivity, which is just enough productivity to create a finished good and service. The issue arise when they fall below thus optimal level of workers, when their good and services suffers and consumer become dissatisfied with the good and service. Worker become over worked, and responsibilities falls through as no one can create the labor to complete said task. And now the point, this is where we are. as their program degenerates

Boomer politicians still believe there is a shortage of stem workers and continue to push for more H1B type visas.

The real problem is that there aren't enough decent jobs in other industries.

Which country?

@@typingcatUSA, probably

No it hasn't. The US's immigration system is beyond broken and nearly all high education jobs are in insanely high demand: tech and medical to name a few. A lot of people I work with end up needing to go back to their country since they are stuck waiting years and years for their H1B renewal or Green Card. So, if we can't import the talent then we must go where they are. The US is very dumb and we should be allowing people with MDs and engineering degrees and no criminal backgrounds in easily so they come and make our country better and spend their money to boost the economy. Instead, companies are forced to outsource to fill the positions and the economy as a whole suffers. Fact is there aren't enough "home grown" engineers or doctors in the US and we have massive shortages. What gutted this country isn't outsourcing, it's a broken immigration system that should allow high educated people in desired fields to be admitted easily instead of kicked out

This does seem like the knock-on effects of all the money printing in 2020...

Yeah but what the hell are they supposed to do when its not summer

Same

Its been a month any updates, advice ?

Insane...

I'd like to add for anyone who does see this that identifying a real problem in the company is step 1.. how you solve it is up to you really. You never know what or how they will respond but the initiative alone really paints you in a great light.. js