I have been working in tech since ~1995. I also have been in a hiring position since 2002 and own the top firm in our field. Here is my advice; lie.

Let me clarify. A lie is only problematic if by the time you start in that new position, you do not have the skills to back it up. If you can do the job and do it well, no manager will ever give a fuck about what you put in your resume.

PS: In most cases, the school you graduated from will only matter for your first job. In most cases, your GPA will never matter.

I’m in HR and think about this a lot; it’s (mostly) a marker of poorly run companies when they say experience in software X is required. Mostly these orgs are using one of several software solutions and by saying a candidate must have experience in a specific software means the company is brittle; can’t train, wants to hire non-thinkers and learners, and also likely isn’t looking ahead at what will change in the future.

Software change will only accelerate likely, so hire learners.

Not really related to the post, but I feel like sharing.

Big boss where I work wanted all managers to read a book. He had staff scour the Internet looking for copies of this book so that they could give every manager their own copy.

He said we were going to have meetings with the entire management team to review chapters of the book one at a time.

The gist of the book was: take the time to make sure you hire the right people for the job, retain the good ones, and get rid of the people who don’t work out.

I think we covered two chapters in meetings.

After that, an upcoming hiring freeze was announced, and everyone was told to fill all their open positions within two weeks or the position would be cancelled.

The first job I had was for a dinky little 15 person company. Obviously they didn’t have loads of money and the way most corporate software contracts work is it’s a lot cheaper for a period, like 1-2 years, and then the price increases. So they would jump ship before the price increase and use another product after that. So I ended up learning loads of different digital marketing platforms. I list them on my resume when I can, otherwise I just list the big ones and put something like “various digital marketing platforms”. But thanks to all the magical algorithms that pick out what they need from all the entries, you pretty much have to have the exact platform they want on your resume in order for the bot to be satisfied. Some things I would understand, like if someone didn’t know how to use key software for their field. But all the other stuff that gets tossed around should be considered “trainable” and not part of application requirements. Yet here we are…

You’ll get a lot further when you realize hiring managers also are lost and most listings are bullshit. And I mean they probably don’t even intend for it to be bullshit but that’s what corporatizing everything results in. Apply to stuff you only mostly fit. Don’t look for complete fit or ability to check every box. So many interviews and jobs wind up not being exactly as advertised. If you read it as literal, you’ll ace out tons of potential jobs that might have been just fine for you.

I have also had some success through my career emphasizing (with actual stories) how I know how to learn from others and on my own. So it’s okay that I don’t know every little thing, and then point to my past examples of adapting to unknown or unclear situations where I had to learn on the job.

Also people are very impressed by factual stories. Numbers, or specific details, etc. that give them the impression you aren’t lying. Tell about times when you actually did a thing. Not how you are able to, but give an example of a problem and how you overcame. Even from school projects, team projects, thesis work. Anything.

I bring new software into my organization through two methods:

1. Someone has used it before
2. We are reasonably confident in our ability to use existing staff, possibly with a new expert hire or consultation

It’s pretty rare for a large org to do completely net new software. Training is usually a big deal if that happens. Massive layoffs are also a possibility (see enterprises being dumb about containers). Smaller orgs tend not to have this problem. If they do you can usually tell in an interview and just not go there. Devs are constantly experimenting with net new shit (current libs don’t do the thing; gotta find new libs). Again, smart leaders are open to this.

In general, staffing is a huge part of any of these decisions. You might not see the convo but it is most likely happening.

It happens pretty frequently in tech job listings, to have a requirement listed for more years experience in some technology than that technology has existed

In many industries hiring for attitude over aptitude is the key to true success. Just wished that was what most did.

Anecdotal share here. I know very few hiring managers that expect candidates to fit 100%, heck 80% even, of a posting. Those that do aren’t ones I would ever want to work for.

I look for 3 things. And that’s not a hard and fast rule or anything. Aptitude, motivation and culture fit. I also look to my peers and larger team for their thoughts along these points.

People (pleasantly) surprise you. My last best hire (I moved to away from direct line management in my new gig) was working at their local Walmart for a year after a tough layoff from a pre sales role. I thought I would get more push back but everyone including my then boss, were like yeah! They just needs another opportunity.

And for what it’s worth, they were a great culture fit and figured the rest out along the way.

I think most of Lemmy are introverts. I think they are missing contextual clues in interviews and taking bullet points too literally.

I find job postings in tech to be fairly decent in many cases and I’ve never had issues as a hiring manager filing roles with competent talent 🤷‍♂️

I have no intention of applying for a job ever again. I’ll run my own business or I’ll eat my shotgun a little earlier than planned. There aren’t enough goods, services, intellectual properties and sex acts in the worldwide economy to pay me for the nine seconds it will take you to ask me “so what would you say is your greatest weakness?”

Yeah, that’s right flop sweat. I would much rather sell hand crafted furniture on Etsy or give flying lessons out of a T-hangar at my county airport than listen to you say nine words in exchange for $The Biosphere.

Counterpoint: They already know you can’t “do” the job-specific tasks because you don’t work there yet. If you know the tools, that’s extremely helpful as they teach you what to do with them. If there’s pile A and pile B and they’re mostly the same except B already knows JIRA or Visual Studio or whatever, then that’s a legitimate differentiator.

When the existing team is forced to get new software, there’s a presumption that they already know what tasks the tools are supposed to help them do. There’s no “other pile,” so might as well suck it up and kill your productivity by ten percent for a year. It’s okay though; you can improve it by 1% from the original baseline for nine years after, because the McKinsey and Accenture people totally promised us that makes sense. Rinse and repeat.

Apparently privileged (cis, white, educated middle class or equivalent) men apply when fulfilling 60% of the requirements. Women and minorities 100%.

Maybe that’s why they have the ridiculous reqs?