Job posting: "we require 1.5 years of experience in iOS development"

Also job posting: *doesn't mention a requirement for a degree*

Me: "Cool, this looks exactly like a job for me, I'll send them my résumé!

Recruiter returns to me a day after with this:

"You said you have no work experience, we said in the posting that you need to have 1.5 years of work experience"

THE JOB POSTING DOES NOT MENTION THIS ANYWHERE, THEY ONLY MENTION EXPERIENCE IN IOS DEVELOPMENT

WHY MAKE IT SO AMBIGUOUS AND THEN CHANGE YOUR STANCE

When I finally get a fucking response from a recruiter after sending my résumé to dozens upon dozens of companies, it's a bullshit response.

FUCK YOU.

Note: I am aware of the massive amount of AltRant crashes, I am sorry for making it worse. I need to work on 2 more major final tests that I must pass, but I think I will start fixing some of the crashes today.

It meant "years of professional experience", not claimed experience in someone's own bedroom

@iiii not clear enough, and practically doesn't mean much. An independent dev with a personal project does more than a developer in a dedicated development group, from the way I look at it.

@OmerFlame it's unverifiable. With working for someone they can contact the firm and verify you were working there. It all boils down to having a verifiable proof of your experience.

@iiii they can just as well see my commit history in an example project I can give them, and they are going to test my knowledge in the interview anyway. I think that this requirement is absolutely meritless.

@iiii the age old question. How is one to gain experience if one is not given the opportunity to do so?

@black-kite not talking about that at all 🤷‍♂️

@iiii you’re not talking about work experience? Weird. What are you talking about then?

@NickyBones The fact that Omerflame applied to this position doesn’t shock me. Entry level positions are hard to find so you better be bold enough to apply to jobs where some experience is required even if you don’t have it. As OP said, they can always gauge his skills during the interview process

@NickyBones I have one issue with applying to student-level jobs or internships: I can't find any!

@black-kite I'm talking about what was asked in the job posting. I'm not talking about "entry level jobs require years of prof experience". This was not the topic.

@OmerFlame what about junior level ones?

Of course they mean professional experience! Regardless of what a Git repo might show there's more to picking a candidate than written code. Which most of these people can't read and understand anyway.

They need to be able to call a previous employer and ask "Did this character act like a human being around others, solve challenges regardless of how stupid they might seem and participate in a functioning team?"

Every single developer once has/had to get their first job. Finish your degree and apply for junior positions - that's the way it works. Heaps of employers will be interested in someone they can train.

I think you are overreacting a bit here. If they DIDN'T mean professional experience they would have definitely explicitly said that. Not the other way around.

If the purpose of professional experience is to verify all aspects of software development _excluding_ the actual programming, then the only thing that means professional experience is professional experience and iOS experience means something else, because what tech you used during your employment makes no difference.

If the purpose of professional experience is to have proof of your technical abilities, a functioning app is far more valuable than the fact that you could trick some idiot into paying for your food.

@lbfalvy No, I meant that the actual code is only one part of many.

Either way, I can't understand why it is so hard to see this from an employers point of view..? If I was hiring someone where I needed verifiable experience (-> professional experience) I wouldn't trust just a git repo even though I can read the code.

Doesn't guarantee a good candidate, but it just tickes a few boxes that are important.

If you are looking for a fresh junior then a repo would be a good indication, but not if you are looking for someone where experience is important.

@devdiddydog Because requiring professional iOS experience means that the candidate has to tick all those boxes together, whereas they could be ticked separately just as well. A repo is good indication of technical knowledge and years of professional experience in any software development role are a verifiable evidence of work ethic and teamwork. Not that it would help @OmerFlame but it does make a difference for a lot of people.

@lbfalvy Well, the interesting part for a potential employer is the sum of all. If you have worked professionally as an iOS developer you will automatically tick all the boxes.

@devdiddydog This kind of thinking is one of the reasons why employers think there's a worker shortage; they filter for people who definitely fit their needs without regard for the ratio of people who fit their needs but not the filter.

Even if we disagree with it, surely you must be able to see this from the employers point of view? Because that's what this is about. Not the OP's ability to fill the position and do a great job - it's whether it was wrong or right to expect "experience" to be from previous employment without explicitly saying so.

You can still respond with links to projects that prove your work experience

@devdiddydog I say that professional experience and knowledge of the iOS development process and tools are two disjoint capabilities. Any job posting that conflates them explicitly is making a mistake and any reading that implies such is in bad faith. Language is a living standard, we read things the way they make sense and mixing these two doesn't make sense.

@devdiddydog In practice, experience can mean a lot of things. Some employers think the way I do, some count any time when your work involved the tool mentioned, some count a single tool during any given time such that the sum of your years of experience with various tools is your total number of working years, and some count years of Javascript experience to Java knowledge because the one overarching theme is that the author of the posting doesn't know what they're talking about in the majority of cases.

@lbfalvy Yes, but in this context.. in this context it is implied that an employer is asking for professional experience. Why? Because that is what they pretty much always do.

Have you heard that joke about how a programmers wife sent him off to the shop and said "Buy a bread and if they have milk, get three". He came home with three breads.

Our industry is notorious for our way of "logical" thinking. If you have had any experience with talking to clients about requirements you should know this. This is an important part of DDD for example, and it's not without reason...

I'm just saying there is no reason to get agitated over a job ad not explicitly stating "professional experience". Most of us would have simply understood that from the context.

I have you done opensource work or committed your code to other repos?

If do, that may count as work that could potentially be salary worthy. Since it shows you have experience working with a team.

But your best bet it to network with other devs in events, so they can see your work. Recruiter won't take the time to check your repo and nobody will test your work.

@OmerFlame bullshit not clear enough. everyone and their usb drive knows that when a job posting mentions experience with something, it means official work experience with that something.

if anyone i was interviewing for hire started complaining that it's not clear enough, i would write them off on the spot as too dumb to be hired.

Oh this years of using X stuff, bs.

@devdiddydog @OmerFlame didn’t say the employer didn’t have the discretion to require professional experience, just bemoaning that the job ad was unclear.

@devdiddydog I’m glad to hear you were appointed as arbiter or what all job ads mean for all companies across the world in all contexts. Congratulations on earning that position 😂

@NickyBones I gotta agree it’s completely unreasonable for companies to treat candidates like human beings. They are simply a resource to be exploited and they should accept that and act accordingly.

@NickyBones This is the same survivorship bias mentality as “I was spanked / abused and I turned out ok! Kids these days are weak” you in fact did not turn out ok and there’s no reason more people have to suffer like you did.

@NickyBones it’s not victim mentality it’s a recognition that the system is broken to and maybe we don’t have to accept that it will always be. Yes there will always be a power dynamic between companies that have money and workers who want to give money, but companies don’t get any profit without the workers doing work. Maybe if companies want workers that are respectful, prompt, dutiful, and mindful they could lead by example and act in those ways during the hiring process.

Employment is a relationship where you agree to be exploited a set amount by a company. And that is ok, the company does have something you want in the form of pay and benefits and if you’re lucky somewhat interesting work to do. You are willing to give that effort. You have something the company can use to make money. However there’s no reason to treat people like shit when they are already agreeing to a set level of exploitation. No where in any of the process does treating people badly benefit either side. If people didn’t go to work for companies that treat people badly, those companies would go out of business. Now, that is an idealized oversimplification, but if there’s a carrot or a stick driving companies to act a certain way, they will be motivated to act that way. I don’t encourage people to take company bullshit if they can at all avoid it. Sometimes you can’t avoid it, and it’s not wrong to take a job from an unethical company if it makes ends meet. But as soon as you can push back on that mistreatment, you should.

Companies don’t owe you shit and you don’t owe them shit either.

All that is just covered is different from having grit and getting hard work done. Everything in this post is just the macroeconomic reality of working for a company. How you work how hard you work when at work are driven by totally different factors.

@jeeper according to capitalism, they indeed are a resource.

@NickyBones actually there is at least one company that does automated tests before any in person interview.

@jeeper Just.. wow! If I had either you or anyone else come in for an interview with an attitude like that I'd worry about your ability to work alongside other people. I'd probably not given you even a chance to show what you can do with code, because there's a lack of interpersonal skills here that are crucial to a well functioning team.

Is it honestly this hard for some of you to understand this?

@iiii I actually had first automated round of interview just recently.

It had 2 hours to solve task on Graphs.
There were pairs of synonyms
And I needed to find if two words are synonyms based on available known pairs of synonyms and transitioning rule
Plus few other less important conditions.

I just had two sets of data
Inputs and outputs
Micro
And medium sized
For my calibrating/testing purposes
I needed to submit output for big input set of data

@devdiddydog are you aware of the platform we are talking on? Are you a robot who acts the same in all contexts? 🙃 the point here is to drop the corporate speak for once and talk like real people not saying just what they want us to say. But regardless there are tons of potential opportunities out there, you are acting pretentious and making a post hoc assumption about what their ambiguous language meant. Plenty of start ups and non-profits might not be able to afford the best talent and would care a lot more about a practical pet project that touched all aspects of the SDLC rather than can you maintain a slice of a corporate SASS product.

@NickyBones I get what you’re saying. But I doubt there were hundreds of applications for this if they had the time to respond.

Beware I’m gonna start thinking you work in HR 😉

@iiii capitalism without ethics devolves into feudalism. Ethics in this case means that the recruiting and interview process should be looked at as a human experience where both sides have something to gain. Again, acting badly or advertising ambiguous positions is just setting both sides up to be upset. It’s a no win scenario. So while human capital is a resource on the macro level, the humans themselves have equal rights under the capitalist system (or else it’s not a true capitalist system).

Ethics, respect, and government regulation are what hold the system together and keep it from falling into feudalism or some other mess. (Sorry ancaps, you are all feudalism advocates)

@jeeper It.was.not.ambiguous.

So because this is a platform for ranting we should leave common sense behind, for the sake of having something to complain about? There are plenty of other platforms for that. I wish this one was for justified rants.

@jeeper capitalism rots because of aggressive and dishonest advertising.

Gotta stand by @jeeper on this one. This is a ranting platform. @devdiddydog who’s to say what is a justified rant and what isn’t? A lot of rants here are out of pure frustration and aren’t necessarily justified. The venting helps to get the frustration off our chest, but it’s sort of a shame if you’re being scrutinized because you’re not in line with whatever other users point of view.

@black-kite Are you saying there can't be any comeback to a loudly proclaimed strong opinion? There is no room for anyone to argue the other side, as long as it is done in a rational and non-offensive way?

Should devRant be renamed communalBitching maybe, and we all just join in on whatever someone complains about and not ever question or critizise? Every big or small whine should be met only with cheering and egging on, and those who dare to say "hey, maybe you're overreacting a bit there" or "have you thought about looking at it from another angle" should be filtered out?

Come on..

@devdiddydog no that’s not what I’m saying. I’m talking about people getting patronized for blowing off some steam

@black-kite usual thing. People bitching about people bitching wrong.

That's what this place is about: ranting about everything.

@iiii very true

@devdiddydog holy shit yes it was ambiguous grand arbiter of job postings everywhere

By definition being not ambiguous means clear to everyone. It clearly wasn’t, or we wouldn’t be here. You’ll just never admit to being wrong and the post could have been worded more clearly.

@black-kite Did I patronize the OP?

@jeeper No, it was not ambiguous to most of us. You are a minority. A nitpicker. Someone that argues for the sake of arguing. Let it go.

@devdiddydog I’m sure glad there’s a psychic grand arbiter who knew the exact needs of the company from one ambiguous line of a job post.

The wording is unclear on it’s own and we have no idea what the rest of the job post looks like. You are taking the truth that *most* companies are hard asses and stretching it to mean every company is a hard ass.

There are non hard ass companies and organizations out there that will work with people with provable, non professional experience. We don’t know anything about what type of company or organization posted this link, except that we know after the fact the recruiter messaged OP confirming it was a hard ass company.

It’s like if you saw the score of a game where one team was heavily favored, and the favored team won, and then you said “ha called it” and now you are saying the favored team will always win and I’m saying upsets do happen from time to time.

@jeeper You're making less and less sense now.. Listen to Elsa - let it go.