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Comment by ravenstine | Hacker News Reader

Supposedly, more companies used to hire people on a trial basis. That probably went away because today's employees require a lot of HR overhead, and businesses can get in trouble for alternatively hiring people as contractors(if it appears they are treating the contractor like an employee).

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The single most reliable source of good tech hires in my experience is undergrad internships. It's a 3 month interview both ways with full pay and benefits. If we could make that more commonplace for folks in mid career it would likely increase diversity as well as reduce hiring misfires.

It does appear that a lot of employers are dependent on younger employees interning before hiring them.

A few of my peers are working for the same company; the ones that interned have quickly advanced in pay and position, and the ones that did not have felt stifled and have not had a position change. The only difference between them is a few years of age.

As someone who is looking around at the same companies, I can say it's affected my decision to apply and accept offers.

I was hired in a sort of similar way.

Granted I was paid and there wasn't an official probationary period... but i just understood it to be that way.

After 3 months the company was satisfied, I got a raise(s) and it was all good.

I was so much happier doing actual work rather than just trivia and whiteboard type discussions in order to prove myself.

We're too small to have a full fledged internship program, so we created the prove it contract:

https://www.culturefoundry.com/cultivate/digital-agency-life...

Take a look at https://www.pathforward.org/

I just started with a company after a 3 month contract-to-hire position. Even though the cost to them was double what I was paid (plus a 10%+ placement fee), they saw the long term savings of finding a good fit (and hopefully I continue to be).

It make sense and I think for the company it might be faster if even they roll through a few people rather than 6 months of straight up nobody...

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