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Comment by koonsolo | Hacker News Reader

I'm doing technical interviews.

There is such a shortage of people that know the basics of programming, that selecting for such l33t skills is out of the question.

The hiring process right now is not about selecting the best, it's about selecting those that pass some low bar.

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I don't know what your company is, but it may not have a reputation for paying well. I've worked both at well-paying FAANG companies and lots of BasicAverageTech companies, and the candidate flow is night and day different. There is no shortage of people that "know the basics." In fact, there is no shortage of really strong candidates. They are out there, looking around to job hop like everyone else. It's just that they are probably just not applying at your company. Not that you can personally do anything about your company's compensation, but that might explain it.

This is europe, and as far as I can tell all companies here have that problem.

On the other hand, great for us who can code :D.

Since 2014 I only apply for jobs where at least 80% remote is part of the deal, I don't care about the money that much.

So if that isn't part of the deal, I don't even bother.

What do you classify as the basics of programming. for loops and if statements?

Maybe I exagerated, but you can't believe that 50% of candidates have such a low capability.

"How high do you score your C++ skills out of 10?" "9/10" "OK, can you explain what a pointer is?" blank stare... "no idea"

I was genuinely curious what you classed as basic programming.

I would definitely consider pointers pretty fundamental if you're a C++ dev.

It is pretty hard to believe that 50% of candidates don't know what a pointer is. I've barely touched C/C++ and still know what pointers are and how they work.

> I've barely touched C/C++ and still know what pointers are and how they work.

Congratulations you’ve successfully triggered the pedantic interviewer. You will now face six questions on pointers in C++ they just looked up each more trivia based than the last.

Who would pass the technical screen must answer me these questions three, ere the onsite he see.

My current employers hire +- 1/100 applicants. The vast majority fall off before even getting to a coding test. Of the last 20, most are not fluent with conditional logic and iteration, or cannot use a dictionary in an algorithm. In the most recent interview, an "experienced" React developer could not set properties on a JS object.

When an interview process produces the output 'doesn't know how to do basic things' on a "vast majority" of experienced people who've been doing said things daily for years, the most obvious conclusion is that the interview process is flawed.

Why do you think this occurs? It doesn't make sense that people apply for a programming job without being able to do any programming...

I think it's because they have some success with making wordpress do what they want (after a fashion), or copy and paste some Javscript. That makes them a programmer, without knowing what they don't know, even 10 years later.

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