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Silicon Valley is starting to realize that the huge talent pool of nontraditional candidates may be the answer to its pipeline problem.
The technology industry is now trying to figure out a way to attack its cultural and demographic homogeneity issues. One simple initiative is to begin to recruit talent from people outside of its preferred networks. One way is to extend their recruiting efforts to people who don't have four-year degrees.
IBM's head of talent organization, Sam Ladah, calls this sort of initiative a focus on "new-collar jobs." The idea, he says, is to look toward different applicant pools to find new talent. "We consider them based on their skills," he says, and don't take into account their educational background. This includes applicants who didn't get a four-year degree but have proven their technical knowledge in other ways. Some have technical certifications, and others have enrolled in other skills programs. "We've been very successful in hiring from [coding] bootcamps," says Ladah.
For IT roles, educational pedigree often doesn't make a huge difference. For instance, many gaming aficionados have built their own systems. With this technical grounding, they would likely have the aptitude to be a server technician or a network technician. These roles require specific technical knowledge, not necessarily an academic curriculum vitae. "We're looking for people who have a real passion for technology," says Ladah. He goes on to say that currently about 10% to 15% of IBM's new hires don't have traditional four-year degrees.
https://www.fastcompany.com/3069259/why-more-tech-companies-are-hiring-people-without-degrees
-- submitted from IRC
(Score: 2) by ikanreed on Monday April 10 2017, @05:06PM (7 children)
I can't wait to fix my next application filled with arbitrary global variables, casually ignored fencepost errors, and zero behavior inheritance.
Like, I'm all for people, in general, waking up and realizing that what I do isn't magic and doesn't require any fancy mathematics or super-human logic, but there is such a thing as bad code, and people without any theoretical backing are going to write a ton of it.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by meustrus on Monday April 10 2017, @05:10PM (1 child)
Actually, those are exactly the sort of issues you find in academic code all the time. It turns out that Computer Science programs do not value clean code nearly as much as low computational complexity and abstract math.
If there isn't at least one reference or primary source, it's not +1 Informative. Maybe the underused +1 Interesting?
(Score: 2) by mechanicjay on Monday April 10 2017, @10:50PM
Yes yes yes, a thousand times this. As someone who inherits software from researchers to "keep running in case someone wants to refer to it someday", OMG, you really can't imagine how bad some of this stuff is. Usually the genius of the software is the algorithm at the core of it -- but to get the data to that algorithm? Anything goes -- literally.
Docker has been a god-send to me, as they can all have their own sandbox to screw around it and I can say, ship me a container and I'll run it, but don't come crying to me when your un-sanitized form gets a visit from Little Bobby Tables.
My VMS box beat up your Windows box.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 10 2017, @05:12PM
^ I am a web developer and can attest. There are a lot of details I'm still learning, and I don't consider myself an actual software developer. This concept however transcends just programming and I think it has merit. For coding, the only way to really tell if you have a good applicant is code review by a knowledgeable employee, but no organization wants to plan for such things!
(Score: 5, Funny) by DannyB on Monday April 10 2017, @05:31PM (1 child)
To keep things interesting, sprinkle in a few global variables not used anywhere in the code. Liberally add improper type casts. 1/2 cup of double freed pointers. Simmer 14 min. Commit. Push to production.
#define while if // make code faster
#define struct union // use less memory
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.
(Score: 4, Funny) by Azuma Hazuki on Monday April 10 2017, @07:28PM
Just about went cat tea.cup | /dev/hazuki/nose > /mnt/desktop at that one. That is some really dark humor; you made me laugh and sort of groan in horror all at once!
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 11 2017, @01:08AM
and people without any theoretical backing are going to write a ton of it.
Like others said, a theoretical backing doesn't guarantee that someone can write good code, and oftentimes people with a theoretical backing (and people without) cannot write good code. Additionally, why do you assume that colleges produce people who have a good theoretical backing, and that people who pursue their education using other methods do not? That seems like a flawed assumption. Not all colleges and universities are equal; many are mediocre and do not produce well-educated graduates.
(Score: 2) by Soylentbob on Tuesday April 11 2017, @07:34AM
I met a couple of drop-outs with tremendous coding- and debugging-skills. For some of them I even assume that was the reason they dropped out (Once you find an interesting enough job with more than average pay [compared to other non-degree] it can be hard to stay motivated to learn e.g. ray-traycing algorithms when you see your future in embedded systems kernel development.)
I also met several rookies fresh from university who were total crap in actual programming.
That said, I have a degree, consider myself not total crap at programming and met other capable developers with degree as well.