42% of California’s STEM Workforce Hails from Outside the U.S

Re:42% of California’s STEM Workforce Hails from Outside the... by kuschku on Tuesday July 25, 2017 @01:32PM (#14849890)

If they don’t pass FizzBuzz, you try to teach them for 6 months until they do fit into your company.

Is that so hard? Training on the job used to be common, and for entry level positions it should be possible at least.

EDIT: Okay, maybe not FizzBuzz, but the lots of "10 years experience with Angular 4" and co at least, and in general sometimes testing people more on actual tasks than on invented exercises. Even in Germany in the first few weeks you can terminate employees for any reason, so you don’t need to be too selective with hiring.

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Re:42% of California’s STEM Workforce Hails from Outside the... by m52go on Tuesday July 25, 2017 @01:37PM (#14849960)

I think the issue there is determining who is worth training.

But yeah in general I agree with you.

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Re:42% of California’s STEM Workforce Hails from Outside the... by morugin on Tuesday July 25, 2017 @04:12PM (#14851445)

I've wondered how it would be to train someone using an apprenticeship model.

I read some posts here by people who took a pay cut to become bootcamp instructors (for a season or two). A lot of them mentioned the satisfaction they got by being able to create real value in someone's life...

I guess only a certain demographic of people would even want to do an apprenticeship. Only apprenticeship programs I've heard of are for lower wage jobs. So, poor people may benefit from an apprenticeship. Mid-career changers might also benefit. CS degrees would be overqualified.

It would require significant time and effort. Not possible without company support. Still, to take a mind that can't see what we see to one that can and the amount of value created as a result, might be worth it.

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Re:42% of California’s STEM Workforce Hails from Outside the... by gpawl on Tuesday July 25, 2017 @02:24PM (#14850476)

If someone can't pass FizzBuzz, they need a year or two of education to be useful as a programmer, and might never make it. Sure, you can hire someone to do helpdesk and help them try to grow into a programmer, but you can't hire a programmer who knows nothing, and then entrust them to not ruin your company, destroy your data, etc.

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Re:42% of California’s STEM Workforce Hails from Outside the... by Daishiman on Tuesday July 25, 2017 @01:59PM (#14850187)

You're not going to teach a person to be a productive developer in 6 months.

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Re:42% of California’s STEM Workforce Hails from Outside the... by SilasX on Tuesday July 25, 2017 @01:52PM (#14850119)

Whoa there. You should definitely allow time to learn particular frameworks, but FizzBuzz is a fundamental competency issue that even hobbyists should be able to pass.

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Re:42% of California’s STEM Workforce Hails from Outside the... by sunir on Tuesday July 25, 2017 @01:42PM (#14850012)

Yes, it is hard. Try it and show your rapidly scaling workforce.

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Re:42% of California’s STEM Workforce Hails from Outside the... by kuschku on Tuesday July 25, 2017 @01:44PM (#14850037)

This is not something for startups, indeed.

But not everything has to scale rapidly. Many businesses scale slowly over decades, centuries or millenia.

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