There are many more ways of organizing hiring, all working fine in other industries (with tradeoffs, of course). To name a few:
- Guilds with an an entry filter that guarantees competence, often associated with apprenticeship.
- Wide open hiring for short term engagements, retention of only those who fit best.
- Hiring directly based on referral from other known-competent professionals who can vouch, with no or minimal interview stage.
- Work sample tests.
There are good reasons why some of these don't fit tech so well. Software is impossible to estimate, so you can't plan short term engagements as effectively as in show business. Software is highly collaborative and context dependent, and the results are often secret, so independent work samples aren't as realistic or available as in film. Etc. But mainly we can't have these things because the community is pathologically incapable of trust. Even people who believe in each other's competence will not believe in each other's certifications of a 3rd party's competence. That particular dysfunction is not universal, and doesn't have to stay. But knowing us, it will.
You mean the "union shop" approach? I could see it, but it is a significant structural change. Also, it probably wouldn't satisfy many.
"- Wide open hiring for short term engagements, retention of only those who fit best."
"But," I can hear them saying, "what happens when you move across country and are then told, 'sorry, it's not working out'?"
"- Hiring directly based on referral from other known-competent professionals who can vouch, with no or minimal interview stage."
I've gotten a significant number of my jobs this way. And I've had people ask for a referral and told them no, I wasn't comfortable doing it. That's not much fun.
"- Work sample tests."
On the whiteboard (Ick! Horrors!) or take-home (Ick! Horrors!)?
Ok, so I admit to being pathologically incapable of trust. But I'm that way because the universe keeps burning me. I'm sorry.
( Active job hunting tends to make one grumpy. Take home programming assignments are a current sore spot for me. )
It's a recent job posting that said "Requirement: OSS contributions" that seemed over the top. Maybe it's no less troubling than "Requirement: SQL expertise" - after all, we're all 'discriminated' against to some degree by not having experience in everything a future employer might want.
With the SQL requirement, however, there's an obvious drag on a project if they bring in a new hire who has no SQL knowledge. If a team working on OSS hires someone with no OSS experience - is that going to mean they can't contribute right away?
But, TBH, projects vary so much anyway that I'm not sure how much that experience adds that couldn't be picked up fairly quickly with some mentoring.
I've all but given up considering finding a new job at this point because even with a solid github project in the target company's language of choice which goes above and beyond their "homework" and/or pair programming interview, they still ask you to do their ridiculous coding test.
Too old for this shit.
As for suits? Yeah, those are the same people who freak out at the idea of wearing a suit to an interview.