Re:Proposal to Ban Ghost Jobs: The Truth in Job Advertising ...
by BestHeadHunter on Wednesday August 27, 2025 @02:07PM
(#45042965)
Are you suggesting that being in a life or death situation as a pilot is less stressful than taking a test or writing a software program over time?
Re:Proposal to Ban Ghost Jobs: The Truth in Job Advertising ...
by novok on Wednesday August 27, 2025 @07:51PM
(#45046701)
No, that optimizing and interviewing for performance under pressure is not needed for most software engineers, while it makes sense for fighter pilots. It's is definitely more stressful.
Re:Proposal to Ban Ghost Jobs: The Truth in Job Advertising ...
by WalterBright on Wednesday August 27, 2025 @02:56PM
(#45043553)
I'll repeat that the cure for test anxiety is preparation, preparation, preparation. Avoiding it, like your engineer employee, won't be helpful. Keep going to interviews, and the performance anxiety will also dissipate.
The first few times I did public speaking, I'd freeze up and squeak. I speak regularly now, and it's not a problem anymore.
(Again, I attended Caltech. Most of us were nerds, and many Aspergers. I have worked with many people "on the spectrum" and am not at all ignorant of their differences.)
Re:Proposal to Ban Ghost Jobs: The Truth in Job Advertising ...
by FireBeyond on Wednesday August 27, 2025 @08:03PM
(#45046782)
When I worked as a firefighter/paramedic, one of the axioms was that you don't train until you get it right, you train until you don't get it wrong. That, at 3am, sleep-deprived, it's so ingrained in you what to do, you can do it automatically, leaving your mental capacity for the variables of the situation, not the bare minimum of "what do I do next?"
Test anxiety is real. Anxiety disorders are real in general, not to mention ADHD, autism and more where these disabilities can interact in bad ways in interviews. It does not mean that people with these issues are bad engineers. If your instrument is inaccurate, it does not mean the thing it is measuring is wrong.
One of the best and smartest engineers I have ever hired had visible anxiety and objectively did not pass the interview but we pushed for it anyway and was hired as a jr engineer. He is a staff engineer now, leads various large company library projects and is the go to expert about various systems in the entire company and will probably become a sr staff engineer. He also probably hasn't changed jobs because he knows he's bad at interviews, which is incredibly sad.