from Hacker News

Entry Level Positions – 3 Years Experience

by thindjinn on 1/16/16, 1:51 PM with 52 comments

by bsg75 on 1/16/16, 3:30 PM
Entry level requiring 3 years experience is code for Experienced but willing to take an entry level salary. Full stack on half comp.
by vinceguidry on 1/16/16, 5:21 PM
People need to stop reading 3 years of professional experience as 3 years of technical experience. So long as you've been in the work world for 3 years already, doing contracts or whatever, then you have 3 years of experience. You can have 3 years at McDonalds.
Also, a college grad should not shy away from applying to such positions. If a job appeals to you, you should apply and let them tell you you don't qualify.
Mostly that clause is added to weed away wannabes.
by cryoshon on 1/16/16, 7:09 PM
Others have said this, but what they mean is that the pay will be poor regardless of the qualifications requested.
The point is that employers are now very comfortable with paying experienced people poorly; this works well to serve their interests as it keeps wages depressed, saving costs. The trick is getting the job-seekers to be comfortable with being undervalued-- and so, job seekers are told implicitly that they are not valuable (they don't have enough experience to get an entry level job or that the experience they already have doesn't take them above entry level), in the hopes that they start to believe the putdowns and settle for a weak opportunity. This malice hurts everyone except employers; recent grads are "too inexperienced" to get their first job, and people who are just finishing up their first or even second job are most likely forced to take another job at the same level before they can move up.
I have applied to these mid-level (yet advertised as entry level) jobs and was eminently qualified for a few, resulting in interviews. The cherry on top is that the interviewers tried to imply that I was unqualified. To reiterate, the employers attempted to minimize the experience I had even though it was enough to get the interview. I am sure that this regrettable behavior was posturing designed to somehow result in lower wages paid out. This has happened to me multiple times!
The career ladder is being pulled up behind the people who made it to the middle level first. Of course, this is just another damned instance of eating the young to feed the old.
by jmstickney on 1/16/16, 3:25 PM
This is so relevant to me. Mainly the years of experience part.
I've always been a technical minded person who dabbles in coding for side projects. I've come to a point in my career where I want my side work, coding (web to be specific), to actually be my professional career.
I'm willing to take a significant pay cut to do so and I've been searching Indeed, LinkedIn, and Angel for weeks now.
For the record I am in Boston. Not only are junior postings so rare, but when I do find them, they are as this article describes: "2-3 years+ professional experience and proficient in at least one of the following".
I get Boston is wildly competitive now, so do I accept this as the junior/entry expectations? So I'll never be qualified unless I go to a bootcamp? Do I just grind and start my own business or large portfolio on the side?
Or is there agreement that these junior requirements are too aggressive in this space?
by kafkaesq on 1/16/16, 8:24 PM
Then the bomb dropped. Every entry level position I looked at required 3+ years of experience;
It's amazing how many job ads contain statements in plain, black-and-white English that make no sense whatsoever, either in the real world or just in terms of logical self-consistency. Another one of my favorites is:
Minimum of 3-5 years ...
Why not just say "Minimum of 3 years"? Does the person who wrote this really not understand that they're saying?
One has to wonder.

by 99waysToDie on 1/16/16, 3:53 PM

There are 2 subplots this article has yet to unfold, which will only be revealed on the other side of the hiring process, after landing a seemingly desirable job.

  1. HR's fortifications, subversive booby traps and 
     no-mans-land designed to repel applications by 
     way of sinister salary negotiations, that leave
     behind a simmering animosity even after getting 
     hired. 

  2. On the other side of the wall, all of your co-
     workers turn out to be fantastically retarded, 
     including your own boss and boss' bosses, largely 
     due to HR's low-ball tactics, leaving you with 
     the startling realization that the job description
     and hiring interrogation (ahem! interview) was 
     all smoke and mirrors.