A lot of employers say they look for merit, which usually is a duplicitous cover for being on the lookout for a blend of bland yes-men or a slut, sexually, and functionally to the garden variety of monkey that can type an algorithm on the keyboard who comes in with a purchased certificate. Or, in the case of the proud aspiring companies, candidates qualified enough to regurgitate the boot camp, the leet code crammed vomit they're holding on to. The exquisite history and tapestry of how we as humans aren't capable of, or even required to, be a dictionary of code, how not having respect for our historical limitations, and how the blindspot for how gradually one thing led to the other is detrimental to a loving relationship of discovery
An experienced person, especially one with an acerbic wit, that takes a while to comprehend and burns holes when and where it does by being astute and verifiably true is not a candidate you want to hire. They'd tell you a different story and send you off. There are a lot of reasons why I think we ought to rethink the hiring process. If you can tie your shoelaces and make eye contact, if you have the appearance of someone who needs the job, and if you have some elementary school in the background, you should be good enough to be trained for it.
Our tragedy seems to be caught in a perpetual paranoid sense of overachievements that aren't really ours; we are usually in the long line of discoverers, inventors, or thinkers, just putting the punctuation in. What are we so proud of? We've been on the other side of the chair, haven't we? The cancer of favoritism and nepotism is easy to crush, but in a corrupt country like ours, we spin words but keep doing it ourselves.
The extended drama of company entrance examinations and interviews is sort of every company's own brand of hubris, as if they really matter. In reality, if they were honest, they'd have an open web, an open book, and an AI-assisted entrance to emulate a real-world environment. But they won't; where's the bragging bit then? As if the speed marathon of the degree or certificate courses aren't enough, these companies have created another breed of extra-vain and hollow superficial creepy programmers who are as thinly spread as they are deep, and by no fault of theirs. It takes the joy and creative mirth out of computer science and tries to make it into another sweatshop product. The reason I say all this is that for any real creative or intelligent work, you cannot force anyone to do it; you have to provide a collegial environment where the brain can think freely and ask questions, daydream, and wander to arrive at a solution.
And recently, there has been a new kingdom in this species, where some companies double as fraudulent freeloaders and scrounge favors by promising employment. Usually these are bait and switch, with the goal post (a government person or straw-man offer) forever receding. Not dangling a fresh carrot but a rancid, stale, worm-infested turd. And don't think that rich countries have a dearth of unethical people. My recent experience was in Kuwait. The more I see, the less respect I have for Homo sapiens. Stay away from, and say no to, this sort of bullshit. Yes I'm an infidel, khalas.
