I don’t expect you to know everything, but while you’re in college you can still learn AD, spin up a server, make a domain. See the basics of a web server, see how HFWs work…the foundation of IT. Companies shouldn’t be paying you and paying to train you for learning things that, if you’re interested in this career path, you should have learned on your own.
can’t even provide basic answers to questions that help desk people know
University is not a job training program though. A degree demonstrates that you have the skills to figure things out, not that you already have everything figured out. Even with decades of experience, it takes me a bit of time to spin up on a new library, framework, programming language, etc.
Companies are supposed to provide this training, not just to new hires, but to all employees. It does take a little extra time to teach new hires, but their salaries are also lower so it should balance out. And if they want to keep those employees around, then they should give them generous pay increases so they don’t just jump for a salary increase.
SupraMario@lemmy.world 2 days ago
sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works 1 day ago
I don’t know much about IT (I’m CS), but Ad is very specific to Windows, no? Shouldn’t you instead be asking them about higher-level concepts like access controls, networking principles (http vs tcp vs ip, routing, dns, etc), and basics of cybersecurity (attack surface, network segmentation, etc)? It sounds like you’re looking for practical knowledge about specific solutions rather than familiarity with concepts.
in CS, I can’t expect someone to know our specific stack, but I can expect them to know foundational principles, like data structures, algorithmic complexity, design patterns, design principles, etc. So unless they express familiarity w/ our stack, I keep the questions theoretical, and even if they are familiar w/ our stack, I still keep the questions high level (i.e. for Python, I’ll ask “gotchas” like what’s the difference between a list comprehension and traditional iteration, how does Python’s threading work, etc). I expect them to need to learn something in the first month or two, but also to largely learn on their own. Learning our stack when you’re comfortable with programming in general isn’t all that difficult, learning our stack when you struggle with basic concepts will be a challenge though.
SupraMario@lemmy.world 1 day ago
I don’t know much about IT (I’m CS), but Ad is very specific to Windows, no? Shouldn’t you instead be asking them about higher-level concepts like access controls, networking principles (http vs tcp vs ip, routing, dns, etc), and basics of cybersecurity (attack surface, network segmentation, etc)? It sounds like you’re looking for practical knowledge about specific solutions rather than familiarity with concepts.
CS still operates heavily in the windows environment. The majority of the world and businesses operate in windows. You should know the basics. Asking high level concepts isn’t needed if they’re unable to answer basic foundational questions which most companies operate in
Learning our stack when you’re comfortable with programming in general isn’t all that difficult, learning our stack when you struggle with basic concepts will be a challenge though.
And you just summarized what I’ve been saying.
Also CS is my field as well, and knowing how the basics work inside of a windows environment, is a basic concept.
I don’t know why so many are down voting this idea.
If you put out a job listing for say splunk, and you show up and don’t even know the basics of how DBs work… that’s what I’m referring to.
boonhet@sopuli.xyz 1 day ago
Literally don’t know anyone who uses Windows for dev work these days, unless developing software for Windows only.
It’s all Linux and MacOS because nobody wants to deal with Windows. 90% of software being developed is in the browser anyway and the backend stuff is nearly always Linux servers.
josefo@leminal.space 2 days ago
Sorry but a degree just demonstrates that you can pass exams and follow rules. Almost all new graduates I knew had a big ego, a lack of critical thinking, that combined in a massive Dunning Kruger effect. They are better middle management material than engineers. They can’t even RTFM, like c’mon. And AI is just making all this worse.
sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works 1 day ago
Exactly!
And that’s why I generally ask about FOSS work. If you’re contributing to upstream projects as a hobby, then you’ve demonstrated that you can jump into a larger codebase and figure out their procedures and style guidelines, which means you can probably do the same here.
Failing that, I ask them to apply the theory they learned in school to practical problems, like “how would you use design pattern A for problem X? What about pattern B? How do you decide between the two?” Most people can’t tell me what A or B is, and they can’t even solve problem X with their own methods… I don’t care about people knowing arbitrary design patterns, I care that they can reason about problems, consider multiple approaches, and decide between those approaches given the larger context of the project.
So many people just fall flat on their face in an interview on concepts they should have learned in their third year.