[sailingparrot]

> Why is it weird that people should spend time preparing for ask for a new job?

Because that preparation, by and large, is not related to the actual job.

> I mean, ask an orchestra musician how much time they put into preparing for auditions, or how much time many degreed professionals put into passing a certification (e.g. the bar exam or medical boards).

Those are all instances of people being asked to do/know things that they will need to do/know for their actual jobs. An actual comparison would be if the orchestra musician was asked to perform blindfolded on a random piece of music, and have to spend 6 months training to memorize the most often requested pieces to be ready for the interview, only to play for the rest of their career with the sheet in front of them. (Not trying to compare difficulty, but absurdity. I don't doubt orchestra musician's auditions are harder)

Also, bar exam and certifications are not job interview. You also have exams and certifications in CS and no one is complaining about having to train for those. A lawyer/doctor certainly doesn't have to pass the equivalent of the bar/medical exam every time they want to change firm/clinics. They just talk about their past experiences. Barely any prep required beside being able to give a good sales pitch about you.

Meanwhile, as a dev, you are expected to do it all over again every time you will change job. Even for internal moves, many of the GAFAMs expect you to go through this again.

[jmorag]

I'd push back a bit on the orchestra musician preparation relevance. Playing at an audition alone is very different from playing in a section. The hyper critical attention to minute details that wins you a job at, say, the New York Philharmonic, isn't what makes you good at blending with your section. Also, no one is ever practicing concert repertoire as much as they practice audition excerpts so what you hear at the audition is not necessarily representative of what you hear every week.

Granted, it's more representative than leetcode performance but still far from a perfect system.

[saghm]

> I'd push back a bit on the orchestra musician preparation relevance. Playing at an audition alone is very different from playing in a section. The hyper critical attention to minute details that wins you a job at, say, the New York Philharmonic, isn't what makes you good at blending with your section.

A bit off topic, as this isn't orchestral music, but in college I was in a couple of bands as a bassist, and in one of them the guitarist was probably one of the best musicians I ever played with technically. However, because he was so good, sometimes he would get taken by surprise when someone less talented in the band messed something up during a performance. When practicing before one of our gigs, I noticed that our rhythm guitarist was playing a certain section incorrectly and essentially finishing it in half the time he was supposed to; the drummer and I would generally catch on immediately and course-correct, but the lead guitarist tended to be flummoxed and took the longest to group up with everyone. I made sure to mention it to everyone since I figured it might come up again, but I think everyone else forgot by the time the gig happened, and the same exact thing happened, and even though it was the rhythm guitarist who made the initial mistake, the lead guitarist ended up being the one who "looked" the most wrong to the audience because the drummer and I knew that the only way we'd get back on track was grouping up with the rhythm guitarist and leaving the lead guitarist behind. If anyone were trying out our two guitarist to join an existing group, I think almost everyone would take our lead guitarist due to how much better he'd perform in an audition. However, if the band he tried out for wasn't able to keep up with him, it's very possible he would have been the wrong choice. This seems pretty similar to "leetcode" style interviews for a software engineering role; the person who is able to impress the interviewers the best technically might end up being a bad fit for some teams if they aren't able to collaborate as effectively with their team.

[maxwell86]

> Because that preparation, by and large, is not related to the actual job.

TBH, depends on the job.

I think the problem is hiring people with these skills to do jobs that don't require them. That's bad for both parties. The employer is going to be paying for a skill it is not required, and the employee will get bored and switch jobs, costing everyone time and money.