[spearingthehead]

It is a strange problem indeed. I'm in a similar job seeking position as OP having difficulty convincing some companies that my lack of certain concrete knowledge should be a non-issue, when you consider the true spirit of what a software engineer is not what you know, but how you come to know things and your ability to adapt to them.

As a SWE, I've been told many times that the ability to pick up new techs and languages should be your bread and butter, and I believe this strongly. If you understand the basics of network requests and REST patterns then most web frameworks are the same. Frameworks are just abstractions on top of the basics. In the real world of job searching, nobody seems to care. They prefer specific names for keywords.

I've also been playing the numbers name for far too long that seems like I'm falling into a sunk cost fallacy. Unemployed since late 2019 and sent out nearly 2000 cold applications. Given a set of inputs defining job experience, what is someone's probability of getting an offer within the next week after 20 applications? After 100? Or after 500?

I tend to hate solving problems that give no visible signs of progress towards seeing the end, but at least when I do these kinds of problems at work, I'm getting paid for it. Right now I am trying to solve such a problem but without compensation, without much motivation.

Getting a job offer right now is biggest challenge that I've encountered in my life. I have not been as confused or clueless, nothing I've done for my career ever came close to stumping me. And it also should NOT have to be the biggest challenge in my life. Better candidates should be things like, how to organize and manage a team for a very large work project, or how to plan your savings strategy for an early retirement. Finding a job should be among the most basic challenges, not super complicated.

[nickmyersdt]

I think the core problem is that there isn't a reliable way to assess a person's SWE skills. Two people can look the same on paper but have wildly different capabilities for solving problems with software.

So many companies try so many different ways to establish competence during application and interview but they are all badly flawed in some way.

Add to that the fact that no two SWE teams are the same, and to be effective as an IC you need to be effective as a team member, and it gets really hard.

The true test really comes during the probation period (which I think of as the real interview) and if all things were possible, I'd hire many more people off the back of resume and interview with intent to retain those that are able to perform at the level they pitched themselves. There's always a bit of "leveling up" as people climb the ladder, so a little bit of over-stating one's own skills is to be expected, and that's where the core capability of "being able to learn quickly" gets proven.

Unfortunately budgets and my own capacity don't allow me to take this approach.

I'd also say that as someone who has led or managed SWE teams for a long time now, SWEs do love to argue for their favourite bit of tech. After all, if they've used it before, they'll be more productive with it (perhaps). However that drops us right back to "the list of technologies you've worked with" mattering more than "your ability to pick up skills".

I do wish there was a better quicker way, that could not be games or bluffed, to hire people. Many startups are trying to solve it, but none (AFAIK) have scratches the surface.

I think (IME) that getting a job is complicated because (a) it's very hard to determine a SWE skills by resume and interview (b) lots of people over represent their skills (c) hiring is probably the most critical thing an organisation does (d) SWE has become more complicated over time, rather than less, leading to proliferation and speed of introduction of new languages, frameworks, tools and libraries.