[lapcat]

> The members can rate each other in a friendly environment

> Employers at first communicate with the guild and only have to evaluate 5-10 candidates.

Yeah, no. It's not friendly when there's an obvious hierarchy and competition for jobs involving large amounts of money. And who decides the criteria? How are other developers even supposed to "rate" you if they haven't worked with you?

Putting all software engineering hiring in the hands of one central authority is one of the worst ideas ever. It's good when different employers have different hiring criteria. What sucks is when a bunch of employers cargo cult on the same hiring methods. We need more diversity in hiring, not less.

[glass3]

It doesn't have to be one central guild. There can be a competition of guilds, each with their own criteria.

Guilds already exit as networks of friends who recommend each other. Hiring is only dehumanizing for those who are not part of an informal network. With guilds, there could be accessible knowledge to everybody on how to be or become a good professional.

The fact that programmers haven't already organized themselves in guilds suggests that they are not the right layer of abstraction. It remains funny that programmers create formal processes and structures for everything but not for themselves.

[lapcat]

> It doesn't have to be one central guild. There can be a competition of guilds, each with their own criteria.

But that totally undermines the central premise:

> Employers at first communicate with the guild and only have to evaluate 5-10 candidates.

For employers, there's no reason or advantage to deal with the guilds rather than directly with job candidates when there are a bunch of competing guilds with their own criteria.

And if guilds aren't providing/gatekeeping access to employers, then why would job candidates join them?