this post was submitted on 14 May 2026
397 points (96.1% liked)
Technology
84646 readers
4308 users here now
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
Our Rules
- Follow the lemmy.world rules.
- Only tech related news or articles.
- Be excellent to each other!
- Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
- Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
- Politics threads may be removed.
- No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
- Only approved bots from the list below, this includes using AI responses and summaries. To ask if your bot can be added please contact a mod.
- Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed
- Accounts 7 days and younger will have their posts automatically removed.
Approved Bots
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
We have been interviewing for entry level positions and the new grads know less than ever before. I don't really care what they know, I am looking for evidence that they can think, but I usually ease them into thinking scenarios by asking easy foundational questions like how many bits in a byte. You would think I was asking for them to explain the Shrodinger wave equations... One candidate was waivering between 13 and 17...
It's called entry-level for a reason. Back in my days, you could start such a position without any formal education as long as you were willing to acquire the required skills and knowledge without needing a nanny. We had to go to the library or actually buy the books for knowledge. Now they can just use the internet.
The actual requirement for doing the job never changed. And it's not knowledge.
Metric or imperial byte?
Two nibbles is an acceptable answer.
I have two nibbles. My cat had six.
Sorry?
That's half a word.
It all depends on whether the CPUs kibibyte flag is set!
You say that, but that is (or at least was) a real problem: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Word_(computer_architecture)
Computers famously love prime numbers greater than 2 as a foundation for structure and logic.
Right?
Knowing this is my competition makes me feel much better about myself
My company probably doesn't get the best candidates (defense contractor that pays somewhat less than market rate), but yeah.
GTFO.
I mean, yeah.. perhaps it's to be expected. https://www.theverge.com/22684730/students-file-folder-directory-structure-education-gen-z - if this is true, it's as the methods of using computers and various devices has been infantilized and made too easy.
Yeah.. let's obscure the inner working of computing and make the process as opaque to the user as possible. It'll be fine.. no negative consequences at all.
Colleges do not matriculate anymore (that's in the British sense of the word, where one has to show actual knowledge in the degree field one is seeking before enrolling, and TBH, they haven't done so for a very long time, actually..) so this is what we get.
Higher ed in the US is just about da moneys..
I can't wrap my head around how the people in the article get anything done on the computer.
Sure, I could have File Explorer search for a file in theory, but it's ridiculously slow and often fails to find the files I actually want. It's way faster to just have things organized on a day-to-day basis
Oddly enough I've always sorted current working files by date.
Then when backup time comes I'll look at the last dated file in the archive, then go to that date in my current work folder and everything newer goes into the backup. Once it's in the main backup folder, I then sort the files into year and project.
Still, on my system (a MacPro from the Olden Times when Steve Jobs was still kicking) I have 4 drives, so it's crucial to know what is where.
It is ridiculous. I am interviewing for embedded systems development where we frequently write to specific bits in a register. I am sure these kids have had to learn something, but I can't figure out a polite way to ask them to give me some examples of what.
There was a series of questions I heard in a political discussion about whether or not any given politician understood what the internet was, and if they really had any idea of how to regulate it.
They are.. "Explain the differences between, the internet, the world wide web, a search engine and a browser."
If the person could not answer those 4 questions , well.. they shouldn't have been trying to write legislation about it. I think that still stands as a basic foundational step to start from
There are internets, but there is only one Internet.
I miss the Internet. Frankly, I find that the web blows balls now. :(
Dead Internet is a thing for a reason. :(
Well, I for one am delighted to find lemmy and in a small way, do my bit to resurrect a miniscule, tiny bit of it.
It's mandlebrot patterns, all the way down.. right? Smaller iterations of the larger seed.
Best we can do..
You are absolutely correct!
Pleas tell me that's a joke. Or were they trying to switch fields and were a baker or something before? I just can't accept that someone that would struggle with that question, even in a stressfull situation, ever took a single comp science class.
I wish it was a joke. Maybe they were deliberately getting the answer wrong to waste our time, but the body language was not consistent with someone fucking with me.
No…