Not stupid. Just apathetic to your needs.

/I know she's no longer an intern, but she was for a couple seasons...

Harry_Seldon: I work for a large tech company. We budget and hire a large significant number of interns and recent college graduates. Our expectations for interns is that we train them do do productive work. We train them to be successful in a rapidly evolving environment. We see interns as an investment int the future, not a profit center. We, as management, take time to train and mentor, provide a comfortable environment, and low stress. By the end of their one year internship, they are prepared to be productive employees, and not necessarily for my company.

In a decade and a half, I've never worked at a tech company that trained or invested in workers. You get hired if you're already an expert on what they're doing, and you get let go when the project ends or they switch to something you're not already an expert in.

I'm jealous.

Companies will, at some point, start training employees again.

Admittedly, I only know this because at some point it's going to be either 'train or die', but hey, whatever.

raygundan: Harry_Seldon: I work for a large tech company. We budget and hire a large significant number of interns and recent college graduates. Our expectations for interns is that we train them do do productive work. We train them to be successful in a rapidly evolving environment. We see interns as an investment int the future, not a profit center. We, as management, take time to train and mentor, provide a comfortable environment, and low stress. By the end of their one year internship, they are prepared to be productive employees, and not necessarily for my company.

In a decade and a half, I've never worked at a tech company that trained or invested in workers. You get hired if you're already an expert on what they're doing, and you get let go when the project ends or they switch to something you're not already an expert in.

I'm jealous.

HP is a good example of what goes wrong. HP used to be a company run by engineers, then it was taken over by the sales and marketing people. HP used to invest in its people, and generated the profits to take a long term outlook on their future. I feel lucky to be at one other companies which can afford to take a longer term appropriate to corporate health, and still has an engineering corporate culture.

This is fairly common in most places today. They want the person at company A who has all the skills they want, but arent willing to train a person to be the person they want. Rarely does one come out of any school, trade, college , barber, you name it, fully trained. You learn tips of the trade along the way.

You can be fairly close in qualifications, but arent considered. Lets say the company wants a guy with 4 years experience, and I have 3 ? What is the huge difference, most likely not much.
I am continually running into that sort of thing these days. No one seems to want to spend a dime on any sort of training, formal or informal. What ever happened to the days of OJT ( On Job Training ) ? Life is OJT.

I know this is becoming more and more of an issue.

Troifan: This is fairly common in most places today. They want the person at company A who has all the skills they want, but arent willing to train a person to be the person they want. Rarely does one come out of any school, trade, college , barber, you name it, fully trained. You learn tips of the trade along the way.

You can be fairly close in qualifications, but arent considered. Lets say the company wants a guy with 4 years experience, and I have 3 ? What is the huge difference, most likely not much.
I am continually running into that sort of thing these days. No one seems to want to spend a dime on any sort of training, formal or informal. What ever happened to the days of OJT ( On Job Training ) ? Life is OJT.

I know this is becoming more and more of an issue.

I don't necessarily think the problem is companies are not willing to pick the a person who will grow into a job. Part of it is the flood of resumes that get submitted for each job. Hiring managers, and HR are using automated tools to "streamline" the process. Part of the problem is the hiring managers themselves. They just don't want their teams to spend time investing in someone. Part of it was the job hopping culture which evolved during the dot.com era as employees themselves created the problem by jumping around right after they got hired to find a slightly more lucrative position.

On the other hand, companies are getting more asinine in their selection process to reduce risk and potential liability. The interview process rarely tells you how good a person is when they need to do the right thing. Character and a work ethic count more for me more than talent sometimes. It really depends on the position. Some positions require a person with more than 10 years experience or a very specialized skill set, like a kernel maintainer. I think the real failure is to expect more of junior level people, and not willing to invest time and resources. I rather have someone with the right attitude and is a team player, than a primadonna whose ego needs to massaged on a daily basis.

studebaker hoch: Internships are how kids with zero experience or skills get in the door of cool companies.

They are also known as "lucky breaks" or "chances of a lifetime".

Especially available to kids who don't have to work for a living, aka another way rich kids get a huge leg up in supposedly meritocratic America. Most of us can't afford to work for sub-minimum wage while dressing and socializing like upper execs for a couple of years, then go to b-school and re-enter 5 levels above the ground floor.

America is currently closer to a South American country than it would like to admit.

Fissile: gerbilpox:

Too many are like this:

Interviewer: "Have you ever driven a Ford car?"
Applicant: "Not a Ford one, but other brands of course. I have a license and a clean driving record."
Interviewer: "Have you ever driven a red car?"
Applicant: "Well, no, not a red one, specifically. Various other colors."
Interviewer: "I see. Have you ever driven to [location]?"
Applicant: "Yes, I drive by there every day."
Interview: "For how long?"
Applicant: "Well... I guess for about 6 months now."
Interviewer: "I see. I'm sorry, Mr. Jones, but we're looking for someone with 3 years' experience driving a 2011 model red Ford to [location]. Thank you coming in."

===============

Years ago, I had the following conversation at a job interview:

Interviewer: Do you have experience with MS-DOS?

Me: I know CP/M.

Interviewer: I'm sorry, we are really looking for someone experienced with MS-DOS.

That's a real issue in tech jobs outside of major tech corridors. HR applies mid20th century industrial thinking to entire job categories that are nothing like that.

The fact is that some people have fundamentals, some can think on their feet, and an alarming number are filling seats because no one around them can tell if they are full of shiat or not. People with fundamentals might need prompting to learn specific skills, people with smarts might need guidance in fundamentals, best practices,

But this shiat is just so new, how can you trust a formal qualification for a skill that is maybe 5 years old? I can't entirely blame HR, they are just slow and reactive and often staffed by women too ugly to be in marketing. My company excepted.

/sweet and sour

Companies are complaining that the unpaid labor they outsource from colleges while dangling a job carrot aren't very good?

Yeah, fark your companies.