> A quick review of people on LinkedIn with Open to Work badges seems to paint a different picture than any claim of people being let go are of lower quality.
Come on, LinkedIn (CVs) tell nothing. Having been somewhere is often made up as great experience even if did not yield much experience, or one wasn't as involved as claimed, and even been somewhere is a lie.
It is usually the opposite if I check known colleagues: null performers and phonies have outstanding profiles, the good or super programmer somtimes an awkward or does-not-care profile.
(But yeah, also admitting: Companies usually fire by the wrong metrics and even direct managers, which are bad managers, do not know the real differences of their underlings..)
> notion of newer generation not being dedicated and smarter
Full agree, I don't think it is much new generation vs old, there are the same kind of great peoples.
But computer science really changed and grew. E.g. I strongly remember when I joined university 20 years or so ago how all tutors claimed how big our year is, and that before us everybody knew each other (profs/tutors/students), but now impossible. But still, 80-90% of the students that survived the first semesters just belonged there and would be great coders or computer scientists, with the right skills and ambitions. If you look nowadays, it is different and maybe more similar to other professions, and more 50/50 between those guys, and the other half which is ambitionless and/or just lack the skills, mindset, whatever, and would have better become something else. If you aks those some even freely admit they hate their job, but only drawn by the money.
> It is usually the opposite if I check known colleagues: null performers and phonies have outstanding profiles, the good or super programmer somtimes an awkward or does-not-care profile.
I don't think you're interpreting these things right, and I'll tell you why.
I know superb software engineers who don't update their online presence and didn't even bothered to update their LinkedIn profile to change their profile photo uploaded over a decade ago. I also know newly graduated software engineers who have a well polished CV complete with profile photo taken by a pro photographer.
The key difference in both cases is that the newly graduated software engineer had to go through recruitment processes very recently, while the superb veters software engineer climbed the corporate ladder and eventually landed a CTO role in the very same company he joined over a decade ago, and during this time he had zero need to even look at job boards.
Most people don't update their CV if they aren't applying for jobs, let alone update profiles in job boards if they are not applying to jobs ads.
Failing to update your profile in a job board does not correlate with expertise. It correlates with the need to seek a new job. Whether you're a lazy incompetent fool or a software engineering wizard, you won't update your LinkedIn profile unless you feel you need to switch jobs.
I didn't interpret, just said as it is for people who I definitely know how good they are; yours is exactly one explanation why that is so also for fresh vs settled ones that way that I wouldn't (and didn't?) exclude, thr list of details is endless, didn't bring them all. Just wanted to say: evaluating experience and skills of people by LinkedIn profiles is pointless - you cannot compare objectively there.
> I didn't interpret, just said as it is for people who I definitely know how good they are;
You explicitly claimed that from your observation "null performers and phonies have outstanding profiles, the good or super programmer somtimes an awkward or does-not-care profile."
The matter of fact is that, contrary to your claim, the amount of care you invest in things like CV and job board profiles is not correlated with competence. It's instead correlated with the need for a career change.
Those who are not looking for a job are far less likely to waste their time curating a profile or online presence they gain nothing from. They're wasting their time. If instead you find yourself looking for a job, whether you're unemployed, about to be fired, or just looking for a better role, you're going to work on marketing yourself to prospective employers. This means updating your CV, updating a job board or two, and perhaps even write a cover letter.
If you're not wasting your time thinking of switching jobs, you don't waste time with the likes of LinkedIn.
It's like a healthy diet: most people only start to become mindful of its importance when they experience any form of health scare.
Come on, LinkedIn (CVs) tell nothing. Having been somewhere is often made up as great experience even if did not yield much experience, or one wasn't as involved as claimed, and even been somewhere is a lie. It is usually the opposite if I check known colleagues: null performers and phonies have outstanding profiles, the good or super programmer somtimes an awkward or does-not-care profile.
(But yeah, also admitting: Companies usually fire by the wrong metrics and even direct managers, which are bad managers, do not know the real differences of their underlings..)
> notion of newer generation not being dedicated and smarter
Full agree, I don't think it is much new generation vs old, there are the same kind of great peoples.
But computer science really changed and grew. E.g. I strongly remember when I joined university 20 years or so ago how all tutors claimed how big our year is, and that before us everybody knew each other (profs/tutors/students), but now impossible. But still, 80-90% of the students that survived the first semesters just belonged there and would be great coders or computer scientists, with the right skills and ambitions. If you look nowadays, it is different and maybe more similar to other professions, and more 50/50 between those guys, and the other half which is ambitionless and/or just lack the skills, mindset, whatever, and would have better become something else. If you aks those some even freely admit they hate their job, but only drawn by the money.