Meanwhile on the job nobody is surprised or angry if you need to look up basics because they know you have five languages under your belt and are actively using three of them.
Yeah exactly this. "Figure stuff out without looking anything up or running test cases to see what they produce or going on a walk to think about it" is just not a useful skillset at all. I have zero, and I mean zero, times done actual work under those conditions.
Having said that, I am sympathetic to companies not knowing what to do that is better. There are real tradeoffs with all approaches.
I kind of think if I were to design the hiring system from scratch I would 1. Hire essentially anyone interested at the entry level for low paying 6 months apprenticeships, and 2. Hire more senior people based on their resume alone, with aggressive use of performance improvement plans for underperformance after 6 month or so probationary periods. I'm sure this idea sucks too.
