I don't understand why someone that is a new grad and been in the job two weeks would even think they are in a position to be referring someone. Why do they think their referral would even carry any weight?

No humbleness. Bad trait for software devs to lack I hear.

meh he's a douche but terrible management is to blame imo, never heard of any company allowing someone to vouch who hasn't been there at least 3 months

Ya, this is a little weird. You utilize your own people as recruiters to get cheap hires that are usually better culture fits and then utilize social pressure to get them to not be *******s. You also generally get relatively similar people to the ones you hire, so it can help to reinforce existing culture issues for better or worse.

But the problem is that after 2 weeks it is hard to know whether this guy is someone you want more of in your office. It also sounds like he's an entry level employee who is below average. (No one probably realizes that yet.)

Or perhaps this is a masterful plot by management, since you'll likely be working there in 6 or 12 months to collect referral bonuses and they plan on firing him because they already know he's a moron but want a free new crop of hires?

Regardless, this dude sounds like a dick.

We offer a referral bonus right out of the gate - because the referral bonus is for bringing the candidate into the door. A single 'vouch' from anybody in the company (CEO included) isn't enough to have that person skip the interview process anyway. At best it gets the candidate a little extra leeway and more likely to get a do-over if they screw up an interview.

Kato, I'm kind of torn on what to think in your case. You don't really have any claim to your other classmates so I'm not sure why you feel like you're entitled to refer them all and this other dude stole your money. If I remember correctly you're working for a big company - so I feel like you should be able to refer your classmates to HR before there's even necessarily an open position.

Yea, allowing the referral bonus immediately is absolutely standard and fine.

What happened is Kato went to School A and got a job at Company Y
Then he referred a Classmate from School A to Company Y
Classmate noticed School A + Company Y = Referral $
So Classmate front-ran Kato and suggested more people from School A to Company Y in hopes of Referral $

He didn't break any rules, he used logic to conclude he could earn Referral $. This is where soft skills and "unwritten rules" come into play and ideally he should have had a tighter leash than to refer _everyone_ from School A, as it sounds.

Ideally, Kato should have not left himself vulnerable to this race condition exploit.

i'm pretty surprised to hear you say this. it's just standard non-dickish gratitude that if someone gets you a job, you would let them get the referrals for other friends you have in common, at least for the first 6mo - 1yr. at a minimum, it's something the guy should have run by him.

it's so standard that it's unthinkable to me to do what that guy did. like even if, after getting the job, i happened to get into a fight with kato about something unrelated, i still wouldn't do that. it's so so slimy and backstabbing.

i'm trying to decide when is the appropriate time to try to enter an internship/apprentice position. One company lists the vague "proficient programming knowledge" under Preferred Qualifications, but I'm not entirely sure what that means. The required qualifications are pretty much 'a pulse'.

Wondering at what point I could consider myself proficient for entry-level-esque positions. To me, until I get at least data structures, some understanding of GUI, and knowledge of some type of database, I'm not proficient.

All of that stuff (in java) is what i'm learning this semester. I would really prefer to get a paid internship position sooner than later, as I hate my current job and want to be exposed to real world programming sooner than later.

So, should I wait till the end of the semester, wait till I'm at least somewhat comfortable but not quite finished with the semester, or just say screw it and apply now?

gm, maybe I misunderstood what happened. I wasn't thinking of this so much as Kato and Other Dude (OD) had a couple of friends in common that they both know and hang out with. I was thinking this was more of a there are a bunch of common classmates that could be referred.

I don't think OD is obligated to clear every possible person they might both know with Kato to see if he wants to submit the referral.

And maybe OD thought Kato had already referred everyone that he knew from school and so he was just referring the people he thought were good.

I guess there are a bunch of unknown factors that would change my opinion of OD to anything between "Huge Douche" to "He's cool".

sure, specifics might change things, but my point stands even if they are common classmates. someone gets you a job and there is a referral that you could both make, you should clear it by him before making it yourself. to me, that's a given. maybe it's possible the guy didn't think kato knew this other guy or something, but that wasn't the implication from his post...

So I cleared this up with friend today. He apparently (mistakenly) thought that there was no referral bonus for referring people for coop positions and so he had put a couple people into the system that he thought would be good as coops. Not quite as widespread as I initially thought, but I still think it's something you would run by me first as a common courtesy.

The real question is, is he willing to split the bonus with you?

Good to read this. Nobody is perfect as working out the issue with your friend is what matters.

in a class atm where amount of time studying has (at best) an inverse correlation with test performance.

If knowing the material means you perform worse on evaluations of material knowledge, perhaps the evaluations are poorly designed.

I dont like assembly language

Screw it and apply now. There are two things that can happen, you land a job, or you can a serious wake up call when you either get grilled in an interview or don't get any call backs.

fake it till you make it

Seems reasonable. Haha.

Probably learning it in a college setting would ruin it. I learned the basics and a bit about exploits/shellcode and thought it was awesome.

had a guy in a class with me that got a similar position to what i want. Feel bad cold emailing him to ask about it, but it really help me figure out what to do. Probably the best option.

"There's a dead guy in a car outside my house and the bomb squad is here" is one of my more unique ways of getting out of work today.

Pointy Haired boss would have pointed out you would be much safer in the office finishing your TPS report to take you mind off of it.

Usually use explosive diarrhea - no questions asked.

unfortunately in my case it was true.

Bomb squad gave you explosive diarrhea?