Why Companies Require Experience for Entry-Level Roles and What To Do About It

Erik Andersen
4 min readFeb 25, 2023
Photo by Alex Beattie on Unsplash

Why do companies ask for several years of experience for entry-level roles?

Because they can!

They do this despite knowing years-of-experience does not equal skill-level and that they are more than likely filtering out great candidates šŸ˜ž

So why do they do it?
Because itā€™s a survival technique!

With bootcamps and universities pumping out thousands of graduates a month, entry-level openings are typically flooded with applicants and requesting some experience filters that list down substantially, allowing their overburdened recruiting team to fill a spot faster.

Because the recruiting game is all about speed!

Combine that with the typically high starting salary for software developers and US labor laws making it difficult to fire someone, most companies would rather accidentally ignore a good candidate than accidentally hire a bad one.

So how do I get experience, if I canā€™t get job?

This is your regular reminder that for-profit companies are not charities!

They are not looking to ā€œtake a chanceā€ on anyone
They are not looking for who ā€œneedsā€ a job theā€¦

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Erik Andersen

Senior Software Engineer with 10+ years of experience. Also an independent coach, teacher, and public speaker. My opinions are my own