Ask HN: Employers of HN – Would you hire a career changer without experience?

3 tejonutella 5 6/26/2025, 8:24:04 PM

I’m curious how hiring managers and founders here weigh relevant vs demonstrated ability. For instance, suppose an applicant spent the last five years as a civil engineer and applies for a data science job or a high school teacher who self taught backend Go at night and ships side-projects. Or a graphic designer who’s built and sold a few small apps but has no formal CS background, etc etc.

what evidence or signals convinced you of a career changer being the right fit and which proof points mattered most (certs, projects, references, something else)?

Also, if you passed on someone like this, what was missing?

Comments (5)

JohnFen · 6h ago

I once hired career-changer as a dev. His old career was as a music studio engineer. He had a baseline level of programming knowledge, but the reason I hired him was that he was wicked smart, his brain worked in the right way, and he worked well in a team. I wasn't worried that he would need some additional training and experience to come up to speed.

He turned out to be one of my best hires.

BobbyTables2 · 6h ago

People who pursued small projects on their own would be miles ahead of those who just say they want to do something different.

The latter often mean “I’m willing to fake pretend because I want to be employed, not because I have any passion”

toomuchtodo · 6h ago

Show me how you work. Show me how you think. Show me what you’ve built. Knowledge is important, but everyone can talk, not as many can do. With that said, I’m not going to ask a fish to climb a tree.

lastdong · 6h ago

Unless that fish is a mudskipper :)

toomuchtodo · 6h ago

There are always exceptions.

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Ask HN: Employers of HN – Would you hire a career changer without experience?

Comments (5)