I'm from Hungary, so it may not apply to all countries.
I'm 31, I have learned software development. Yet, I barely worked in the field. In my country there's also a supposed lack of workforce in that field. How could this all be possible?
Even weirder that the IT coop did take me in almost immediately. Currently it's more of a time sink with occasional money, but it's pretty much the only way I can get a decent income and get out of Hungary's own poorhouse program of communal work (which means I do minimum wage job below minimum wage, because “it's so easy”).
Then I remembered that when I got to a job interview I failed when I needed to speak. I'm on an infamously bad medicine (Convulex, sold under the name Depakene in the US), and it causes me to stutter and have to think for words from time to time. My autism also doesn't help on the matter.
In my last job interview I was deemed unable to speak English on the level I claimed due to a stutter. Long before that my brother had to make sure they called me back to the second round due to I “acted like lacking expertise” according to the HR, then still fail due to I looked nervous when I had to write some code on a whiteboard (it was due to it's really uncomfortable for me to write or draw on such surface).
I could list all the times when I failed in similar ways, but I won't.
There are many, that conflate confidence with expertise in a field, and most of them do work in the HR department as it seems. I don't know where this comes from, but I also see the fetishization of confidence within romantic relationships to the point it essentially bars a lot of neurodivergent people out of relationships.
It would be good to see it it's taught in some way or another to the HR dep, or they just pick it up from life. (Some digging maybe?)