I believe the cases of “X years experience for technology Y”, when Y has only been around for X-1 year, translates to “We have a H-1B visa applicant we want to hire, and his resume says X year experience”
I had boss once we did something similar, but his big thing was “Years of experience IN THE INDUSTRY”. In his mind, I would have been better off getting a computer operator job right out of high school and worked my way up to programmer, instead of wasting time going to college getting a Comp Sci degree. That way I would have had 4 more years “in the industry”.
Aptitude, desire to learn, and ego in check are what you should be looking for. Sometimes it’s those who have the most experience in one stack who are the least flexible, as they tend to view things through their “year of experience” filter.
In my previous job I turned down more developers who had experience in the technology stack we were using than I hired. My aim was simple, hire highly competent developers who showed that spark and aptitude for development.
The result was a very competent and highly motivated technical team.
Only once did I let my standards drop due to pressures from higher management that “we need more resources right now”, in that instance he lasted 2 weeks before handing his notice in.
You didn’t mention the hilarious cases where they want more years of experience then the Technology has existed. (e.g. postings in 2003 for developers with 5 years of C# experience.) I’d guess there are probably now postings for 5 years of experience using LINQ.
I agree, what software programmers do best is learn. I’ve fixed code in languages I didn’t even understand. Not that I recommend it.
Once you know 2 or 3 languages, you can blow through a new language in no time. It’s the programming techniques that matter. Unfamiliarity with a language might slow you down, but not as much as bad technique. And it’s easier for a good programmer to learn a new language than someone who is familiar with a language to learn how to be a good programmer. Way WAY easier.
And I love the job listings like:
Required - 10+ years experience in administrating Windows 2k/2k3 networks
Here in Sweden it’s been like that for quite a while; companies seeking years of experience with this and that. Seems like 2007 was the turning point though. All of a sudden, the software industry realized that they actually needed to hire again.
Whilst I mostly agree, worth noting that there are some areas where experience is relevant.
I’m recruiting heavily for my team, to do web based application development. This boils down to data in and out of a database with occasional re-shaping and a load of business rules validation. So it’s not /hard/ stuff.
I’ve rejected great candidates with years writing Sound Card Device Drivers because they have /never/ worked on end-user software. This is for candidates coming in at a senior level in the team. They need to know about HCI to work on the product, they need to know about web development.
But I don’t care if it’s in Java, Microsoft things or PHP. But they need to understand how to specify, design and develop software based on people. Something they /can/ learn, but, not as quickly as just switching from ANSI C with Assembler to C#.NET. ANd to take a senior role in the team, they have to have those other skills already.
I might be wrong but in the UK you can no longer ask for x amount of years any more as it is seen as discriminating.
I’ve been told this is true by recruitment agencies. We can’t ask for x years of experience as it discriminates against people starting out. We can’t even ask for graduates as that discriminates against the under 21s.
So what do you do if you need someone with proven experience doing something you can’t say a simple academic qualification covers? And, we can’t even require a degree in the stuff either! So technically, a 16 year old with no GCSEs can’t be screened out by our advertising…
It’s very hard to be able to legally advertise for required attributes of employees! We require a certain amount of history as a permanent UK resident for MOD Security Clearance. But we can’t advertise a need for that residency, can’t hire them because they can’t be cleared, can’t do the job without clearance.
Many developers posted comments about Programming Languages. We are not in the 80’s anymore. We work with Development Tools (Programming Languages + Libraries + Development Environments + else) !!!
That’s why it’s not so easy to learn a new Development Tool (Programming Language), anymore.
Too often, big companies are blinded by years of experience of a candidate without looking at their real potential.
But fortunately, between you and me Jeff, it’s easy to recognize someone who is passionate about his work, right ? I doubt that this passionate behavior can be “faked” by candidate : you can tell if someone is passionate by the way they talk and even their body language. This is my 2 cents.
I might be wrong but in the UK you can no longer ask for x amount of years any more as it is seen as discriminating.
That is true - in fact I blogged about it recently. And whilst Jeff’s argument may hold for coders, it’s a bit murkier when you are trying to hire team leads and other senior roles, many of which in my opinion DO need some experience in the field before being really effective. I wouldn’t want someone fresh out of college with no commercial projects under his belt running a multi-million dollar project.
A very wise boss of mine told me 15 year ago to hire on “bandwidth” not skills. We did alot of controls work - a high bandwidth controller could handle a variety of inputs: you get the analogy by now. I’ve used that philosophy ever since and it’s NEVER failed me. Of course it’s not the only criteria: personality is big. Does the individual’s personality fit the organizations? Can they get along, work as part of the team?
I’ve hired 20-30 people on the last 15 years, on these criteria alone (and gotten hired by others using them twice). NOT ONCE has it gone wrong. I’ve watched skills hires go wrong constantly.
Every hire is an investment - Make sure you’re investing for the long haul, not just this quarter.
I’ve seen this phenomenon happen in front of my eyes. I was hired as a contractor about the same time a fresh out of college guy was. I took him under my wing - he lacked confidence in his abilities. I could see he was smart and motivated so I knew I wasn’t wasting my time.
12 months later when I left he was the best programmer at the company and there were plenty of very “experienced” programmers there.
I hire by talent first, makeup (passion, character, etc) second, and experience third. Unless it’s a short term contractor and then all I care about is whether they can do the specific job I’m looking for.
Hey Now Jeff,
I like these posts recently regarding screening resumes such as the phone interview N years of experience. As always I’ve learned quite a bit. The entire range of a devs experience is important like you stated.
Coding Horror Fan,
Catto
I have to agree on the years of experience thing. However, it brings up a tangential thought: what do you folks think about job posting copy? Do you not mention technologies and years of experience?
…I’d go a bit further with this: any position which HAS a “laundry list” of qualifications is probably being handled by an H/R manager, not a tech guy - the tech guy wrote the laundry list probably as a guide to the H/R weasel, but the H/R weasel takes it too literally (not knowing any better).
This is a sure sign of a company which has a serious disconnect between internal needs and external people - avoid this and you’ll be better off!
I remember a few years back i was looking for a new job, and saw many job postings for .Net that wanted 5+ years experience. At that time .Net had been around for 3 tops. I had between 6 months and a year experience w/.Net, and ~3 years experience total. I still sent them my resume, but typically never heard back. cest le vie.
I think the issue is that some HR types don’t really get it when it comes to the software industry, and try to force us into their mold. I know I’ve had a problem where we were getting crap applications, so I looked at our postings, taken it back to my bosses for a wtf discussion. They looked at the posting and said that’s not what they were wanting, no wonder the applicants didn’t match what we were looking for. It gets even worse when HR filters the resumes for you
Regarding Job Adverts in the UK, yes you can’t advertise for age,sex ,race, nationality or religion, and this includes unobvious filters like x+ years of experience, Degree in… Etc. that require a certain age because a school leaver could not have done it yet.
But you can put in the advert MOD Security Clearance is required since that is a requirement and anyone can theoretically get clearance?
