
The Years of Experience Myth - getp
http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/001054.html
======
xirium
Having two years of experience in an application or standard is a bad practice
propagated by recruitment specialists. It takes a good programmer to spot a
lesser programmer. (There are plenty of cases where lesser programmers look
equally good or better to management.)

This forum is accessed by people who are above average programmers. Therefore,
we'd be above average at spotting good programmers. Therefore, we'd be better
at doing recruitment for programmers. So, what stops you from making a very
good income from recruiting programmers in a existing company? Well, I
researched this problem and I discovered the answer: you don't have two years
experience in recruitment. Furthermore, during this investigation, I
discovered that recruitment companies specialise to the extent that they
outsource the recruitment of recruitment specialists.

Yep, that's right. Recruitment companies find it beneficial to outsource the
recruitment of their own staff. And what stops you becoming a recruiter
specialising in recruitment? Well, d'oh, you don't have two years experience.
So, anyone could be a recruiter's recruiter - if they have two years
experience. Based on this profound knowledge they can recruit or become
technical recruiters. So, if you ever had the suspicion that recruiters just
match buzzwords then you're right. If you ever had the suspicion that you
could do the job better then you're right.

It is from this situation that recruiters demand two years of experience in an
application or standard which has just been released. It is from this
situation that human resources departments do likewise, even when they should
know better.

The ultimate solution is to replace the industry with a small shell script.

------
mironathetin
There are clear reasons why this is true:

Here are my theses:

\- People with lots of years in one field don't have the courage/curiosity to
learn something new.

\- without curiosity you don't learn a lot in life.

\- People with tons of experience do a job for many years without being bored?
Does that mean singlemindedness?

\- Our worst programmer has 20 years of experience in her field. She has a
tenure track position and cannot be fired. She HAS this position because she
was the only one, who did not leave in the last 20 years. Since nobody else
wants her she will stay forever.

\- On the other hand: smart people are bored quickly. If you don't give them
new challenges, THEY will leave (with few years of experience in every field
they have ever touched).

My best guess is this: The HR departments are full of mediocre people who are
not smart enough themselves to find smart people. Look around: the average
rules.

If we find vacancy announcements that require lots of experience or a washlist
of buzzwords, this tells us something about the company already: About who
writes the announcements, about the influence of the smart people in that
company and about how complex they are organized.

~~~
wallflower
It's good for people to have a job, even if they are not the best one for that
job. It helps keep the framework of society together. Ideally, people could
exercise their true talent and get paid but it's not always easy to get paid
for what you like to do. Like Jim Rohn says - if all you get from your job is
a paycheck, you are underpaid. It's a series of checks and balances - no
perfect job is out there - it's up to you to make the best of it.

~~~
newton_dave
> It helps keep the framework of society together.

A joke, yes?

~~~
pchristensen
I'm pretty sure he was serious. Large masses of unemployed people aren't good
news for anyone. While having a dream job beats having a lousy job, having a
lousy job is a heck of a lot better than the hopelessness and helplessness
that comes from not being able to get a job.

~~~
newton_dave
I'll still argue that people having jobs isn't, and wasn't, what holds "the
framework of society" together.

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nirmal
This is very true, assuming you have someone willing to learn. I did a summer
internship with Motorola once and did not know a thing about programming for
phones or their environment. I was fortunate to have a professor who believed
in me and was able to help me get the job. By the end of the summer I had put
together demos that were front line booths at LinuxWorld and CTIA that year.

I encourage students that come to our lab to take on projects that involve
skills outside of their comfort zone. I think it is important to broaden your
skill set but it is more important to be comfortable with not knowing exactly
how to do something and figuring it out anyway.

------
daniel-cussen
It all comes back to the pointy-haired boss paradox; the PHBs have no
knowledge of tech, but still have strong opinions about it. It's like having a
basketball coach who doesn't know the rules of the game:

"Why don't you stop dribbling, pick the ball up and just carry it to the other
side?"

It's more or less hopeless, and this "years of experience" thing is just one
more symptom of the PHB phenomenon.

------
jkush
Essentially: "smart and gets things done."

~~~
kajecounterhack
And by "gets things done" -- it means STAYING ON TASK. Many "smart" new
programmers have a tendency to stray off task...taking unnecessary initiatives
and whatnot.

------
factor
Jeff is getting boring. Stating obvious isn't new: he wants to blog almost
every day, instead he should pause and come up with actual stuff to write
about.

