2 ms·

It's good to know that I've been doing the right thing, then. I have a hard time being confident though, and pitching the value of that breadth. Most sites like

by gknoy 11y ago

It's good to know that I've been doing the right thing, then. I have a hard time being confident though, and pitching the value of that breadth. Most sites like Hired or whatnot ask things like, "how much experience do you have with X", and it always leaves me worrying that at some point in a hiring process there's a rejection filter in place that will only see the shallowness of a particular skill. Do you have any advice for how I can deal with that better?

jerf 11y ago
On your side, you do need depth in something. This is sometimes called a "T-shape" of skills... broad shallow sampling, and depth in some smaller set of skills. You should also be aware that hiring requirements are more the wish list of the hiring organization than hard requirements; that is to say, don't "feel bad" about not quite meeting the requirements. If you're close, go ahead and apply. Come in and shine in the interview and only hiring organizations with poor business skills will ignore that you've only got 2 years instead of 3 in Python. (Such exist, though, sadly.) However, I don't know myself how to deal with people who get too particular. When I'm writing my requirements, generally all my requirements come out as "Blah years of experience in $TECH_WE_USE or similar", and even then I'm really only saying "years of experience" because it's the standard; what I really mean is "a level of skill commensurate with what you'd usually expect after Blah years", but I can only deviate from the standard so far, you know? I don't know what to do about interviewers/organizations who think that 5 years in Perl translates out to 0 years of experience in Python. (All you can really do is comfort yourself in knowing that they're really hurting themselves with such specificity, though.)

2 ms·

It's good to know that I've been doing the right thing, then. I have a hard time being confident though, and pitching the value of that breadth. Most sites like

by gknoy 11y ago

jerf 11y ago
On your side, you do need depth in something. This is sometimes called a "T-shape" of skills... broad shallow sampling, and depth in some smaller set of skills. You should also be aware that hiring requirements are more the wish list of the hiring organization than hard requirements; that is to say, don't "feel bad" about not quite meeting the requirements. If you're close, go ahead and apply. Come in and shine in the interview and only hiring organizations with poor business skills will ignore that you've only got 2 years instead of 3 in Python. (Such exist, though, sadly.) However, I don't know myself how to deal with people who get too particular. When I'm writing my requirements, generally all my requirements come out as "Blah years of experience in $TECH_WE_USE or similar", and even then I'm really only saying "years of experience" because it's the standard; what I really mean is "a level of skill commensurate with what you'd usually expect after Blah years", but I can only deviate from the standard so far, you know? I don't know what to do about interviewers/organizations who think that 5 years in Perl translates out to 0 years of experience in Python. (All you can really do is comfort yourself in knowing that they're really hurting themselves with such specificity, though.)