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Your third paragraph sums up the reason for the problem the original post described. Someone has software engineering experience in Foo Language, but wants to g
by bartonfink 16y ago
Your third paragraph sums up the reason for the problem the original post described. Someone has software engineering experience in Foo Language, but wants to get a chance to work professionally with Blah Language for whatever reason. Obviously, his years of Foo programming aren't completely transferrable, and you point out that he's not going to compete for a role with someone who's been a Blah programmer all along. However, if he recognizes his lack of experience with Blah and applies for a junior or even entry-level position, you say that there's a risk he won't be happy with the salary and will skip town.
Your solution hinges on people accepting OS, hobby, academic or otherwise "extracurricular" experience as meaningful. I have not found that to be the case, and the other post someone alluded to described exactly that. I'm not accusing you of causing this problem, but you've highlighted it so perfectly that I think it warrants a little bit of exploration.
- nathanb 16y agoI'm going to make a controversial blanket statement and say that any company which doesn't consider extracurricular experience to be meaningful is probably not a company you want to work for. The reason being that side projects, open source experience, etc. are all indicators of passion. A company which doesn't appreciate that experience is a company which either doesn't understand or doesn't value passion in its employees.
- robinwarren 16y agoI agree completely and we've made hires based more on the strength of peoples passion for programming than a specific skill set. This works excellently I think for junior or mid level positions beyond that though I think you really are looking for specific expertise as opposed to raw potential.