On Tue, 28 Aug 2012 17:06:34 +0100, Orchid Win7 v1 wrote:

>>> In summary, there are flexible programmers and inflexible ones. I
>>> would argue that the flexible ones are the "good" ones - the ones that
>>> will still be useful to you in the future if you decide to move your
>>> codebase to some other platform. But hey, it's your enterprise; you
>>> decide. :-P
>>
>> Yes, it comes down to what the /need/ is and how well the candidate
>> meets the need.
> 
> Well, yes, it does depend on what you need. And that no doubt depends
> fairly specifically on your individual enterprise.
> 
> But what I'm really talking about here is the companies (i.e., almost
> all of them) who screen out *all* applicants who do not have skill X
> today, without even *speaking* to them to find out what other important
> qualities they may or may not have.

Again, you're making an assumption based on limited experience.

> This seems an extremely short-sighted approach to hiring.

If it were the case that most companies did that, it would be.

>>> (At least, that /would/ be my attitude if it weren't that *every*
>>> enterprise sees only the value of whether you can write the type of
>>> code they want /today/...)
>>
>> Well, no, that's not actually the case.  It may be what you've seen,
>> but again, you're giving in to hyperbole and assuming that because
>> you've talked to a small sample of companies who are looking for 'x'
>> that that means that that's all anyone is looking for.
> 
> I've applied to several hundred jobs and looked at job descriptions for
> several thousand jobs. That seems like a reasonable sample size to me...

Weren't you the one who was saying something about there being billions 
and billions of jobs in the world?  What percentage of 'billions and 
billions' is 'a few hundred'?

And looking at job descriptions doesn't tell you how the hiring company 
is going to respond to an applicant who is missing a few of the 
'required' (which is often 'desired' and not a hard requirement) skills 
or attributes.

Jim

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