[ravenstine]

> In my experience there is this huge pool of unqualified applicants applying for every job no matter what the actual job requirements are. The applicants that got a call for an interview 1) looked at the technologies listed in the job requirements and 2) put their experience with these technologies on their resume.

I think this is a result of the (frankly) BS practice employers have been using for years of inflating the qualifications required for positions. I can't count on one hand how many postings I've seen for mid-level developer roles that require 5+ years of experience writing Python, C++, C#, Java, and JavaScript; oh yeah, you've also got to know Angular and React, and "bonus" if you know Vue.

Even before I became a developer(I first tried to get into animation), the advice from older folks and career specialists was to "just apply to all the positions you want even if you don't meet all the qualifications", and I'd bet good money that a lot of people are still hearing this advice from various channels.

Now that everyone is just shotgun applying to everything, the advantage is largely gone. But because everyone is doing it, and individual must do so or they'll be drowned out in signal noise.

[aaronblohowiak]

Overly specific job requirements are sometimes used to game the immigration system.

[TallGuyShort]

I've had recruiters tell me they required more years of experience with a particular framework than the framework had been around for...

[BigJono]

This is exactly what I try not to do when hiring.

I don't want someone that's built a bloody todo list in Angular, React and Vue. I want someone that's generated revenue by building quality software in one of them.

I think one of the biggest technical advantages you can get over your competition is to hire good specialists. Almost everywhere I've worked (especially anywhere HR or non-tech people are involved in the hiring) has just hoovered up the "jack of all trades" types and I suspect their tech has suffered for it.

[marklgr]

Jack-of-all-trades come in all shapes and forms; some are just average in many things, while some others are quite good in some areas, competent in some others and can also get up to speed in other parts if necessary. In small teams, these profiles are very useful.

[BigJono]

Yes but nobody considers the cost/benefit of having that over a specialist with the same amount of experience.

What takes longer? A full-stack guy trying to figure out how to work around some obscure front-end quirk (like the restrictions on overflow-x/y resulting in unexpected computed values, or the fact you can't transition to or from computed heights?) or a front-end specialist learning some basic dev-ops, or how to change a few Django models?

"Building something" in a language/ecosystem should be easy for any competent dev. I've never touched Obj-C or Swift in my life, and if you asked me to go release an iPhone app on the app store in my spare time in 3 weeks I'd be 100% confident that I can do it; but if you asked me to go and take a job as a senior iOS dev straight after that, I wouldn't even be confident to put myself forward for it. I probably wouldn't even put iOS on my resume.

I think as a senior tech person involved in the hiring process, I should be doing a better job of identifying exactly what I need and finding the right person than just going on the hunt for 6 "good devs" and hoping everything falls into place.

[z3t4]

There are so many different tools today, so it's impossible to find a match for any set of combinations.

[z3t4]

I wanted to see if I could prove my theory with math: If you count every obscure technology, framework, format and tools out there you should get at least 1000 of them. Job ads require about 10 on average. So correct me if I'm wrong, I can use the Combinations formula nCr which say's we have around 2.6 * 10^26 combinations (really huge number) And even if there are hundred million developers in the word, it will be impossible to find a match. Now in practice there are some stacks that are more common, so it might probably be possible to find a developers who knows SQL+JS+PHP+HTML+CSS+Angular+Java+Git+C+Andorid SDK (I picked some very popular ones), now image how ridiculous hard (impossible) it would be to find a combination of skills that is not among the most popular. This is why hiring is broken. As an employer you should just concentrate one the most important skill, like the main language, say Java, or some soft skills, and just accept that your new hire needs to learn the rest of your stack while practicing it. Also remember that as a developer you learn new stuff every day, so if your applicants have experience in other stacks, that will only make it easier to learn your stack.

[kevin_thibedeau]

Well some of us can tick off most of those boxes. Still can't get past the AI gauntlet though.