[georgieporgie]

If your passion is cars, you're likely to have some knowledge in all of those areas just because you love cars, if for no other reason.

So, a person who is applying to a driving position should be so passionate about 'cars' that they should have a background in rally driving and heavy tanks?

I think this reveals your ignorance of vehicles. Similarly, I think the sort of job posts that this post is mocking reveal an ignorance on the part of whoever is posting the ad.

[skidooer]

While karma is meaningless, I appreciate your reply instead of just voting me down. I was wondering what was wrong with my post and appreciate any feedback that can help me provide better comments in the future.

In my experience, those who are passionate about a topic want to learn about all of the topics surrounding that topic. If you like to drive, you're probably going to want to know what makes a car tick and even get your hands dirty. I know that's not true of everyone, but generally speaking, I think it is.

You don't have to be passionate about driving to be a good driver. However, given the choice, why wouldn't you want to hire the guy who lives and breaths cars if they are also an excellent driver? Their additional skills will not hurt to have around, even if they are not directly applicable to the job at hand.

If you are at all interested in the job, you're going to apply no matter what the ad says is required. However, the long list of requirements gives you some insight into what the company does. Asking for a C++ programmer could mean anything, but if you also need MySQL experience, you've got a good indicator that you're going to be writing code that interfaces with a database. This helps you weed out the candidates offering jobs you may not be at all interested in.

[georgieporgie]

If you like to drive, you're probably going to want to know what makes a car tick and even get your hands dirty.

1) I know several people who are absolute car nuts. Some of them are excellent drivers. Few of them do their own 'dirty' work. (note: I do my own dirty work, but I realize that has less to do with a passion for cars than a passion for independence and understanding systems)

2) That has nothing to do with the article that was posted. Reread it. Note the bit about rally, tanks, and F1 experience as a plus.

the long list of requirements gives you some insight into what the company does

That really doesn't have much to do with the original post, either. It's talking about the (sometimes/often) ridiculous specificity and enormous range of requirements you'll find in job postings. Employers complain of being unable to find "good candidates," yet they'll reject a senior engineer for lacking one bulleted item, regardless of its complexity in relationship to the other requirements. In my experience, this is largely caused by the HR gateway and general incompetence in first-tier candidate selection.

Similarly, refusing to interview a candidate for a bus driver position because the person has no experience driving tanks would be silly.