| > You're implying that job ads that rub you the wrong way on a minor point are ads that are at the bottom of the desirability list -- this is the exactly the correlation/causation fallacy the article discussed. You've misunderstood. The employer faces the problem of there being too few really good programmers, and so must do nothing that would prevent them from possibly seeing one in their candidate pool. It's like panning for gold; you need to get as much crap as possible going through your pan to find anything of value. The good programmer has an entirely different problem. There are a ton of jobs out there that I would find stimulating, engaging, and fun. Finding them isn't hard at all. They show up on HN, they show up in my inbox, they show up in conversations at conferences and events, they show up in unsolicited offers from friends, acquaintances, headhunters, etc. They show up on a weekly basis. If I'm in the market for a job, I don't need to carefully grovel through every opportunity to find the one good one. I couldn't possibly, even if I wanted to, because my attention isn't infinite. Talking with every potentially interesting employer would take more hours than I have in the day. Instead I need to, like Berty Wooster, somehow winnow down the 100 equally plausible opportunities to something small enough that I can reasonably give my time and attention to picking between. That the heuristics for doing so are arbitrary is irrelevant; my only concern is grossly reducing the numbers I'm dealing with, because I have no reason to fear I won't find a good one among those that are left. |
In the same regards just because there are more jobs than candidates doesn't mean there isn't just a high ratio of crap jobs. So the same 100 job ads will likely have 1 or 2 great opportunities and 98-99 posers. The candidate's job is just as tough as the recruiter.