[MichaelCrawford]

While I can understand your confusion, my gripe is that just having read a book won't get me a job, even if reading just one book is all I really require to do the job.

What I am always asked is how many YEARS of PAID experience I have with a given technology. No one ever asks what I actually accomplished during those years - whether the product was well received, whether the code I wrote crashed, whether I got any raises or positive performance reviews, what the reviews in the press had to say about the products I wrote.

Experience for which I was not paid also does not count. Especially galling, not long ago a recruiter was convinced that I had been unemployed for several years. "No, I own my own corporation. I'm self-employed. I develop products for retail sale." "Who pays you to do this?" "No one. I write applications that I sell myself." "So you've been unemployed for three years?"

At that point I just hung up on him.

Actually I invest roughly $1,500.00 per year on technical books, and deduct that money as a business expense, specifically so I can stay competitive. That really is all I require to do the work I'm asked to do.

What gets me down is that I can do all kinds of stuff a lot better than those who have many years of experience. Just because you were paid to write code for several years, does not mean you write code well. I've worked with many colleagues who were really quite clueless.