The Years of Experience Myth

This forum is accessed by people who are above average programmers. Therefore, we'd be above average at spotting good programmers. Therefore, we'd be better at doing recruitment for programmers. So, what stops you from making a very good income from recruiting programmers in a existing company? Well, I researched this problem and I discovered the answer: you don't have two years experience in recruitment. Furthermore, during this investigation, I discovered that recruitment companies specialise to the extent that they outsource the recruitment of recruitment specialists.

Yep, that's right. Recruitment companies find it beneficial to outsource the recruitment of their own staff. And what stops you becoming a recruiter specialising in recruitment? Well, d'oh, you don't have two years experience. So, anyone could be a recruiter's recruiter - if they have two years experience. Based on this profound knowledge they can recruit or become technical recruiters. So, if you ever had the suspicion that recruiters just match buzzwords then you're right. If you ever had the suspicion that you could do the job better then you're right.

It is from this situation that recruiters demand two years of experience in an application or standard which has just been released. It is from this situation that human resources departments do likewise, even when they should know better.

The ultimate solution is to replace the industry with a small shell script.

Here are my theses:

- People with lots of years in one field don't have the courage/curiosity to learn something new.

- without curiosity you don't learn a lot in life.

- People with tons of experience do a job for many years without being bored? Does that mean singlemindedness?

- Our worst programmer has 20 years of experience in her field. She has a tenure track position and cannot be fired. She HAS this position because she was the only one, who did not leave in the last 20 years. Since nobody else wants her she will stay forever.

- On the other hand: smart people are bored quickly. If you don't give them new challenges, THEY will leave (with few years of experience in every field they have ever touched).

My best guess is this: The HR departments are full of mediocre people who are not smart enough themselves to find smart people. Look around: the average rules.

If we find vacancy announcements that require lots of experience or a washlist of buzzwords, this tells us something about the company already: About who writes the announcements, about the influence of the smart people in that company and about how complex they are organized.

I encourage students that come to our lab to take on projects that involve skills outside of their comfort zone. I think it is important to broaden your skill set but it is more important to be comfortable with not knowing exactly how to do something and figuring it out anyway.

"Why don't you stop dribbling, pick the ball up and just carry it to the other side?"

It's more or less hopeless, and this "years of experience" thing is just one more symptom of the PHB phenomenon.