Having two years of experience in an application or standard is a bad practice propagated by recruitment specialists. It takes a good programmer to spot a lesser programmer. (There are plenty of cases where lesser programmers look equally good or better to management.)

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.