For that reason I often ask people in interviews to tell me about the computer they have at home: what OS does it run and why? And I ask them what they hack in their spare time. That tends to be very revealing.
That's true across all the verticals. Plenty of 2.0 apps are Java --- including large swaths of Google. Careful about myopia. In the end, the problems you work are are far more important than the language, unless you suck. I'd much rather work on a parser/compiler in Java than a report generator in Ruby.
I think it depends on the job you're optimizing for--ruby and python are good choices when optimizing for startup jobs.
+1 for using the dating metaphor for recruiting/finding a job. How often do developers get hit on in the dating world? On dates or even just talking to a girl, I find I quickly steer the topic 'what do you do' to something like 'Heard of Facebook? I want to build stuff like that'
I assume you didn't give them your digits/contact info.
Wow. Can you expand on this? Is it really like that for women when we go ga-ga?
It was also enlightening in the sense that the rejection wasn't about him (he was a Sloan grad, and a nice enough guy), or his idea--it just wasn't a match. I work on unfunded startups, I'm just busy now and didn't care for his idea.
When I had to politely repeat how busy I am, I could suddenly see how being an attractive woman who had to fend off advances could be exhausting, and how easy it would be to stop being polite if you had to do it all the time.
Regardless, the analogy is broken because one case is about what you are and the other is about what someone wants to take from you.
The people who have Ruby slots tend not to keyword screen.
The people who have Java slots do (or, at least, their directors do).
Q: What computer do you have at home
A: I have five.
Q: What OS do they run?
A: All of them. ;-)