Only 8+ Years of Rails Experience Required (jobs.37signals.com)

I need SDFRY devs with 6+ years experience for an upcoming project.

I've seen a post for a sharepoint admin with at least 5+ years of experience...

..which would mean you'd have to be David Heinemeier Hansson himself, seeing how Rails is just short of 8 years old.[1]

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruby_on_rails

lolz good luck recruiting dhh

Related is this listing for a java dev with 68 years of experience. http://thugbot.net/useful/?p=774

Also wanted: young developer age 23-29 to work on an exciting startup. Minimum of 42 years exp required.

10 years of CoffeeScript experience required. 5+ years of working with HTML5 Audio is preferred.

HR to Director of Application Development : The closest candidate we had was David Heinemeier Hansson but we rejected him as, like all the others, he also fell below the 8+ years requisite

The notion of putting the phrase "x+ years of technology y" on a job description always makes me roll my eyes. Some people have 2 years experience with say RoR, and could be lightyears ahead of another RoR dev who has 6 years experience. Is it so hard to say what you want: "we want a developer who is in the top 10% or top 40% in solving x kinds of problems?

The reason why this bone headed measure is used is because even the most elite coder on the planet does not have the required number of years experience, it helps managers keep salaries low. X years experience in Y is an HR trick.