HN Explorer

Ask HN: Why do people hire experience based on time instead of actuality?

7 points by diminium ↗ HN
I've seen this so many times before. "Looking for someone with 10+ years Java experience". I've talked to recruiters who throw out resumes unless they have that date. I talked to managers who also do the same thing.

What is the relationship between time spent and the knowledge gained of a skill/language?

Anecdotally, I know people who in 1 month would know 1000x more about Java who knows the people who have 10. By the 3rd year, they would have already rewrote the JVM to their own liking and by the 5th year, they would have given up on Java and wrote their own after explaining in great detail the structural defects of Java and it's relationship to the CPU.

This person could have done the work the manager was looking for with only 3 months Java experience.

There is a near infinite amount of ways of screening a person to understand if they should be investigated further. Yet the most common way used by the vast majority of companies in this world is time.

Why is this?

5 comments

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tdorrance
Having hired a lot of people over the years, I can tell that in most cases it's more that the skill-set that an employer is looking for. I can't speak for these hiring managers but what I'm looking for is a well-rounded person that can work with my team. The position requirements are just meant weed out those that don't have specific skills-sets required for the position. If a hiring manager is throwing out resumes of otherwise qualified candidates it's probably not someone you'd want to work for anyway.
to3m
10+ years?

They just don't want somebody who's young. But they aren't allowed to actually say that...

whiterabbit2
I find that it's laziness and inertia. Looking at the developer's code and running it, reading their articles on the subject and such requires more work then reading the line "10+ years" and we're done!