Re: FN-FORUM: Qualifications

date posted 21st March 2006 16:18

You can get lucky- at the company I used to work for we did very well by
hiring bright graduates who were able to get up to speed fairly rapidly
on web programming with the right support and mentoring. Of course, we
were a very small company and only took people on at a rate of one every
2 years or so, so I don't think we significantly dented the graduate job
market, but you can get an outstanding graduate for a lot less money
than someone with a little more experience and a lot less smarts. I
would certainly think of recruiting that way again, if I were in that
situation.

The thing that amazed me dealing with technical interviews was how many
people can talk the talk but know absolutely literally nothing. We had
some basic tests, more to show how people approached the problem than
anything else and shockingly many people- mostly graduates with good
qualifications and often claiming relevant experience who had come
across very well in general talky interviews just had no idea how to
approach a simple programming problem.

-ben