-----Original Message----- From: Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com> To: lbo-talk at lists.panix.com <lbo-talk at lists.panix.com> Date: Saturday, December 29, 2001 5:49 PM Subject: Re: Archives?
>Marco Anglesio wrote:
>
>>Software developers have a limited lifespan
>
>How limited? Do you get too old to learn new languages or algorithms?
>Do employers just want younger programmers because they can work
>longer hours for lower pay? I'd love to hear more about this.
>
>Doug
I'm a recent refugee from a big California computer company (got out just a couple weeks before the layoffs started), and I have the impression that no one actually plans for hiring to work that way. The biggest part of the problem is that HR people are given a laundry list of desirable skills and simply check the buzzwords against an applicant's resume. HR people almost never know what any of the buzzwords mean.
Here's an example, a Fujitsu ad for a Web Application Developer on monster.com:
Job Description: Analyze, design, code, develop, deploy and implement E-commerce application. Build administration tools to manage E-commerce system, deploy CRM system with configuration tools using pre packaged applications. Integrate with transactional and other systems. Train users. Document functional flow and design specification. Support application.
Requirements: Minimum 3 years experience, object oriented programming and Relational Database Management. Certified Java Programmer. Bachelor’s Degree in Computer Science or Electrical Engineering. Strong written and verbal communication skills.
There is almost no relationship between the "Job Description" section and the "Requirements" section. There is no chance that this job actually requires 3 years experience in object-oriented programming, and asking for a "Certified Java Programmer" is pure wishful thinking. A year ago, no one with an actual degree in computer science or electrical engineering would have even contemplated applying for this job. The job sounds like it consists of installing some shrink-wrapped software after reading the manual, writing some Java serverlets that interact with a database (which isn't very hard if you have any idea how to write code and know how to cope with databases), and spending the rest of your time listening to users complain about it and writing up reports for management.
Now, someone who got a degree in computer science in, say, 1990, and has been working in something unrelated (say, applications development for Windows) and is now in their mid 30's is horribly overqualified for this job, but is not going to get it.
HR people will see that they have: - no Java experience (when it probably wouldn't take them more than a week to get up to snuff) - no object-oriented programming experience (because the HR person doesn't know that C++ means object-oriented programming) - say nothing about relational databases (which is really uncomplicated)
An experienced programmer could learn to do this job in a couple of weeks.
So, instead the job will go to someone who has a Bachelor's degree in the history of human consciousness, taken a community college course in writing Java serverlets and held a couple of small web-related jobs in the past. And, they'll probably do fine, because I'll bet that all Fujitsu probably really needs someone who can write simple serverlets and knows how to read a manual. But, four or five years down the road, they'll find that no one is writing serverlets anymore (what will they be writing? If I knew that, I'd be a billionaire), and that this job at Fujitsu has not served them well as a gateway to a career in computing.
(Full disclosure: this, and a judicious amount of lying, is approximately how I got into the business. I once got a job because I used the abbreviation "DSSSL" on my resume.)
The trouble is that job ads come with improbable lists of desirable skills, usually completely out of proportion with the actual requirements, and that spending a few years in one place, working on one firm's systems, gives you no experience in whatever the new buzzword skills are. The technical people have the sense to judge who has the underlying skills to learn, but the HR people don't, and it's their job to decide who gets interviewed.
The longer you've been working in some area, the harder it is to make your qualifications on paper look like the qualifications computer jobs claim to require. Thus, software people end up with short professional lifespans.
Scott Martens