You know Rails is getting traction…
… when job ads start appearing asking for unrealistic and bordering on impossible levels of experience.
I thought we’d gotten past this back in 2000 when .Net came out… but 3 Years of Ruby on Rails experience you say?
Mathematically impossible for the average (read: non-core) rails developer, considering Ruby on Rails was only released publicly in July of 2004.
They’re obviously very picky and so are willing to pay up to a whopping US$35-US$55/hr for all those Rails rockstars who were using it before it was released to the public! I’m sure they’ll drop everything and come running to apply!
View my LinkedIn profile
May 9th, 2007 at 9:04 am
Funny you mention that, back in 1995, they had job ads for contractors for 3+ years of Win32 Experience, which could only have been possible for 2 sets of people.
1) People who were at the very first Win32 Developers Conference in San Francisco ( there were approximately 5800 of us there in attendance…I still have my books, CD’s and a tshirt. No wait, I gave that tshirt to my dad. ), and immediately returned home to set up their newly acquired Windows NT CD’s on something more powerful than a i386/16Mhz with 4 Mb’s of RAM ( a fortune in those days ).
2) Employees of Microsoft ( excluding people like David Cutler, Steve Woods, Neil Konzen, David Weise , and a few more, who Bill would’ve never let leave of his own volition ).
So, how did I approach it ? I photocopied the jacket of the CD, and faxed it back to the recruiter, along with a photo of me, Dave Cutler, and someone else I had worked with at IBM on OS/2 there in front of the Moscone center with the banner saying “Welcome to the Microsof Win32 Developers Conference” ( or something to that effect, I’d have to dig up the photo somewhere now ). In my cover sheet to the recruiter, I wrote ( and I’ll never forget this ), unless someone submitting their resume has this style of proof that they’ve been mucking (I’m not sure that was the EXACT word, but close enough ) with Win32-based code for 3 years, I’m your only guy in this area. As far as I know, I’m one of three people from South Florida ( where I’m based ), who actually attended that conference, and I knew who the other two guys were. I know, because they made everyone wear these silly badges saying who you were, and where you were from.
So it just goes to show you, recruiters will says, or copy just about any ludicrous ( and that’s the proper spelling ) that a client puts in their job requisite form. It never ceases to amaze me who totally unprepared for scoping out skill sets most HR organizations are. And as for recruiters, it’s almost as if they’re aiding and abetting the heresy spewing out in job reqs. these days.
Oh, and Warren….those rates for contractors aren’t exactly…whopping. $50+/hr in certain parts of the US might be considered “above average”, but they’re certainly not whopping by any means for someone who most certainly they would expect to shall we say….glide on rails (walk on water, yadda yadda ).
May 9th, 2007 at 3:51 pm
Oh, don’t worry, the use of the word “Whopping” was intended to be sarcastic at best
The folks with that much rails experience can name their price, and i bet $50/hr isn’t it 