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Ask Slashdot: Why Are Tech Job Requirements So Specific?

Posted by timothy on from the based-this-one-on-my-nephew's-resume dept.

First time accepted submitter hurwak-feg writes "I am in the market for a new IT (software development or systems administration) job for the first time and several years and noticed that many postings have very specific requirements (i.e. specific models of hardware, specific software versions). I don't understand this. I like working with people that have experience with technologies that I don't because what they are familiar with might be a better solution for a problem than what I am familiar with. Am I missing something or are employers making it more difficult for themselves and job seekers by rejecting otherwise qualified candidates that don't meet a very specific mold. Is there a good reason for being extremely specific in job requirements that I am just not seeing?"

6 of 465 comments (clear)

  1. To hire specific people by tepples · · Score: 5, Informative

    I'm under the impression that the more specific a tech job requirement is, the more likely it was written to target one person, such as a specific foreign citizen on an H-1B visa. That or the company just wants to be a cheapskate, wanting the new hire to be productive from day two instead of taking two weeks to train him or her.

    1. Re:To hire specific people by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

      Your impression is correct. My immigration law professor talked about this during our visa lectures. The company will find an H-1B candidate they want then the corporate attorney writes a job app matching that person. Bingo, no one matches the description and you can then hire your H-1B.

    2. Re: To hire specific people by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

      In at least one case it was to promote an existing employee. Me.

      My boss quit. His boss agreed I should take over, but corp. policy requires a job posting published for 5 days. The two of us sat down w/ my resume and wrote a description very unlikely to be matched by anyone else. 5 days later HR let my promotion go through and the posting disappeared.

    3. Re:To hire specific people by theshowmecanuck · · Score: 4, Informative

      It doesn't matter anyway. Companies will bring in people for fake interviews to say they tried to hire locals. Then they will hire H1-B indentured servants because they are cheaper.

      --
      -- I ignore anonymous replies to my comments and postings.
  2. There are a _LOT_ of candidates out there now by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    The problem is, there are a lot of candidates out there now. A LOT. So we get real specific with what we want, because we still end up getting between five to ten applicants that have those things and thirty to forty who have almost all of them. If we were vague, we would receive probably between 100 and 200 applicants per job. And we're in an area that is NOT tech haveny. We're in the middle of the deep south.

    I remember a friend from google telling me they receive , on the average year, around 195,000 candidates, 30% of which make it to an interview phase. That number doubles every year and a half. By being way more specific , they are slicing that number in half. Or more. Instead of ALL the google employees having to interview 50000 (which doesn't count second or third or onsites that also occur), they're trying to do far less.

    Employers are facing a glut of software engineers/IT/etc. We're just knocking the numbers down to reasonable levels with these extra requirements. It'd probably be in your interest to go ahead and apply if you're close to all.. but rest assured, if you see an advert for a job that contains a lot of requirements, they will probably get 5 - 10 applicants that meet those around here.. and 300 - 400 in a more tech heavy area like the bay area.

  3. Re:If you have 1 Apache admin, they better know Ap by Chirs · · Score: 5, Informative

    My own job is programming Moodle, an LMS with over a million lines of code. That's roughly equal to an entire Linux distribution.

    What are you smoking? Just the linux *kernel* is roughly 12 million lines of code. Firefox is 10 million lines of code. The GNOME desktop framework is 8 million lines of code. The GNU compiler is 6 million lines of code. Chromium is 7 million lines of code.

    That's just a smattering of the packages that can be found in a linux distribution...