[Baypiggies] [JOB] Software Engineer, Cloud Fabric Team, Nimbula Inc.

[Anna Ravenscroft]

On Thu, Jul 1, 2010 at 11:40 PM, Jeff Enderwick
<jeff.enderwick at gmail.com> wrote:
> Maybe it was a carefully crafted test to see if job seekers without CS
> degrees were sharp enough to surmise that equivalent knowledge would be
> likely acceptable. Very smart; effectively implementing a filter by *not*
> adding Aahz' missing text (I smell a business process patent for that HR
> manager!)  ;-).

>From what I'm reading here, it doesn't actually serve its purpose
well.  Most folks are saying they read it as "or equivalent
experience" and would apply anyway while the guy with an EE degree (or
other related non-"CS" degree) read it and disqualified himself even
if he's got way more experience than most. Either way, they're not
cutting down on mismatches, AND they're cutting out people that might
be a better match for the position. Is that really what they want?

I would love to see the company come and explain how *they* intended
the "must" so that we can all have a better understanding of why they
used it.  I find such "this is what I meant when I said x" discussions
to be really enlightening. Maybe there's a good reason for the "must"
that none of us here has guessed, or maybe they thought it would would
give the candidate something it doesn't. Maybe they're just all CS
majors and only want to work with other CS majors or maybe it's just
an unjustified bias. I don't know but I'd love to find out. Not just
for this job, but for hiring managers in general. And not just for "CS
degree a must" but for other common phrasing of job ads.

Of course, I'm kind of a language geek and such discussions are
interesting to me in general. But seriously, I think knowing what
recruiters or hiring managers think certain ad wording means might be
useful for those of us who are looking for work.

-- 
cordially,
Anna