learning java

[Duane Morin]

Wow, what did I do to piss you off?

> > just because they're too cheap to pay my rate." Ummm, no, we didn't hire
> > you because you didn't know the difference between an array and a Hashmap 
> > and still wanted more money than our CEO.  :)
> > (insert obligatory "I don't need to know the difference between an array 
> > and a hashmap I can look it up on google..." defense here.)

In case it wasn't blatantly obvious this was a joke referring to the 
candidates that really do walk in the door with this attitude.  Not 
directed at you personally.

> I started as an EE, and that kind of just led into computer programming
> (I now develop web-based worflow and DAM systems). I have been
> programming computers in assy, C, C++, Pascal, Perl, PHP, etc, since
> that time (Desktop and RTOS). I think I know from whence I speak.

Honestly, who cares?  Dude said he's getting his Java certification, I 
recommended which level I thought was the most useful, and threw in my 
opinion about the value of those certifications based on my experience.  
And somehow you're turning it into a pissing contest.  You win.

> I suspect that there are not alot of companies that would do this. About
> a year or so ago, we had so many resumes that you were dropped a notch
> for every misspelled word. There were many candidates that were more

True enough.  There were also many candidates who were horrendously 
underqualified who had read a book on  how to tweak their resume with the 
right buzzwords to get through the automatic filters.  Just because the 
size of the pool went up does not mean the percentage of qualified 
applicants went up proportionately.  And I'll agree completely that lots 
of good candidates got lost in the shuffle.

 > than qualified for 
the position (and many that were overqualified). If

But who decides what constitutes qualified?  I'm sure that everybody that
walks out of here without a callback thinks that they were qualified, too.  
Nobody is sitting here saying "You're qualified, I just don't want you."  
Unless you're putting "fits in" in a different category than qualified, in 
which case I agree with you - there are people who are technically 
qualified, who do not fit in.  And I dont think it's a bad thing to not 
hire them.

> your company isn't getting them, then perhaps your positions are 
> incredibly niche, or perhaps they had you doing the interviews.

That must be it.

Duane