Nornagest comments on Two More Things to Unlearn from School - Less Wrong

54 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 12 July 2007 05:45PM

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Comment author: Jiro 18 August 2014 08:00:55PM 1 point [-]

(Replying again to old post)

How do you get past the resume keyword-scanning process where you worked with language X for the past 10 years and even if you are in category 1, nobody will hire you unless the job is for language X? Even if there is not literally a computer scanning resumes, a prospective employer should do a Bayseian update that compares the chance that someone without Y on their resume can pick up Y and the chance that someone with Y on their resume is skilled at Y. You would never get to the interview stage unless the total number of resumes is small enough that the employer is willing to interview even applicants with low probabilities of being suitable candidates.

Comment author: Nornagest 19 August 2014 12:08:28AM *  2 points [-]

One popular method, if you've got a programming job, is to write some automation tools or other minor, relatively language-agnostic projects in whatever language is buzzword-compliant at the moment. Wrote a few build scripts in Ruby? Congratulations, you've deployed Ruby infrastructure in a mission-critical environment.

This will usually come out once you're talking to a human, but at that point you can talk about your personal projects and show off your actual knowledge of the language.