I once applied for a job where one of the requirements was “minimum 5 to 10 years experience in X”. My friend told me to submit a CV saying I have 3 to 6 years experience in X and see if they shortlist me.
“Up to 50% off or more!”
That or when the range is so huge as to be meaningless - a $25k-150k range is completely useless.
I don’t usually complain about how people convey what they want, but this one often annoys me a bit - because it’s a matter of clarity.
Some might say “well, there’s uncertainty on the min/max”, but then the higher/lower boundary of the uncertainty doesn’t mean anything. That’s the case here - it’s effectively “minimum 5 years experience”, unless you say what would require more experience.
The higher bound is an indication of maximum salary. It’s saying “we need at least 5 years experience, but if you have 30, we’re paying you like you have 5.”
The higher bound is an indication of maximum salary.
Is this something that you know, or that you’re assuming?
Note that in both cases it only reinforces what I said about clarity. If the higher bound of the range:
- is indeed related to the salary - then it is not a requirement, nor should be listed as such
- is related to something else - are they expecting appliers to assume what the range means?
I’ve been hiring people for 10 years. Before it was common to post salaries, this was a good way to not waste people’s time interviewing for jobs below their rate.
It’s in the requirement section because that’s the section we are able to modify on the stupid Excel sheet that the recruiters force us to use.
I don’t agree. I’m currently looking for a developer with 5-10 years of experience. I don’t want a guy so green he’s grass, I also don’t want someone that has so much experience that he’ll be super expensive and or stuck in their ways. I want someone who knows what they’re doing, but can still learn more.
“5-10 years experience” is a range of time anyone can understand. “MINIMUM 5-10 years” is a range that makes absolutely no sense. Imagine if the speed limit signs in your area said “maximum 35-45 mph” and tell me how fast you’re allowed to drive.
Speed limit signs with ranges would make sense if given some additional clarification by the issuing authority. For example:
- The upper bound is the limit in perfect conditions; the lower bound is the limit when the weather is bad in any way
- The upper bound is the limit when there’s no traffic. The lower bound is the limit when there’s substantial traffic.
- The upper bound is the limit normally. The lower bound is the limit during school hours.
Even without a clarification drivers could probably assume it’s some combination of the above.
(A job description could have the same clarification but probably doesn’t, as “minimum” is just an error on the part of the person writing it. But they could say “5-10 years minimum experience, depending on level and nature of education,” and then a reader could infer that a person with a relevant Master’s degree might need 5 years of experience; a relevant Bachelor’s degree - 6 years minimum; a major in something else - 8 years minimum; only a high school diploma - 10 years minimum.)
IMO the “stuck in their ways” isn’t about experience at all. It’s about good or bad devs. I’ve seen green devs stuck in their ways.
Sometimes managers or devs who don’t know any better think that knowing the right thing to do is the same as being inflexible, because they don’t understand the rationale since they aren’t experienced programmers.
Most IT job postings done by recruiters are hilariously bad, I scrolled through some and I’m just like “really? That’s all you’re telling me?”
“expert knowledge in NT, FreeBSD, Cisco IOS, Java, C#, Active Directory, Windows Server, Fortinet”. Uh huh. Just be an expert at everything, I see.
Then you do the interview and they want like 2 of those things and less experience is fine. 🙄
They want the unicorn, they will settle for a horse with a horn taped to its forehead.
A job I’m interviewing for now asked me if I had experience with libvirt, qemu,and KVM.
(For those not in the know, libvirt is a wrapper around qemu, KVM is the name of the technology, so if you have experience with one or both of the first two, you definitely have experience with the last one).
This is my first interview after 3 months of applying (not every day, mind you, I’ve probably applied to like 300 jobs though). I have another one in the next few days as well, for another company.
LinkedIn Premium does actually seem to help, compared to sites like Dice. Good luck out there, it’s pretty rough right now.
I think it means that if you have 10 years of experience you are welcome to apply, but they are only willing to pay commensurate to experience up to 10 years.
