TL; DR:

• Years of Experience is a "proxy" measure
• Consider being T-Shaped
• Join the livestream on Monday, February 24th at 7:00 PM Pacific!

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10 Years Of Experience vs 10 Years Of The SAME Experience

What's The Obsession With "Years Of Experience"?

If you're job searching right now in tech, you've probably noticed this whole thing where employers are asking for "X years of experience". It might seem frustrating when you're reading the description and thinking "Hey, I can TOTALLY do that!" only to realize that you don't meet the minimum years of experience (YoE).

Asking for YoE isn't anything new. Even when I was first interning and then exploring full time roles between 10 and 15 years ago, this was normal. But there are two things I want to address:

1. Folks that are new to the industry are likely seeing "entry-level" mixed with "requires some YoE". Is that even entry-level?!
2. Why the heck are people even asking for YoE in the first place?

I spent some time discussing this the other day on Code Commute, and I had some thoughts:

• YoE is only a proxy to try and gauge the effective experience that a candidate has.
• There's a LOT of competition and volume of applicants right now... employers can try to filter out candidates by raising the bar on requirements.

Some people didn't like these ideas. But to be clear: I am not saying these are GOOD reasons for these things to happen. I'm simply saying this is why I think these things happen.