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.
Thankfully some states in the US have made this illegal, like Colorado.
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).
Recruiting is the great leveller. Those who don’t have any skills can at least make it harder for companies to hire people who do have skills.
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.
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.
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.)
Those clarifications are in the driving manual you should have studied to get your license. The posted limit is only accurate under ideal conditions, often being affected by weather and local conditions. In most places you can be ticketed for speeding by driving at the limit during rain or other weather events. Posting a range of numbers would just add clutter and limit readability, the range is implicit on the road because it is explicitly laid out in elsewhere through regulation.
Yeah it’s grammatically incorrect but don’t we know what they mean? They would settle for 5 years experience if they had to, but 10 years is very much preferred and if they felt they could require 10 they would.
Most neurotypical people don’t need everything to be ridigly perfect in definitions. We understand what they meant. I think the objection to this comes from the more autistic type folks. Which isn’t to say they are wrong for being different.
Eh, I am not autistic and I am bothered by a lot of language things. But I also appreciate creativity with words when it gets a point across, especially if it would take 50 more words to get across the meaning that 3 creatively combined words can also communicate.
