Look for experience, not only a work

years of work is not the experience

Recently I wrote that from time to time I'm doing interviews. Today I will wrote about another thing that is noticeable after short conversation with some of the candidates. It's fact, that in spite of year of work, they have no experience in programming, no knowledge. They know nothing.
It's little bit scary, because those people are sometimes over a dozen years older than me!

So what happened?
They should answer on all my question without hesitation. This whole interview should be piece of cake for them... but it isn't.

what is the problem?

The problem is job itself. They stuck in the companies, where they have no chance for self-development. There is no trainings, there is no new challenges and after few months of work, you know everything, what is necessary for you in this place.

It's usually happens in companies, which are not related with IT closely, but (for one or the other reason) they need IT team. To handle web sites, internal applications, administrations, to help other employees with "this-scary-beast", which we call computers.

And after several years of doing exactly the same stuff, day by day, they start to think, that maybe it is right time to change something, because right now I'm not doing exactly what I wish for.

is it too late for them?

Of course not:) There is never too late to move forward:)

But I recommend to think about this as soon as it possible. Our (IT) world is very dynamic, so many new things comes up each day, new concepts etc.
You cannot let yourself to not follow them. It will be trival, but if you do not going forward, you're going backward. And it's even more noticeable if you are programmer.

The more time you will waste in company like this, the more things you will have to catch up