Yes, we know the problems of hiring the "wrong person" and the disasters they can bring to the team. However, the loss opportunity of being understaffed to not do all the projects you want to do is also an equally difficult problem.<p>Lately, I've seen the requirements of tech hiring get higher and higher and higher. If it get's any higher, the only people that's available to hire are sociopaths and liars because no living person on earth could ever fulfill these requirements. If the trend keeps going this way, a guy like Dennis Ritchie would be unhireable!<p>Is it just me or are tech companies becoming more unrealistic in their hiring practices? Is this a good thing in the long run?
I don't think it's just you. Hopefully enough people get sick of the "Required: 5 years of experience in every programming language created in the last 20 years" bullshit sooner rather than later.
They are unrealistic and its been this way for a while. A lot of companies over rate themselves, they want the best and brightest but if the candidate is too good they won't stay at an inferior company anyway so depending on the position someone with less education or experience but is a good learner would probably be just as good if not better.
Not only tech companies. At least here in the Netherlands the requirements for any job have been going through the roof, and border on the unrealistic. I think this is a result of there being a surplus of people competing for jobs so they feel they can make more demands.
Well, nowadays you can see additional C/C++ and Java requirements for Web Developer position. The problem is, that some CEO's (or other persons, responsible for hiring) don't have any idea how to hire a programmer, and what he/she should know.