March 20, 2006 1:15 PM

The truth about interviewing
Posted by Jason Butlerat 1:15 PM

Just because you know how to program doesn't mean you're qualified for a software engineering position, any more than training your dog to sit won't qualify you to replace a lion-tamer.

Putting together a pretty Ruby on Rails site is no small feat. Learning to program is no small feat. Many people try and fail to get even that far. But it's 3- to 5-ball juggling, and it just doesn't cut it for the Cirque du Soleils and private hospitals of the software industry. I'm sure you want to be a racecar driver, a hang-gliding instructor, a corporate lawyer, a movie sound editor, a rocket scientist. But you know you don't have the requisite training or experience. Why do you think knowing a little (or even a lot) about programming automatically qualifies you to get hired at Microsoft?