the "no good Perl jobs"/"no good Perl programmers" myth

[Nik Clayton]

Paul Makepeace wrote:
> On 8/10/06, John Costello <cos at indeterminate.net> wrote:
>> On Wed, 9 Aug 2006, Paul Makepeace wrote:
>> > We do
>> > require a degree though, even our admins. Java, python, C++, perl,
>> > haskell, R, C, Lisp...; it's all good.
>>
>> Any degree, or specific degrees? (No, not looking myself, just curious.)
>> For example, I know a Ph.C. in Linguistics who knows R.  Would the 
>> lack of
>> a more technical degree disqualify her?
> 
> I don't think so. Ability in the area that she's applying for is the
> overriding issue. The degree requirement just sets a minimum bar. As
> it happens, that degree requirement actually makes it quite difficult
> to hire admins, more so than engineers. And yes, every conceivably
> argument for and against has been made, and no, it's not apparently
> changing anything :-)

Assuming that we're still talking about Google, it might be.  I note the 
following, from a

   Google: Technical Solutions Engineer, Email Deployment - London

job ad that appeared on LinkedIn[1].

   [...]

   * BS/MS/PhD in Computer Science; experience in related field will
     be considered in lieu of degree.

   [...]

N


[1] Don't know how personalised the LI URLs are, this might find it:
http://www.linkedin.com/jobs?viewJob=&jobId=52863