I wrote my first web page [a few months] before IE came out. I am amused. It also puts a new perspective on employers wanting someone who has “10 years experience in web development”. Uh, dude, I’m sure you would like that. And several companies probably want someone with demonstrated success making nanotech robots. Monkeys flying out of my butt.
Having ten years of web development experience is within the realm of possibility. My first forays into web design were just over ten years ago, in late 1993, during my undergraduate studies.
That was back in the days when the only real web browser was NCSA Mosaic. One couldn’t do much back then with one’s web pages, though. As memory serves, one was pretty much limited to text and *.gif images (I don’t think *.jpg support came along until a little bit later on). I can’t say I miss those days — no client-side scripting, only rudimentary formatting, and a pretty kludgy presentation. Ick.
That said, I’m probably the rare exception. I suspect that folks with ten years of web design/development background are about as scarce as hen’s teeth. And not all of those folks ultimately moved into careers in the tech sector. I agree that it sounds like these folks have pretty unrealistic expectations as far as who they’re looking for.
Yeah, but anyone who has been doing web development for that long could probably do much better than the jobs I was looking at. =) Granted, I don’t think anyone literally asked for 10 years of web development experience, but still…
I think a lot of that has to do with the American wish-fulfillment mentality. We’re accustomed to having our demands met by the market. “I want a snack cake with raspberry and chocolate on the inside!” Bam, it appears. Capitalism works by observing, then satisfying perceived needs, so by demanding a unicorn with a magic sparkling horn of web design, one will appear to fit the bill!
I first used HTML in CSW (99-101, or whatever) just over 7 years ago. So I have 7 years experience in web development. Of course, it’s all been based on HTML 4.0 or lower. (=
maybe peter parker could apply for the job.