This post has a very interesting take on the “Required: X years of experience with Y” concept:
Programming platform experience is like knowing your way around the kitchen. Where are the knives, what size plates do we have, and what spices are available. It’s very useful for getting things done without having to search high and low for every little thing. But it’s also an asset with a cut-off point of diminished returns. Once you have a reasonably good idea where things are, it’s no longer the bottleneck in your culinary performance.
Like chefs, like programmers. Peopleware quotes a study that six months seemed to be the cut-off point for programmers. Once they had six months under their belt, the platform knowledge was no longer the bottleneck in their abilities.
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Which leads me to my point: Requiring X years of experience on platform Y in your job posting is, well, ignorant. As long as applicants have 6 months to a year of experience, consider it a moot point for comparison. Focus on other things instead that’ll make much more of a difference. Platform experience is merely a baseline, not a differentiator of real importance.
See full article.