Two of the problems we struggle with here as technical people:

1) You receive hundreds of spam applications even if you mention explicitly code-related stuff - like GitHub/Bitbucket repo, years of programming experience, know-how in TDD, we sometimes experiment with continuous integration experience or others. The wave comes as long as you mention WordPress.

2) Other than the spam applications and standard "bots", many people simply don't know what's included in "developer" or what real "developers" do. Even if they do want to learn and get better, they don't know the limits and can't aim higher than they are.

The issue is with non-technical clients that can't judge technical skill. Since in software, anyone can call themselves whatever they want (as opposed to medicine and party engineering), the less sophisticated clients are the ones who suffer for it.

I've been there with non-technical clients. I've seen people get ripped off by those who misrepresent themselves or their abilities. I agree, there is pain there and it is wrong. But this is not a problem exclusive to our occupation.

All I can say is, personally, my own professional ethics require me to try to know my own limits and abilities and present those honestly. So, for example, if a client came to me with a technical need, and I felt that I wanted to fulfill it, but it was reasonably out of my wheelhouse, I would either turn down or direct that client to the best alternative I could think of, if I could not provide it.

I suppose, ethics training is a part of professional development in more rigid occupations, maybe if ours was formalized more, this would be more prevalent.

I couldn't agree more. But people need to make a living, and often loud folks take over an ecosystem if they are allowed to do so, and without standardization or a way to verify skills, we'll turn into the Internet marketing community which is flooded with self-titled marketing gurus - but at least their job requires them to be super visible and exposed so it's way easier to verify their credentials and/or skills.

Totally. I don't have a degree myself, so I know that sometimes the best candidates don't look like it on paper. I was just making a generalization, not meaning to only target the overqualified.