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A comment on I Wouldn't Hire a Programmer With No Interest in Programming Outside of Work. Parent comment

Re:I Wouldn't Hire a Programmer With No Interest in Programm... by techiferous on Thursday October 08, 2009 @09:38PM (#870409)
"judging a job candidate based on their outside-of-work activities would actually be considered...illegal."

No, not in this case. This is relevant to the job. An employer can easily ask, "Do you have a software project portfolio?" or "What's your experience in python, professional or otherwise?" It's very much on-topic.

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Re:I Wouldn't Hire a Programmer With No Interest in Programm... by brown9-2 on Thursday October 08, 2009 @09:52PM (#870431)
Whether you choose to spend your time at home programming or doing something else is relevant to your day job how exactly?

I'm not saying that external work and side projects can't lead to experience or knowledge that would make someone a good candidate. Someone might be qualified because of the work they've done on the side. But they can't be disqualified because of a lack of it.

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Re:I Wouldn't Hire a Programmer With No Interest in Programm... by gloob on Thursday October 08, 2009 @11:59PM (#870593)
The post you are responding to claimed that the practice is legal. You are claiming it is unreasonable. You're arguing past each other.
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Re:I Wouldn't Hire a Programmer With No Interest in Programm... by philwelch on Friday October 09, 2009 @12:51AM (#870664)
"Someone might be qualified because of the work they've done on the side. But they can't be disqualified because of a lack of it."

That's kind of a meaningless statement. In a competitive atmosphere, not having a qualification is the same as being disqualified if the other guy has the qualification, and among programmers, the other guy usually does have that qualification.

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Re:I Wouldn't Hire a Programmer With No Interest in Programm... by techiferous on Thursday October 08, 2009 @11:14PM (#870540)
"Someone might be qualified because of the work they've done on the side. But they can't be disqualified because of a lack of it."

I agree 100%.

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