In my ongoing job search, I’m sometimes asked by recruiters: “How many years of experience do you have with [name of some technology or skill]?” It’s a somewhat reasonable question when the item involved is a programming language or technique that I use every day, or at least every week. But there are far too many things that it just doesn’t work for.
For example, I can reasonably well say that I have 5 years of experience with AJAX: I taught myself AJAX in the summer of 2005, and have been using it pretty consistently since then. But how many “years of experience” do I have with SQL?
I started using it around 2002 or 2003, but if I say that I “have 7 years of experience” with it, I give the impression that I’m some kind of SQL expert… which is definitely not true. It’s the sort of thing I use about once every week or two. I’ll set up a database schema, maybe even type out some raw commands in a MySQL command-line client, and then I’ll just let whatever framework I’m using handle all the details for me.
So, what sort of answer should I give to the question? The sense in which I “use” (or “have experience with”) SQL is simply not the same as the sense in which I use things like JavaScript, PHP, or CSS. (The sense in which a DBA uses SQL is probably comparable to the sense in which I use CSS… but I can’t be sure, not being one myself.)
At least the idea of having “a year of experience with” SQL does make a certain sort of sense. What should I say when asked how many “years of experience” I have with XML or JSON? These aren’t really “technologies” so much as data formats. It’s like asking someone how many years of experience they have saving files in .txt or .doc format (as opposed to using Notepad or MS Word).
The only metrics that are worse than “years of experience” are: “When did you start using Technology X?” (which, thankfully, very few people have asked), and the utterly subjective “How would you rate yourself with Technology X, on a scale of 1 to 10?” (I need to write an entire post about that particular metric, when I get a chance.)