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Comment by thorin | Hacker News Reader

I would have no problem taking on people with excellent c++ or c# experience for a longer term role if they show they are committed to spending time improving their java skills. If you are hiring for a very short assignment then obviously you're going to want the specific skills you're hiring for.

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Had a guy with c++ experience for C# job - never again. Yes it is generalization but he messed up basically half a year of company work.

If in the interview for C# or Java someone doesn’t write idiomatic C# or Java - but writes his c/c++ „for loops” it won’t work.

Management went over to hire that guy because we needed a developer and he was living close to the office… Worst hire ever - even a guy who we hired remotely that seemed to cheat because he did nothing or not much was waaay better because after 2 months we fired him and he did not break anything and did not make other team mates angry besides management.

I guess the problem was more that the guy was a jerk or not willing to learn. I do remember a C++ guy who would only ever do stuff in text files refusing to use a database which was ok up to a point, until it wasn't. What I meant was that someone who has the competency to understand complex C/C++ will not struggle to learn to work well with Java/C#

But that's the problem. With big corporations you probably wouldn't be the one deciding who to hire. It will be some HR person who doesn't know what qualities are important. They just Ctrl+f through the stack of CV's looking how often keyword 'x' occurs.

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