It was the early nineties. If you've touched a computer, companies would assume that any skill gap you had you could straightforwardly bridge yourself, on the job.

It wasn't like today where you have to be a perfect cinnamon roll of a candidate who ticks all of HR's required-skill checkboxes before you can move on to the grueling 5-6 rounds of interviews.

This is not an exaggeration. Those boom times, much like the discovery of gold on the Klondike, was the wild-west of information technology. If you had a pulse, and knew which part was the "mouse", you were employable. Granted, you might be fixing dial-up modems or troubleshooting email settings all day, but work was plentiful. And yes, your job responsibilities and "training" were one and the same.

And dear reader, if this has you thinking that the early internet was a planet-wide bird's nest of bailing wire and duct-tape slapped together by amateurs, you're paying attention. Huge parts of it were just that. We're all better at it now, but "better" is a relative term and not evenly distributed.

"Entry level" doesn't even mean the same thing nowadays and it's a crying shame.

This is so true.

I remember one of my interviews that went well in the end. In the middle of the interview, they mentioned using Java and building web apps. At the time, I was a C++ developer with no web development experience.

I said: "I never did web development," and their response was, "You do know how to write source code, don't you?"

I said: "Of course I do, but..."

They cut me off with: "You will pick it up, don't worry about it."

Maybe they figured knowing C++ was a sign of your general programming aptitude?

Also, how right were they?

I have seen a C++ dev. almost brought to tears when trying to fix a CSS issue at a previous job. Then he broke into tears of laughter when I showed him `yarn build:dev` and the tailwind config. and package.json files :D.

Better to laugh about it than cry about it, eh :].

I recall interviews from that era too, where the interviewers didn't fully comprehend the jobs they were hiring for.

"You know how to write source code, don't you?"

Answer: "yes, but I mostly prefer to write fully compiled code directly to disk. Much more efficient".

Real programmers use a magnetized needle and a steady hand...

> today where you have to be a perfect cinnamon roll of a candidate who ticks all of HR's required-skill checkboxes before you can move on to the grueling 5-6 rounds of interviews

HR does that so they can empire build. If it takes 200 hours of HR work to hire someone instead of 20, then the director of HR has 10x the staff and can command higher prices.

My first job (mid 1980s) was writing video games in Z-80 assembler for chickenfeed. I still remember that in my interview my boss-to-be talked a bit about the company, and then hired me - literally without asking a single question.

He knew I was doing computing at uni and that seemed to be enough.

I do remember seeing job listings around '96 calling for 5 years of experience with windows '95.