Which Cog?

Between reading copious amounts of Joel on Software and trying to create a Stack Overflow Careers 2.0 profile, I was suddenly reminded of a recent Economist article which deplored the amount of training (or lack there of) employees are offered by their companies. Hiring managers, it bewailed, like to think of interviewing as shopping around for spare parts: ideal candidates ought to be perfect fits to whatever component of the corporate machine is missing a cog.

Unfortunately, there is no chartered standard for programming professionals. Most people don't come tailored to the job they are recruited for. Specialists in particular technologies may come close but it seems that for the majority of entry- and mid- level positions, one is presented with but a vast collection of generically skilled individuals, all of which will require some amount of chiselling to fit the job spec. So perhaps the best one can hope for is that they are sufficiently malleable and intelligent and enthusiastic etc that they can quickly be moulded into what is required.

But anyway, my actual point was that one must seek this in one's employers: that they offer resources for learning and in more than name.