Are jobs getting harder to get?

[staffsMike]

Depends, many of the really sort after jobs would laugh at someone who brought in a Portfolio.

(sorry, but i would, at my old place i hired 3 grads on 35k (one of whom has to do the job i quit. I feal really sorry, poor sods working 12 hour days, as a systems developer!), kinda sort after rolls i guess)

It's just my expereince really. Qualifications get you in the door for an interview but there is a huge difference between a piece of paper that suggest you can do the job and actually being able to do it. Solid evidence of ability is a good way of showing you can actually DO the job you are being hired for.

Obviously there are loads of reasons people do/don't get hired but there I have always found there to be a certain amount of suspicion over what it is your CV. e.g "Team player" O RLY? etc..

Out of interest why did you hire them? Simply had the right qualifications? Right personality?

[TheAnimus]

Out of interest why did you hire them? Simply had the right qualifications? Right personality?

Mostly the latter, had to have the qualifications to get into the door.

Don't really care to see a "portfolio", i'm not going to spend half an hour doing a code review, i can tell in 5 minuites if someone is a good programmer. (and i swear C# makes it easyer.... "what class have you made that you call via the using keyword, do you think is clever or just shows how nice the code can be?", if they say something like "well i only use it for the SqlConnection object" or "what the hells using" you can just send them away, if they say "hmm, probably console colour, or mouse cursor" then they get to be asked more questions!).

One's a hell of a lot quicker than looking over a portfolio.

[Splash]

Both qualifications AND experience will only get you so far towards being hired in my experience. I'll be completely honest - I have no qualifications outside of leaving school (and by that I mean GCSEs) 12 years ago, but I have a world of experience and get to play with all kinds of fun stuff. I don't make crazy money, but the bills get paid and I get to do a job I (usually) love. That said... I've missed out on jobs I could do standing on my head because I lack the qualifications on the interviewers' checklist - it's largely a balancing act and chances are that whatever you want to do you'll end up doing the hellish work to get your foot in the door for a while.

[dangel]

I regularly turn down candidates with PHDs because they either lack commercial experience or don't interview well. I'd agree with Splash - both get you an interview but once there they really don't mean much if you can't communicate effectively and show active knowledge of what's on the CV. The worst thing to do is lie/bull**** because it's pretty easy to get caught out and at that point you're screwed (period).