With the down economy a lot of people are interviewing. We are fortunate at this company to still be growing and hiring, so we get a fair number of candidates.

Here’s what not to say in an interview:

I just got one of these the other day from a candidate who claimed to be a .Net programmer. I asked about the .Net Framework 3.5 and C# 2.0, which includes topics like WPF, WCF, LINQ, and WF. Fair game if you have .Net on a resume.

For those seeking new employment, at most high-tech companies: IT IS EXPECTED THAT ANYONE CALLING HIM OR HERSELF A PROGRAMMER WILL BE CURRENT IN THE PLATFORM TECHNOLOGY STACK, BE IT JAVA, .NET, MATLAB, OR WHATEVER!

Duh!

On .Net specifically – I realize many .Net shops are stuck on 2.0 of the Framework. I get that. We won’t hold it against you if your last project was a couple of revs behind. Heck, even we have projects that can’t stay current due to limitations placed on us by clients. It happens.

But, the tools are free!!! Download the new stuff, mess with it, stay awake past midnight, and learn on your own darn time. Spend a little less time with American Idol and a little more time with your compiler! Learn the platform and related technologies like IoC tools, unit test tools, design tools, and etc.

Whether it’s here or anywhere else, don’t go to an interview without investing a massive amount of your own time keeping up. Don’t make me or any other interviewer ask that awkward question, “Why haven’t you downloaded the free tools and learned this on your own?” Read articles, write code, experiment…build stuff. Heck, if you are unemployed during the day you should be interviewing with a huge stack of “demo programs” you’ve been building with the downtime between interviews. Your demo stack should showcase modern programming technique or Ux design – have something sexy to show.

If you think it is your employer’s responsibility to update your core skills, provide platform and language training, or give you basic experiences using a technology stack then you will be seen as either lazy or incompetent.

Sure, Sphere pays to send talented people to lots of training, but not remedial platform or language training. If you expect an employer to book you a Learning Tree class just so you can learn C# then you are going about your career all wrong. Learn that stuff on your own. If you do, we’ll help you to gain leading edge knowledge about stuff that you can’t get from Learning Tree!