The years of experience that a person has accumulated are meaningful only if the experience is relevant. Because the field is so broad and so rapidly changing, ten years of experience in one environment may be nearly useless in another environment. The manager attempting to hire a system administrator has no mechanism to assess the applicant's relevant skill set. Some personnel systems, especially in government, require that the manager use the applicant's degree information and years of experience as selection criteria. In a worst case, the manager may be forced to hire a person to design the company's firewall who has spent ten years changing tapes on the graveyard shift.
Resumes are less than perfect sources of information.
Applicants learn to toss around acronyms to employers, and interviews ensue that consist primarily of compu-babble. One amusing method that can be used to weed out such behavior is to ask applicants to describe their experience with a phony acronym. Use our Contacts page.