I don’t expect anyone to spend a lot of time outside of work just playing with new technologies for the sake of educating themselves, but I look very favorably on those who do. I know that I certainly don’t have time to do it anymore. But I think you missed my underlying point.

People who enjoy what they do will inherently be better at it. The person looking for just a paycheck is going to learn enough to get by, while the person who is truly interested in technology will spend a bit of extra time learning all of the intricate nuances to become proficient, thus creating fewer bugs, more efficient code, and will create that code faster. Which one would you want on your team?

My example of looking for things outside of work actually discovers two things, not just one. The first is whether the person is interested in technology. The second is their eagerness and ambition. Looking for projects outside of work kills two birds with one stone.

Ambitious people work harder than those who are not. If the candidate doesn’t have things they’ve done outside of work, it takes more questions during the interview to determine their ambitions and whether they’re into the work, or just there for a paycheck.

It’s not detrimental if they don’t do things outside of work. I completely understand the pressures of time on your life. As I said before, I simply don’t have the time to do anything myself. I’m running a business largely by myself. I’m sales, marketing, engineering, tech support, internal IT support, accounting, and everything else. Tack onto that a wife with a baby on the way and it’s pretty obvious that outside of work, I have very little life.

On the other hand, I think my ambition and passion for technology is pretty abundantly clear. In some way, shape or form, how a person feels about their work should be pretty obvious.

I’ve found that the vast majority of people don’t play with technology outside of work. Usually, older established people with families and fully occupied personal lives find it insulting that they should be expected to use there non work time to educate themselves. People like this only know what they learn in work supplied training.

Have you guys seen this, or is just were I work? I’m fine with it though, it’s just that much easier for me to excel by differentiating myself.

Another thing: when I saw the title of this post, I thought you were going to answer the question a completely different way: How do you get any job you want? Quit and create the ideal job for yourself!