You've pointed out a critical weakness in the system, Erik. I've simply pointed out that there's quite a bit more that's unfortunate, if not equally weak, that's causing the loss of a lot of native talent, in some cases because HR people don't do their job, and, IMHO, are, in fact, unqualified to do it, as they lack the vocabulary, not to mention the necessary reading (cognitive) skills.

I've mentioned many times, the occasions on which HR people didn't recognize the link between ETHERNET and LAN, or between other buzzwords that are obvious to us in the industry, but not so obvious to people whose skills are in area of Facebook and Twitter, and who haven't read a nonfiction piece, whether on the www or at the library since before their last exams.

What I regret is that so many talented programmers are slinging hash or mopping floors in order to feed their families rather than creating the vastly better code that they can produce, rather than the degreed "professionals" that are doing it so badly.

The education industry has engaged in a "race to the bottom" against the advancing institutions in what we once considered the "developing world" in order to turn out people with the technical skills to do the job. Unfortunately, many such educational paths as they provide nowadays, leave out the "well-rounded" approach, incorporating the language arts such as reading with comprehension and writing communicatively, not to mention having read classic literature so that there's a shared cultural basis for those of a common language to exploit.

It's important that we share more than just definitions of electrical parameters, etc. It's also important that we know the correct syntax for the language with which we communicate with one another, not just that which we use when communicating with our computers.

RE