This Janet Lee Johnson story, about a company asking for a decade of experience with Microsoft Copilot experience – a product that is not even two years old – is worth a laugh.

It gives me flashbacks to the Big Data heyday, when companies sometimes demanded a decade of Hadoop experience.

"Ummmm yeh that means the person who invented Hadoop is technically unqualified for this role ... so ... Best of luck."

People might say that a candidate should just roll with this, claim that they meet the (impossible-to-have) level of experience, and move on. That's certainly one option!

But remember that a job interview is a two-way street. When you create impossible job requirements, you're sending one of two messages to candidates:

1/ We're sloppy (yet, we'll probably ding you for being sloppy)

2/ We invent artificial hurdles which screen out honest people (and that says a ton about the people who get in!)

Neither one is a good look.