Let's make some distinctions. I'm not saying this is the ideal way to hire. I also dislike recruiters, and Java for that matter. But I don't find this practice indefensible, because:
1. Whenever you open a position, you get a ton of applicants that simply aren't qualified, and the faster you get rid of them the better.
2. A majority of programming jobs use Java, C# or C++, which all have 4 or 5 of these keywords with similar meaning.
This is a quick and easy filter. Of course, any quick and easy filter is going to have a false negative rate, and it's fair to protest that. Fundamentally, hiring programmers by their programming language competencies is also a very poor idea. But there are a lot of places that simply need a bunch of competent cogs and I don't think it's worth getting too worked up over the unintended negative consequences of their poor decisions. They want a ton of cogs, this is a great way to get a ton of cogs. You're not a cog and neither am I. I don't think either of us would want one of these "supercoder" jobs anyway.
1. Whenever you open a position, you get a ton of applicants that simply aren't qualified, and the faster you get rid of them the better.
2. A majority of programming jobs use Java, C# or C++, which all have 4 or 5 of these keywords with similar meaning.
This is a quick and easy filter. Of course, any quick and easy filter is going to have a false negative rate, and it's fair to protest that. Fundamentally, hiring programmers by their programming language competencies is also a very poor idea. But there are a lot of places that simply need a bunch of competent cogs and I don't think it's worth getting too worked up over the unintended negative consequences of their poor decisions. They want a ton of cogs, this is a great way to get a ton of cogs. You're not a cog and neither am I. I don't think either of us would want one of these "supercoder" jobs anyway.