I am with you ALL the way on this one. The other advantage of training people up from scratch, albeit a secondary one, is that you get people who do things your way. People who already know how to do something can often be resistant/defensive about changing the way they do it - the coding style, for example.
For a completely non-geeky example I find this with my personal carers (I'm disabled). I prefer to train people with no prior training because they're still enthusiastic about the job (there's a high burn-out rate) and because they're willing to learn things my way. Getting people with existing training means I first have to convince them to forget everything they thought they knew because my disability's so odd it doesn't fit the "rules" they know.
no subject
For a completely non-geeky example I find this with my personal carers (I'm disabled). I prefer to train people with no prior training because they're still enthusiastic about the job (there's a high burn-out rate) and because they're willing to learn things my way. Getting people with existing training means I first have to convince them to forget everything they thought they knew because my disability's so odd it doesn't fit the "rules" they know.
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