"There's a difference between a generalist that has industry experience and one that does not and the article really fails to make this distinction," the commenter said. "Industry experience is gained through graduated steps through different IT specializations, not through being an experienced generalist. Certifications may demonstrate subject matter expertise, but they rarely demonstrate experience."

For some, hiring to fill a high-tech position comes down to skills first, attitude second.

"I'm about to hire a network analyst. If candidates don't have experience in VoIP, MPLS, advanced protocol analyzers, BGP, OSPF, RIP, spanning tree, etc, their resumes will make their way very quickly to the shredder," one high-tech manager said online. "Yes aptitude and passion are important, but let's get our priorities straight. First hire for proven ability to learn complex technologies, then narrow down to right attitude."

For his part, Paul Clark, data center manager at The Ohio State University Medical Center, clarified online a few of his statements made , saying he believed them to be taken out of context and misunderstood. He noted how much his organization values its student interns who might get assigned to less exciting tasks in the data center.

"Our students are very valuable to our organization and we often give a multitude of tasks to student staff to provide real-world experience. In many cases our students will become a full-time staff members because of the training they received on the job. Sometimes the real world involves 'crummy' work, and as a business you should utilize the best resources to do the work," Clark wrote in response to critical comments. "That being said, there have been many times that I have spent long hours doing boring, but very important work, because it needed to be done. ... So it is not below any of us."