Once again theTIOBE Programming Community has calculated the trends in popular programming languages on the web. Evaluating the updates in the index allows developers to assess the direction of certain programming skills that are rising or faltering in their field.  According to the November 2013 report, three out of four languages currently ranking in the top twenty are languages defined by Microsoft. These are C#, SQL Server language Transact-SQL and Visual Basic.NET.  Not surprising though, the top two languages that remain steady in the number one and two spots are Java and C.

How are the calculations measured?  The information is gathered from five major search engines: Google, Bing, Yahoo!, Wikipedia, Amazon, YouTube and Baidu.

Top 20 Programming Languages: as of November 2013

1.  C
2.  Java
3.  Objective-C 
4.  C++
5.  C#
6.  PHP
7. (Visual) Basic
8.  Python
9. Transact-SQL
10. Java Script
11. Visual Basic.NET
12. Perl
13.  Ruby
14. Pascal
15. Lisp
16. MATLAB
17. Delphi/Object Pascal
18. PL/SQL
19. COBOL
20. Assembly

I’ve been a technical recruiter for several years, let’s just say a long time.  I’ll never forget how my first deal went bad and the lesson I learned from that experience.  I was new to recruiting but had been a very good sales person in my previous position. I was about to place my first contractor on an assignment.  I thought everything was fine.  I nurtured and guided my candidate through the interview process with constant communication throughout.  The candidate was very responsive throughout the process.  From my initial contact with him, to the phone interview all went well and now he was completing his onsite interview with the hiring manager. 

Shortly thereafter, I received the call from the hiring manager that my candidate was the chosen one for the contract position, I was thrilled.  All my hard work had paid off.  I was going to be a success at this new game!  The entire office was thrilled for me, including my co-workers and my bosses.  I made a good win-win deal.  It was good pay for my candidate and a good margin for my recruiting firm. Everyone was happy. 

I left a voicemail message for my candidate so I could deliver the good news. He had agreed to call me immediately after the interview so I could get his assessment of how well it went.  Although, I heard from the hiring manager, there was no word from him.  While waiting for his call back, I received a call from a Mercedes dealership to verify his employment for a car he was trying to lease. Technically he wasn’t working for us as he had not signed the contract yet…. nor, had he discussed this topic with me.   I told the Mercedes office that I would get back to them.  Still not having heard back from the candidate, I left him another message and mentioned the call I just received.  Eventually he called back.  He wanted more money. 

I told him that would be impossible as he and I had previously agreed on his hourly rate and it was fine with him.  I asked him what had changed since that agreement.  He said he made had made much more money in doing the same thing when he lived in California.  I reminded him this is a less costly marketplace than where he was living in California.  I told him if he signed the deal I would be able to call the car dealership back and confirm that he was employed with us.  He agreed to sign the deal.