When you're hiring for any normal development position, ability matters more than reputation. If I was interviewing someone for a job that required writing SQL and asked them to write some SQL, and they couldn't, I wouldn't hire them. What is so hard to understand about that?

I'm sure that I could EASILY pick up the skills required to be a gardener, but would you hire me to tend your rose bushes based on that fact? No, and that's what this discussion is about.