Are you an embedded developer? Bring a show-and-tell to your next interview. Bring an example of something you've worked on. Doesn't have to be in a finished case. In fact, a raw PCB can be more effective.<p>Make sure 1) the product has already been released to the public and 2) the hardware isn't stolen. Rig up a small power supply and find a way to light it up.<p>Being able to drop that in front of an interviewer and explain the entire system front-to-back is a <i>massive</i> advantage over people that have listed random "projects" in their resume but don't have much more to say about it. Be honest about your contributions, don't give away anything proprietary, but be proud of the project and show some enthusiasm when you talk about it.<p>That alone will get you 80% of the way to the job.<p>I also keep a binder with a single page for every project I've done. Just a photograph and maybe 3-4 lines of text. Keep that off to the side. When an interviewer asks about a technology or idea that matches even a little you whip that book out and point to the page. Now you're showing and telling again. Super easy to put together and maintain over your career.
<i>I’ve spent nearly twenty years blogging, giving talks and releasing open source code. [...] I’ve interviewed hundreds of people [...] The vast majority of candidates have little to no evidence of creativity in public at all</i><p>Are we sure the author is not showing some unconscious bias by looking in others for traits he has (public creativity)?<p>There is no particular reason why public creativity is linked to good engineers. It's one way to show good engineering, sure. But far from the only way. I could see some other hiring managers arguing the opposite: if you have time to write lightweight tech posts on your blogs, maybe you are not a great engineer who will solve my company's most difficult problems.<p>That being said, especially for new grads, I strongly recommend showing something, anything beyond "I graduated from this university and here are the classes I took".
I have 50+ public projects on Github.<p>Some of them are live, have screenshots, proper documentation and such.<p>Some of them gets stars or people reach out for support on these projects.<p>Some of them I've advertised on Reddit etc and reached 100K+ views and a lot of upvotes in their respective Communities.<p>I also have a substack which has reached top of HackerNews once.<p>All this has netted me exactly ZERO opportunities till now.<p>Thankfully, I'm doing Github and Substack as a hobby/learning so no expectations = no disappointment.<p>But the author is deluded to think these things help. You might win the lottery and the right person might see your content at the right time. But it's better to just use this time to cram Leetcode and get a job.
When I applied recently to a new job, the interviewer(s) didn't even look at my github profile (or if they did, they might have clicked on one repo for 5s, and left). I know this based on the questions they asked me.<p>Unless you highly curate your online presence for the hiring people (e.g. your blog only contains articles of interest to the interviewers in one place), I think nobody cares. The exception being is if your code/articles are in the top 5% of read articles, then I'd guess that speaks for itself without gaming the presentation.
I'm always surprised at how much push-back this one gets. The point I was trying to make here is that you DON'T need to be someone who spends every free moment blogging, writing open source code and so on. Stick up a few posts somewhere and leave them there, as a tiny piece of extra evidence that you're someone who knows how to do things.<p>Maybe part of the problem is that I'm grossly under-estimating the amount of work involved in "post an interesting technical article to it once or twice a year" for people who don't already spend a lot of their time writing.
100%. Especially in a tough, competitive job market like today's, having a credible portfolio of work, published content, and external validation makes a huge difference. It can take a good candidate to the top of the list, and when that list is a few dozen great applications, that's critical.<p>As a hiring manager I weigh a candidate's public presence at 10~15% of my initial decision, even more if it's exceptionally impressive. And I hear from other hiring managers that they view this similarly.<p>If you have good academic qualifications and a great record of past work experience ... guess what, there are several other candidates with great academic qualifications and an impressive work experience. Having a strong portfolio of public work can be what distinguishes you and gets you the opportunity to be invited to interview.<p>One important note: just having publicly available content isn't enough. It also has to be credible and impressive. Original articles that demonstrate deep expertise and are valuable to others. Serious codebase you wrote yourself or made significant contributions to. Real achievements on things like Kaggle competitions. I sometimes see people including a link to a "business card" type website with their photo and links to their social media or a blurb about themselves. That doesn't impress and won't make a difference.
It does work to build professional connections. A good number of my jobs came through people recognizing me from talks I've given, my writing, meetups, and working on open source projects.<p>However it didn't help much in the interview process. I've never been in an interview where the interviewer looked at my profiles on various code hosting platforms, reviewed some of my pull requests before hand, and came into the room with a good idea of what I do and how I work. They will still ask the same pre-canned questions they are forced to ask and we're back to reversing linked lists and memoizing tree walking algorithms.<p>It's good for getting to know folks which can help in finding places to apply to where you might already know some people.<p>But I doubt it's going to make you stand out in the interview process itself.<p><i>Update</i>: That being said, I've been on the other side of the table and when I was the one setting up the interview process I made sure candidates knew that they could send over recent PRs they've made for us to review in order to bypass any coding exercises. I find it much easier to discuss the problem they were working on and seeing their solution is really helpful.
Unlike another top poster, this doesn't ring true for me.<p>I have a blog with 170-ish posts. About half are technical. Three or four have gone viral on HN.<p>The other half are personal, but I live in a place where people generally share the same values, so those other posts shouldn't be a problem.<p>I've got a personal project. It's used in production and ships as part of the base install with FreeBSD and Mac OSX.<p>It demonstrates high proficiency with C. It demonstrates careful work with every function documented in Doxygen comments and a development manual entirely designed to raise the bus factor to infinity. It also shows I've got fuzzing chops.<p>I have other code. It's not complete, but I've got hundreds or thousands of hours in it, and it's to the same quality.<p>And I can't get a job.
First they need to look at your application / resume.<p>Then they need to have questions, which triggers curiosity that has them looking for more.<p>Only then does having a piece of content help you.<p>Yes it helps, but it doesn't help as much as having a resume that suggests you're a potentially good match without oversharing why you're not a good match. A good resume raises questions that leads to a conversation.<p>The resume matters more... but if all else is equal and candidates you're competing against also have great resumes, then content matters. You'd be very surprised at the lack of great resumes though.
IME in Aus, it's mostly recruiters, the kind who ask if I have experience with 'Jasons', who do the initial screening. I'm not sure I'd have much more luck getting past them with a substantial online presence behind me. On the other hand, I was recently referred by a friend for a role with the state gov. The HR person said my lack of experience with X hurt my chances. I passed this on to my friend and said thanks anyway. They later said their line manager scoffed at the HR person's comments. I'd be interested to hear if other Aus/NZ folk have similar experiences. Maybe the online presence works better in the US.
As a person involved in hiring in my company, one of my goals is to remove biases for things that are not really related to the thing I'm evaluating, which is the ability to do a given job. There are valid reasons not to have an interest in publishing your coding or writing work, there are lots of great developers that don't do that, so I don't feel like this should make a difference.
A team I was on hired someone because I dug up an emulator he had written in the past (I think it was of some Nintendo console). I took a quick look at it, showed it to the other devs on the team, asked the candidate about it to check he really built it and understood it, and then we told the manager to hire him, if he passed the personality assessment. He hadn't even mentioned it on his CV as he worried it would look unprofessional.<p>I got another person hired as I found a Android game she had written and pushed to the Play store. Again, I don't think she mentioned it on her CV. After looking at it and talking to her about it, I told management to hire her, if they found no issues in her as a person.<p>In both cases they were outstanding at their job, relative to their level of seniority and pay. Both are very high up the list of people I'd happily work with again.<p>It might not be fair to the candidates that didn't have projects (or had ones that I couldn't find), but it was a very effective way of getting amazing people. Which makes sense as examples of work are probably better than CVs and interviews for judging someones ability to do the job.
I love all these blog posts that will take you to the heaven of the $500K jobs with three easy steps.<p>It is hard, period. Otherwise everybody would be there, and if the advice works then you will have to find something else as in any other market, gaps close.
This rings true for me anecdotally. The last time I was looking for a job I struggled to land even a phone screening. But then I posted about a small project on my blog and LinkedIn and I had a hiring manager call me the next day with a gig that worked well for both of us.
The most basic competence signal is a good LinkedIn and resume.<p>The problem is that if you don't know what good looks like, you don't know that your thing isn't good and you may not even know how to recognize someone who can review it for you.<p>The question to strive for: "if someone doesn't know me or my work and my company at all, can they look at my resume and understand what I've done, why it's impressive: and why I am an interesting candidate?"<p>As someone who sits on the other side of the table all the time, when someone has structured their LI/resume this way, it tells you they (1) cared to do it well (2) found a way to understand what's relevant and (3) found a way to implement it: those add up to a very strong signal layered on top of their technical skills.<p>Someone will inevitably reply that you can be a great dev and a terrible writer and I guess that's true but it makes it so much harder for someone to "see through it" and hire you.
Worked for me at the start of my programming career. I had a few Stack Overflow answers (few hundred karma) and a fairly barebones GitHub profile.<p>I applied to a large local IT corporation. The person interviewing me (who was a team lead) simply assumed I have the skills necessary for an entry position and we pretty much skipped the technical part of the interview. (I ended up in a fairly fantastic team full of great engineers and coworkers. Turns out the guy who interviewed me was <i>awesome</i> at hiring.)
Hiring managers are looking for people like themselves. Simon is big on blogging and OSS so he looks for that. This type of bias is especially present at smaller companies where there isn’t much formal evaluation of hiring processes. Hell, some even amplify it with a “culture” interview.<p>This post didn’t say “I’ve found that candidates with public work are more likely to pass the interview.” Just that he noticed that he’s biased and that could be a good way to get the interview. It’s unfair but if you want the job you could use this to your advantage.
It shouldn't take any. This hiring attitude discriminates against (not an exclusive list) parents, people with caring responsibilities, and those that find "public creativity" difficult due to personality traits or medical issues. It cements the "tech bro" culture. It stifles diversity. Just hire people that can do the job you're paying them for. I don't ask my plumber to show me their blog posts.
Other comments here mention there's no real time to look through actual code or a GH repo. I agree, however that's why I think it's better to focus on the other markers here - blog, community involvement, and so on. It doesn't have to be grandiose; just list it on your CV!<p>You cover a few things this way. You show that you think beyond the terms of warming a seat, and can highlight particular ways you may fit a specific job.<p>I've had several jobs/contracts that told me they think I'm a fit <i>because</i> of me listing my involvement with meetup hosting and how I've tailored my CV to highlight specific kinds of work that I'm interested to do more of (e.g. payment integrations).<p>Like with dating or sales, it's kind of the same idea: you want to look specific instead of generic, in order to filter out jobs that would be a lukewarm-to-negative fit for you.<p>If you have nothing to differentiate yourself, then start <i>something</i> and highlight it. For kicks and giggles I even have "Certified Log Home Builder" in my CV after taking a course on it.
I keep reading how bad and competitive the "job market" is today, but I haven't been able to find actual data on it.<p>It's like people have this gut feeling that due to the recent layoffs at FAANG, no calls for interviews and the number of (likely mediocre) applications showing up in a job post in LinkedIn indicates the job market is extremely competitive. But is it? The entire job market?<p>There's no doubt some companies and markets are beaten up but other are actually doing great and growing.<p>So rather than invest time on blogging and creating repos why not focus on researching, identifying and learning about the industries that are actually hiring and acquiring new skills so that you can target them?
I've mostly always believed this to be true and had some early confirmation in my past, greatest spike being around 2007.<p>But for the past 5 years I've been consistently publishing original work and getting absolutely zero feedback and little engagement. My former personal network doesn't respond to my emails anymore, etc.. Might have to do with some defamation that happened in 2016 by an employer, but that shouldn't be surfacing until the reference check after I get an offer--unless I'm on black lists that are decently circulated. Another possibility is my reach is just limited when I post content with depth, as opposed to things that will get more engagement. People used to read my blog directly, which has been shut down for years.<p>I'm open to the possibility that my presentation is just terrible, that my SEO needs work, stuff like that. Keeping all my web properties up and producing content up to modern standards has been pretty out of reach given my life circumstances... not complaining, just saying.<p>My temp bosses are always happy with how good I wash dishes, anyway. I'll never stop publishing my tech work online, but I know it takes more than just publishing what I'm doing to stand out as a job candidate. I'd love to get an objective view about what else I'm lacking or penalized on almost as much as I'd like some good old fashioned Agape love, to help me want to check my email and notifications that I'm programmed to dread checking by now (usually due to non-responses to everything I send, if not trolls).<p>Sorry that this may come off as negative. I've really had some success standing out and just publishing for most of my career, it's been really hard to figure out how to get out of the crater that it has become. I don't even talk like this that much, to anyone who wants to say my negativity pushes everyone away... I get that, too. Hard conversations are different than negativity; negativity is more like being a parasite, whereas I'm genuinely trying to find the issues which actually exist and fix them.<p>Things I know I can fix:<p>* Maintain properties and populate search engine/open graph fields for SEO
* Produce thumbnails and editorialize headers
* Increase my engagement in ways that are selected for
Just a note for anyone who needs to hear it: you don’t even necessarily have to be a maintainer and have complete open source repos to show off. If your entire GitHub is you just forking libraries, fixing a bug or adding a feature, and then creating a somewhat tasteful PR then I find that extremely reassuring. It means you’re doing real work, experiencing pain, diagnosing the issue and fixing it. I do not need to see seventeen green badges at the top of a readme to be impressed.
I really should work on polishing up my public appearance, but right now my job and personal life take up any creative energy I might have outside of work. I have a blog (multiple?), but posts are few and far between and I frequently regret publishing things. I barely go back to previous comments I leave on the internet / HN, afraid of what others might think. Maybe I should talk to someone about that <_<.<p>I could be shadowbanned for all I know, come to think of it.
One issue with trying to stand out is that you might stand out in a bad way, rather than a good way. I have a blog, and a Github profile, but I'm not sure if I want employers looking at them, since a lot of my writing is poor, and a lot of my code is bad. There's good stuff there as well, I think, but my model of employers is that they are more concerned about false positives than false negatives, they tend to see "red flags" as nullifying any positive traits, and so, when they're examining my public portfolio, the parts that are bad are going to stick out and become salient in their mind, moreso than the parts that are good.<p>I don't worry about this too much though because in my experience, no employer has ever looked at these things (even though I have usually made some mention of them on my CV). If they have they've never mentioned it at interview.
I have first hand experience of this being false, just a few months ago to stand out for a React open position for a company called Personio, I created a org chart that feel much snappier and friendly using React and CSS3 animations that the one the company is using in their main product (this one if you are curious <a href="https://github.com/Ivanca/personio-demo">https://github.com/Ivanca/personio-demo</a> ), I linked it in the cover letter and also tried reaching out some public email addresses of their recruiters but nothing, I got a generic rejection message.<p>I have tried similar tactics before for some other positions I was highly interested in but nothing, it never works from what I can tell, the jobs I have gotten were all using my generic CV and not much else.
I can confirm. I once created a project called Doodledocs. The reason was because I (still!) haven't seen a project that showed pen styluses pressure sensitivity in a web app. So I whipped up a collaborative drawing app where pressure sensitivity of the stylus was captured (if the stylus was capable of it).<p>In the beginning of my career I did 100s of job interviews. However, in this case I only did a few and I'm sure I got the job because of it.<p>Also, it was a lot of fun to try and create backend style type of functionality only by utilizing peer to peer! The hacking and reasoning required felt novel and fun.<p>The project is here (it is currently not live): <a href="https://github.com/melvinroest/doodledocs">https://github.com/melvinroest/doodledocs</a>
If each of one's blog posts is upvoted to the top at HN for unknown reasons, that may be true.<p>If you are in the right clique and do minor work in an open source project, that may also be true, as long as you go along with the correct politics.<p>So in that sense the title is correct and describes the sad world we live in.
Maintaining an employer-friendly public persona seems pretty miserable if you like sharing opinions more controversial than programming language preferences. Or if your hobbyist tech interests skew in the anti-corporate or copyright-infringement-y directions.
Question to those who post about work they've done while employed at a large company - how much do you take into account employer confidentiality clauses? Is there a good 'rule of thumb' checklist of rules to tick away ahead of posting?
Public activity is marketing. Most good developers are not good marketers. But for rockstars blogging is definitely a big plus.<p>I have over 100 past projects and need a cheat sheet to answer HR questions. Recruiters are usually not impressed with your past projects because you are a flood of resumes and interviews to them, and they usually not impressed with you because they just want to close the task. Because time is key.<p>The 80/20 rule applies here. Only 20 percent of recruiters will read your resume carefully (not your show, blog, youtube, twitch, twitter, etc).<p>Add to that 20% of fake jobs and your chances of finding the most relevant tech job for you are greatly reduced.
Alternatively I see people publishing their "creativity" as virtue signalling nothingness.<p>I did a freelance job for someone and they asked to see a portfolio.<p>I said I can't even divulge the nature of the projects I did for various banks let alone send you screenshots of it because me having screenshots would indicate a breach of contract.<p>Ask me anything about the tech you want to implement.<p>I got the gig.<p>I've also seen "vibes" hiring of people with a good rep in various communities and it doesn't work. Those people are generally awful to work with and lack any desire to compromise
Complete rubbish.<p>Most candidates nowadays are obliged to deal through low grade, poor quality recruiters. Demonstrating creativity to these morons is an absolute waste of time.
I would argue that being public is one of the ways you may be unintentionally biasing your hiring set against visible minorities. Most minority folks I know tend to avoid being public figures because they will become targets of bigotry. I’ve seen some fairly innocuous stuff get the most vile shit in comments/inboxes. I would hesitate to index for public profile knowing that being a public minority is riskier.
On blogging - I would add to the discussion, ask someone you trust their opinion of your writing. If you are a great or even good writer, this can be good advice.<p>I’d you are not so good - this can backfire. I’ve seen a lot of CV’s with blog links that turned me off on the candidate immediately. Usually for more architecture type positions, not coding, because architects need good written comm skills.
the bar for public creativity may be relatively low, but in my experience as a candidate, interviewer, and hiring manager, it really does not actually make a difference. i'm generally too busy to be looking into this kind of stuff. hell, i rarely read your whole resume.<p>let's talk and see if there's something. outside of that it's just wasting time.
I started doing talks this year to get better at speaking. Posted photos on LinkedIn and got an offer from an old acquaintance who saw it, for something related. Other than that, makes the day job mor fun and I became the 'expert' on the topic at eork
> you don’t want to miss out on a great engineer just because they spent all of their energy making great products for prior employers rather than blogging, speaking and coding in public.<p>say it louder for the tone deaf recruiters and hiring managers in the back
You google my real name, and there’s a mountain of content I created. I’m an independent contractor and it’s been getting me short and long term work… all over the world as a web developer. I think it’s been the best thing I ever did.
This sounds like good advice. My current employer does not allow me to write technical blogs or have public git repos even if they’re unrelated to work and when done on my own time with my own resources. Sigh.
I try do some sort of frontend for every project and case study a company sends me. I think it helped a lot until now and will help more in the future.
dance monkey, dance!<p>anyone can plagiarise a github or a blog. you still need to speak to the person. you're just adding even more steps to what is already an insufferably bad experience.<p>but adding more steps is something we love to do. every solution creating 10 new problems.
To me, blogging for a better chance at being hired seems as good as “work for exposure”.<p>It’s not all bad, and I see how it could be helpful and fun; still, it feels like something that shouldn’t be necessary.
People don't realise how easy it is to get to top 1% in most fields, if you are sufficiently intelligent (say 110-120). Most intelligent people don't get there because they are either not willing to do the work or don't know how honest work looks like or they put artificial barriers before themselves.<p>And even if you are less intelligent you still can get there, you will just have to put in more work.<p>I think of those, the ability to put in honest work is the biggest limitation of most people. I like to compare honest work to Allies fighting World War II -- doing whatever is necessary to win, wherever it leads you. No plan is stupid if it works, there is nothing shameful about trying and failing. There will be setbacks because life is not fair and on short time scales the rewards are never assured. But what makes winners different from losers is what they do in response. If they can persevere, through their setbacks, experience, hard work, the focus they put in they will gain the knowledge that lets them win on the long time scale. You lose only if you lose faith in yourself and quit.