It doesn't take much public creativity to stand out as a job candidate • Hacker News Board

Re: It doesn't take much public creativity to stand out as a job candidate

#51

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Jul 23, 2021, 1:26 AM UTC

gwerbret wrote: post #45

simonw wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I tried really hard to make it clear in this post that as a hiring manager it is your job to find great candidates who don't do this. So you shouldn't "screen" for this, in terms of filtering candidates based on whether or not they have evidence of public creativity. But... of course I look beyond the resume that the candidate has sent me. Which means that, as a candidate, a relatively easy way to stand out is to hav…

I'll rephrase the GP's question because I'm also curious, and I don't feel your response answered the question. Is there a signal which suggests that "public creativity" equals "good engineer", particularly when the resume already speaks for itself? Or is it purely to compensate, as you suggest, for a possibly poor interview performance? I'm honestly skeptical that such a signal exists (but can be convinced otherwise…

[deleted]

Re: It doesn't take much public creativity to stand out as a job candidate

#52

Post by JoshTriplett » Fri, Jul 23, 2021, 1:26 AM UTC

endisneigh wrote: post #25

JoshTriplett wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It seems modesty is going the way of the dodo. Though it leads to an interesting quandary - is it possible to have an online presence and still honestly call yourself a modest person? If by "modesty" you mean not bragging and not presenting yourself as better than you are, that's absolutely a desirable quality. And that's perfectly compatible with publishing your work. If by "modesty" you mean keeping your work unp…

> If by "modesty" you mean keeping your work unpublished, or presenting yourself as worse than you are, that's neither a useful nor a desirable quality. To be fair, historically the entire point of modesty was to present yourself as worse than you are (historically this was done with attractiveness specifically). Has modesty taken on a new definition where it means simply not bragging? I honestly wasn't aware.

I don't see much value in arguing over the definition or intepretation of the word "modesty", beyond the degree to which that started this subthread in the first place.

I'm suggesting that either you can interpret modesty as a positive trait (moderation, unpretentiousness) that is perfectly compatible with what this article suggests, or you can interpret it as a negative trait, or you can interpret it as an entirely unrelated trait. But anything that suggests you shouldn't publish your work is unhelpful and not something to admire or aspire to.

Re: It doesn't take much public creativity to stand out as a job candidate

#53

Post by snowwrestler » Fri, Jul 23, 2021, 1:27 AM UTC

maxk42 wrote: post #12

simonw wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not something you screen for - as I said in the article, "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" But if someone has it, you're likely to take it into account. So as a candidate it's useful.

In the article you state "you don’t have to put very much work at all into public creativity in order to stand out as a job candidate". This implies that when I am acting as a hiring manager I would be screening for "public creativity." I'm trying to understand why I would want to do that. I've been a hiring manager for well over a decade and it's never been something I thought I should screen for. Indeed, in my care…

> I can think of at least one counterexample of a person who was extremely prolific with blogging and giving talks at conferences who happened to be absolutely garbage at their role.

My employer once hired someone into a leadership role who we all knew from conferences and press coverage. We were pretty excited to land such a high-profile guy.

Turned out, he spent most of his time prepping and going to conferences, and working on his press coverage. Very little actual work got done, and we quietly parted ways with him in less than a year.

In retrospect, it’s a bit of a “well duh” moment, connecting the dots. But at the time, we all just assumed that there must be incredible substance for him to have such a high profile.

I took a big lesson from that: people who are good at building an audience would be a great hire if you need to build an audience. If you need something else, don’t assume the audience (or conference organizers, or reporters) have actually vetted that person for the skills you need. They probably didn’t.

Ultimately, he ended up as an executive at another company, with responsibility for raising their profile and finding new clients. His skills and inclinations are perfect for that.

Re: It doesn't take much public creativity to stand out as a job candidate

#54

Post by cirrus3 » Fri, Jul 23, 2021, 1:28 AM UTC

maxk42 wrote: post #49

azinman2 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or.. Interviewee: Check me out! I wrote a NES emulator that is cycle accurate and supports a game with a specialized chip that I reverse engineered that no other emulator supported. There’s a large spectrum of quality of public content out there. You could say the same thing about any resume.

But that's a counterexample to the OP's thesis that "it doesn't take much". An "NES emulator that is cycle accurate and supports a game with a specialized chip that I reverse engineered that no other emulator supported" is a MASSIVE undertaking that would take a huge amount of time and effort. I would certainly give a candidate like that a second look - if NES emulators were remotely related to the kind of skills I w…

Exactly.

Re: It doesn't take much public creativity to stand out as a job candidate

#55

Post by simonw » Fri, Jul 23, 2021, 1:29 AM UTC

gwerbret wrote: post #45

simonw wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I tried really hard to make it clear in this post that as a hiring manager it is your job to find great candidates who don't do this. So you shouldn't "screen" for this, in terms of filtering candidates based on whether or not they have evidence of public creativity. But... of course I look beyond the resume that the candidate has sent me. Which means that, as a candidate, a relatively easy way to stand out is to hav…

I'll rephrase the GP's question because I'm also curious, and I don't feel your response answered the question. Is there a signal which suggests that "public creativity" equals "good engineer", particularly when the resume already speaks for itself? Or is it purely to compensate, as you suggest, for a possibly poor interview performance? I'm honestly skeptical that such a signal exists (but can be convinced otherwise…

I don't believe that public creativity is required for a good engineer.

I do believe that candidates with public creativity are more likely to make for a promising interview. Thinking back, I can't remember many cases where a candidate with some evidence of public creativity bombed the interview completely.

Re: It doesn't take much public creativity to stand out as a job candidate

#56

Post by cirrus3 » Fri, Jul 23, 2021, 1:30 AM UTC

runawaybottle wrote: post #15

We’re actively encouraging peacocking. It’s no surprise since it’s the current pattern in social media, and obviously it was bound to seep into tech. ‘Keeping up with the Johnsons’ scaled like hell in the digital world. We all know it’s bad, but here we are. If you can’t beat them, join them, and let’s just keep making the world shittier. The main reason why this line of advice (original tweet) is bad is because it i…

I need to add "peacocking" to my HN bingo board asap.

Re: It doesn't take much public creativity to stand out as a job candidate

#57

Post by azinman2 » Fri, Jul 23, 2021, 1:31 AM UTC

cirrus3 wrote: post #50

azinman2 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or.. Interviewee: Check me out! I wrote a NES emulator that is cycle accurate and supports a game with a specialized chip that I reverse engineered that no other emulator supported. There’s a large spectrum of quality of public content out there. You could say the same thing about any resume.

To be fair, the OP started with "I have 239 twitter followers!", not "I wrote a NES emulator" I think the point was clear and you missed it.

I think you're taking the post's 'it doesn't take much' too literally, and the 'I have 239 twitter followers / wrote an emoji generator' reads like a straw man argument. Of course that wouldn't be impressive. The article mentions putting screenshots into a README on a project, but doesn't mention what the project would be... clearly if you're being judged from public information, the less impressive it is the less impressive you'll sound.

Re: It doesn't take much public creativity to stand out as a job candidate

#58

Post by kirykl » Fri, Jul 23, 2021, 2:04 AM UTC

I’ve been told in the past by hiring managers my resume (at the time) was too creative. And later by hiring gurus that you need a creative resume to be noticed. Noticed doesn’t necessarily get you the job

Re: It doesn't take much public creativity to stand out as a job candidate

#59

Post by res0nat0r » Fri, Jul 23, 2021, 2:19 AM UTC

simonw wrote: post #16

maxk42 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the article you state "you don’t have to put very much work at all into public creativity in order to stand out as a job candidate". This implies that when I am acting as a hiring manager I would be screening for "public creativity." I'm trying to understand why I would want to do that. I've been a hiring manager for well over a decade and it's never been something I thought I should screen for. Indeed, in my care…

I tried really hard to make it clear in this post that as a hiring manager it is your job to find great candidates who don't do this. So you shouldn't "screen" for this, in terms of filtering candidates based on whether or not they have evidence of public creativity. But... of course I look beyond the resume that the candidate has sent me. Which means that, as a candidate, a relatively easy way to stand out is to hav…

I think in most companies my comment from the other week holds: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27846776

IE, unless the role is explicitly "go be the face of the company and smile on youtube and praise our products and their awesomeness", no one cares about your github resume since they've barely looked at your resume before the interview. Just try and demonstrate you know what you're talking about during the interview and can relate some real world experiences in a sane manner, and you're halfway there.

Re: It doesn't take much public creativity to stand out as a job candidate

#60

Post by Ostrogodsky » Fri, Jul 23, 2021, 2:28 AM UTC

simonw wrote: post #16

maxk42 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the article you state "you don’t have to put very much work at all into public creativity in order to stand out as a job candidate". This implies that when I am acting as a hiring manager I would be screening for "public creativity." I'm trying to understand why I would want to do that. I've been a hiring manager for well over a decade and it's never been something I thought I should screen for. Indeed, in my care…

I tried really hard to make it clear in this post that as a hiring manager it is your job to find great candidates who don't do this. So you shouldn't "screen" for this, in terms of filtering candidates based on whether or not they have evidence of public creativity. But... of course I look beyond the resume that the candidate has sent me. Which means that, as a candidate, a relatively easy way to stand out is to hav…

So if the hiring manager does not screen by this, what should I bother then? It does not give me any advantage because you are stating you are not screening for it for FOMO great engineers. Just in the eventuality of a tie? I doubt 1-2 blog posts will be the deciding factor.