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It doesn’t take much public creativity to stand out as a job candidate

simonwillison.net

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

#2
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.

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

#5
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.

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

#6
Unlike another top poster, this doesn't ring true for me.

I have a blog with 170-ish posts. About half are technical. Three or four have gone viral on HN.

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.

I've got a personal project. It's used in production and ships as part of the base install with FreeBSD and Mac OSX.

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.

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.

And I can't get a job.

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

#7

Unlike another top poster, this doesn't ring true for me. I have a blog with 170-ish posts. About half are technical. Three or four have gone viral on HN. 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. I've got a personal project. It's used in production and ships as part of the base install with FreeBSD and Mac OSX. It dem…

At what point in the job finding/interviewing process are you having trouble with? If you don’t mind me asking?

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

#8

Unlike another top poster, this doesn't ring true for me. I have a blog with 170-ish posts. About half are technical. Three or four have gone viral on HN. 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. I've got a personal project. It's used in production and ships as part of the base install with FreeBSD and Mac OSX. It dem…

[flagged]

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

#9

Unlike another top poster, this doesn't ring true for me. I have a blog with 170-ish posts. About half are technical. Three or four have gone viral on HN. 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. I've got a personal project. It's used in production and ships as part of the base install with FreeBSD and Mac OSX. It dem…

IME, most companies generally don't care about Github or your blog, but _some_ companies that are heavily involved in on FOSS or OSS, do care and hire contributors.

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

#10

Unlike another top poster, this doesn't ring true for me. I have a blog with 170-ish posts. About half are technical. Three or four have gone viral on HN. 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. I've got a personal project. It's used in production and ships as part of the base install with FreeBSD and Mac OSX. It dem…

At what point in the job finding/interviewing process are you having trouble with? If you don’t mind me asking?

It can be any part. Usually, the problem is that companies find out that I'm not good as a cog in a machine. That can happen at any time, but once they do, they're not interested.
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