Why don't software communities serve as job hubs? • Hacker News Board

Re: Why don't software communities serve as job hubs?

#11

Post by josh_fyi » Wed, Jun 05, 2013, 7:27 PM UTC

jstclair wrote: post #7

Just one caution - when I was helping to set up a local user group, a lot or companies wanted a guarantee that no poaching would occur, and tried to make that a condition of their participation. Of course, we couldn't do that, but at the same time, we wouldn't make it a prominent part of the user group's mission either. So, great initiative, but if you're gonna bring this into your community, just consider the effect…

How did that work?

Usually user groups are independent initiatives by developers, with at most a room or minor funds provided by a sponsoring company or two.

Companies can't keep their employees from going to the Ruby/Java/C++ User Group in their spare time.

So what was the situation there?

Re: Why don't software communities serve as job hubs?

#12

Post by josh_fyi » Wed, Jun 05, 2013, 7:36 PM UTC

twic wrote: post #8

StackOverflow does have Careers 2.0: http://careers.stackoverflow.com/ . Is StackOverflow a "software community" for the purposes of this article? I used StackOverflow a lot at one point, and i got a job out of Careers 2.0, so it looks roughly like it to me. I suspect Five Year Itch probably see Careers 2.0 as a competitor, or at least a resident of a nearby niche, so they may have a deliberate blind spot towards it.

Sure, Careers 2.0 is good. The jobs space is _very_ big, plenty of space for everyone.

Among other differences, Careers 2.0 focuses on StackExchange karma, which is useful, but not everyone wants to go in that direction.

Re: Why don't software communities serve as job hubs?

#13

Post by jstclair » Thu, Jun 06, 2013, 8:16 AM UTC

josh_fyi wrote: post #11

jstclair wrote: post #7

Just one caution - when I was helping to set up a local user group, a lot or companies wanted a guarantee that no poaching would occur, and tried to make that a condition of their participation. Of course, we couldn't do that, but at the same time, we wouldn't make it a prominent part of the user group's mission either. So, great initiative, but if you're gonna bring this into your community, just consider the effect…

How did that work? Usually user groups are independent initiatives by developers, with at most a room or minor funds provided by a sponsoring company or two. Companies can't keep their employees from going to the Ruby/Java/C++ User Group in their spare time. So what was the situation there?

We were pretty successfully rather quickly, and the attendees quickly grew past most local company's ability to host our meetings. Costs in Norway for rooms/food & drink is higher than normal; plus, we tried to bring in a lot of external speakers. So, all in all, we were pretty dependent upon a decent amount of funding.

I wasn't suggesting that companies we were working with would stop people coming; but at least when we were starting, getting people to actually attend was a struggle. Building the community can require a bigger outlay that people assume - it's not just "meet up and they will come". So, I'm just saying that some communities might want to think twice about this.