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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

#31

Post by teaearlgraycold »

emptysongglass wrote: post #20
gavinhoward wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

What does that actually mean? The fact you're using language like, "cog in the machine" is already telling me a lot about why companies don't want to hire you. If you told us exactly where the process breaks down for you and why with illustrative examples, we might be able to help you identify where it's going wrong for you. But tip 1, companies hire people who are positive about how they can contribute and work with…

Literally came here for the same thing. Went to their blog and saw that a programming language is "dead to [them]" because the organization behind the language doesn't like guns. WUT

> "Why can't I get a job?"

> - man with 30ft pole behind them with a red flag hoisted on it

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

#32

Post by TheRoque »

exitb wrote: post #22

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.

The shouldn't in an ideal world, but on the other hand, it's obvious that it can. If you're looking for someone to perform a specific task, and you stumble on a blog post from him, or a project that showcases his passion and skill, it would be (IMO) pretty stupid to "remove the bias" and ignore this. At this point it's not even bias, it's just proof in front of your eyes that this guy has some knowledge and might be a good fit ( or whatever proof it is)

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

#33

Post by intellectronica »

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

#34

Post by davidgatti »

gavinhoward wrote: post #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 dem…

I have a similar situation lots of online presence showcasing what needs to be showcased and I find nobody cares to take the time to check it.

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

#35

Post by midasz »

gavinhoward wrote: post #10
robbywashere_ wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

You seem like a super intelligent guy in regards to your profession, though (and perhaps it is my own bias) also super contrarian. I'd genuinely always pick the person who is easy to work with than someone who might cause conflict - even if the latter was way smarter. Collaboration is key in teams.

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

#36

Post by intellectronica »

nitwit005 wrote: post #3

The act of taking a serious look at people's github repos, blogs, or whatever else, appears fairly unusual. I've asked.

I always do and will spend as much time and attention as necessary to really understand what I'm looking at. A lot more than I do reading a CV.

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

#37

Post by testtestabcdef »

nitwit005 wrote: post #3

The act of taking a serious look at people's github repos, blogs, or whatever else, appears fairly unusual. I've asked.

I always linked my gitlab profile in all my applications. If I had any code on it which might be relevant to the position I also mentioned it in my cover letter. Barely anyone ever mentioned my gitlab projects or ask things about it. Just this one guy, he was confused that my master thesis was stating I handed it in in 2021 and asked why i didn't have a job yet. Thanks to this man I found out there is a typo on the cover of my thesis, because i handed it in 2022.

It was kinda embarrassing, but I also felt joy that there are actually people out there who look at my stuff. The job didn't fit, but it was still a good experience.

So yeah: Investing a few minutes in writing up a personal readme which gets shown on my gitlab was worth it. I can recommend!

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

#38

Post by sneak »

exitb wrote: post #22

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.

Being a great developer requires written communication skills as much as it requires software development skills.

It's not bias to hire non-one-dimensionally. People are not cogs.

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

#39

Post by vouaobrasil »

BossingAround wrote: post #11

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. 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 y…

Actually, I think the opposite can also happen. I've heard point-blank during a programming interview: "why do you want to work here...you're too creative."

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

#40

Post by testtestabcdef »

notimetorelax wrote: post #14
nitwit005 wrote: post #3

The act of taking a serious look at people's github repos, blogs, or whatever else, appears fairly unusual. I've asked.

GitHub can be faked by taking work of others. When screening there’s no time to investigate each artifact. It’s nice if someone has a github repo, but it’s by no means the deciding factor.

I'd say that's what the README page is for that you can create and gets shown at the top of your profile. I summarized my most important projects, the languages I know and some other simple facts about me. Mainly because i have a lot of "trash" on my gitlab which is just for personal use (I am always unsure if i should keep that public anyways)
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