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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

#81

Post by Cthulhu_ »

kelnos wrote: post #78
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'm sure you'll get pissed at this, but assuming hiring managers see your blog and Gitea instance, here are some of my guesses as to why they don't want to hire you: * You call BLM a "terrorist organization". * You explicitly object to the idea that the phenomenon of police killings of black people is rooted in white supremacy. * You give off serious antivaxxer vibes, and refuse to wear a mask during a global pandemi…

Yeah, even if I were to agree with the standpoints, they all say "I do not work well with other people and I am an angry person", which is a disqualifier for most jobs.

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

#82

Post by The_Colonel »

onetimeuse92304 wrote: post #56
skybrian wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're using the word "easy" but I think what you describe only seems easy when you have the right attitude and few distractions. For many people, this is actually hard.

"Easy" means it is just your decision whether you want to get it or not (well... most of the time... to get to 1% in most fields). I know if I can spend enough effort I can learn to reasonably play Irish flute, the only question is am I willing to put in the effort? Once I decided I really want to get something, the rest is relatively easy -- yes, that means resolve and the right attitude and some amount of consisten…

Your definition of "easy" is certainly unconventional.

> Once I decided I really want to get something, the rest is relatively easy

I hate this phrase, but I think it fits here - check your privilege. It's quite possible that you ignore your starting position and don't consider it doesn't have to apply to everybody else - especially when you're forming very general statements.

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

#83

Post by [deleted] »

ycombinete wrote: post #76
kelnos wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

His bio just says "Christian", and doesn't say anything about being a Mormon. Also pretty sure most of the people working on bare metal are not LGBT or furries. Certainly some are, but... what a weird thing to assert.

They mean his blog bio: https://gavinhoward.com/about/

[deleted]

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

#84

Post by Cthulhu_ »

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 I could be shadowbanned for all I know, come to think of it.

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

#85

Post by zimpenfish »

okeuro49 wrote: post #29
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…

Your blog post: > Got another programming job. Got fired for "performance." I think the reason wasn’t good, but I also have a hard time building a theory of mind, which means I can’t read code written by others. If you can't read code written by others, that's going to be a big concern for companies that require you to read and modify other people's code. Perhaps you need to be a contractor, not an employee.

> Perhaps you need to be a contractor, not an employee.

Unfortunately, I'd say a key skill for a contractor is probably reading code written by others because - at least in my experience - you're 90% of the time coming in to clean up or maintain an old mess someone else has made.

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

#86

Post by buro9 »

First they need to look at your application / resume.

Then they need to have questions, which triggers curiosity that has them looking for more.

Only then does having a piece of content help you.

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.

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.

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

#87

Post by maccard »

sph wrote: post #65
ahartmetz wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It could be when they see that https://git.gavinhoward.com/gavin/petty-tyrant-businesses

While I disagree with the stance and tone of that repo, I appreciate that someone stops being a corporate lackey even on their personal websites; we've all become sterile, pleasant representations of the ideal worker just hoping for someone to have the decency to pay us for our programming ability and talent. Maybe be a little careful with the conspiracy theories, but I am quite done with the corporate-friendly perso…

> I wanted to write a couple posts about anarchism on my personal blog, nothing crazy, and kept being concerned it might drive off a potential recruiter. Who the hell cares, a company where I cannot have a touch of personality is not a place I want to work at either.

If it's important to you then you should. There are places that allow/encourage people to be individuals.

>The only potentially "controversial" idea (as in, corp might not like it but will have to deal with it) that is still accepted in tech is being trans or a furry. I have no issue with either, mind you, just pointing out that anything else is a no-no.

That said be careful what you write and how you phrase it because it's one thing to have an opinion, and another to make a statement like that.

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

#88

Post by saiya-jin »

midasz wrote: post #35
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.

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.

This is 100% true in basically any case of bigger than startup orgs - you don't desperately need that superstar 10x or 100x coder if he is pain to work with, creates code full of abstractions that are then hard to maintain for rest of the team or even worse, like potential security problem (looking into OP for 2 mins I already know he is rather hardcore christian, maybe a bit gun nut, antivaxxer/anti-mask, has long history of anxiety and other health issues). All sums up into 'probably difficult to work with'.

This would be a problem for me when hiring too (to be frank - hard pass due to above, and no amount of git code beauty would change that).

Collaboration, communication, team work are much more important long term in bigger teams. Willingness to help team/project even though sometimes bureaucracy might be Kafka-esque. Yes we are all cogs in big machine, so what? It takes 2 seconds to realize that for each of us. We still do the work, its work for christ sake, we pay the bills, vacations and go back to our families just like everybody else.

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

#89

Post by quickthrower2 »

buro9 wrote: post #86

First they need to look at your application / resume. Then they need to have questions, which triggers curiosity that has them looking for more. Only then does having a piece of content help you. 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. The res…

It could be the other way around: they downloaded your resume after reading your blog post.

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

#90

Post by maurits »

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 host my own website. I can see from the logs that recruiters etc don't click on it, bar a rare exception.
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