Slashdot Mirror
Ask Slashdot: Is an Online Identity Important When Searching For Technical Jobs?
First time accepted submitter quintessentialk writes "I'm looking for a new engineering job. I'm in my early 30s, and have a degree and some experience. I don't have an online presence. Does it matter? Is a record of tweets, blog posts, articles, etc. expected for prospective employees these days? What if one is completely un-googleable (i.e., nothing comes up, good or bad)? Though I haven't been 'trying' to hide, I only rarely use my full name online and don't even have a consistent pseudonym. I don't have a website, and haven't blogged or tweeted. I'm currently in a field which does not publish. Should I start now, or is an first-time tweeter/blogger in 2013 worse than someone with no presence at all?"
If you're a programmer looking for your next gig, having a slew of projects you've developed or worked on show up in Google can definitely help. Having lots of red party cup drunken pictures with your friends on a blog somewhere, however, will definitely hurt you.
If your technical job requires a TS or above clearance, it is best ot have very little presence. Party life or drug refrences in your posts will work against you in your background investigation for the clearance.
The truth shall set you free!
Frankly, any company that expects any given hire to have an extensive record of blog posts and tweets is not one I would really want to work for.
Not just because of the privacy implications, but because, in my view, that's expecting me to have a particular kind of personality: one that feels compelled to share everything, or at least a frequent chunk of what I do and think.
Unfortunately, this is just another manifestation of extroverts running most organizations and not even truly comprehending what it might be not to be an extrovert. So much of the hiring process and expectations in the workplace are centered around things that give extroverts a charge, but drain introverts' energy badly.
Just one of my big pet peeves X-P
Dan Aris
Fun. Free. Online. RPG. BattleMaster.
I think your social media silence says quite a lot about what kind of person you are. If I were looking for someone to keep the company's secrets, it'd be you.
If you're in IT especially and you're invisible you're suspicious. Lots of job applicants. What makes you stand out?
I expect to see this opinion in more than a few posts on this thread, yet I'm surprised.
I just can't imagine how spending one's time "tweeting" or maintaining a Facebook page has much to do with what kind of employee I want, unless perhaps those "tweets" particularly socially unacceptable.
I *might* do a search of technical forums to see what kind of tech questions and answers my applicant is giving / asking.
But why would I - why SHOULD I - give a shit about my applicant's "tweets" unless perhaps they deal with bizarre rape fantisies or something, in which case I might reasonably wonder why my applicant isn't smart enough to use an alias?
In other words, in my opinion, your "tweets" and Facebook prattle have no interest to me in terms of evaluating your job skills. In fact, I might be uncomfortable with someone who spends too much time in an on-line world.
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
Honestly, you're better off without an online presence. Unless the company is looking to hire a full time blogger, if they do an internet search at all, it will only be to find out if there's any reason why they shouldn't hire you.
Nobody's going to even look. All we care about is can you do the job. The only exception is if the job is in marketing, then they may care about your use of social media.
I still have more fans than freaks. WTF is wrong with you people?
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An exception would be if the applicant links to his professional online presence in the CV. Then I would use that as I would any other information on the CV. However the presence on the web does not make the information different than having the same information on the CV.
If I were hiring for a sensitive position where a background check is warranted, then I would do a real background check.
But if no background check is required, why go poking around in someone's private life.
If your idea of "having an online presence" is tweeting and having a Facebook page, I would not hire you.
What do you do do?
If you're in IT especially and you're invisible you're suspicious. Lots of job applicants. What makes you stand out?
Work experience, knowledge, the ability to share and communicate it directly, personality, hygene... the list goes on and on. I work with a blogger extrovert. His fascinating blog post with pictures, formatted tables, etc. that details his 14 year journey of using Microsoft mobile devices might be delightful for a hiring manager to read. I hope that hiring manager notices the post was made during work hours. And please no "he was on a break". It's a pattern of behavior. Even when the blog posts relate to the technology he uses at work, it takes him away from being a resource. It's fine if you want to tell the world what daddy did at work today. I don't see why an employer would tolerate it on their time.
Having just sifted through about 100 CVs to find 5 of 6 potential candidates for a senior programmer opening let me fill you with some tips:
* First and foremost: do not pad your CV with things you barely know just to qualify. It's one thing if you used both MS SQL Server and MySQL interchangeably in your past employment but if you used exclusively SQL Server for the past 3 jobs and the requirement is "experience with MySQL" do not apply. Including "experience with MySQL" to trigger the keywords will be an indicator of desperation and lack of professionalism
* About the original question (online presence): it is detrimental unless you are world renowed in your field. Bruce Schneier can point to his online body of work but if yours consists only in presence in Facebook groups, an occasional post on some majordomo list for your pet language or, heavens forbid, a Linkedin account just ommit it. It won't get read and if it does, more likely than not it will show a side of you that would be better hidden.
* The only valuable online presence is a portfolio. Websites you were part of the development team if you area applying for a web developer position, website for the product or service you helped to create, anything that can prove the quality of your work and your qualifications.
* Last but not least important: hiring in this field is mostly about word of mouth and references. The first thing many companies do when trying to find someone qualified is to ask the current employees "do you know someone you can vouch for this position?" That is the surest way to get to the shortlist, to have someone to vouch for you by name.
Last, a little rant. Lucky for us Slashdot got bought by Dice so most of the "infomercials" are in form of people getting and giving advice about employment. Imagine if they had been bought by Sony or Microsoft, it would be a lot like when "jumptheshark.com" got bought by TV Guide only to be dismantled and destroyed.
If your idea of "having an online presence" is posting everything twice so you double your 'presence', I would only hire you for marketing ;-)
I find myself in a similar situation. I am looking for a new job. I have never had time for an online presence, but an heavily foul-mouthed person, who shares my uncommon name, does. Worse, we're about the same age. Without looking like a nut job, how do I put on my resume that I am NOT that guy?
Exactly. Facebook and Twitter is not "online presence" in which IT employers are interested. GitHub, Ohloh, commits to free software projects, mailing lists etc. - that's "online presence" you should care about. You'll for sure have a good impression of someone if you put his name in Google and then you immediately see commits to various VCS repositories. That's also some kind of proof of his skills.
Not a single police force has tried to hire me since I started using medical marijuana. Just try to get a pilot's license! Oddly, if you drink, they'll trust you not to fly drunk but if you use medical marijuana they won't trust you at all.
I work for a well-known technical company with tons of both open-source contributions and projects we've open-sourced ourselves; we have a techblog, and a presence in many conferences.
When we look at someone technical, we see if they have a presence online. That doesn't mean Twitter or Facebook -- we really don't care about them unless they're public and inappropriate -- but contributions to OSS, technical blog posts, talks, etc. If it's there, it may make us somewhat more interested.
That said, I have a few engineers working for me who are similarly Google-invisible, and who have no interest in creating OSS, speaking at conferences, or writing blog posts. That's not a problem. They weren't penalized when we interviewed them, and they're not penalized now.
I suspect that a company, given the choice between a famous engineer and a non-famous engineer who are equally qualified, may be biased to hire the famous engineer (in my company, we'd just hire both), so I suspect it's an informal edge, not an explicit expectation (most of the time).
Exactly. Facebook and Twitter is not "online presence" in which IT employers are interested. GitHub, Ohloh, commits to free software projects, mailing lists etc. - that's "online presence" you should care about. You'll for sure have a good impression of someone if you put his name in Google and then you immediately see commits to various VCS repositories. That's also some kind of proof of his skills.
Yeah, but so are the references from his previous employer. I know I for one *used* to contribute to free software on a regular basis, but these days rarely seem to find time. You'll find my name on mailing lists making suggestions, filing bug reports, and so on, but you probably won't see more than a handful of commits by me since long before github existed. Possibly even before git existed. That doesn't mean I haven't been doing work in a very wide variety of fields with a lot of different technologies. It's only by reading my CV and following up my references that you'd find out about that work, though. Or you could ask me in interview.
Which is a bit narrow minded, I've done probably 30 hours worth of coding in my free time last week, but none of it's in github, and never will be.
This.
Some of us are working on non-open-source projects, because we have ideas we think might be profitable.
Some of us are working on projects that may become open source but don't want to publish until they're ready for end users (which could, in many cases, take years).
Some of us are working for startups that demand 80 hours a week of our time and don't have any time left for personal projects.
Not everyone can be judged by the same metrics.
I wonder what these guys with 100,000+ contributions to StackOverflow are doing with their life.
Some of them are doing quite well, actually. I have been a frequent reader of Alan Storm's site, as he seems to be one of the very very few who have managed to take a large chunk of poorly documented code and literally write a book on it. He's a regular contributor to Stackoverflow (and the Magento offshoot) and I can say without a doubt, his "online presence" makes him a very sought-after developer (aside from, you know, being a good developer to begin with).
Someone flopped a steamer in the gene pool.
"Which is a bit narrow minded..."
Thank you for confirming my own opinion. In the past, when I was looking for more work, several times I've been asked before just about anything else if I had a github account, and and under what name.
I've spent a lot of time on private projects under NDA, which obviously don't go on github. I've offered to supply redacted sections of code. Etc. But it was clear in a couple of instances that having a strong github presence was necessary before they wold even consider someone.
That practice discriminates against people who are too busy actually working and trying to make a living to spend 100 hours on somebody's open source project. Sure, it's a good thing to do. But don't punish people who don't have as much opportunity as others.
Using github as a primary, or even worse only, criterion for hiring is just not very smart. Without claiming to be one of the best and brightest myself, I can see that by doing so they are rejecting some of the best and brightest out of hand, which does both parties no good.
Sure, take github and the like as a couple of extra brownie points in the developer's favor. Everything else being equal, I'd hire someone who is involved in charitable work over the other guy... but the key phrase is "everything else being equal". I would not use it as a primary basis for hiring in a technical field.
Are you saying that if someone is good at their job and their employer likes them they shouldn't leave their job?
If you're working an 80 hour week, you're not very bright to begin with!
Don't complain about syntax, grammar, or spelling. There is no.hell like input on android.
Perhaps the GP has not been in the industry long enough to have dealt with things like departments closing? I have found quite a few people have never worked outside the 'constant expansion, there is only up' parts of the industry.
Translation: They are 19 years old, have no responsibilities, do not have to make a mortgage or a payroll and since they are willing to work for free, will be very flexible when it comes to pay and hours.
Have a nice day.
Exactly. Facebook and Twitter is not "online presence" in which IT employers are interested. GitHub, Ohloh, commits to free software projects, mailing lists etc. - that's "online presence" you should care about. You'll for sure have a good impression of someone if you put his name in Google and then you immediately see commits to various VCS repositories. That's also some kind of proof of his skills.
And turning the issue upside down, why in the name of all that is rational would you want to work for a company that evaluated you by social web posts rather than work product, and education?
What does that say about your chances of getting fair evaluations, promotions, and advancement based on your efforts and work output?
Unless you were seeking employment with a political party or a church, I would consider any such digging into web posting as violation of civil rights by that company, akin to asking how I voted, or checking my church affiliation, or demanding a list of past girlfriends.
Run away from such employers like your hair is on fire.
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
If you don't have a facebook page (with friends...) the question of 'why not' arises.
Are you kidding? You state this on Slashdot?
There are dozens of reasons NOT to have a Facebook account. There are even good reasons for not having a Linkdn account (been spammed there more times than I care to recall). Twitter?
Good grief kids, you can have an active social and professional life with just a telephone. It's not hard - billions of people do it.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
Working 80 hours a week is dumb.
I don't hire dumb people.
Not everything that can be measured matters; Not everything that matters can be measured.
"f his previous employer really thought he was good, he wouldn't be looking for a new job. I give a glowing reference to any ex-employee who asks for one. Why should I care if you hire a turd? When I am hiring, I have found references to be so unreliable, that I don't even both to ask for them."
Absolute garbage.
First, I often work on a contract basis ("freelance", if you prefer). Projects only last so long, then they are over. So yes, I am looking for work, and have had a lot of short-term "employers". I also have some glowing, HONEST reviews.
" I give a glowing reference to any ex-employee who asks for one. Why should I care if you hire a turd?"
Because this is grossly hypocritical behavior. No doubt you would be pissed off to no end if someone else did the same to you, and you hired someone with great reviews who turned out to be a lemon. You appear to be one of those who pollute the entire job market with their bullshit, then wonder why they can't find good workers.
"For my last opening I got 200 resumes. I interviewed five of them. If your resume doesn't stand out, there will be no interview."
See, there you go. Contradicting yourself.
...or, perhaps, people who enjoy their work and who want to make a difference.
In most groups, perhaps 20% of the people get half the work done. And, they tend to get great raises, promotions, flexibility, and plum projects -- and, yes, they end up working more hours a week than most of the other 80% (sometimes there's a sad case where someone that isn't very competent either manages to hold onto their job by producing enough work -- but working twice as many hours as others to do so, or who works so hard that softhearted managers can't bring themselves to fire them at the first opportunity).
If you think working 80 hours a week will get you in that top 20%, you ARE dumb.
Competent programmers have more than 2x the productivity of the average ones, and GOOD programmers have 10x more productivity than average. They can easily get into the top 20% productivity group by working only 40 hours a week and still make a difference, at the same time out-producing those average programmers working 80 hours a week, and keeping themselves fresh to handle any emergencies.
If you need to work 80 hours a week on a regular basis, you just proved yourself to be an average programmer, at best.
Oliver.