Ask Slashdot: Is an Online Identity Important When Searching For Technical Jobs? 358
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?"
You're better off without them. (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Re:As the song asks... (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Re: As the song asks... (Score:2, Interesting)
I agree completely. I would more likely hire someone with no Facebook or Twitter account because people with these, tend to spend half their work day checking, updating, chatting on it rather then working
A few tips (Score:5, Interesting)
* 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.
Slightly Off Topic, But A Worse Situation (Score:5, Interesting)
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Re: As the song asks... (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Re:Slightly Off Topic, But A Worse Situation (Score:2, Interesting)
Add a middle initial to your name on the resume.
After you've gone through an interview, in your follow-up/thank you email, mention that in a postscript.
Re:As the song asks... (Score:5, Interesting)
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 [alanstorm.com] 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).
Re: As the song asks... (Score:5, Interesting)
Are you saying that if someone is good at their job and their employer likes them they shouldn't leave their job?
Re: As the song asks... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: As the song asks... (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:As the song asks... (Score:4, Interesting)
Attorneys need to do probono work to keep their license, why is it too much for you to carve out a few hours to put up a portfolio of your work on GitHub?
Re: As the song asks... (Score:5, Interesting)
...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.