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Time to get your game face on. I'm a CEO, we're hiring but not in your skill area. Having interviewed a lot of candidates lately and looked at many more, I want

Time to get your game face on. I'm a CEO, we're hiring but not in your skill area. Having interviewed a lot of candidates lately and looked at many more, I wanted to give you my 2c on getting into extremely hirable shape fast: Update your LinkedIn profile as someone has mentioned already. Sweeten it up, get a great looking but professional profile pic up there, get kudos from friends, etc. Do the online profile cleanse. Make sure everything is very professional looking. Remove any controversial political views or disparaging remarks about previous employers. Looks like this blog post is anonymous. Keep it that way and make sure that email address isn't associated with anything. Employers will google your email address. They'll even drag your profile pic into google image search, so the cleanse includes anywhere that appears. Get code into GitHub asap and make your profile there sound like you're a team player, super positive, super keen, all that good stuff. Stop blogging about how tough your life is and don't ever mention it in conversation. Whether you like it or not (personally I don't), that idiotic quote in American Beauty from the motivational tapes is true: "In order to be successful, one must project an image of success at all times.". Yup, that came from the real-estate King himself. Seriously douchey and seriously true. What employers care about is that you're going to be a great addition to the team, make the rest of the team happier and more productive and be super productive yourself. That's pretty much it besides not being a liability or a risk. Hence the profile cleanse, positivity, demonstration of ability by getting your code into GitHub and so on. Then go forth and market the hell out of yourself with tons of positive vibe. What I'm telling you here is pretty much to do very much the opposite of what you're doing. Absolutely don't beg. You may get charity but I don't think you're going to be happy with it considering your salary expectations and family situation. You're going to want to land a job earning $75K upwards with excellent benefits in a stable and growing business. That means they need to think that you're awesome, so make yourself awesome and go and kill it. Best of luck!! ~Mark.

thomasahle 11y ago
Is it worth it to go to a photographer? Or does that signal narcissism?
- rev_bird 11y ago
  Personally, I'm freaked out seeing a LinkedIn profile that is complete, but in a way that signals they might have actually paid someone to make it look that way. I've seen great profiles that really give me a good feel for what someone is up to, but others, like with a cheesy school-photo, just seem like marketing material.
vruiz 11y ago
> get a great looking but professional profile pic up there, get kudos from friends Really? as a CEO those are signals for you? the profile picture is debatable but the endorsements are just a joke and everyone knows it, people just exchange them like they do with twitter follows. If anything, too many of them would be a negative signal for me. Completely agree with the rest of your comment though.
- Bonogongo 11y ago
  Hiring is a filtering game. With 100 candidates, first thing you do is filter out 80, I wish more candidates would understand this.
  - vruiz 11y ago
    I'm very aware, my point is being an endorsement collector will put you in the group filtered out, at least if I'm doing the filtering, but perhaps I'm the minority.
    - proveanegative 11y ago
      Off the cuff, I agree with you, but I also wonder if it isn't an approach only used by a minority of people involved in hiring, primarily those with a technical background. This is the sort if matter on which I would love to see an empirical study based on real data from the industry, not stimulated hiring experiments, unlikely as it may be to happen.
    - Bonogongo 11y ago
      I agree on that one.
  - selestify 11y ago
    Just out of curiosity, where do you work as a hiring manager that you get so many candidates to filter out? At the company I work at it's been somewhat difficult to find suitable candidates to even interview with us -- the few that do come in for interviews are usually so-so (and we do pay quite above average). Also, anecdotally, during my own job search I was the one filtering out companies to apply to (nearly all the ones I applied to accepted me in the end), so at least that's consistent with the developer shortage my company is currently facing. I am very curious how the balance of power can be tipped so drastically in the other direction in some places.
jlarocco 11y ago
I guess beggers can't be choosers, but you're describing an employer I would never work for. > Remove any controversial political views or disparaging remarks about previous employers. If a person keeps their stupid political views to themselves while at work, it's really not any of their employers business. As far as disparaging remarks go, if it's an awesome company to work for, there shouldn't be anything to worry about. If your employees have to be as fake as possible to get hired, maybe you're doing it wrong.
- calibraxis 11y ago
  Workplaces are intensely political. Corporations are huge donors to political campaigns. Of course, politics goes beyond the pageant of professional politicians we call elections. (For example, saying "corporations are illegitimate entities" is political. Or "corporations are structured as dictatorships, and that's where you spend much of your lives". What would we expect a corporate gatekeeper to do, upon seeing that?)
  - webXL 11y ago
    My haunch is that most donations by corporations are strategic and don't have an ideological bent. Yes, there are plenty of hiring managers who let their ideology get in the way of making decisions that benefit the business. The companies that have a lot of those won't be around very long. But if you make any political comments online, just pretend that you're on TV and everyone can hear you. In other words, don't be an ass.
- petercooper 11y ago
  It's not so much "fake" as presenting one's best face in a professional context. Most of us present different faces in different contexts every day. I often pick my nose, scratch my ass, tell rude jokes, love wearing sweatpants, and don't have a problem with embarrassing-to-most sexual conversations. Do I engage in these things on a first date as I might on a day to day basis with friends? No.. I dress up a bit, smell a bit better than usual, steer clear of politics and sexual jokes. So it goes when seeking a job.
marincounty 11y ago
You're a CEO, and would hire the Real-Estate King, if he could code? I have a few websites. They don't produce much income, but some guys offer their services for hire; thinking I might hire them if they say the right things? I tell them up front, I can't afford to hire them, but some are very persistent. They send me their resumes, even after telling them I'm a struggling website owner, and I don't make a living doing this work. From my perspective, it's so easy to spot the Real Estate Kings? This one guy wanted me to join his companies, exclusive website forum. He was going to put in a good word, so the the other Winners would let me in. Well, I went to the forum, and it was just this guy and me. Every article was written by him. Every comment on the site was written by this guy. I couldn't belive the verbage this guy was throwing around. His favorite phrase was "Are you interested in monetizing? Followed by "You need to scale!" It's was almost like he memorized that movie about Facebook? And yes, he had a professional, cheesy profile pic. with a tie, and head cocked. Call me old school, but I wouldn't put his picture into Google Image search, but that same cheesy picture came up at least a couple dozen times just in just Images. He used the same portrait pic. in every website--ever created? My point is I had this guy figured out pretty quick. I think, if he didn't try so hard to sound professional, I would have loved to kick around a few ideas I have? And yes, if we meshed, I have a small bank roll I would be willing to risk. I thought hiring in tech was about abilities? I don't care what a person looks like? It's so easy to spot "The Real Estate Kings" of Coders; I couldn't imagine trying to hide who you are? Yea, scrub the web, if you can, of anything controversial, but be honest? Honesty used to go along way? Do you really need that Starbucks fueled, go, go, save world with my app, never sleep, positive vib in order to get noticed for employment? Maybe it's just me, but I'll take the well rounded individual, with some finished projects over a Cheerleader?
- fapjacks 11y ago
  Your liberal use of the question mark has created a very unique narrative style in my head.
simonswords82 11y ago
This is great advice for anybody seeking a job. When I'm going to hire somebody I'll stalk them online until I'm comfortable I've unearthed as much detail as I can before pulling them in for an interview. Another quote is "act as if" - http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mike-robbins/the-law-of-attraction-how_b_513219.html http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mike-robbins/the-law-of-attrac... Like Mark said, your attitude is at least half as important as your ability to code.
bazzargh 11y ago
http://www.eeoc.gov/laws/practices/ http://www.eeoc.gov/laws/practices/ "As a general rule, the information obtained and requested through the pre-employment process should be limited to those essential for determining if a person is qualified for the job;...employers should not ask for a photograph of an applicant. If needed for identification purposes, a photograph may be obtained after an offer of employment is made and accepted." It surprised me when you attached any importance to "a great looking but professional profile pic", since it's such an obvious way for discrimination to work, so I checked if that was allowed. I don't recall being asked for a photo pre-employment in 30 years.
- petercooper 11y ago
  They're not allowed to actively discriminate on it, but people naturally make choices based on gut feeling and having a good photo can really help. They're not allowed to discriminate on whether your resume contains the right collection of trendy buzzwords either, but that's what HR systems sit and do every day. You play the game that exists, not the one that's written in statute.
  - throwaway5752 11y ago
    "They're not allowed to discriminate on whether your resume contains the right collection of trendy buzzwords" Aren't they?
  - DanBC 11y ago
    I'm not surprised that candidates put their photos on resumes or their information sites. I am surprised that a CEO publicly declares photos to be useful. A photo is clearly bullshit - there's no useful information in a photo (unless it's "here I am accepting $PRESTIGOUS_AWARD last year") - and it raise risk of discrimination claims.
    - coldtea 11y ago
      >there's no useful information in a photo There's lots of useful information in a photo. A talented HR/CEO can size up a lot of things from it, even from the way the candidate is dressed in the photo. "Hmm, too old, too quirky looking, doesn't look a good fit for our culture, fucking hipster I hate them, too slopilly dressed don't like working with such guys" etc.
nekopa 11y ago
For anyone interested in improving their profile pic, this is a good article: http://www.diyphotography.net/take-professional-linkedin-profile-photo-living-room/ http://www.diyphotography.net/take-professional-linkedin-pro... Read all the way through, as he points out that it is not the equipment that matters, its the setup with the reflectors, which can easily be improvised...
- wyclif 11y ago
  This is good advice, don't get me wrong (I read the article), but you don't absolutely have to have a pro photo. What you do need is a good, clear headshot. Advice like yours is necessary because I've seen a lot of really bad, unprofessional LI photos: 1/ Don't use your Facebook profile photo 2/ Don't use anything blurry: photo should be well lit and clear 3/ Don't use a photo that isn't a headshot—make sure your face is clearly visible and smiling 4/ Don't use anything where you're engaging in unprofessional behaviour
Jach 11y ago
Obligatory XKCD: https://xkcd.com/137/ https://xkcd.com/137/ Not that your advice is bad -- it's about the same as any college advisor would give -- but to those with whom such fakery leaves a foul taste, just remember the tech industry still has plenty of opportunities where that's unnecessary.
- sdoering 11y ago
  Thanks. And glad to read this. Got a job with an very holidayish image on my professional resume (me climbing in Greece). Got my job having a personal site with quite left wing blogposts. Got a job in a great environment with great colleagues - without having to constantly denying myself. For me these things work as a filter for companies, where I would not want to work. But for the OP I would first say - get any dev job at all and after that look for a great job to then jump ship.
Eleopteryx 11y ago
Aren't you describing all of the things that you should be trying to see through, to see past? Anyone can fake being an uncontroversial, positive, "team player" in the interview process. Anyone can take a nice headshot. Anyone can censor themselves on social media and not have an opinion. But surely you're trying to gauge their qualities past that superficial level? You didn't even really describe any technical requisites besides having an appealing GitHub profile. It sounds like I've been wasting my time trying to be a better software developer or hone my skills; the big bucks are waiting for me as soon as I choose to project an artificial persona. My entire life thus far is starting to make a lot of sense.

thomasahle 11y ago

Is it worth it to go to a photographer? Or does that signal narcissism?

rev_bird 11y ago
Personally, I'm freaked out seeing a LinkedIn profile that is complete, but in a way that signals they might have actually paid someone to make it look that way. I've seen great profiles that really give me a good feel for what someone is up to, but others, like with a cheesy school-photo, just seem like marketing material.

vruiz 11y ago

> get a great looking but professional profile pic up there, get kudos from friends Really? as a CEO those are signals for you? the profile picture is debatable but the endorsements are just a joke and everyone knows it, people just exchange them like they do with twitter follows. If anything, too many of them would be a negative signal for me. Completely agree with the rest of your comment though.

Bonogongo 11y ago
Hiring is a filtering game. With 100 candidates, first thing you do is filter out 80, I wish more candidates would understand this.
- vruiz 11y ago
  I'm very aware, my point is being an endorsement collector will put you in the group filtered out, at least if I'm doing the filtering, but perhaps I'm the minority.
  - proveanegative 11y ago
    Off the cuff, I agree with you, but I also wonder if it isn't an approach only used by a minority of people involved in hiring, primarily those with a technical background. This is the sort if matter on which I would love to see an empirical study based on real data from the industry, not stimulated hiring experiments, unlikely as it may be to happen.
  - Bonogongo 11y ago
    I agree on that one.
- selestify 11y ago
  Just out of curiosity, where do you work as a hiring manager that you get so many candidates to filter out? At the company I work at it's been somewhat difficult to find suitable candidates to even interview with us -- the few that do come in for interviews are usually so-so (and we do pay quite above average). Also, anecdotally, during my own job search I was the one filtering out companies to apply to (nearly all the ones I applied to accepted me in the end), so at least that's consistent with the developer shortage my company is currently facing. I am very curious how the balance of power can be tipped so drastically in the other direction in some places.

jlarocco 11y ago

I guess beggers can't be choosers, but you're describing an employer I would never work for. > Remove any controversial political views or disparaging remarks about previous employers. If a person keeps their stupid political views to themselves while at work, it's really not any of their employers business. As far as disparaging remarks go, if it's an awesome company to work for, there shouldn't be anything to worry about. If your employees have to be as fake as possible to get hired, maybe you're doing it wrong.

calibraxis 11y ago
Workplaces are intensely political. Corporations are huge donors to political campaigns. Of course, politics goes beyond the pageant of professional politicians we call elections. (For example, saying "corporations are illegitimate entities" is political. Or "corporations are structured as dictatorships, and that's where you spend much of your lives". What would we expect a corporate gatekeeper to do, upon seeing that?)
- webXL 11y ago
  My haunch is that most donations by corporations are strategic and don't have an ideological bent. Yes, there are plenty of hiring managers who let their ideology get in the way of making decisions that benefit the business. The companies that have a lot of those won't be around very long. But if you make any political comments online, just pretend that you're on TV and everyone can hear you. In other words, don't be an ass.
petercooper 11y ago
It's not so much "fake" as presenting one's best face in a professional context. Most of us present different faces in different contexts every day. I often pick my nose, scratch my ass, tell rude jokes, love wearing sweatpants, and don't have a problem with embarrassing-to-most sexual conversations. Do I engage in these things on a first date as I might on a day to day basis with friends? No.. I dress up a bit, smell a bit better than usual, steer clear of politics and sexual jokes. So it goes when seeking a job.

marincounty 11y ago

You're a CEO, and would hire the Real-Estate King, if he could code? I have a few websites. They don't produce much income, but some guys offer their services for hire; thinking I might hire them if they say the right things? I tell them up front, I can't afford to hire them, but some are very persistent. They send me their resumes, even after telling them I'm a struggling website owner, and I don't make a living doing this work. From my perspective, it's so easy to spot the Real Estate Kings? This one guy wanted me to join his companies, exclusive website forum. He was going to put in a good word, so the the other Winners would let me in. Well, I went to the forum, and it was just this guy and me. Every article was written by him. Every comment on the site was written by this guy. I couldn't belive the verbage this guy was throwing around. His favorite phrase was "Are you interested in monetizing? Followed by "You need to scale!" It's was almost like he memorized that movie about Facebook? And yes, he had a professional, cheesy profile pic. with a tie, and head cocked. Call me old school, but I wouldn't put his picture into Google Image search, but that same cheesy picture came up at least a couple dozen times just in just Images. He used the same portrait pic. in every website--ever created? My point is I had this guy figured out pretty quick. I think, if he didn't try so hard to sound professional, I would have loved to kick around a few ideas I have? And yes, if we meshed, I have a small bank roll I would be willing to risk. I thought hiring in tech was about abilities? I don't care what a person looks like? It's so easy to spot "The Real Estate Kings" of Coders; I couldn't imagine trying to hide who you are? Yea, scrub the web, if you can, of anything controversial, but be honest? Honesty used to go along way? Do you really need that Starbucks fueled, go, go, save world with my app, never sleep, positive vib in order to get noticed for employment? Maybe it's just me, but I'll take the well rounded individual, with some finished projects over a Cheerleader?

fapjacks 11y ago
Your liberal use of the question mark has created a very unique narrative style in my head.

simonswords82 11y ago

This is great advice for anybody seeking a job. When I'm going to hire somebody I'll stalk them online until I'm comfortable I've unearthed as much detail as I can before pulling them in for an interview. Another quote is "act as if" - http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mike-robbins/the-law-of-attraction-how_b_513219.html http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mike-robbins/the-law-of-attrac... Like Mark said, your attitude is at least half as important as your ability to code.

bazzargh 11y ago

http://www.eeoc.gov/laws/practices/ http://www.eeoc.gov/laws/practices/ "As a general rule, the information obtained and requested through the pre-employment process should be limited to those essential for determining if a person is qualified for the job;...employers should not ask for a photograph of an applicant. If needed for identification purposes, a photograph may be obtained after an offer of employment is made and accepted." It surprised me when you attached any importance to "a great looking but professional profile pic", since it's such an obvious way for discrimination to work, so I checked if that was allowed. I don't recall being asked for a photo pre-employment in 30 years.

petercooper 11y ago
They're not allowed to actively discriminate on it, but people naturally make choices based on gut feeling and having a good photo can really help. They're not allowed to discriminate on whether your resume contains the right collection of trendy buzzwords either, but that's what HR systems sit and do every day. You play the game that exists, not the one that's written in statute.
- throwaway5752 11y ago
  "They're not allowed to discriminate on whether your resume contains the right collection of trendy buzzwords" Aren't they?
- DanBC 11y ago
  I'm not surprised that candidates put their photos on resumes or their information sites. I am surprised that a CEO publicly declares photos to be useful. A photo is clearly bullshit - there's no useful information in a photo (unless it's "here I am accepting $PRESTIGOUS_AWARD last year") - and it raise risk of discrimination claims.
  - coldtea 11y ago
    >there's no useful information in a photo There's lots of useful information in a photo. A talented HR/CEO can size up a lot of things from it, even from the way the candidate is dressed in the photo. "Hmm, too old, too quirky looking, doesn't look a good fit for our culture, fucking hipster I hate them, too slopilly dressed don't like working with such guys" etc.

nekopa 11y ago

For anyone interested in improving their profile pic, this is a good article: http://www.diyphotography.net/take-professional-linkedin-profile-photo-living-room/ http://www.diyphotography.net/take-professional-linkedin-pro... Read all the way through, as he points out that it is not the equipment that matters, its the setup with the reflectors, which can easily be improvised...

wyclif 11y ago
This is good advice, don't get me wrong (I read the article), but you don't absolutely have to have a pro photo. What you do need is a good, clear headshot. Advice like yours is necessary because I've seen a lot of really bad, unprofessional LI photos: 1/ Don't use your Facebook profile photo 2/ Don't use anything blurry: photo should be well lit and clear 3/ Don't use a photo that isn't a headshot—make sure your face is clearly visible and smiling 4/ Don't use anything where you're engaging in unprofessional behaviour

Jach 11y ago

Obligatory XKCD: https://xkcd.com/137/ https://xkcd.com/137/ Not that your advice is bad -- it's about the same as any college advisor would give -- but to those with whom such fakery leaves a foul taste, just remember the tech industry still has plenty of opportunities where that's unnecessary.

sdoering 11y ago
Thanks. And glad to read this. Got a job with an very holidayish image on my professional resume (me climbing in Greece). Got my job having a personal site with quite left wing blogposts. Got a job in a great environment with great colleagues - without having to constantly denying myself. For me these things work as a filter for companies, where I would not want to work. But for the OP I would first say - get any dev job at all and after that look for a great job to then jump ship.

Eleopteryx 11y ago

Aren't you describing all of the things that you should be trying to see through, to see past? Anyone can fake being an uncontroversial, positive, "team player" in the interview process. Anyone can take a nice headshot. Anyone can censor themselves on social media and not have an opinion. But surely you're trying to gauge their qualities past that superficial level? You didn't even really describe any technical requisites besides having an appealing GitHub profile. It sounds like I've been wasting my time trying to be a better software developer or hone my skills; the big bucks are waiting for me as soon as I choose to project an artificial persona. My entire life thus far is starting to make a lot of sense.