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What if they don't keep a blog? I'm pretty sure I have a decent amount of technical information in my head, I just don't bother to blog about it. As for Twitte

What if they don't keep a blog? I'm pretty sure I have a decent amount of technical information in my head, I just don't bother to blog about it. As for Twitter ... seriously?

bphogan 16y ago
I believe I already addressed that in my post - you could be an awesome programmer. But would we be able to get along with eachother? Would you be able to get along with the rest of the people who do use Twitter and who do blog about what they learned? It's likely not, and now we can both look for other opportunities.
- krschultz 16y ago
  That's so arbitrary. There are plenty of devs on Twitter that I could never ever get along with. Plenty not on twitter I could. There are plenty of people blogging about their profession that are good at it, and plenty that are good at it that are not blogging. At my startup of the 8 devs, we had 2 on twitter and 3 with their own blogs, so the bulk of us didn't do either. But we got along great. Why wouldn't we? What does Twitter and blogging have to do with interpersonal relationships?
  - bphogan 16y ago
    Well, I did say "and twitter account if any". Looking at someone's twitter stream who's poking at some new library or talking about some code they wrote tells me a lot more than "1 year of php development" on a resume. It may be arbitrary, but github+blog+twitter has worked well here.
    - Locke1689 16y ago
      Twitter is tricky. I very rarely if ever tweet about technical topics for a couple reasons: 1. I don't think anything technically interesting can be accurately explained in the 140 characters provided by Twitter. 2. Simply announcing what I'm working on is self-congratulatory back-patting. No one cares what I'm working on that hour. 3. I have many non-technical friends (e.g., no one else in my frat is CS). I would not alienate them from a conversation by only talking about tech all the time.
      - vanschelven 16y ago
        The same could be said for non-technical topics: 1. I don't think anything interesting can be accurately explained in the 140 characters provided by Twitter. 2. Simply announcing what I'm working on is self-congratulatory back-patting. No one cares what I'm working on that hour. 3. I have many friends with different interests. I would not alienate them from a conversation by only talking about X all the time.
- rhizome 16y ago
  How does Twitter usage create dischord among the team? Your comment reminds me of the time I interviewed for a sysadmin position at SixApart and they kept harping on whether I kept a blog. "What does content creation have to do with keeping machines running?" I asked myself.
  - ig1 16y ago
    You can't figure out why SixApart, a company whose primary business is blog hosting, might want to know if a potential sysadmin had kept a blog ?
    - rhizome 16y ago
      I understand why, but that's not my point. My point is that blogging and sysadminning are orthogonal, if not skew.
- mquander 16y ago
  Look, I'm on board with filtering out bad candidates by looking at their public output (or lack thereof) but this comment is absurd. You think that because I don't Twitter and I don't have a blog, I won't be able to get along with people who do? That literally makes no sense.
  - scott_s 16y ago
    You are not understanding him. He is not saying "If you don't use Twitter, I cannot determine how we will interact." He is saying, "I would like to determine how we will interact. If you use Twitter, that could be one data point I could use to inform me."
- brown9-2 16y ago
  This reads like you think that Twitter users and non-Twitter users cannot find a way to communicate or that they occupy two distinct segments of the population. This is crazy.
pchristensen 16y ago
None of those things guarantee a good hire or a good developer, and their absence doesn't indicate a bad hire or a bad developer. But ... it's something for companies to go off of that wasn't created just for the interview. To flip it around to the companies, how useless would this job posting: "Internet company in North America looking for developers. We have fewer than 1 million employees and all employees get indoor working space." That accurately describes Groupon, Facebook, Dropbox, and Joe's Waffle and Website Sweatshop. Things like blogs, twitter, etc are signals and they're useful for people that need to make decisions based on limited information.
- derefr 16y ago
  > Things like blogs, twitter, etc are signals and they're useful for people that need to make decisions based on limited information. And thus we need to expend resources on signaling, instead of on actually pursuing/growing within the field. Personally, I'd rather not hire the developers with the most beautiful tail-feathers.
  - pchristensen 16y ago
    Well somebody has to expend the resources, whether it's the job seeker signaling what kind of developer they are or the company looking harder and longer for each position.

What if they don't keep a blog? I'm pretty sure I have a decent amount of technical information in my head, I just don't bother to blog about it. As for Twitter ... seriously?

bphogan 16y ago

I believe I already addressed that in my post - you could be an awesome programmer. But would we be able to get along with eachother? Would you be able to get along with the rest of the people who do use Twitter and who do blog about what they learned? It's likely not, and now we can both look for other opportunities.

krschultz 16y ago
That's so arbitrary. There are plenty of devs on Twitter that I could never ever get along with. Plenty not on twitter I could. There are plenty of people blogging about their profession that are good at it, and plenty that are good at it that are not blogging. At my startup of the 8 devs, we had 2 on twitter and 3 with their own blogs, so the bulk of us didn't do either. But we got along great. Why wouldn't we? What does Twitter and blogging have to do with interpersonal relationships?
- bphogan 16y ago
  Well, I did say "and twitter account if any". Looking at someone's twitter stream who's poking at some new library or talking about some code they wrote tells me a lot more than "1 year of php development" on a resume. It may be arbitrary, but github+blog+twitter has worked well here.
  - Locke1689 16y ago
    Twitter is tricky. I very rarely if ever tweet about technical topics for a couple reasons: 1. I don't think anything technically interesting can be accurately explained in the 140 characters provided by Twitter. 2. Simply announcing what I'm working on is self-congratulatory back-patting. No one cares what I'm working on that hour. 3. I have many non-technical friends (e.g., no one else in my frat is CS). I would not alienate them from a conversation by only talking about tech all the time.
    - vanschelven 16y ago
      The same could be said for non-technical topics: 1. I don't think anything interesting can be accurately explained in the 140 characters provided by Twitter. 2. Simply announcing what I'm working on is self-congratulatory back-patting. No one cares what I'm working on that hour. 3. I have many friends with different interests. I would not alienate them from a conversation by only talking about X all the time.
rhizome 16y ago
How does Twitter usage create dischord among the team? Your comment reminds me of the time I interviewed for a sysadmin position at SixApart and they kept harping on whether I kept a blog. "What does content creation have to do with keeping machines running?" I asked myself.
- ig1 16y ago
  You can't figure out why SixApart, a company whose primary business is blog hosting, might want to know if a potential sysadmin had kept a blog ?
  - rhizome 16y ago
    I understand why, but that's not my point. My point is that blogging and sysadminning are orthogonal, if not skew.
mquander 16y ago
Look, I'm on board with filtering out bad candidates by looking at their public output (or lack thereof) but this comment is absurd. You think that because I don't Twitter and I don't have a blog, I won't be able to get along with people who do? That literally makes no sense.
- scott_s 16y ago
  You are not understanding him. He is not saying "If you don't use Twitter, I cannot determine how we will interact." He is saying, "I would like to determine how we will interact. If you use Twitter, that could be one data point I could use to inform me."
brown9-2 16y ago
This reads like you think that Twitter users and non-Twitter users cannot find a way to communicate or that they occupy two distinct segments of the population. This is crazy.

pchristensen 16y ago

None of those things guarantee a good hire or a good developer, and their absence doesn't indicate a bad hire or a bad developer. But ... it's something for companies to go off of that wasn't created just for the interview. To flip it around to the companies, how useless would this job posting: "Internet company in North America looking for developers. We have fewer than 1 million employees and all employees get indoor working space." That accurately describes Groupon, Facebook, Dropbox, and Joe's Waffle and Website Sweatshop. Things like blogs, twitter, etc are signals and they're useful for people that need to make decisions based on limited information.

derefr 16y ago
> Things like blogs, twitter, etc are signals and they're useful for people that need to make decisions based on limited information. And thus we need to expend resources on signaling, instead of on actually pursuing/growing within the field. Personally, I'd rather not hire the developers with the most beautiful tail-feathers.
- pchristensen 16y ago
  Well somebody has to expend the resources, whether it's the job seeker signaling what kind of developer they are or the company looking harder and longer for each position.