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This advice is contrary to my personal experience. I live in a part of the US with a similarly craptastic market for programmers. In a recent job search, with

This advice is contrary to my personal experience. I live in a part of the US with a similarly craptastic market for programmers. In a recent job search, with very little formal experience as a software developer, I was turning down offers and taking my pick of interesting positions. From what I could gather this was almost entirely due to a github page with lots of code and a portfolio of interesting projects. However I originally did think the market looked like you describe until I realized this amazingly valuable insight: My resume was almost instantly rejected by any company where an HR person/recruiter got my application; Any company where an engineer was the first to read my resume I was eagerly contacted in less than a week. A related insight: I don't want to work for companies where engineers aren't doing the hiring. I also had no interest in moving and found, much to my surprise, that there are a lot great telecommuting options out there these days. edit: I just want to clarify the tone/message here a bit, I'm not saying "your doing it wrong" but that it's easy to be discourage by being rejected by companies that aren't worth your talent. There was definitely a point in my search where I felt completely doomed, but then I realized that I actually wasn't aiming high enough and was underselling myself.

mattdeboard 16y ago
Hey, thanks. I actually do include my Github page (though admittedly I don't do much interesting I'd say) on my resume, but I'd never considered the difference between an HR manager and an engineer seeing it. Great insight, thanks. (For the record, I wasn't giving advice :P )
Luyt 16y ago
Could I have a peek at your resume, please? (Your profile page doesn't list any website).
bendmorris 16y ago
My job search experience in a small western college town has pretty much mirrored yours. I'm a grad student so I'm only looking for part time work, and about twice a year I send out a few applications for development positions and almost always get as many offers as I applied to, from which I either take a better position or use as leverage at my current position. I'm not a CS student, but I think my resume (where I list tons of projects completed and programming languages I'm comfortable with) stands out against the CS student/new grad resumes they're probably swamped with. Occasionally I'm turned down for something like not remembering some syntax triviality, something that could easily be looked up; that's a sure sign that I wouldn't want to be working there.
jshen 16y ago
"From what I could gather this was almost entirely due to a github page with lots of code and a portfolio of interesting projects." I've been a hiring programmers for almost 10 years. It's so rare to get a resume with something like a link to a github page. You're pretty much guaranteed a phone screen with me if I see this. I know it's hard for people just starting out to understand this, but demand far exceeds the talent pool. You will always run into the managers that want to see "oracle blah blah blah" experience. When you get rejected by them because you couldn't answer how to solve some oracle specific problem in an interview you just ignore it, and keep applying.
- HeyLaughingBoy 16y ago
  It's so rare to get a resume with something like a link to a github page. You're pretty much guaranteed a phone screen with me if I see this Yes, yes, a billion times yes!!!!! Even if it's some tiny little project that went nowhere, the fact that you actually have some code that is yours and that you can discuss intelligently puts you well ahead of 99% of the people I see.
  - mattdeboard 16y ago
    Really? Damn. Maybe I need to rethink my position.
    - deleted 16y ago
      [deleted]
  - nigelsampson 16y ago
    I started to include links to my website on my resume as it contained a lot more interesting work and code than my day job. It didn't seem to be helping, however it turned out that most recruiters were scrubbing it from the version they passed on to prospective clients.
    - jshen 16y ago
      apply to companies that don't use recruiters :)
remthename 16y ago
Do you think closed-source projects are just as good? I can never think of an undone open source thing that I would be able to do.
- mattdeboard 16y ago
  I am working on a large open source project right now via a connection I made on HN. By hanging out in their IRC channel and listening, I've been able to fix a couple of problems before they left the "complaining about it in IRC" stage and percolated up to the "file a bug report" stage. If you're the first to move on it you get to fix it. My recommendation is find something in open source you use and see if they communicate in IRC or some other open medium. Probably not great universal advice but it has worked for me.
- gnosis 16y ago
  You can't find an undone open source project? There are no undone open source projects! They're all undone. There are always features to add and bugs to fix. Except maybe for TeX.
deleted 16y ago
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mattdeboard 16y ago

Hey, thanks. I actually do include my Github page (though admittedly I don't do much interesting I'd say) on my resume, but I'd never considered the difference between an HR manager and an engineer seeing it. Great insight, thanks. (For the record, I wasn't giving advice :P )

Luyt 16y ago

Could I have a peek at your resume, please? (Your profile page doesn't list any website).

bendmorris 16y ago

My job search experience in a small western college town has pretty much mirrored yours. I'm a grad student so I'm only looking for part time work, and about twice a year I send out a few applications for development positions and almost always get as many offers as I applied to, from which I either take a better position or use as leverage at my current position. I'm not a CS student, but I think my resume (where I list tons of projects completed and programming languages I'm comfortable with) stands out against the CS student/new grad resumes they're probably swamped with. Occasionally I'm turned down for something like not remembering some syntax triviality, something that could easily be looked up; that's a sure sign that I wouldn't want to be working there.

jshen 16y ago

"From what I could gather this was almost entirely due to a github page with lots of code and a portfolio of interesting projects." I've been a hiring programmers for almost 10 years. It's so rare to get a resume with something like a link to a github page. You're pretty much guaranteed a phone screen with me if I see this. I know it's hard for people just starting out to understand this, but demand far exceeds the talent pool. You will always run into the managers that want to see "oracle blah blah blah" experience. When you get rejected by them because you couldn't answer how to solve some oracle specific problem in an interview you just ignore it, and keep applying.

HeyLaughingBoy 16y ago
It's so rare to get a resume with something like a link to a github page. You're pretty much guaranteed a phone screen with me if I see this Yes, yes, a billion times yes!!!!! Even if it's some tiny little project that went nowhere, the fact that you actually have some code that is yours and that you can discuss intelligently puts you well ahead of 99% of the people I see.
- mattdeboard 16y ago
  Really? Damn. Maybe I need to rethink my position.
  - deleted 16y ago
    [deleted]
- nigelsampson 16y ago
  I started to include links to my website on my resume as it contained a lot more interesting work and code than my day job. It didn't seem to be helping, however it turned out that most recruiters were scrubbing it from the version they passed on to prospective clients.
  - jshen 16y ago
    apply to companies that don't use recruiters :)

remthename 16y ago

Do you think closed-source projects are just as good? I can never think of an undone open source thing that I would be able to do.

mattdeboard 16y ago
I am working on a large open source project right now via a connection I made on HN. By hanging out in their IRC channel and listening, I've been able to fix a couple of problems before they left the "complaining about it in IRC" stage and percolated up to the "file a bug report" stage. If you're the first to move on it you get to fix it. My recommendation is find something in open source you use and see if they communicate in IRC or some other open medium. Probably not great universal advice but it has worked for me.
gnosis 16y ago
You can't find an undone open source project? There are no undone open source projects! They're all undone. There are always features to add and bugs to fix. Except maybe for TeX.

deleted 16y ago

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