4 ms·

I kind of regret not joining stackoverflow I am sure alot of people get hired off of it instead of having to jump through hoops doing technical interviews. I a

I kind of regret not joining stackoverflow I am sure alot of people get hired off of it instead of having to jump through hoops doing technical interviews. I am looking for work now in golang and i just hate having to do interviews over and over again with each new contract.

nickstinemates 5y ago
If you're looking for something to do, it's still a great way to hone your skills. Don't let being late to the party stop you.
somenewaccount1 5y ago
to be fair to yourself, I am a member on Stack Overflow and in the past 13 years, 0 interviewers have asked about or referenced Stack Overflow (other than jokes about how we use it to cheat). I hear leetcode is all the rage these days, in prepping for technical interviews.
toyg 5y ago
Nah, hiring processes with technical steps will just happen regardless of one's standing on this or that site - after all, there is no guarantee you were the one posting... Unless you know someone inside who can vouch for you, you'll be tested.
skytreader 5y ago
I'd love to see actual data on this but I doubt that a lot of people get hired because of their online reputation. And by "hired" I mean it directly lead to a job offer instead of just getting your profile noticed and getting you started through the recruitment funnel. And of those that had an offer, how many actually took it? Being top 1% contributor in Go would tell a recruiter you know Go but the job probably involves other technologies you need to prove yourself in. Even in the rare case that you are top contributor in every technology on their checklist, the job might still involve domain knowledge that isn't purely tech. Or they'd want to evaluate your personality. Anecdote: not to brag given my skepticism above but so far the only online activity of mine that lead to a job offer was a Ruby Github repo on traditional AI. The catch: I am not a Rubyist and that repo was nothing more than a fork I'm studying. Long story short, I was looking for a job then, this consulting firm saw my Github profile so I got an interview. Onsite, the TL looked at my resume, visited my profile, saw the Ruby project, asked a few questions about it, and then recommended me for an offer with the hiring manager. I did not take the job because (a) they looked desperate for anyone in the process and (b) I would've bailed anyway because I already found a company I'm set on joining. Nothing more came of it other than this HN comment.
- unwind 5y ago
  I would hope that it also tells a recruiter that you are able to focus/persevere at something, that you have decent writing skills, and that you enjoy sharing your knowledge. I am somewhat biased, I also have a high-rep account (mostly from C questions). I have not tried drumming up interest when interviewing, though.
bityard 5y ago
> I am sure alot of people get hired off of it Are there any numbers available on that? Do people on SO really get job offers if they have a high enough reputation? If so, are the offers from high-quality companies doing interesting things? All of my previous job changes have been due to "in real life" networking. In order words, a friend of a friend recommended me for the job. I'm not looking to change jobs anytime soon but I sometimes wonder if my lack of online presence would hurt my chances of finding another job if had to. I have a blog and and a github account but both are pretty bare. I don't have a LinkedIn account because they started spamming me 15 years ago and they have been blocked by my email server ever since.
dehrmann 5y ago
It's only going to help with landing a first job, and even then, not much. Open source contributions are somewhat better, but you basically need to be heavy contributor or maintainer of a large project a company really cares about.
jofer 5y ago
In my experience, it doesn't help in terms of interviews/hiring. It's often rewarding on its own right, but you're not missing out on jobs, anyway. For context, I have a (now inactive) stackoverflow account with ~250,000 reputation. For a long time, I was the top answerer for many tags in the scientific python ecosystem (e.g. matplotlib, scipy, briefly top for numpy as well) and was in the top 10 for python as a whole at the time (i.e. showed up on the "top answers" page). I was really proud of that once, and spent awhile going from "this is a fun distraction" to "oh, this could get me a job and help me switch careers, I should focus on it". Not trying to brag there, just trying to put it in perspective. My SO track record was significant enough, particularly ~5 years ago when I was actively applying, that I really thought it would help me get jobs or at least give me an edge. It didn't. I've never had my stackoverflow stuff asked about or mentioned in an interview before by the person interviewing. The couple of times I've incidentally brought it up during an interview (as an example of a specific problem they were asking about or as an example of teaching/training/communication), it went over as a lead balloon. My OSS contributions (which are slim and were all a long time ago) have opened doors, but stackoverflow hasn't, at least that I know of. I'm not saying it's not rewarding or that I regret it, just that, at least for me, it didn't seem to help in terms of job opportunities, and at the time, I was a bit disappointed in that.
- ewwhite 5y ago
  As #1 (now #2) on ServerFault.com for many years, it opened a lot of doors for me as a consultant. I could reference my reputation as a "body of work" and it carried a lot of weight. Most employers, staff, recruiters are familiar with the sites, and it made things relatable.

nickstinemates 5y ago

If you're looking for something to do, it's still a great way to hone your skills. Don't let being late to the party stop you.

somenewaccount1 5y ago

to be fair to yourself, I am a member on Stack Overflow and in the past 13 years, 0 interviewers have asked about or referenced Stack Overflow (other than jokes about how we use it to cheat). I hear leetcode is all the rage these days, in prepping for technical interviews.

toyg 5y ago

Nah, hiring processes with technical steps will just happen regardless of one's standing on this or that site - after all, there is no guarantee you were the one posting... Unless you know someone inside who can vouch for you, you'll be tested.

skytreader 5y ago

I'd love to see actual data on this but I doubt that a lot of people get hired because of their online reputation. And by "hired" I mean it directly lead to a job offer instead of just getting your profile noticed and getting you started through the recruitment funnel. And of those that had an offer, how many actually took it? Being top 1% contributor in Go would tell a recruiter you know Go but the job probably involves other technologies you need to prove yourself in. Even in the rare case that you are top contributor in every technology on their checklist, the job might still involve domain knowledge that isn't purely tech. Or they'd want to evaluate your personality. Anecdote: not to brag given my skepticism above but so far the only online activity of mine that lead to a job offer was a Ruby Github repo on traditional AI. The catch: I am not a Rubyist and that repo was nothing more than a fork I'm studying. Long story short, I was looking for a job then, this consulting firm saw my Github profile so I got an interview. Onsite, the TL looked at my resume, visited my profile, saw the Ruby project, asked a few questions about it, and then recommended me for an offer with the hiring manager. I did not take the job because (a) they looked desperate for anyone in the process and (b) I would've bailed anyway because I already found a company I'm set on joining. Nothing more came of it other than this HN comment.

unwind 5y ago
I would hope that it also tells a recruiter that you are able to focus/persevere at something, that you have decent writing skills, and that you enjoy sharing your knowledge. I am somewhat biased, I also have a high-rep account (mostly from C questions). I have not tried drumming up interest when interviewing, though.

bityard 5y ago

> I am sure alot of people get hired off of it Are there any numbers available on that? Do people on SO really get job offers if they have a high enough reputation? If so, are the offers from high-quality companies doing interesting things? All of my previous job changes have been due to "in real life" networking. In order words, a friend of a friend recommended me for the job. I'm not looking to change jobs anytime soon but I sometimes wonder if my lack of online presence would hurt my chances of finding another job if had to. I have a blog and and a github account but both are pretty bare. I don't have a LinkedIn account because they started spamming me 15 years ago and they have been blocked by my email server ever since.

dehrmann 5y ago

It's only going to help with landing a first job, and even then, not much. Open source contributions are somewhat better, but you basically need to be heavy contributor or maintainer of a large project a company really cares about.

jofer 5y ago

In my experience, it doesn't help in terms of interviews/hiring. It's often rewarding on its own right, but you're not missing out on jobs, anyway. For context, I have a (now inactive) stackoverflow account with ~250,000 reputation. For a long time, I was the top answerer for many tags in the scientific python ecosystem (e.g. matplotlib, scipy, briefly top for numpy as well) and was in the top 10 for python as a whole at the time (i.e. showed up on the "top answers" page). I was really proud of that once, and spent awhile going from "this is a fun distraction" to "oh, this could get me a job and help me switch careers, I should focus on it". Not trying to brag there, just trying to put it in perspective. My SO track record was significant enough, particularly ~5 years ago when I was actively applying, that I really thought it would help me get jobs or at least give me an edge. It didn't. I've never had my stackoverflow stuff asked about or mentioned in an interview before by the person interviewing. The couple of times I've incidentally brought it up during an interview (as an example of a specific problem they were asking about or as an example of teaching/training/communication), it went over as a lead balloon. My OSS contributions (which are slim and were all a long time ago) have opened doors, but stackoverflow hasn't, at least that I know of. I'm not saying it's not rewarding or that I regret it, just that, at least for me, it didn't seem to help in terms of job opportunities, and at the time, I was a bit disappointed in that.

ewwhite 5y ago
As #1 (now #2) on ServerFault.com for many years, it opened a lot of doors for me as a consultant. I could reference my reputation as a "body of work" and it carried a lot of weight. Most employers, staff, recruiters are familiar with the sites, and it made things relatable.