5 ms·

Personally, I love this trend - I last updated my resume 3 years ago and haven't sent it anywhere since. I just direct people to my portfolio (link in profile)

by zavulon 15y ago

Personally, I love this trend - I last updated my resume 3 years ago and haven't sent it anywhere since. I just direct people to my portfolio (link in profile) which has all the stuff I built. Much easier that way. But in my previous life, I was an enterprise Java developer in the financial industry. None of the projects I built are online - they're all proprietary B2B applications. It's some of the best work I've ever did, yet no one will ever find out about it online. The only way for me to tell this story is through the resume. How do people like that supposed to present themselves, in this new hot social media environment?

patio11 15y ago
One option: Word of your skill travels at approximately the speed of beer. (i.e. Try traditional networking.) You can also have a web presence about the work which does not actually include the work. Talk about an interesting sub-problem which is non-proprietary. Talk about architecture choices. Talk about the tech you used and the problems you overcame while using it. Write about how firms in the financial industry are missing opportunities to throw Java at problems and make heaps of money.
- jiggy2011 15y ago
  I imagine a lot of employers wouldn't really like you discussing stuff you had done for them in any great detail on the public internet, even discussing design / architecture decisions might be controversial (or covered by an NDA). Plus if your employer finds what you wrote you better need a justification for putting it up there that isn't "so I can apply for this job". You don't really want to end up in legal trouble or fired. At this point anyway your "web presence" is pretty much just going to be your resume but put online, I imagine if they explicitly don't want resumes they wouldn't want that either.
  - patio11 15y ago
    The line I used in my past life as an enterprise Java developer was that Internet participation was a necessary part of my professional development, enhancing my future value to the company without them needing to spend money on expensive training or conferences. Plus it gives me a chance to learn about some of that web stuff that your IT magazine is always talking about, boss. Imagine the TPS reports I could implement with that! (It worked. Japanese megacorps: secret hippies, I tell you.) More broadly: fear, weakness, and lack of creativity in the face of constraint are not career-enhancing attributes. (That's not personal. Many engineers need to hear it, including me, both in the past and occasionally in the present.)
- cube13 15y ago
  Why should I have to do that, outside of work, in order to get another job? I'm happy with my current work, and that means that I'm not trying to go out of my way to find additional projects on the side. I have hobbies I'd rather be doing outside of work that don't involve computers. I don't feel that it should be necessary to prove to any potential employer that I'm working outside of work.
  - patio11 15y ago
    It's not necessary. Exercise isn't necessary, either. It's a good idea for almost everybody, and even if you dislike the activity doing it probably improves outcomes for things you actually do like, but no one will force you to do it.
    - jiggy2011 15y ago
      The problem is I think that it puts some people at a much bigger advantage over others. A 20something who works at a funky startup and writes for their corporate blog and gets paid to spend 20% of his time contributing to the rails codebase or something. vs somebody older (or maybe not) who works 60+ hours a week in a corporate (possibly non IT) organization which has strict corporate blogging policies (i.e don't blog about work) and has a family to look after. I can see a lot of crap getting thrown up and github and mediocre blog entries written prior to interviews. I think this article sums it up fairly well: http://teddziuba.com/2009/10/i-dont-code-in-my-free-time.html http://teddziuba.com/2009/10/i-dont-code-in-my-free-time.htm...
      - cube13 15y ago
        That's exactly where I am right now. Like I said, I get enough satisfaction on an intellectual and professional level from my job that I don't feel the need to find side projects. I'll do what it takes to get done with my job, working as many hours as I need to. But I simply don't feel the need to code outside of working hours. On weekends, I'd rather be out fly fishing or playing video games.
      - dpritchett 15y ago
potatolicious 15y ago
> "they're all proprietary B2B applications. It's some of the best work I've ever did, yet no one will ever find out about it online" I used to work at Amazon on some meaty back-end-y things. Then I had the same thought. Now I write mobile apps, which I find to be more creatively challenging, and the amount of recruiter emails (and cold calls, really guys?) has jumped through the roof. Another side benefit is that my parents now understand what it is I do for a living, and women apparently find my job intriguing for some reason. It's even nicer that, if someone asks me "what have you done?" I just need to shove the phone across the table.

by zavulon 15y ago

patio11 15y ago

One option: Word of your skill travels at approximately the speed of beer. (i.e. Try traditional networking.) You can also have a web presence about the work which does not actually include the work. Talk about an interesting sub-problem which is non-proprietary. Talk about architecture choices. Talk about the tech you used and the problems you overcame while using it. Write about how firms in the financial industry are missing opportunities to throw Java at problems and make heaps of money.

jiggy2011 15y ago
I imagine a lot of employers wouldn't really like you discussing stuff you had done for them in any great detail on the public internet, even discussing design / architecture decisions might be controversial (or covered by an NDA). Plus if your employer finds what you wrote you better need a justification for putting it up there that isn't "so I can apply for this job". You don't really want to end up in legal trouble or fired. At this point anyway your "web presence" is pretty much just going to be your resume but put online, I imagine if they explicitly don't want resumes they wouldn't want that either.
- patio11 15y ago
  The line I used in my past life as an enterprise Java developer was that Internet participation was a necessary part of my professional development, enhancing my future value to the company without them needing to spend money on expensive training or conferences. Plus it gives me a chance to learn about some of that web stuff that your IT magazine is always talking about, boss. Imagine the TPS reports I could implement with that! (It worked. Japanese megacorps: secret hippies, I tell you.) More broadly: fear, weakness, and lack of creativity in the face of constraint are not career-enhancing attributes. (That's not personal. Many engineers need to hear it, including me, both in the past and occasionally in the present.)
cube13 15y ago
Why should I have to do that, outside of work, in order to get another job? I'm happy with my current work, and that means that I'm not trying to go out of my way to find additional projects on the side. I have hobbies I'd rather be doing outside of work that don't involve computers. I don't feel that it should be necessary to prove to any potential employer that I'm working outside of work.
- patio11 15y ago
  It's not necessary. Exercise isn't necessary, either. It's a good idea for almost everybody, and even if you dislike the activity doing it probably improves outcomes for things you actually do like, but no one will force you to do it.
  - jiggy2011 15y ago
    The problem is I think that it puts some people at a much bigger advantage over others. A 20something who works at a funky startup and writes for their corporate blog and gets paid to spend 20% of his time contributing to the rails codebase or something. vs somebody older (or maybe not) who works 60+ hours a week in a corporate (possibly non IT) organization which has strict corporate blogging policies (i.e don't blog about work) and has a family to look after. I can see a lot of crap getting thrown up and github and mediocre blog entries written prior to interviews. I think this article sums it up fairly well: http://teddziuba.com/2009/10/i-dont-code-in-my-free-time.html http://teddziuba.com/2009/10/i-dont-code-in-my-free-time.htm...
    - cube13 15y ago
      That's exactly where I am right now. Like I said, I get enough satisfaction on an intellectual and professional level from my job that I don't feel the need to find side projects. I'll do what it takes to get done with my job, working as many hours as I need to. But I simply don't feel the need to code outside of working hours. On weekends, I'd rather be out fly fishing or playing video games.
    - dpritchett 15y ago

potatolicious 15y ago

> "they're all proprietary B2B applications. It's some of the best work I've ever did, yet no one will ever find out about it online" I used to work at Amazon on some meaty back-end-y things. Then I had the same thought. Now I write mobile apps, which I find to be more creatively challenging, and the amount of recruiter emails (and cold calls, really guys?) has jumped through the roof. Another side benefit is that my parents now understand what it is I do for a living, and women apparently find my job intriguing for some reason. It's even nicer that, if someone asks me "what have you done?" I just need to shove the phone across the table.