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IME in Aus, it's mostly recruiters, the kind who ask if I have experience with 'Jasons', who do the initial screening. I'm not sure I'd have much more luck gett

IME in Aus, it's mostly recruiters, the kind who ask if I have experience with 'Jasons', who do the initial screening. I'm not sure I'd have much more luck getting past them with a substantial online presence behind me. On the other hand, I was recently referred by a friend for a role with the state gov. The HR person said my lack of experience with X hurt my chances. I passed this on to my friend and said thanks anyway. They later said their line manager scoffed at the HR person's comments. I'd be interested to hear if other Aus/NZ folk have similar experiences. Maybe the online presence works better in the US.

LouisSayers 3y ago
Also worked in Aus - Melbourne and Sydney, as well as London. I have zero blogs, and I don't contribute towards open source. My github has random bits of code, a few coding exercises from other companies. What I do have though is a decent CV. When people say you need this or that, what they're actually saying is you need to show somehow that you're technically capable. There are other ways of doing that than just having a blog.
- marcus_holmes 3y ago
  Agree. Also in Aus. HR doesn't give a shit about creativity. They need to see the TLA's on the CV that the tech nerds said they needed for the role. Also, is it me, or is this ridiculous? Accountants don't need to do any open-source accounting to prove their bona fides. Lawyers don't need to side-hustle some public defense cases to get respect. Civil Engineers don't build some free bridges to get hired. The employer working out if I have the technical skills I say I have is literally not my problem. They need to have a technical test or whatever they feel ticks that box for them. I'm happy to jump through whatever hoops they put in front of me (except a "take-home project" that will actually take more than an hour), but they have to put the hoops out. I'm not against open source, but I don't see that as a qualification either. It's a different thing from writing commercial code, with different skills and conditions. Plus, 90% of "projects" that I see on people's Git*b repos are forks or non-working code. I'm all for having my mistakes in public, but if I was to judge the average coder by their Git*b content I'd never hire any of them. Same for blogging - the ability to write a coherent, meaningful blog is great, and possibly a useful indication that the author can actually string a sentence together, but it's a different skill from what's required to write commercial code.
  - arlcode 3y ago
    I do have private code that I'm working on in my freetime that is not public and most likely never will be. Most of it is an incomplete mess, intentionally over/under engineered or created to learn a new tech / development philosophy. It served it's purpose and is not going to get "finished". Other projects are personal and are tailored to my specific needs making liberal use of hardcoded assumptions. None of it is a good representation of my professional work 99% of which is not open sourced.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
jaimex2 3y ago
Job screenings go both ways. If you're getting hired drones doing the hiring they're looking for more drones to join their stale hive. It works out well. If they actually gave enough of a crap to look deeper and question you on it you're onto a winner.
blitzar 3y ago
> The HR person said my lack of experience with X hurt my chances. The HR person probably also wrote the job spec with "at least 10 years experience with programming language that is 1 year old" or "minimum 5 years managing a team of more than 20 people and revenue over $100mil - entry level starting salary $30,000"

LouisSayers 3y ago

Also worked in Aus - Melbourne and Sydney, as well as London. I have zero blogs, and I don't contribute towards open source. My github has random bits of code, a few coding exercises from other companies. What I do have though is a decent CV. When people say you need this or that, what they're actually saying is you need to show somehow that you're technically capable. There are other ways of doing that than just having a blog.

marcus_holmes 3y ago
Agree. Also in Aus. HR doesn't give a shit about creativity. They need to see the TLA's on the CV that the tech nerds said they needed for the role. Also, is it me, or is this ridiculous? Accountants don't need to do any open-source accounting to prove their bona fides. Lawyers don't need to side-hustle some public defense cases to get respect. Civil Engineers don't build some free bridges to get hired. The employer working out if I have the technical skills I say I have is literally not my problem. They need to have a technical test or whatever they feel ticks that box for them. I'm happy to jump through whatever hoops they put in front of me (except a "take-home project" that will actually take more than an hour), but they have to put the hoops out. I'm not against open source, but I don't see that as a qualification either. It's a different thing from writing commercial code, with different skills and conditions. Plus, 90% of "projects" that I see on people's Git*b repos are forks or non-working code. I'm all for having my mistakes in public, but if I was to judge the average coder by their Git*b content I'd never hire any of them. Same for blogging - the ability to write a coherent, meaningful blog is great, and possibly a useful indication that the author can actually string a sentence together, but it's a different skill from what's required to write commercial code.
- arlcode 3y ago
  I do have private code that I'm working on in my freetime that is not public and most likely never will be. Most of it is an incomplete mess, intentionally over/under engineered or created to learn a new tech / development philosophy. It served it's purpose and is not going to get "finished". Other projects are personal and are tailored to my specific needs making liberal use of hardcoded assumptions. None of it is a good representation of my professional work 99% of which is not open sourced.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]

jaimex2 3y ago

Job screenings go both ways. If you're getting hired drones doing the hiring they're looking for more drones to join their stale hive. It works out well. If they actually gave enough of a crap to look deeper and question you on it you're onto a winner.

blitzar 3y ago

> The HR person said my lack of experience with X hurt my chances. The HR person probably also wrote the job spec with "at least 10 years experience with programming language that is 1 year old" or "minimum 5 years managing a team of more than 20 people and revenue over $100mil - entry level starting salary $30,000"