13 ms·

I’ve spent nearly twenty years blogging, giving talks and releasing open source code. [...] I’ve interviewed hundreds of people [...] The vast majority of candi

I’ve spent nearly twenty years blogging, giving talks and releasing open source code. [...] I’ve interviewed hundreds of people [...] The vast majority of candidates have little to no evidence of creativity in public at all Are we sure the author is not showing some unconscious bias by looking in others for traits he has (public creativity)? There is no particular reason why public creativity is linked to good engineers. It's one way to show good engineering, sure. But far from the only way. I could see some other hiring managers arguing the opposite: if you have time to write lightweight tech posts on your blogs, maybe you are not a great engineer who will solve my company's most difficult problems. That being said, especially for new grads, I strongly recommend showing something, anything beyond "I graduated from this university and here are the classes I took".

blitz_skull 3y ago
He very specifically called out that this advice is if you’d like stand out from the crowd. I think there’s nothing wrong with unconscious bias and him simply calling this out. That being said, I see no reason this advice wouldn’t work on hiring managers with less experience blogging.
simonw 3y ago
It's very much a conscious bias. That's why I also say: "As a hiring manager, this means you have to learn how to source candidates and interview effectively: you don’t want to miss out on a great engineer just because they spent all of their energy making great products for prior employers rather than blogging, speaking and coding in public.".
avgDev 3y ago
I developed complex systems that run businesses all by myself. During those projects I had no desire to do anything computer wise outside of work because I was challenged on daily basis. DevOps, setting up servers, building CI/CD, setting up environments, implementing different features, setting up databases, database design, learning ORMs, writing stored procedures, APIs, building the front end.....and the list goes on and on. Blogging takes time away from work. Some people like myself do not want to make their thoughts public because I value privacy. I also don't feel like I have anything much interesting to say. I just like getting "shit" done. I feel I'm capable of learning anything required to complete a task/job. Yet, I wouldn't fit his idea of someone who stands out. Then, again I don't really like working with people who show such extreme bias and are not open minded.
hbn 3y ago
> There is no particular reason why public creativity is linked to good engineers. He never claimed it means you're a good engineer. It's advice for standing out among other applicants when you're looking for a job.

blitz_skull 3y ago

He very specifically called out that this advice is if you’d like stand out from the crowd. I think there’s nothing wrong with unconscious bias and him simply calling this out. That being said, I see no reason this advice wouldn’t work on hiring managers with less experience blogging.

simonw 3y ago

It's very much a conscious bias. That's why I also say: "As a hiring manager, this means you have to learn how to source candidates and interview effectively: you don’t want to miss out on a great engineer just because they spent all of their energy making great products for prior employers rather than blogging, speaking and coding in public.".

avgDev 3y ago

I developed complex systems that run businesses all by myself. During those projects I had no desire to do anything computer wise outside of work because I was challenged on daily basis. DevOps, setting up servers, building CI/CD, setting up environments, implementing different features, setting up databases, database design, learning ORMs, writing stored procedures, APIs, building the front end.....and the list goes on and on. Blogging takes time away from work. Some people like myself do not want to make their thoughts public because I value privacy. I also don't feel like I have anything much interesting to say. I just like getting "shit" done. I feel I'm capable of learning anything required to complete a task/job. Yet, I wouldn't fit his idea of someone who stands out. Then, again I don't really like working with people who show such extreme bias and are not open minded.

hbn 3y ago

> There is no particular reason why public creativity is linked to good engineers. He never claimed it means you're a good engineer. It's advice for standing out among other applicants when you're looking for a job.