7 ms·

Resumes are dangerous

54 points by maccman 14y ago

losethos 14y ago
12-year-old free software nut wrote this hoping to jedi mind trick gullible employers You see a lot of these. "Github is the best."
vanessar 14y ago
In my company (masterbranch.com) we target this problem. We help developers to showcase what they really know by tracking their code an presenting it in a nice way. We also offer companies reliable information about the candidates, that they can review before interviewing them.
cancelbubble 14y ago
"Above all, I try to hire people who I'd want to pair with tomorrow. People who are better than me, and people who I can learn from." This is too bad from my perspective. As an interviewee, I want to pair with people who are better than me, people who I can learn from. You know, from someone who writes books about JavaScript Web Applications.
jonbischke 14y ago
We're moving into a world in which people will increasingly be judged by their work product online (e.g., Github commits, Quora answers, etc.) versus what they say about themselves (e.g., their resume or LinkedIn profile). This change won't be overnight and won't be complete of course but over time could create a virtuous cycle where the importance of having a better "living resume" (your online work/portfolio) will drive increased activity for all of those sites which will in turn make those living resumes more robust.
- 0xDECAFFEE 14y ago
  I better start forking.
- vbtemp 14y ago
  Eh. I have a measely 150 rep on stackoverflow, have a long-dormant github account, and I don't know what Quora is. But I've worked on some interesting R&D projects over the years, and have written some fundamental code that will stay at my organization (an R&D lab) for a long time. In short, I think I'm a valuable person that is in no way reflected in my github/stackexchange accounts.
  - wpietri 14y ago
    In which case, I'd encourage you to find some other way to demonstrate that value. E.g., blogging about your work. Beefing up your LinkedIn resume with testimonies from fellow engineers. Making an interesting toy project that you can publish. If you want people to see your value, you'll have to find a way to show it to them.
    - vbtemp 14y ago
      Heh - probably. But I'm far too self-conscious to have a real blog for people to read, especially considering how harshly I judge other people based on their blogs... and think how it makes them look like arrogant pricks who I'd never want to work for.
ArtB 14y ago
Is it that disadvantageous to prefer BitBucket? When people say they check GitHub is that short for checking for publically available source code, or is Git Hub the one-stop-shop for coding credability?
- josegonzalez 14y ago
  Probably short. At least in the python world, Bitbucket was very popular until recently - and maybe still so.
- spacemanaki 14y ago
  This questions seems to come up every time there's an article on HN about the general trend of "Github is the new resume" and I really don't think it's that important, so I wouldn't worry about it. If a company asked you to send them a "Github URL" and you replied that you use Mercurial more, so all your code is on Bitbucket, and here's the URL, and then the company said they weren't interested in Mercurial users, would you really want to work there? (I think Bitbucket hosts Git now anyway so this is almost moot) I can imagine a clueless recruiter doing that, but an engineer? There's no excuse for it, and I just don't think it's happening. I could be wrong of course, this is just speculation. Honestly, even if you sent a link to a SourceForge SVN or CVS repo (I guess that would be like emailing from a Hotmail address?) you might stand out because still relatively few resumes come attached with a portfolio.
- csomar 14y ago
  I don't think BitBucket is a disadvantage. It also shouldn't bother if you link to your own hosted public repository when it's easily browsable and readable.
  - tomjen3 14y ago
    The problem with that is that my code tends to start out a mess -- get the shit done. And then it will be refactored into something that is prettish.
    - 0xDECAFFEE 14y ago
Kallikrates 14y ago
I don't think I would enjoy working for someone I was better than. I approach work as a learning experience. I usually pick to work for people I can learn from.
- vbtemp 14y ago
  Heh -- Good way to flip it around.
georgieporgie 14y ago
Often, when I'm reading a resume I'm thinking: “This guy is great, look at all this experience. He clearly knows Ruby and JavaScript like the back of his hand, and this interview is just going to be a formality” For what it's worth from the other side, I've been repeatedly amazed at how much interviewers have managed to read into or project onto my resume. And I'm not talking about recruiters, for whom a single keyword instance qualifies you as an "excellent match!" but actual working engineers and engineering managers.
matthewrudy 14y ago
I think it depends on the job market you're in. In the US and Europe an open-source profile is expected, but over here in Hong Kong its fairly uncommon. The good ones have either flown away to the US, or already been snatched up. But, as Alex says, once we've sifted through CVs to find the best and invited them to interview, the paper doesn't matter anymore. Human interaction, pair programming, whatever, it's all more important than what's written on a piece of paper.
gawker 14y ago
It would be interesting to see how these ideas apply to other non-technical industries/professions.
ENOTTY 14y ago
I'm not a big fan of this development. There's a lot of software developers out there who work on projects for their employers that can't be open sourced. It also places those who lack free time to hack on code in their off hours (perhaps due to kids) at a disadvantage. For students, it is not clear that the code they generate is their property so posting it on github is legally dangerous. I've also had professors say posting code is cheating.
- apsurd 14y ago
  >> For students, it is not clear that the code they generate is their property Honest question, who's code would it be then?
  - streptomycin 14y ago
    the university's EDIT: here's an example: http://legalblogwatch.typepad.com/legal_blog_watch/2011/01/who-owns-student-created-intellectual-property.html http://legalblogwatch.typepad.com/legal_blog_watch/2011/01/w...
    - apsurd 14y ago
      I'm not shooting the messenger, but if that is indeed the case, Universities are in quite a sad state =(
      - zmanji 14y ago
        Why? Some prof worked hard to create the starter code for many assignments so the student could focus on a few key parts. After the student completes the few key parts of the assignment it is obvious it is a derivative work of the professor. Also posting the solution online would obviously make it difficult to use for the next year and I don't think it is productive to make a professor remake an assignment every year when the could be focusing on refining lecture content.
        14y ago
efa 14y ago
Next article will be titled "GitHub is dangerous". Just like in a resume, a candidate can easily embellish. Of course you can't trust what someone claims to know. You must verify it.
jenius 14y ago
While I think Alex is super smart and usually thoroughly enjoy his writing, I strongly disagree with this post for one reason - the way he looks to hire completely disregards learning, adaptation, and growth in a potential hire, and this is super important. This is certainly not the first time I've encountered this strategy, in fact it seems to be the dominant mindset among successful companies - 'We are only going to hire people who are super good at what they do already. In fact, I want them to be better than me. We only want the best engineers out there, because we are one of the best companies out there, so we look extra carefully at your credentials and if they are not on par with industry leaders, you're out.' Right? Wrong. If you invest in some stock for a company that is already doing well, there's a decent chance of you making money off it, sure. There's also a decent chance that you won't. It's a pretty standard and usually safe investment. Where the real money comes from is when you do research and find a company that's not already successful, but that you see a lot of promise in. This is (obviously) the entire driving force behind startups and venture capital, and the strategy behind the success of wildly successful investors. You are winning when you see passion for learning and potential for growth in a candidate and pick them up based on that. This way you don't have to pay out as much as you would for someone that already is well recognized within the industry, and you get a lot more loyalty, and a chance to build this employee and support them along their path to greatness. In the end, if you can find these kinds of people and grab them earlier on, you profit far more than other companies that fight over the few current industry leaders and burn through money and effort to keep them on board.
Arelius 14y ago
Regarding github, I have a lot of code on github, I store most of my code that's personal there. As you would imagine, most of it's crappy, or incomplete. There are however multiple projects that I think deserve priority when looking through my github, but as far as I can tell, there is no way for me to make it clear what those are. Additionally, if I fork a project, it's likely just so that I can add a fix and issue a pull request, that's additionally something I don't think people need to see. I worry that someone going through my GitHub profile will see all of my old, incomplete work, and leave before they get to my better projects, any thoughts on how to resolve this. As an example, here is a link to my GitHub: https://github.com/Arelius https://github.com/Arelius
- rwallace 14y ago
  If you're sending a resume to a potential employer, don't just provide a link to your Github account. Provide a few links directly to your best projects, the ones you think are worth looking at.
  - Arelius 14y ago
    That's what I was thinking, but I'm not sure I've seen it very often.
- 286c8cb04bda 14y ago
  > There are however multiple projects that I think deserve priority when looking through my github, but as far as I can tell, there is no way for me to make it clear what those are. You should use your user page[1] to draw attention to the things you think are most important. > Additionally, if I fork a project, it's likely just so that I can add a fix and issue a pull request, that's additionally something I don't think people need to see. I disagree. Finding your way around a foreign code base enough to make the changes you need is an essential skill for a developer. Repositories you've forked and made pull requests for are a great way to demonstrate that. [1]: http://help.github.com/pages/ http://help.github.com/pages/
  - Arelius 14y ago
prezjordan 14y ago
Off-topic. How do the "kudos" work? Does it use my IP? Cookies? I tried on different devices on the same network and the vote didn't sync. I cleared my cache and it was still there.

54 points by maccman 14y ago

12-year-old free software nut wrote this hoping to jedi mind trick gullible employers You see a lot of these. "Github is the best."

vanessar 14y ago

In my company (masterbranch.com) we target this problem. We help developers to showcase what they really know by tracking their code an presenting it in a nice way. We also offer companies reliable information about the candidates, that they can review before interviewing them.

cancelbubble 14y ago

"Above all, I try to hire people who I'd want to pair with tomorrow. People who are better than me, and people who I can learn from." This is too bad from my perspective. As an interviewee, I want to pair with people who are better than me, people who I can learn from. You know, from someone who writes books about JavaScript Web Applications.

jonbischke 14y ago

We're moving into a world in which people will increasingly be judged by their work product online (e.g., Github commits, Quora answers, etc.) versus what they say about themselves (e.g., their resume or LinkedIn profile). This change won't be overnight and won't be complete of course but over time could create a virtuous cycle where the importance of having a better "living resume" (your online work/portfolio) will drive increased activity for all of those sites which will in turn make those living resumes more robust.

0xDECAFFEE 14y ago
I better start forking.
vbtemp 14y ago
Eh. I have a measely 150 rep on stackoverflow, have a long-dormant github account, and I don't know what Quora is. But I've worked on some interesting R&D projects over the years, and have written some fundamental code that will stay at my organization (an R&D lab) for a long time. In short, I think I'm a valuable person that is in no way reflected in my github/stackexchange accounts.
- wpietri 14y ago
  In which case, I'd encourage you to find some other way to demonstrate that value. E.g., blogging about your work. Beefing up your LinkedIn resume with testimonies from fellow engineers. Making an interesting toy project that you can publish. If you want people to see your value, you'll have to find a way to show it to them.
  - vbtemp 14y ago
    Heh - probably. But I'm far too self-conscious to have a real blog for people to read, especially considering how harshly I judge other people based on their blogs... and think how it makes them look like arrogant pricks who I'd never want to work for.

ArtB 14y ago

Is it that disadvantageous to prefer BitBucket? When people say they check GitHub is that short for checking for publically available source code, or is Git Hub the one-stop-shop for coding credability?

josegonzalez 14y ago
Probably short. At least in the python world, Bitbucket was very popular until recently - and maybe still so.
spacemanaki 14y ago
This questions seems to come up every time there's an article on HN about the general trend of "Github is the new resume" and I really don't think it's that important, so I wouldn't worry about it. If a company asked you to send them a "Github URL" and you replied that you use Mercurial more, so all your code is on Bitbucket, and here's the URL, and then the company said they weren't interested in Mercurial users, would you really want to work there? (I think Bitbucket hosts Git now anyway so this is almost moot) I can imagine a clueless recruiter doing that, but an engineer? There's no excuse for it, and I just don't think it's happening. I could be wrong of course, this is just speculation. Honestly, even if you sent a link to a SourceForge SVN or CVS repo (I guess that would be like emailing from a Hotmail address?) you might stand out because still relatively few resumes come attached with a portfolio.
csomar 14y ago
I don't think BitBucket is a disadvantage. It also shouldn't bother if you link to your own hosted public repository when it's easily browsable and readable.
- tomjen3 14y ago
  The problem with that is that my code tends to start out a mess -- get the shit done. And then it will be refactored into something that is prettish.
  - 0xDECAFFEE 14y ago

Kallikrates 14y ago

I don't think I would enjoy working for someone I was better than. I approach work as a learning experience. I usually pick to work for people I can learn from.

vbtemp 14y ago
Heh -- Good way to flip it around.

georgieporgie 14y ago

Often, when I'm reading a resume I'm thinking: “This guy is great, look at all this experience. He clearly knows Ruby and JavaScript like the back of his hand, and this interview is just going to be a formality” For what it's worth from the other side, I've been repeatedly amazed at how much interviewers have managed to read into or project onto my resume. And I'm not talking about recruiters, for whom a single keyword instance qualifies you as an "excellent match!" but actual working engineers and engineering managers.

matthewrudy 14y ago

I think it depends on the job market you're in. In the US and Europe an open-source profile is expected, but over here in Hong Kong its fairly uncommon. The good ones have either flown away to the US, or already been snatched up. But, as Alex says, once we've sifted through CVs to find the best and invited them to interview, the paper doesn't matter anymore. Human interaction, pair programming, whatever, it's all more important than what's written on a piece of paper.

gawker 14y ago

It would be interesting to see how these ideas apply to other non-technical industries/professions.

ENOTTY 14y ago

I'm not a big fan of this development. There's a lot of software developers out there who work on projects for their employers that can't be open sourced. It also places those who lack free time to hack on code in their off hours (perhaps due to kids) at a disadvantage. For students, it is not clear that the code they generate is their property so posting it on github is legally dangerous. I've also had professors say posting code is cheating.

apsurd 14y ago
>> For students, it is not clear that the code they generate is their property Honest question, who's code would it be then?
- streptomycin 14y ago
  the university's EDIT: here's an example: http://legalblogwatch.typepad.com/legal_blog_watch/2011/01/who-owns-student-created-intellectual-property.html http://legalblogwatch.typepad.com/legal_blog_watch/2011/01/w...
  - apsurd 14y ago
    I'm not shooting the messenger, but if that is indeed the case, Universities are in quite a sad state =(
    - zmanji 14y ago
      Why? Some prof worked hard to create the starter code for many assignments so the student could focus on a few key parts. After the student completes the few key parts of the assignment it is obvious it is a derivative work of the professor. Also posting the solution online would obviously make it difficult to use for the next year and I don't think it is productive to make a professor remake an assignment every year when the could be focusing on refining lecture content.
      - 14y ago

efa 14y ago

Next article will be titled "GitHub is dangerous". Just like in a resume, a candidate can easily embellish. Of course you can't trust what someone claims to know. You must verify it.

jenius 14y ago

While I think Alex is super smart and usually thoroughly enjoy his writing, I strongly disagree with this post for one reason - the way he looks to hire completely disregards learning, adaptation, and growth in a potential hire, and this is super important. This is certainly not the first time I've encountered this strategy, in fact it seems to be the dominant mindset among successful companies - 'We are only going to hire people who are super good at what they do already. In fact, I want them to be better than me. We only want the best engineers out there, because we are one of the best companies out there, so we look extra carefully at your credentials and if they are not on par with industry leaders, you're out.' Right? Wrong. If you invest in some stock for a company that is already doing well, there's a decent chance of you making money off it, sure. There's also a decent chance that you won't. It's a pretty standard and usually safe investment. Where the real money comes from is when you do research and find a company that's not already successful, but that you see a lot of promise in. This is (obviously) the entire driving force behind startups and venture capital, and the strategy behind the success of wildly successful investors. You are winning when you see passion for learning and potential for growth in a candidate and pick them up based on that. This way you don't have to pay out as much as you would for someone that already is well recognized within the industry, and you get a lot more loyalty, and a chance to build this employee and support them along their path to greatness. In the end, if you can find these kinds of people and grab them earlier on, you profit far more than other companies that fight over the few current industry leaders and burn through money and effort to keep them on board.

Arelius 14y ago

Regarding github, I have a lot of code on github, I store most of my code that's personal there. As you would imagine, most of it's crappy, or incomplete. There are however multiple projects that I think deserve priority when looking through my github, but as far as I can tell, there is no way for me to make it clear what those are. Additionally, if I fork a project, it's likely just so that I can add a fix and issue a pull request, that's additionally something I don't think people need to see. I worry that someone going through my GitHub profile will see all of my old, incomplete work, and leave before they get to my better projects, any thoughts on how to resolve this. As an example, here is a link to my GitHub: https://github.com/Arelius https://github.com/Arelius

rwallace 14y ago
If you're sending a resume to a potential employer, don't just provide a link to your Github account. Provide a few links directly to your best projects, the ones you think are worth looking at.
- Arelius 14y ago
  That's what I was thinking, but I'm not sure I've seen it very often.
286c8cb04bda 14y ago
> There are however multiple projects that I think deserve priority when looking through my github, but as far as I can tell, there is no way for me to make it clear what those are. You should use your user page[1] to draw attention to the things you think are most important. > Additionally, if I fork a project, it's likely just so that I can add a fix and issue a pull request, that's additionally something I don't think people need to see. I disagree. Finding your way around a foreign code base enough to make the changes you need is an essential skill for a developer. Repositories you've forked and made pull requests for are a great way to demonstrate that. [1]: http://help.github.com/pages/ http://help.github.com/pages/
- Arelius 14y ago

prezjordan 14y ago

Off-topic. How do the "kudos" work? Does it use my IP? Cookies? I tried on different devices on the same network and the vote didn't sync. I cleared my cache and it was still there.