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I have no idea to what extent Anthropic or other employers delve into prospective candidates’ blogs; but this strikes me as too much self-disclosure for one’s o
by kashunstva 1y ago
I have no idea to what extent Anthropic or other employers delve into prospective candidates’ blogs; but this strikes me as too much self-disclosure for one’s own good. We all have idiosyncrasies; but calling oneself weird on a now widely published blog article seems like it risks defeating the goal of making oneself an ideal candidate for many job opportunities.
Look, many of my own eccentricities have been (net) valuable to be professionally and personally, but it was probably better they be revealed “organically” rather than through a public act of self-disclosure.
- mananaysiempre 1y agohttps://xkcd.com/137/ https://xkcd.com/137/
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- corytheboyd 1y agoMaybe a good point, but honestly, interviewers barely read resumes, they’re very, very likely not going to read your blog, or remember “hey it’s the person from that blog post I ready 7 weeks ago.”
- stickfigure 1y agoI expect that for a Developer Relations role, someone read the blogs.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- gk1 1y agoAbsolutely. Especially for late-stage candidates.
- corytheboyd 1y agoThat’s a good point, I’ve been a bit burnt out on strictly eng roles that I projected there a bit
- jama211 1y agoPerhaps the blogs of the candidates yes. On the other hand, perhaps OP will find a perfect fit this way.
- busterarm 1y ago> interviewers barely read resumes I feel like this is the biggest lie ever told in this industry. Do you, as an interviewer, not read resumes? I read loads of resumes and the truth is more like everyone are terrible communicators. Especially software engineers. Most resumes are badly formatted, badly typeset, full of errors and give me confusing/contradictory details about what your job responsibilities were rather than what you accomplished. Most peoples' resumes are so low-effort that they're practically unreadable and I'm trying to read between the lines to figure out what you're capable of. I might as well not be reading them because I'm trying to figure out what you've done, what you're good at and what motivates you and nothing you've given me on that paper helps me do that. One of these days someone is going to figure out how to cross-polinate technology people and sales people in the office to smooth out each others' rough edges. Whoever does is going to revolutionize industry.
- corytheboyd 1y agoI’m a little confused, because first you challenge me, but then come to the exact conclusion that resumes are largely unreadable. I’ll look for something they claim to have done to dig deep on, see if it’s BS or not, but I’m not reading every X by Y% with my jaw on the floor. FWIW I’m generally on the back side of the process, where someone at the front (is supposed to have) vetted the person already.
- busterarm 1y ago> where someone at the front (is supposed to have) vetted the person already. I think that's a mistake, personally. Each interviewer needs to make an independent decision and relying on the judgement of a screener early in the process is giving that person disproportionate weight towards hiring for your team. Usually that resume screener is someone in HR. Would you trust them to decide who your team hires? Your posts do indicate that maybe there is a larger segment of folks who don't read resumes than I realize...My amount of rigor may only come after being involved in some catastrophically bad hiring decisions. Like someone I made the deciding vote to hire was stalking multiple employees, was a heavy drug user, did zero work of value and ultimately crashed and burned by getting arrested for coming at someone with a knife. For years HR wouldn't let us fire that person because of their protected class and multiple false claims they made against a large number of employees.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- lylejantzi3rd 1y agoPeople get hired all the time based on their online content. Or, at the very least, they get interviews when they wouldn't otherwise. Don't forget about the luck surface area!
- com2kid 1y agoAs a hiring manager, I've read blogs. Heck when reviewing a stack of resumes, "has a technical blog" almost certainly moves a candidate to a consider pile and they are probably getting a callback in the very least.
- postalcoder 1y agoIt's a personal blog. I didn't read this as an employer. Someone greener may read this and think "this guy is really hard on himself but, unlike me, he's done so much more! Maybe we'll always feel this way so I should just be kinder to myself." The modern internet is stuffed to the gills with branding and bravado. Some vulnerability is fine.
- surprisetalk 1y agoAuthor here! Thanks for this. This is exactly what I want people to feel :) I'm willing to hurt my chances if it helps others
- julianeon 1y agoThis is the age of social media. This person has hit the front page of HN twice now. That's a commercially valuable skill. At this point, having proved that can do something commercially valuable a couple times now, I think they should run with it. Start a YouTube channel. Keep racking up views. Then, eventually, do partnerships and sponsorships, in addition to collecting AdSense money. If you like to write or perform for other people, you can monetize that now. This person is good at it. They should continue.
- almostgotcaught 1y ago> This is the age of social media. This person has hit the front page of HN twice now. That's a commercially valuable skill. In general yes, wrt HN it's not; literally in this second post he bemoans that the first one didn't pay off for him.
- gk1 1y agoAs someone who’s hired many dev advocates, I definitely value the ability to turn mundane topics into posts that hit the HN front page. If they can do this about something as dull as failing interviews, imagine what they’d do with an actually interesting technical topic.
- majormajor 1y agoFailing interviews is a favorite topic for HN, not a "dull" one; this is not the only person who's made the front page about it, and certainly won't be the last. HN's audience contains a large group that believes "tech interviews are stupid and broken" and this is right up their alley. I don't think it is a strong signal of an easy pivot to influencer-as-a-career.
- dakiol 1y agoYou think too much of HN.
- bryanrasmussen 1y ago
- amarcheschi 1y agoI still have to meet a person in computer science who isn't weird
- trenchpilgrim 1y agoI've met a few. None in SV, all in "flyover" states/provinces.
- majormajor 1y agoSV/NY is pretty concentrated with "non-weird" SWEs these days unless you count "money-oriented" as weird. "CS degree from a top program followed by FAANG or NYC Fintech" was a common default path for reasonably-smart/reasonably-socially-skilled/highly-career-motivated high school students to aim at for a while.
- joshdavham 1y agoMost CS people I know aren’t weird and are actually pretty corporate and conformist. But at the same time, the people I know who do open source are some of the weirdest people I know haha
- okwhateverdude 1y agoI'll take an eclectic bunch of weirdos who all do and like cool shit over the corpo conformist normies any day. Super easy to suss out who is who when you first meet them. Just ask what they like to do when they aren't laboring under the thumb of capitalism. The cool people will talk your ear off about some esoteric whatever.
- com2kid 1y agoThe ratio changed after software engineering became a way to make a lot of money. It used to be there were a handful of well paying gigs and a bunch of "pretty good" jobs, but SE wasn't a huge outlier. Once people flooded the field to make money, things changed. Used to be if I met another software engineer they'd 100% geek out over technology, CPU architectures, programming languages, etc. It wasn't ever just a job. Or to put it another way, Microsoft used to be filled with people rocking back and forth in their chairs avoiding eye contact discussing cool tech things. When I went on my interview loop at MSFT I discussed the mornings Slashdot headlines with every person who interviewed me.
- CGMthrowaway 1y agoI have to think Anthropic is in high enough demand and looking for high enough skilled staff that any negative social implications from a blog post like this, as tame as it is, would be outweighed, for any actually suitable candidate.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- renewiltord 1y agoThey're in devrel. If they're not publicly visible devrel isn't for them.
- kelnos 1y agoOn one hand I agree with you, but on the other... I don't really want to live in a world where being oneself (a perfectly fine, good self) is a liability. I know I have privilege in being able to say this, but I'd rather get rejected by potential employers who don't get me, than have to pretend to be someone I'm not.
- x3n0ph3n3 1y agoBeing oneself is fine. Being too online may not be.
- mananaysiempre 1y agoThe phrase “too online” has a connotation that situates it in the 2020s or at worst the late 2010s to an extent that I don’t think really fits a degree of “online” you could have been literally before the invention of the Web.
- huem0n 1y agoI believe part of the post is referring to that idea (self disclosure and weirdness) itself, and the idea that the author usually does try to limit it. Even without this specific post, the "weirdness" can come across in an in-person interview and other ways. Some people are normal, some can pretend to be, and others either can't manage to pretend or its too difficult/painful to do for long periods of time. Its not always bad to expose it and not always bad to get rejected because of it. Personality mismatch can make any job miserable. Regardless, it feels bad to get rejected and that, I think, is what the article is making a point about.