

The Internet is my Resume - tomcreighton
http://tomcreighton.com/2011/09/the-internet-is-my-resume/

======
dpritchett
Reactions to this topic regularly break down into two camps: The people who
are proud to have online portfolios, and the people who are angry at the idea
that their sterling work experience is undervalued because of the lack of
easily available proof.

Here's the thing: No one's saying your under-NDA work with proprietary
toolsets isn't excellent work or that you're not at the top of your field. All
we're saying is that _people who might want to hire you need as much
information as possible about you and you're not giving them much to go on_.
The entire "github/Stack Overflow/your portfolio/the web/Work for Pie* is the
new resume" movement is about the information asymmetry that plagues the job
market. Employers want to hire awesome people! Job seekers want great jobs!
Historically neither side really knows what they're getting until well after
the offer is signed and the employee is in the building. There are just too
many questions you can't ask without sinking the deal, like "is it OK if I
punch out at 5 every day?" or "do most of your former coworkers hate you?"

A sweet github "resume" offers two things:

\- Social proof. Are competent people following and working with you in this
public setting?

\- Hard evidence of your technical skills, work style, communications
abilities, interests, and persistence. You can't get enough of these from an
interview or from a resume.

Both of these things are _gold_ to a hiring manager, and it's hard to get
better answers than the ones you and your trusted associates can glean by
reviewing someone's online portfolio. If you've got a portfolio that compares
favorably with the job requirements and the hiring manager actually _sees_
this portfolio, you're getting an interview.

This means two things for a job seeker: (1) Have an excellent portfolio. (2)
Do everything you possibly can to get that portfolio in front of the people
you want to work for. How are we going to make that happen? Focus! Buy
targeted Facebook ads for people at the company. Maximize the SEO potential of
your personal blog and profile. Become respected and known by the people that
your prospective manager also respects and knows. Attend the conferences your
dream employers attend. Make every professional move with an eye towards
career growth and increasing your desirability on the market. The enemy's gate
is down. Good luck.

* Disclaimer: I know, like, and work with the founders of Work for Pie. It's a solid idea with lots of room to grow.

~~~
achompas
You can place me into a third camp: the skeptics who think posting your stuff
is irrelevant to hiring, since most companies don't check Github/SO. Also note
that the information asymmetry you mention:

 _The entire "github/Stack Overflow/your portfolio/the web/Work for Pie is the
new resume" movement is about the information asymmetry that plagues the job
market. Employers want to hire awesome people! Job seekers want great jobs!_

is only solved _for employers_ whenever we share info online. Employees are
still in the dark regarding whether a company is a good fit. The act of
publishing my code online does zero to help me understand a company's culture
--it only solves the above asymmetry for companies.

~~~
dpritchett
You're right there, and I don't think there's any way to get a straight answer
about the inner workings of a company unless you've got a friend on the
inside.

The upside is that if you do good work and make it easy for employers to see
it (e.g. github) then you can at least cast a wider net. Hopefully you'll get
more interviews and offers so that you can pick the company that gives you the
best vibe about their work environment and growth prospects.

------
Loic
If the Internet is your resume, you do not own your resume and you are going
to be doomed. You need to own your identity and your resume[0]. This can be as
simple as having your own homepage with links to your GitHub, SF.net, Google+,
whatever account, but it must be in the first results when searching for your
name.

[0]: <http://www.marco.org/2011/07/11/own-your-identity>

~~~
dpritchett
Chris Brogan (and patio11 for that matter) is a pretty vocal champion of this
concept. Puff up your (personal) brand wherever you go, but always link back
to and maintain control of your stronghold. A company/personal blog on your
own domain is the natural spot for that.

[http://www.chrisbrogan.com/using-outposts-in-your-media-
stra...](http://www.chrisbrogan.com/using-outposts-in-your-media-strategy/)

~~~
patio11
I don't get Github profiles as resume enhancers. They're impossible for many
decision makers to navigate, optimized for reading code rather than supporting
the decision to hire you, and make you look like a commodity coder on a site
full of talented commodity coders.

If I were to have a hire-me page, I might link to code on Github, but it would
be supporting documentation _that no one would actually read_ after they got
through my five minute hire-me spiel.

~~~
tptacek
Even if you read code naturally, fishing out individual contributions from a
Github page is a chore; there are lots of things people can do on Github that
will make them appear at first glance to be productive and important.

Lots of applicants give us Github links, and while I'm very happy to have them
(please include them), I still have to look at the list of projects and figure
out "is this his project, or is it a project he just likes and follows; are
these his commits, or is he just backporting someone else's patch" &c &c.

I can't imagine how a hiring manager dev who hasn't used Github before could
be expected to make decisions from it.

~~~
shabda
A forked github project shows the same number of forks as the original, but
each fork starts its number of watchers at 1. Easy way to see if you "own" a
project or just have forked it.

~~~
tptacek
I agree that it's easy to figure out. It's just not automatic.

------
Nique
Excellent article and I realize I'm in the land of hackers (whom I truly
appreciate) so... I'm going to ask anyway.

What advice do you have for Product Managers who don't code?

I'm a decent hacker but I am a damn good PM! Should I post a Project design
with screens created in Cacoo? and where should I put it?

~~~
tomcreighton
I should write a follow-up article that says "Actually ignore everything I
just said. COMMNICATION IS EVERYTHING."

Honestly, I'd start writing about the aspects of your job that you find
interesting and worth sharing. You can't fake enthusiasm.

~~~
Nique
Does saying I love creating awesome code that makes people stop, look and use
it help? Or that I enjoy designing something developers look forward to
working on?

I want to make health IT products that truly make a person's life better.

~~~
tomcreighton
It's definitely enough to get started.

------
pace
I disagree.

If you are a designer or a developer I fully agree -- the Internet is your CV.
Just Github got so important regarding this.

But if your career profile is more management related it's a bit more
complicated. You cannot go out and spam social networks with your achievements
or beg for endorsements on LinkedIn -- this is counterproductive, smells like
despair and you just shouldn't do this. Please don't get intimidated by such
posts.

Best case is always when third parties talk about you AND NOT YOURSELF. With
third parties I have news sites or at least well know blogs in mind. That's
the best reference the net can give you. To come there isn't easy and the
result of some work, don't give in to the temptation to post 24/7 your status
on Twitter or blogs, nobody cares and there so many douches having ZERO
achievements but are the #1 spammer when it comes to social stuff.

To come back to the management profiles: a classic CV is still much better
because you are able to finetune and direct its content to the potential
employee. One full-blown LinkedIn profile won't fit all -- a basic profile is
more than sufficient and can be extended in a CV.

A last note: when we (friends or colleagues) notice that somebody is
extensively working on his/her public profiles (like LinkedIn) and adding
information, achievements etc., we know => this guy is looking for a new job
and we literally feel his despair. Sometimes it's good to let everybody know
that you need a new challenge but again: regarding management jobs you need to
be much more subtle and try to signal your strengths in a different way.

~~~
tomcreighton
I'd disagree with my own post as well if we're spinning it out to 'all job-
seekers'.

This is a good point, though - there's no universal strategy.

------
Supermighty
I thought this was going to be by Vint Cerf before I looked.

------
RandallBrown
Lots of places still make you apply through their job system (legal reasons or
something) and most of those require a resume. Putting links to GitHub,
Dribbble, StackOverflow or whatever on a resume is probably a great idea
though.

------
jmjerlecki
Q: "What have you done?"

A: "Google me."

I think thats the best resume you can have.

~~~
byoung2
Unfortunately, I share a name with a film director, a cricket player, and a
bassoonist for the LA Philharmonic. I wouldn't want to take the chance that
they'd find the wrong person's profile.

~~~
noahc
The idea behind "google me" is that YOU are the only person that shows up.
You've got to work to get there. Once you've gotten there though, it's a nice
place to be. Without trying very hard I was about to take my blog from 30th to
2nd when you search for my name. I'd love to dominate all top ten spots with
different examples of my work.

------
wccrawford
I've been telling newbies for a while now that they need to have a portfolio,
preferably one that is web-accessible, like a GitHub account. In the past I've
had direct input on hiring and one of the biggest factors was always code
samples. We spent more time discussing a candidate's code samples than any
other thing. Sometimes we even spent longer than the interview.

Don't worry if some of it is garbage code. We understand that some things get
shared on there that aren't up to snuff. And feel free to tell us which ones
to look at.

------
skeletonjelly
It's come up before on HN but I don't like the notion that GitHub is _the_
place to show off your skill as a programmer. Not all of us can release work
as open source :( For good and bad reasons.

~~~
wccrawford
Except for those whose contracts state that ALL work belongs to the company (a
contract that you shouldn't sign), anyone can release open source code. Of
course, it has to be -your- code.

Having a portfolio is important. As I noted in my other comment, code samples
have a big impact on hiring decisions. You absolutely must have them, even if
they aren't posted publicly.

~~~
Woost
For development work, contracts stating ALL work belongs to the company is
_very_ common. Actually, it's almost universal. A few states have laws that
says that clause is void (cali being one of them), but most states don't.

If you decline every job that has a contract that says all work belongs to the
company, you'll have a very hard time finding a job. (outside of states where
the law specifically covers this case) The ones that don't have it will be
ones where the management doesn't know any better, or (maybe) where you're a
cofounder.

For reference I'll point you to Joel's writeup on answers.onstartups.com:
[http://answers.onstartups.com/questions/19422/if-im-
working-...](http://answers.onstartups.com/questions/19422/if-im-working-at-a-
company-do-they-have-intellectual-property-rights-to-the-stu/20136#20136)

~~~
wccrawford
I'm not in one of those states, and I've never had a problem with it. In fact,
every contract I've seen has been written like California's laws require.

So no, apparently I -won't- have a problem finding a job.

~~~
Woost
I did not mean you, literally. People who live in states with specific
protections regarding side projects are obviously not going to have contracts
which contradict the law.

But that's by far the minority of workers in the US. The only states, to my
knowledge, which have specific laws regarding side projects are California,
Delaware, Minnesota, Illinois, Kansas, North Carolina, and Washington.

Pretty much every (developer) employment contract I've seen has had a clause
similar to this one in it: <http://www.elinfonet.com/prov/65> The only option
is to refuse to sign it(and get fired/walk out) the day you start working
(since they don't give you the standard contract stuff until you start), ask
for the contracts up front as part of the interview (probably a good idea) and
refuse to accept if it's not changed, or sign it because you need a job.

I suppose you could also move to a state which has protections, but saying you
should refuse to sign that kind of contract is rather disingenuous; the
majority of people in the US do not have the luxury of simply refusing to sign
a contract they find onerous.(either because they need a job, or because
almost every company offers the same contract)

The best bet(assuming you live in one of the other 43 states) is to sign it,
mention things you've done/are planning on doing, and get written agreements
that your employer disclaims ownership over specific side projects started
after employment.

------
butterfi
I agree with the general principals here, but the audience for resumes (the HR
people) don't always know, or even care, what GitHub is -- whether they should
or not isn't the question. They're trolling through dozens of applications and
making HR work harder isn't going to improve your chances. I'll look at your
online portfolio or Google your name only after HR has selected the candidates
they think I would be interested in.

------
jshowa
Uh... almost any reputable company out there requests a resume when applying
to a job. So I fail to see how this article is relevant.

