Ask HN: Hey recruiters, do you look at my personal website?

[dudeget]

Recruiters, what do you look at?

on my resume do you look at:

my website? my github? my past work experiences, if so do you read the description of what I did? my projects, if so do you read the description of the project? the languages and technologies I know?

[liquidcool]

I do, but I'm an outlier. I have a CS degree and 20 years of software experience, so I'll actually look at your code and if I know that language, take a look at your style. I've seen someone check all her Emacs autosave (~) files into Github. And unnecessarily jam multiple classes into one file. That was a bad sign.

All but a handful of recruiters will not because they simply don't understand any of that. They don't understand whats on the resume or job description. Better ones will take note of those things and pass them along to the hiring manager, who should take a look. But it's best if you link them in your resume.

Here's my comprehensive write-up on resumes, I think this is what you are looking for:

http://www.madeupname.com/optimize-developer-career/resume-t...

[mrits]

If I have side project I have to do in Java, you bet I'm going to have a lot of static inner class abuse. Perhaps you just don't understand the tradeoffs.

[liquidcool]

First, this didn't stop me from inviting the applicant to discuss her work/knowledge relevant to the job. She did not respond.

Second, it's totally possible I misunderstood something. I do run the largest JUG in SoCal, so I'm not a complete Java noob. But in truth the last few years have been Groovy, and I'm not close to being a FT coder. I don't claim to be a Java expert.

However :-) You are assuming these were static inner classes, and they weren't inner/nested at all. These were multiple top level classes in one file. I can see how maybe you'd do that for composition, and I did it once to get around a wrinkle in Grails, but this really seemed unnecessary. They weren't short classes. This person was a masters candidate and had little production experience, and the whole thing came off as rushed and sloppy. Frankly, seeing all those ~ files because there was no gitignore bothered me more.

[eecks]

Why?

[dudeget]

other than style what else do you look for when you check out a code base?

[liquidcool]

Depends on the job. Some considerations:

- your intent: playing around to learn, creating something serious, contributing to OSS, etc.

- how far you got

- who is using it?

- solo or collaboration

- how production ready is this?

I suppose you could sum that up with one question: "Where is this on the spectrum between homework and a real product?"

This falls into the topic of side projects, and I wrote about that in detail here:

http://www.madeupname.com/truth-about-side-projects/

[jlgaddis]

I'm pretty sure most of them don't.

My resume is either still out there on some "jobs" web site somewhere or it's been sold/shared between recruiting firms as I still get one or two "cold" e-mails a week from a recruiter; I haven't been "looking" for 5+ years.

In mine, near the beginning, it says something to the effect of "If the responsibilities for your position include the words 'Microsoft' or 'Windows' anywhere, I am not interested in the position. Please do not contact me."

The last recruiter e-mail I received, two days ago, says:

> Your profile came up in my database as a possible candidate that might be qualified for a new Windows Systems Admin I received in my office this morning. My client is with the Department of Defense and is looking for someone with a MSCA [sic] or MCSE or higher for this role.

I believe the overwhelming majority of them don't look at them at all. They punch a keyword or two into their database, then, like spammers, blast the same form e-mail out to anyone whose name comes up.

[justin66]

> "If the responsibilities for your position include the words 'Microsoft' or 'Windows' anywhere, I am not interested in the position. Please do not contact me."

You're going to hold off the recruiters who conscientiously scan resumes and take such requests seriously at the expense of triggering automated scans for those keywords. I doubt if it's a net win.

[lojack]

Additionally, as someone who isn't a recruiter and doesn't work with any Microsoft products, this might actually come off as a bit of a red flag. The intention may be to stave off recruiters that blindly fire off job postings, but it comes off as egotistical.

[anexprogrammer]

Broadly this.

If your CV mentions you connect to, use API of, or sit next to someone using some random thing you'll be regularly contacted for work in that random thing. Most recruiters seem to stop at a keyword match or two.

Interviewers and potential employers are much more likely to look, and follow through with relevant questions at interview.

[dsk139]

I do. I look at your repos and what you contributed to as well. The recruiters who have built a business on high match rates look at any/all info you provide. For example, a recruiting firm I partner with in NYC boasts a 89% offer to job acceptance rate.

For recruiters who are purely matching using LinkedIn recruiter filters a lot of the matching is done with your skills section and the descriptions under each job.

It's helpful to add industries you want to work with and languages/technologies w/ context. e.g. worked as a javascript developer for X company that did Y, a leader in the Z industry. built end-to-end messaging system using javascript and socket.io that had an engagement with 30k users.

This will help you get more relevant matches. Granted you'll get some spam- but there are some quick tricks like asking for e-mails to include certain information on your LinkedIn description so you can easily filter out.

As a software eng. who's getting to see both sides of the market it's always best to get a referral to a really good agency in your location. A good recruiter is worth a lot of time/money especially for such an important decision like where you're going to be spending 1/4~ of your week at.

[beckler]

I'm not a recruiter, but I am a developer that helps with interviews.

Whenever we interview a candidate, we actually try to learn as much about people based on what they have online.

Before we set up an interview, we usually check out their personal site, their Github/Bitbucket/etc, any sites related to those repos, their Linkedin, Twitter, etc, etc...

We try not to be too creepy, but we just really want to be somewhat familiar with their work before they come in.

[ttrzeng]

Check out http://leafii.com

It's a website with of people that has personal websites.

[SerLava]

I use Google Analytics to find out! It's pretty easy to set up.

So far there's a 1:1 correlation between viewing my website and sending me a non-automated LinkedIn message.

[selmat]

From my experience most recruiters ever contacted me were just buzzwords detectives. When i put in my linkedin profile how can i help, what are benefits of my work, what can i bring to the table, almost no one reach me with specific job offer. Just one message during month or two.

Another sad thing is that job description is very often the same bullshit as most linkedin CV's. They put in every buzzword, but reality is somewhere else. Your day-to-day tasks are far away from original requirements and very often also from whole job description. Same is it with candidates. Matching between buzzwords and real candidate value is very difficult. And only real HR professional can do it.

Outsourced hiring process make this gap and misleading even bigger. They play just keyword matching game (good opportunity to automate them).

I think that something like HN's karma should be implemented in linkedin. Current situation is facebook style (more friends more reputation). At least this could help filter HR pros from spammers.

[probinso]

I've had recruiters contact me from information that can only be found from my website. A good way to track is to extend your e-mail with the '+' notation for different sources.

for '[e-mail]' you can add arbitrary messages after a '+' sign and before the '@' sign.

[e-mail]

[e-mail]

[e-mail]

[e-mail]

You can now track how someone got ahold of you, by looking at your e-mail header.

[tmaly]

From a hiring manager perspective, I look at github accounts and personal websites.

[drakonka]

Not sure if the HR person checked out my site, but I know at least one of the interviewers did as he asked me about a personal project I was blogging heavily about during the interview.

[abricot]

You were blogging heavily during the interview? I can understand that he asked...

[drakonka]

I like to think they appreciated my ability to multitask under pressure.

[pvorb]

I had a laugh. :)