[ihateolives]

> Once you get past the first screening call, I find you on social media, blogs, forums and read your posts, and see what questions you're asking on stackoverflow.

And what if my social media presence is minimal or not public?

[justinlloyd]

It is possible that a candidate's social media presence is minimal or non-public, and that will lead to a dead end. But are you claiming that _your_ social media presence is minimal or non-public? Candidates are applying with their real names and a work history; not to sound creepy but they become very "findable" with that information. And I use that to judge "does this person know what he's talking about when it comes to his job?"

I know you are a web developer, full stack but with a slant towards backend, like the Jetbrains applications, run a Thinkpad with Windows OS, have a beard (by your own admission), possibly live in a Nordic country but I don't think you are from there (UK I think, London area, or at least lived in London, or you live in the far North of Scotland or London has been a bit dark this year), are in your late 50's or early 60's, have a small family, like noisy keyboards, dislike Vim, absolutely loathe "Fn" keys, own a Mac that you ocassionally use, enjoyed Star Trek: TOS, run Android on a Samsung Galaxy (S3, Nexus 5, S10). You didn't wait for your resin in your table to reach flashover point. Found your reddit account, your stackoverflow, your github, and your abandoned twitter account, looks like you purged your Facebook account but didn't delete it. I am pretty sure you used to skateboard, enjoy riding a fixie bike and photography, possibly did some rock climbing in your youth. I may be off on some of the details, I only spent 20 minutes on it. Of course, I might be connecting two different sets of data points about two different people.

Over-sized coloured mice are very clever if they can build the CMS for a real estate agent.

My point is, people are "findable."

Update: Pretty sure I found your LinkedIn.

[ihateolives]

It was a hypothetical question about whether you have plan B for when you do not find applicants presence in the social media to be enough to draw conclusions but you answered that now. I would consider most of these thing that you listed to have nothing to do with professional aptitude but the fact you took time to go through the process with random dude on the internet for some reason and then deemed these things important enough to list here speaks volumes about you.

[justinlloyd]

Thank you, it does speak volumes about me, but I am not taking it as the insult you think it is. You were trying to be clever by asking a question about "oh, but what if the person doesn't have much of a social media presence or makes it private?" And I proved that if you have a social media presence of any kind, it is easily discernable and those private little comments we all make when we think nobody is listening tells me whether I would want to work with them. Those things have nothing to do with professional aptitude, but you'd be surprised just how toxic some people can be in their private moments.

I deemed the points listed important enough to list here to indicate that you are findable, even when you think you're not. I was also careful about not just saying you're "X that works at company Y" with a bunch of links. Based on what I have read I think you are a competent, level-headed, well-rounded and reasonable person with strong opinions about what you want from your technology with a willingness to compromise. You're also an exceptionally competent developer and team lead and I wouldn't hesitate to hire you.

A social media presence, even when we don't want people to see it, can either accelerate the point to hire or the cut the interview short. I don't look to see if someone does drugs, binge drinks alcohol, enjoys going to fringe fandom conventions or spends their income on collectible dolls. I care that the person we're interviewing isn't expressing undesirable opinions about people of colour, sexual orientation or many other aspects that would bring undesirable prejudices in to the team.

Based on what I've read, your interview would consist of "when can you start?"

Regarding a "plan B" for no social media presence at all, then the interview process becomes much lengthier and more difficult for all involved.