[itqwertz]

No, the point is to look like a good candidate who won’t start a Slack pronoun campaign while delivering garbage code. For some companies, that outward presentation of identity and politics will be a deterrent. Do that stuff on your own time.

My advice is how to get a job when you need one.

[EatingWithForks]

How do you be gay "on your own time"? How do you be a they/them nonbinary "on your own time"? My co-workers sometimes have a picture of them with their opposite-gender life partner in their profile pictures... they are clearly bringing that heterosexuality to work. One of my most productive team-mates is a man who keeps an image of his wife and kids on his desk, even!

Why did you bring up the garbage code thing? The poster and the original poster said nothing about your actual capacities as an engineer.

[Solvency]

People bringing any aspect of their weird home lives, hetero or not, on LinkedIn is just embarrassingly unnecessary at best. The idea of me declaring my heterosexuality while postering my CV with a photo of my wife and I embracing on the beach would never cross my mind, but inexplicably it happens all of the time.

This has nothing to do with your individual sexuality. Everyone looks ridiculous being overtly personal on LinkedIn.

[DaftTomatoes]

I hear what you're saying, and the issue is that the photo you're describing would not be considered controversial for most people, even on LinkedIn. Lots of people have wedding photos, or photos with them and their spouses, and people don't bat an eye.

But, for someone who is gay, by mearly showing a picture of themselves with their husband they'd be "declaring their sexuality", and being "overt"; They don't have to say anything more. Their _existence_ is politicized, and that's the problem.

And when we say "don't show rainbows", or don't show anything that can be linked to LGBTQIA, we're really saying,

"You can't do these otherwise non-political things, because just being who you are is still politically charged". We're better than that HN.

[Solvency]

Believe me when I say a middle aged white conservative guy posting Jersey shore photos of his third marriage on LinkedIn is precisely an example of what I deem to be outrageously ridiculous on LinkedIn.

[learplant]

I feel like you're giving away your stance here with the "weird home lives" comment in relation to being openly gay. And I don't mean that I want even more personal stories to LinkedIn, but posting vacation pictures is hardly equatable with posting a hardship story about being gay in the workplace.

Being heterosexual is a privilege since it's the norm, so you don't have to worry about it. Being gay on the other hand can be dangerous, even life threatening depending on the country.

[Solvency]

What? Weird home lives are LinkedinLunatics posting themselves working from pools and their backyard writing pseudo motivational blogspam. And countless other acts of WTF.

You're projecting on to me right now.

[learplant]

You specifically said this which I maybe latched on to a bit hard.

> The idea of me declaring my heterosexuality while postering my CV...

But based on your answer you are also making a delineation between "blogspam" and for example someone posting a story about discrimination for being gay (for example).

[EatingWithForks]

But the thing is that the original poster did not say not to put a picture of your spouse up on LinkedIn. It explicitly says nothing rainbow i.e. gay. It reads very "there are only two sexes, male and political".

Also, a photo of yourself during your wedding is not a "weird home life". That's like the maximally normal home life thing. I think it would be flagrantly out of bounds for someone to tell a co-worker that their wedding photo is "weird home life" stuff and to keep it at home.

Edited to add: I don't really have anything against the advice of not putting your personal life at work. i.e. photos of kids, spouse, vacation pictures on linkedin, etc. I'm just confused why apparently only gay people can't do it according to OP. That's so bizarre to me.

[Solvency]

I agree with you no one should be singled out specifically. I extend the idea to all people!

[lelanthran]

Bring it to work, not to the interview.

Once you're hired feel free to do whatever, but leave anything controversial off the interview.

And yes, your linked in profile is part of the interview.

[EatingWithForks]

Again: what do you mean by "leave anything controversial off the interview"? Why is gay the controversial thing? I'm 100% fine with saying "leave all your personal stuff out of your linkedin", i.e. wedding photos, vacations with spouse, pictures of your children, etc. But why ONLY the gay people?

[lelanthran]

Not "being gay", but "being a campaigner".

None of my multiple gay friends have ever displayed a rainbow on their profiles.

They are, however, openly gay on their profile.

No hiring manager wants to deal with drama, so it's not just rainbows, it's literally anything that that has a campaign and political force behind it, like Trump pictures, BLM links, climate change, conservation, nuclear power...

You reading the word 'ONLY' when one example is proffered is a problem in your end.

[EatingWithForks]

Have you actually asked your gay friends if having a rainbow on your profile makes you a campaigner for the gays? If they've felt personally campaigned by people with rainbows in their profile?

I literally don't understand affiliating rainbow emoji with pictures of actual political candidates or an actual explicitly political activist name.

I also don't understand saying climate change, conservation, or nuclear power has campaign/political force behind it. If someone had something to do with nuclear power in their profile I would just assume they worked in energy??? I am not reading politics into this at all dude...

[lelanthran]

> I literally don't understand affiliating rainbow emoji with pictures of actual political candidates or an actual explicitly political activist name.

It doesn't matter that you don't understand it, the idea is to get the interview over other candidates who focused solely on presenting the value they bring, and at the interview, landing the job over other candidates who are also focused solely on the value they bring.

You may not understand why hiring managers tend to avoid candidates who display non-work-related activism on their CVs, but that's just the way it is.

[mikrl]

You:

>a good candidate doesn’t care about that LGBT stuff

Me:

>a good candidate cares about that LGBT stuff

Call it a different worldview or whatever, but I don’t mind making my profile/timeline suboptimal for anti-LGBT people.

Otherwise it’s just the LGBT folks in my network engaging all by themselves, and it’s a lot harder to ‘other’ and exclude people with vocal allies.

And yes, it’s 100% about engineering. I can engineer under awful heat/noise etc conditions, but if I was being dehumanized and excluded, my performance would suffer a lot more.

[underlipton]

> For some companies, that outward presentation of identity and politics will be a deterrent.

This is correct, if unfortunate.

>A good candidate who won’t start a Slack pronoun campaign while delivering garbage code

This is vile and slanderous.

[DaftTomatoes]

> who won’t start a Slack pronoun campaign

Are people on HN getting railed at work with pronoun campaigns? We had one and it was honestly _the easiest thing in the world_

"Hey Daft, can you add pronouns"

*15 seconds later

"Done!"

What's the honest holdup with making the work environment more inclusive to non-binary or fluid people, there are a _lot_ of them. We already call people by their preferred titles, preferred nicknames, why the hangup on pronouns?

[lelanthran]

Nothing wrong with it, but why would a manager prefer to interview a campaigner for FOO over someone else, all else being equal.

The advice is how to get a salary when you need it. Take off anything even slightly controversial.

[DaftTomatoes]

What do people on HN mean when they say

> Campaigner for pronouns?

Specifically, in a concrete day to day sense? Asking for the smallest of efforts, the most minimal of inclusive actions, in the form of "putting a pronoun on your slack profile" doesn't really feel like a _campaign_ to me. We've spent more time here talking about it then it takes to add it to the profile during the "campaign"!

[lelanthran]

> Asking for the smallest of efforts, the most minimal of inclusive actions, in the form of "putting a pronoun on your slack profile" doesn't really feel like a _campaign_ to me.

Do you disagree with the statements:

    The advice is how to get a salary when you need it.
    Take off anything even slightly controversial. 

???

Anyone campaigning, or proud of campaigning, on their CV will get fewer callbacks. It's unfortunate but true.