[gopher1]

Great, so now I have to maintain an updated LinkedIn profile, contribute to various open source projects on GitHub, sustain an active StackOverflow profile, and complete coding challenges on HackerRankX.

I hope the employer who hires me doesn't mind if I do all that on the clock!

[incision]

I had the same thought.

I don't just question the ever-growing list of must-have profiles and time required to maintain them, but their value in general.

It feels like a sort of arms race to engineer and automate hiring.

It's generally agreed that actually sitting down and talking with a person is strongest source of signal [1] in the hiring model, but rather than focusing on that the model is continually stuffed with a growing set of noisy variables (profiles).

At what point does this filtering start identifying the best profile builders as opposed to the best or brightest employees? Does hiring become a full-on game of prep services and checklists of activities along the lines of college admissions?

1: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/20/business/in-head-hunting-b...

[vicbrooker]

I think the critical role for tech in recruiting is to help work out who to meet, not to replace the conversation. It's definitely an arms race to turn the 1000 resumes into 10 people to be interviewed, but I don't even know where to begin taking it past that realistically.

The first automation software for the full hiring process is a going to be a very well marketed solution, not necessarily an effective one.

Ideally, I would see less of a need for specialist recruiters as tech has made connecting with appropriate hires simple enough for someone from the team the hire will work with to conduct interviews.

There's already an element of SEO-style optimisation in resumes as it is. I have a few outside-the-box approaches on how to get around this and I'll be doing a Show HN once I have something together :)

[bitJericho]

Don't forget you'll also need to know Ruby, PHP, Python, Node.js, all .net languages, Javascript, HTML5, CSS3, Nginx, Linux, Nosql, MySQL, Photoshop, Art and Design, among other skills.

[incision]

In my experience, the interview process for jack of all trades job descriptions plays out the same way every time.

1.) The candidate shows up with a effectively all the required skills. Predictably, logically, the candidate has a roughly average level of skill across the range on average.

2.) The interviewers decide the candidate won't do because he/she is 'only' average in some area that should have been one entry on a short list of required skills in the first place.

Either hire for the skills you actually need and be specific about it or hire the smartest, hungriest people you can find and be honest about what they'll be expected to learn.

[angersock]

You forgot:

3.) Applicant is hired, and paid criminally below-market with above-market stress, because the types of people who explicitly hire "jack of all trades" are generally trying to save money.

[actionscripted]

Oh and you should probably be able to manage people, prepare budgets and handle sales calls.

[grad_ml]

Not only that CLRS, Knuth, Mathematics, Statistics, Machine Learning, distributed system ecosystems....

[angersock]

Can you prove that your support vector machine works properly, fed with data from Arduino sensors, and can you scale that onto a cloud network while integrating with Active Directory so that users can view their results in a single-page app?

Full-stack indeed. :(

[vellum]

Also, 5 years of Swift experience.

[daktanis]

You forgot twitter and technology blog too!

[nsxwolf]

I'm going to try and stand out by refusing to participate in this madness and hope potential employers find that refreshing.

Thankfully HackerRankX seems about as likely to catch on as Klout.

[jerf]

It's OK. Maintaining a HackerRankX is just a subset of your ability to Google.

Anyway, I'd submit that's the real threat here... this sort of thing is easy to game, and you are talking about the group of people most capable of gaming even the smartest AI algorithm... The top end of the "leaderboards" is going to be a list of cheaters pretty quickly.

[vdaniuk]

While this may be uncomfortable for you, please understand that the absolute majority of people in the world is much worse off than you.

And while contributing simultaneously to github, stackoverflow and others community projects could be cumbersome for you, positive externalities are immense. The whole ecosystem benefits from this.

Even if this burden is too heavy, there are always options of 4-day working week, freelance work, project-based work, etc. etc. Programmers are lucky to enjoy most liberty from their profession.

So come on, don't complain, you DON'T HAVE to do anything, unless you want to be the very best.

[mahyarm]

This is not about projects and work that help other people, but doing this for future employers an a career, not out of altruism for others. For example you didn't bring up a linked in profile in your list of things.

[nlowell]

Arguably there are better things that programmers can do with their talent, not just for themselves but for the world, than updating social media websites and building a personal online image.

[vdaniuk]

I consider the activity of updating stackoverflow and github with new knowledge and code to be incredibly good for the world. The need to update Linkedin and other resume-like social media website is just an inevitable consequence to the (prisoner dilemma)-like evolution of the credentials game.

[daktanis]

Yes, at the end of the day, software developers have it pretty good in the current job market.

Sometimes it gets a little ridiculous on the requirements/wants on job postings. Some companies just ask for the world; it can lead to impostor syndrome and it can be stressful.

[vdaniuk]

Yeah, it can be stressful.

Software developers here are competing for the best positions on the market, so why the surprise about the requirements?

The opportunities are plentiful for experienced programmer who doesn't play the credentials game and agrees to earn a little less.