Why don't software communities serve as job hubs? | Hacker News Reader

Why don't software communities serve as job hubs?

blog.fiveyearitch.com

9 pointsjosh_fyi11 comments

It is fairly simple: having a GitHub account and being active on StackOverflow don't appeal to the majority of developers. Those sites will capture far less than 1% (made up, but probably close) of developers making them not the best location for hiring managers to look.

IMO, if you want to find developers to hire then LinkedIn and recommendations from other developers are still the best route. Having a successful GitHub project doesn't always translate to "great team developer" as different skills are required for each. Being helpful on StackOverflow for a very specific thread doesn't always mean you are a master of your craft. Having both experience and recommendations from the industry and category being hired for is more of a "guarantee".

Disclaimer: I use both GitHub and SO.

> GitHub ... and StackOverflow don't appeal to the majority of developers. Those sites will capture far less than 1%

Yes, exactly. That's what the proposal at the OP link is aimed at: Letting experienced developers sign up to be poached, but using their affiliation with an online community as proof of their seriousness.

That's less valuable than a good GitHub repository, but the usual interview process can take it from there.

Just one caution - when I was helping to set up a local user group, a lot or companies wanted a guarantee that no poaching would occur, and tried to make that a condition of their participation.

Of course, we couldn't do that, but at the same time, we wouldn't make it a prominent part of the user group's mission either.

So, great initiative, but if you're gonna bring this into your community, just consider the effects (if any) on corporate sponsorship.

How did that work?

Usually user groups are independent initiatives by developers, with at most a room or minor funds provided by a sponsoring company or two.

Companies can't keep their employees from going to the Ruby/Java/C++ User Group in their spare time.

So what was the situation there?

We were pretty successfully rather quickly, and the attendees quickly grew past most local company's ability to host our meetings. Costs in Norway for rooms/food & drink is higher than normal; plus, we tried to bring in a lot of external speakers. So, all in all, we were pretty dependent upon a decent amount of funding.

I wasn't suggesting that companies we were working with would stop people coming; but at least when we were starting, getting people to actually attend was a struggle. Building the community can require a bigger outlay that people assume - it's not just "meet up and they will come". So, I'm just saying that some communities might want to think twice about this.

StackOverflow does have Careers 2.0: http://careers.stackoverflow.com/ . Is StackOverflow a "software community" for the purposes of this article? I used StackOverflow a lot at one point, and i got a job out of Careers 2.0, so it looks roughly like it to me.

I suspect Five Year Itch probably see Careers 2.0 as a competitor, or at least a resident of a nearby niche, so they may have a deliberate blind spot towards it.

Sure, Careers 2.0 is good. The jobs space is _very_ big, plenty of space for everyone.

Among other differences, Careers 2.0 focuses on StackExchange karma, which is useful, but not everyone wants to go in that direction.

If people want to do open-source as a way to get a job, they should be contributing.

But not every GitHub account gets job offers. If you're an acitve part of a community, then absolutely, it would be for their good and yours if they can help you get a job.

You know, open-source sites and User Groups already get job postings.

But I like your idea: The programmers should say "come, make me an offer", so long as you can make sure the offers are good.

The job market is messed up. Why can't hackers do something about it, at least for the jobs that WE want???

They just don't have the time or the tools. But if you can make it easy for them, then wow! This is a big win for everyone.

Resumes, recruiters, job ads -- yuck! Hacker communities -- yay!

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