About point 2: I have yet to have a job interview, in which the interviewer has even taken a look at my website. Well, actually I don't know that, of course, but what I want to say is, that none so far showed any sign or indication of having taken a look, and as a consequence also no sign or indication of knowing anything about any of my showcased projects. In 95% of the cases it was just that they want to do their one thing, their one test, and not consider the candidate as a person at all. No time for that these days, I guess.
Also a hiring manager. I always do. For me a good personal site is a huge step towards a phone interview. I look for things people do not because anyone told them to do (college projects, internships, work), but because they were excited about it. That initiative and excitement is what will set you apart from the other 100 resumes that look exactly like yours.
I hope you can "infect" others with this kind of view, so that more people adopt it.
My CV currently also includes a link to my repositories and a page briefly describing some projects that got anywhere. Far from all of my 100 or so personal free time projects get finished, but some do, and those are described and linked in my CV and on my website.
At least I do get interviews, which must mean at least something, and sometimes it's just the role that is not fitting. Often it is their tech stack and they do not believe in engineers learning things on the job, looking for a perfect match. Sometimes it was some test that they do, that presumes some knowledge about some library or that is some specific leetcode thingy, that I wouldn't code that way anyway, if I had the choice.
Please no, I don’t want people making blogs just because they want to get a job from it at some point, they should be making blogs because they love to blog.
Imagine everyone having some cookie cutter blog, just a standard part of a resume.
At least pre AI it was easy to identify if a blog was done due to interest or for self advertisment.
I haven't been recruiting recently but goes it's even simpler to identify blogs full of loveless AI slop and people who care about a topic. (Even if they use AI for language assistance etc)
Topics, which details being presented, frequency, ...
Just look how it goes with GitHub everyone has some BS repos and then also they spam projects to get contributions for CVs.
Hacktober was the worst but I think it went away because of BS spam contributions.
CVE and in general security issues reporting has this issue nowadays where everyone wants to get CVE on their name to have it for CV. It is worst stuff ever.
That's wild. I first typically LinkedIn search someone, and then web search someone, even before I get too deep into the resume (they've already been filtered and ranked for me).
In the past I got a job I had for 8 years through my blog, a startup that eventually sold....
So, it's been pretty good for me, and doesn't actually take that much extra effort on top of the learning you do daily working in tech.
Depends on the company type. Seems like FAANG and companies trying to act like FAANG just follow a strict formulaic process and your portfolio or blog is kinda irrelevant there.
For startups and small companies I think it makes a huge difference.
At one job I was told explicitly I was hired mostly because the hiring manager liked my website - I wasn't the only one that passed the interview process and so my website was why I was chosen. He liked how minimalist it was.
At another, one of the engineers found a bug on my website and my interview was to pair program a fix with him.
When I'm in charge of hiring I strongly prefer candidates that have some kind of web presence that lets me structure the interview more towards what they've presented about themselves.
Also I have gotten clients that originally found me because they googled "how to rent a motorcycle in Taiwan" and I rank #1 for that search apparently.
> At one job I was told explicitly I was hired mostly because the hiring manager liked my website - I wasn't the only one that passed the interview process and so my website was why I was chosen. He liked how minimalist it was.
I intentionally made my website very minimalistic, using only HTML and CSS. Also fully responsive using modern CSS layouts and even made everything composable, avoiding media queries for specific widths. Kind of an experiment, but very minimalistic. So what you write makes me think: "If only someone took a look at my website and had that mindset!!"
Well, I will keep my website, maybe one day it will amount to something.
I'm involved in screening CVs and interviewing candidates. If there is so much as a email adress that indicates a personal domain, I look it up to see whether behind it there might be something like a personal website. When the CV is good and Github repositories etc. are mentioned I also take a brief glance there. But indeed, it is very rather rare that I make the content a part of the interview.
As a senior I'm doing tech part of interviews sometimes. If there is a link to blog/gh/whatever in CV - I always check it. I may not say anything during interview, but I'm looking there.
But… having (not so often updated) blog myself - I will try to change my behavior in future and mention it somehow during interview ;)
You likely are interviewing at big companies. I have worked across the industry and the smaller the team the more they look at my website work etc. some even asked about game reviews on my blog during the interview.
However, even at big companies it can be useful depending on context but you have to bring it up in relation to why you are a fit for the job. Genuine enthusiasm goes a long way especially in the dry corporate world.
Actually, no, I applied at small to medium sized companies and also some startups. But these days they are thinking they must use the same processes as the big players, it seems.
I would actually prefer working in a startup again, where I can still influence technical implementation and guide things into good paths, compared to working as a tiny cog in a huge machinery of a big company. Of course, a lot depends on the team. It might be possible to be part of a great team in a big company, that is in charge of some aspect of the whole, and having more influence over how things are done there.
Only question is, how long I can comfortably hold out, not doing a shitty job, until I see that signal flaring up, because they seem far and few between, so far. It might also just be a Germany thing, this kind of hiring, that is blind to the genuinely curious and creative people.
