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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   4001 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for February 12, 2023

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Have any of my fellow early career programmers and programming adjacent professionals like Data Scientists gotten any success in the job search after making a personal website? Or a fancy personal website?

I HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE writing HTML and CSS, like hate it with the burning passion of a thousand suns. Nonetheless, I sucked it up and finally created a personal website because some programmers swear by it so much, going as far as to say the website was the deciding factor of them getting hired or not because they claim that the hiring manager remarked "not everyone is putting in this much effort".

I'm assuming this is only an early career thing? How fancy does the website need to be really?

I HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE writing HTML and CSS, like hate it with the burning passion of a thousand suns.

[/g/-tier response withheld due to the rules of this website]

All you need to do is come up with a simple set of HTML classes and stick to them in your CSS styles. You don't need a Javascript-laden or many-colored peacock monstrosity. A simple website is fine, as long as it makes sense under the hood.

The current iteration of my website is more styled than your examples. I was asking about style because certain ignorant hiring managers even for a role that would never require any front-end work might interpret a "too simple" website as signifier of lack of relevant skills.

Nope. All my jobs have come through LinkedIn (except for my first one). I like the idea of personal blogs being the thing that gets you a cool job, but I think it's probably very rare. Maybe it sets you apart in a job with lots of candidates, maybe it disqualifies you for a different position. Programmers like them because they like doing stuff like this and that's it. I would definitely recommend having at least a LinkedIn profile if you're in the US with your experience listed so recruiters can find you.

I'm suspicious at how much you hate HTML and CSS though. I'm not particularly enamored with them myself, but there's a certain immediacy when working with them that's satisfying, and I like knowing how to make a website. It's something people can understand when I talk about what I do.

I've taken my personal site off of Google, or it will be off of Google when they see the new "nofollow, noindex" meta tag, because I've decided that I'd rather use myname.com for strictly personal things like an actually personal blog (i.e., just for me), wiki, jellyfin server, temporary screenshot server, ftp, etc., and I'm really liking that so far.

The best personal website I can think of in brendangregg.com, but what sets him apart is his output, not that his site is so great, or that he has one at all. He's just a really smart guy who any company would want to have on their team. So, instead of focusing on the design of your site, focus on becoming the kind of guy people want to work with.

I'm suspicious at how much you hate HTML and CSS though.

It's just grunt work to the nth degree.

Don't be hatin'

I never did a personal website. I guess I can't know if it hurt me or not, but I didn't really think it hurt much if it did. I'd say if you don't want to do a personal website, then don't.

What is there to hate about it? There are so many templates that makes the process easier

I've had my website come up a few times during or after interviewing. Sometimes it was related to a tech-related post (or how-to) I've written, but more often it was about the non-programming content, eg. "Hey, I saw you wrote about X on your blog, I'm a big fan of X...".

I think that and my github profile (empty-ish, but has some project w/ 50+ stars) add color to my applications.

From the interviewing side, I would always look at a candidate's website if they included it. For junior candidates, it often served to help to figure out where they're coming from. Like one guy wrote a ton about rust and microcontrollers, another about web development. It helped me put them ease by first asking about these topics and also to answer the question "will this guy here be excited by what we're working on?

It's mostly irrelevant IMO. I've been on hiring committees at multiple companies and nobody has ever commented on whether a candidate had a website at all, much less the quality of it. It might help if you made a site that did something cool or interesting and were prepared to talk about it at an interview. Most interviewers and decision makers will realistically spend 15min max checking out your resume and any websites before the actual interview. Do at least make sure any sites you list aren't horrifically ugly or broken though.

I would also say that while I don't have a ton of love for doing graphic design, it's probably worth knowing at least enough HTML and CSS to make any project site you build at least not too ugly. Some of the newer CSS stuff isn't too painful to work with.

I also do a moderate amount of hiring, mostly for finsec stuff. We do have a team that does a general "internet sweep" for the online footprint, if any, of the applicant. Nothing we find will help the applicant, only hurt them. Our idea candidate has a Linkedn and maybe a boring Facebook page. No FB is as good as a normal, boring one. People who are extremely on-line under their real identity are generally a pass unless they have high levels of talent or the majority of their on-line activity is directly related to their field of expertise. Crusaders can be ok if their goals are our goals too. Twitter warriors are a hard pass.

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