Looking for a Job? Let GitHub Help(github.com)
github.com
Looking for a Job? Let GitHub Help
http://github.com/blog/553-looking-for-a-job-let-github-help
35 comments
I'm not sure why they include the "available for hire" checkbox. Seems like if you didn't have that it wouldn't look like you were looking for work. Putting your info on LinkedIn, for example, doesn't automatically mean you're looking around. A lot of people in my work group, for example, are on LinkedIn (including our boss) and we don't assume that means they're looking.
I'd suggest they lose the "available for hire" box.
I'd suggest they lose the "available for hire" box.
That suggestion is (perhaps) in the users' interests, but it is directly against the customers' interests. Follow the money: prospective employers pay to identify/contact people who are actively looking for work. They are not interested in paying to contact people who will not accept job offers.
Prospective employees pay nothing. They are not the customers of this system. It will serve their interests... when it is reasonably practical to do so without trodding on the toes of the paying customers.
Prospective employers are not worried that prospective employees might find themselves suddenly separated from their previous employer -- indeed, that is sort of the general idea.
Prospective employees pay nothing. They are not the customers of this system. It will serve their interests... when it is reasonably practical to do so without trodding on the toes of the paying customers.
Prospective employers are not worried that prospective employees might find themselves suddenly separated from their previous employer -- indeed, that is sort of the general idea.
Take it one step farther. After a couple of well-publicized bad situations they are likely to find the most desirable users becoming reluctant to check that checkbox. And then the model breaks down, which is not in anyone's interest.
I hope they figure it out before that situation arises. But until I'm confident that they understand that, I won't be comfortable with that service.
I hope they figure it out before that situation arises. But until I'm confident that they understand that, I won't be comfortable with that service.
A good middle ground is search rankings - users who are "looking for a job" have their ranking bumped-up on search results (shown to employers). Not to the very top mind you (too obvious!) - but enough to come ahead of non-lookers.
This way - the employers get a good result on their search for prospective hires and employees get plausible denaibility.
This way - the employers get a good result on their search for prospective hires and employees get plausible denaibility.
Prospective employers (or their agents) often contact people who are not actively looking for work. And sometimes those people end up accepting offers even though they weren't actively looking. I got my current job that way.
The data on skillsets (resume info) is what the prospective employer is looking for. Whether or not the person who posted it is "actively looking" is not so relevant.
The data on skillsets (resume info) is what the prospective employer is looking for. Whether or not the person who posted it is "actively looking" is not so relevant.
I know that, in practice, this doesn't really help any, but employers that find out their employees are looking for another job and fire those employees because of it, are cutting their nose off to spite their face.
If the employee was one they were looking to get rid of, then silently let them find a new job. Otherwise, your employer's concern should be why they are about to lose you, not that you want to leave. It's not like they own you. You agreed to work for them and they agreed to hire you.
If they were smart about it, they would provide you, in writing before you even accepted their job offer, an agreement that they won't penalize you in any way for looking for a better job for yourself. Things change. Jobs get less fun/interesting. Your interests change. If your employer can no longer provide you with the things you're looking for, you have every right to find one who can. They would certainly let you go if you could no longer provide them with the things they're looking for.
Why are workplaces run like prisons? This kind of stuff really bothers me.
If the employee was one they were looking to get rid of, then silently let them find a new job. Otherwise, your employer's concern should be why they are about to lose you, not that you want to leave. It's not like they own you. You agreed to work for them and they agreed to hire you.
If they were smart about it, they would provide you, in writing before you even accepted their job offer, an agreement that they won't penalize you in any way for looking for a better job for yourself. Things change. Jobs get less fun/interesting. Your interests change. If your employer can no longer provide you with the things you're looking for, you have every right to find one who can. They would certainly let you go if you could no longer provide them with the things they're looking for.
Why are workplaces run like prisons? This kind of stuff really bothers me.
't really help any, but employers that find out their employees are looking for another job and fire those employees because of it, are cutting their nose off to spite their face.*
Sorry, but that is not necessarily true.
If an employee is actively looking for a new job, then the employer should assume that that employee will find a new job at some point. At that point it becomes a question of whose terms that happens on.
If it happens on the employee's terms then the employer is suddenly out an employee and starting the hiring process. Which leaves the employer with a hole in their organizational structure, and stresses the people who remain. By contrast if it happens on the employer's terms then the employer hires a new employee to replace the old, trains that employee, then gets rid of the old. The employer now no longer suffers that painful gap.
From the employer's point of view happening on the employer's terms is much better than happening on the employee's. So if an employer discovers that an employee is unhappy enough to be actively searching, they should start the replacement process immediately. And once the replacement is ready, let go of the redundant dissatisfied employee.
That is how the employer, acting rationally out of their own best interest, will usually behave.
If they were smart about it, they would provide you, in writing before you even accepted their job offer, an agreement that they won't penalize you in any way for looking for a better job for yourself. Things change. Jobs get less fun/interesting. Your interests change. If your employer can no longer provide you with the things you're looking for, you have every right to find one who can. They would certainly let you go if you could no longer provide them with the things they're looking for.
Why are workplaces run like prisons? This kind of stuff really bothers me.
You're drawing the wrong analogy. Employee-employer is a type of relationship. Compare with other kinds of relationships and life is much more reasonable. If you're dating someone seriously and you find that they are actively looking for another relationship, what is your reaction going to be?
People change, relationships get less fun/interesting. Your interests change. You have a right to try to find someone who meets your needs. This is all absolutely true. But if your current significant other finds out that you're looking for a replacement, can you blame them for rethinking the existing relationship?
Sorry, but that is not necessarily true.
If an employee is actively looking for a new job, then the employer should assume that that employee will find a new job at some point. At that point it becomes a question of whose terms that happens on.
If it happens on the employee's terms then the employer is suddenly out an employee and starting the hiring process. Which leaves the employer with a hole in their organizational structure, and stresses the people who remain. By contrast if it happens on the employer's terms then the employer hires a new employee to replace the old, trains that employee, then gets rid of the old. The employer now no longer suffers that painful gap.
From the employer's point of view happening on the employer's terms is much better than happening on the employee's. So if an employer discovers that an employee is unhappy enough to be actively searching, they should start the replacement process immediately. And once the replacement is ready, let go of the redundant dissatisfied employee.
That is how the employer, acting rationally out of their own best interest, will usually behave.
If they were smart about it, they would provide you, in writing before you even accepted their job offer, an agreement that they won't penalize you in any way for looking for a better job for yourself. Things change. Jobs get less fun/interesting. Your interests change. If your employer can no longer provide you with the things you're looking for, you have every right to find one who can. They would certainly let you go if you could no longer provide them with the things they're looking for.
Why are workplaces run like prisons? This kind of stuff really bothers me.
You're drawing the wrong analogy. Employee-employer is a type of relationship. Compare with other kinds of relationships and life is much more reasonable. If you're dating someone seriously and you find that they are actively looking for another relationship, what is your reaction going to be?
People change, relationships get less fun/interesting. Your interests change. You have a right to try to find someone who meets your needs. This is all absolutely true. But if your current significant other finds out that you're looking for a replacement, can you blame them for rethinking the existing relationship?
I see your point, but I think looking for a new job/relationship now rather than later is actually better for both parties involved.
Sure, the party who finds out last will feel hurt (possibly betrayed) in the short term, but it's much better than staying in a job/relationship that only one party is interested in continuing. The other party will only grow more unhappy until they can't stand it anymore and will forcefully try to end the relationship anyway, except in a much uglier way.
Of course your emotions, as all of this is going down, will often make this kind of rationalization difficult to see.
Sure, the party who finds out last will feel hurt (possibly betrayed) in the short term, but it's much better than staying in a job/relationship that only one party is interested in continuing. The other party will only grow more unhappy until they can't stand it anymore and will forcefully try to end the relationship anyway, except in a much uglier way.
Of course your emotions, as all of this is going down, will often make this kind of rationalization difficult to see.
This is a much better idea than jobs.stackoverflow.com -- find people who have publicly produced something of executable value, rather than those that are publicly addicted to a MMO hint line.
There's no one stopping you to put links to your projects that are hosted on GitHub or somewhere else.
I think this is a really neat idea. Lets people get some well deserved kickback from their open source coding, hopefully.
I think Github is very adroit at extracting value from other people's open source coding. (I don't say that as a criticism of Github.)
I think this is true, but it's important to bear in mind how much they contribute back, not just through the community they support, but directly in terms of code they've open-sourced. They could get away with doing this a lot less than they do, and deserve credit for how dedicated they are to open-sourcing their code.
Interesting feature, I wonder what caused it to come about. Perhaps GitHub is looking to hire and wanted first pick :D
GitHub has a lot of little hidden features these days. The ability to do code review is there, but very hidden, any plans for improving that workflow? On the topic of hidden features is there a graph showing off what features people use (and don't?) I was recently told about one that has been around for a long time that I just didn't know about. no doubt there are others.
GitHub has a lot of little hidden features these days. The ability to do code review is there, but very hidden, any plans for improving that workflow? On the topic of hidden features is there a graph showing off what features people use (and don't?) I was recently told about one that has been around for a long time that I just didn't know about. no doubt there are others.
This is a really really good idea. I expect clued-in companies use this to search for developers instead of LinkedIn (if GitHub charges less than LinkedIn for access to the hiring profile). We'll finally have something like a "portfolio" for developers, where you can show your code in a slick UI instead of talking about it on your blog etc.
Why would github have to charge less for a more valuable service?
Nice idea, but I already maintain my resume, and a linkedin profile. I'd prefer to just link to those.
I was going to say cut-n-paste your blurb... [so you get keywords]
But then it occurred to me that maybe doing cut and paste from webpage A to webpage B is a missing feature.
I dont think microformats or frames answer this need well.
It seems the most basic feature of a web mashup, so why dont we see this as a trivial standard?
<div src=url id=div_id />
Ive used plone before as a companywide repo for project docs, but one feature I wanted was to do this for subsections of a page. This would have solved that problem.
But then it occurred to me that maybe doing cut and paste from webpage A to webpage B is a missing feature.
I dont think microformats or frames answer this need well.
It seems the most basic feature of a web mashup, so why dont we see this as a trivial standard?
<div src=url id=div_id />
Ive used plone before as a companywide repo for project docs, but one feature I wanted was to do this for subsections of a page. This would have solved that problem.
How would this differ from iframes?
Without knowing exactly why, my feeling is iframes are broken. If not.. why arent iframes used in say yahoo and google customisable home page mashups?
Differences :
granularity - share one div, not whole page
scope - how should javascript interact between the inclusion and the whole page? [ Im not sure.. this wasn't on the radar when iframes were designed I guess ]
Differences :
granularity - share one div, not whole page
scope - how should javascript interact between the inclusion and the whole page? [ Im not sure.. this wasn't on the radar when iframes were designed I guess ]
We'd prefer that, too, but LinkedIn hasn't responded to our request to use their API.
It is a big text field - just put your links in there.
You can easily link to your linked or external resume in the free form text field they provide.
Nobody is twisting your arm....
Dude, it's just a suggestion. My guess is that I'm not the only one who doesn't want to maintain their CV in yet another place and that would appreciate a 'link/import' feature.
You could do what I did and just link to another CV from your Github profile.
If I am looking for a new job I'm generally not going to put that information anywhere my employer might find it because then I'd be concerned that the urgency of my job search might suddenly increase substantially. Therefore I don't want to put my information anywhere where employers might search and find me.
Yes, they can put something on it to say, "Employer can't find their own employees." But that is too easy to circumvent either on purpose or accidentally through a clueless recruiter.
I'd want to see the design of phase 2 before deciding whether I'd dare participate in phase 1.