Timeline for Is it appropriate for interviewers to ask candidates for their Stack Exchange user name?
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
27 events
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| Dec 16, 2014 at 20:39 | comment | added | user53019 | @raptortech97 - it's a bit unusual since it's an open community. OTOH, if there were even marginally sensitive items in there as the basis of your request, then yes I'd completely ignore them. As an interviewer, I don't really want to know about any information that could be turned around to claim that I discriminated against a candidate. I want everyone to have a fair presentation to see if their skills match the role's needs. | |
| Dec 16, 2014 at 20:36 | comment | added | raptortech97 | If I were to give you my SE username and ask you not to look at my posts on Workplace, would that sound odd? Would you accept the request? | |
| Dec 16, 2014 at 20:23 | history | edited | user53019 | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
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| S Dec 3, 2013 at 20:21 | history | edited | user53019 | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
Copy edited. Added some context. Expansion.
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| S Dec 3, 2013 at 20:21 | history | suggested | Peter Mortensen | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
Copy edited. Added some context. Expansion.
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| Dec 3, 2013 at 20:14 | review | Suggested edits | |||
| Dec 3, 2013 at 20:21 | |||||
| Sep 20, 2013 at 2:38 | comment | added | atk | And there are folks who spend their time doing their jobs and little time in SE. Using their online presence is such a small sample that it's hihgly questionable how useful it would be | |
| Sep 19, 2013 at 17:41 | comment | added | user53141 | "What do you have on github" as a common interview question is a great way to generate lots of half-baked unfinished crap to wade through on github. Which reminds me...I should post my ten-year-old completely obsolete winamp plugin to github. | |
| Sep 19, 2013 at 15:25 | comment | added | seggy | @MathewFoscarini When I still called BBSs in the 90s, I participated in several programming forums. I contributed some code to a group called SWAG which collected snippets of interesting or useful Pascal code. This was approximately 16-17 years ago when I was 17 and was still relatively new to programming. You can still find that code if you search google using my name. The code isn't horrible (or even really bad), but I'd hate to have my current abilities as a software engineer judged with it. That said, I do push code to public repos and I can see the value in an employer taking a look. | |
| Sep 19, 2013 at 15:08 | comment | added | Chad Harrison | Well that sucks, I used SO to ask all my stupid questions so that I wouldn't look stupid to my employwer. Backfire! | |
| Sep 19, 2013 at 15:02 | vote | accept | kmote | ||
| Sep 19, 2013 at 15:01 | comment | added | kmote | @GlenH7 It was difficult to choose an "Accepted Answer" as so many people posted useful (and opposing) opinions on the matter. But I selected yours because of the effort you put into being thorough in your post and responsive in the comments. Thanks | |
| Sep 19, 2013 at 11:27 | comment | added | user53019 | @jwg - Just overall. Attention to detail; how they lay out their logic; how they frame problems; communication skills. Rep is just a proxy for how long and perhaps how well they've participated in the community. We're pretty Zen about skill level, and just want to match where we hire into against demonstrated skill level. To reiterate, we're looking to corroborate the other data points we've picked up through the interview process. Not having an SO account doesn't (and shouldn't!) get you kicked out of our screening process. | |
| Sep 19, 2013 at 7:45 | comment | added | jwg | A correlation between their performance and what about their questions/answers? The number? The score? The quality? | |
| Sep 19, 2013 at 3:42 | comment | added | Ken Liu | If someone had never heard of StackOverflow, that would mean that they probably have never used Google to look for a solution to a technical problem. | |
| Sep 19, 2013 at 0:34 | history | edited | user53019 | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
provided a few more qualifiers
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| Sep 19, 2013 at 0:20 | comment | added | user53019 | @Fischer - yeah, I'm not keen on insisting on having a github account. It's handy for seeing the code someone writes and the logic they put down. But it certainly has its limits. We ask for code samples, and don't require a github presence. | |
| Sep 19, 2013 at 0:16 | comment | added | user53019 | @jwg - we get a fairly high percentage of candidates without an SO / SE user ID. And as I said in the answer, we don't ding them if they don't have an account. OTOH, we do raise our eyebrows a bit if they've never heard of StackOverflow. And yes, we've had more than one candidate state that. Of the candidates who have given us IDs, I have found a high correlation between their performance in the interview and their questions / answers on SO / SE. | |
| Sep 18, 2013 at 23:04 | comment | added | jwg | Asking for SE/SO or github uids is one of those things that became much less useful as a indicator as soon as more than a few people start asking. In the past activity may have reflected someone who is passionate about programming and learning in their spare time. Now it could just as well mean someone karma-whoring and editing themselves to look good to employers. | |
| Sep 18, 2013 at 21:18 | comment | added | Lynob | I don't use github coz u cant have private account for free, prefer bitbucket and yes i have been asked for github, i have to explain to the interviewer why i don't use github and he doesnt understand, github is only good if u have a polished software that you want to publish, not to play around | |
| Sep 18, 2013 at 19:04 | comment | added | Arseni Mourzenko | @GlenH7: your answer was (and is) very clear on that. | |
| Sep 18, 2013 at 19:02 | history | edited | user53019 | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
clarified github comments
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| Sep 18, 2013 at 18:55 | comment | added | Reactgular | Most people who have a Github account have code up there they did years ago. Judging a candidate based upon a rep you found via google would be unfair. | |
| Sep 18, 2013 at 18:51 | history | edited | user53019 | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
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| Sep 18, 2013 at 18:42 | comment | added | user53019 | @MainMa - agreed, and I hope I didn't imply that I condone that. Just relating it as something I know other interviewers to do. I'll edit my answer if you don't think I'm clear on that. | |
| Sep 18, 2013 at 18:40 | comment | added | Arseni Mourzenko | Rejecting candidate because he doesn't have a github account seems harsh (read stupid). Github is not the only service one can use to publish source code, not counting that a person can have his own public version control server. | |
| Sep 18, 2013 at 18:14 | history | answered | user53019 | CC BY-SA 3.0 |